76 Fellow-feeling as 



men who otherwise would know one another not at 

 all, or else as members of alien bodies or classes. 



This being the case, how much more is it true if 

 the same habit of association for a common purpose 

 can be applied where the purpose is really of the 

 highest! Much is accomplished in this way by 

 the university settlements and similar associations. 

 Wherever these associations are entered into in a 

 healthy and sane spirit, the good they do is incal 

 culable, from the simple fact that they bring to 

 gether in pursuit of a worthy common object men 

 of excellent character, who would never otherwise 

 meet. It is of just as much importance to the one 

 as to the other that the man from Hester Street or 

 the Bowery or Avenue B, and the man from the 

 Riverside Drive or Fifth Avenue, should have some 

 meeting-ground where they can grow to under 

 stand one another as an incident of working for a 

 common end. Of course if, on the one hand, the 

 work is entered into in a patronizing spirit, no good 

 will result; and, on the other hand, if the zealous 

 enthusiast loses his sanity, only harm will follow. 

 There is much dreadful misery in a great city, and 

 a high-spirited, generous young man, when first 

 brought into contact with it, has his sympathies so 

 excited that he is very apt to become a socialist, or 

 turn to the advocacy of any wild scheme, courting 

 a plunge from bad to worse, exactly as do too many 



