SERVICES THAT SOCIETY NEEDS 297 



out concluding that the city and the State both deserve 

 our services and need them. 



"What services, then, can we render?" you may be 

 inclined to ask. 



The rea^ answer Jies in^om^o^m__cimnnstances, your^ 

 vocation, and j^our character. In no two cases is the 

 answer precisely the same, and no man can find the answer 

 for another. Besides,__the man who dictates his duty to 

 his neighbour offers him an indignity and is himself pre- 

 sumptuous. Duty binds only those who discover it and 

 impose it on themselves^ The doing it is a privilege 

 confined to the free. If a man's social conscience is awake 

 he will discover far more of these privileges^ than he can 

 empIoyTand find that more good causes call for his succour 

 than he can support. 



But we have been assuming (have we not?) that there 

 are men, and even good men, who have not reflected much 

 .on these matters, and whose sense of their social responsi- 

 bilities has been asleep. Good causes call for their help 

 and they do not hear. The hospitals would be closed, the 

 hands of charity would be empty, the education of the 

 children would stop, the city would starve, all the generous 

 enterprises of civilization would be arrested if the rates 

 and taxes were converted into free will offerings, and no 

 one offered anything but these men. They verily know 

 not what theydojji_heing indifferent to such great causes. 



- / - Q ^ 



But even these men really want guidance only in one 

 matter. Let_them value society more highly, and all 

 matiner^of^good results would follow . 



They would neverjise society as mere means, but always 

 as an end. _They would respect its rights, they would 

 protect its jionour, jthey would guide its enterprise, they 



