THE FRUITS OF EDUCATION 335 



to invite under the excuse of stimulating industry. 

 Whether the laboring classes will exercise intelligent 

 restraint in reproduction for the sake of improving 

 the opportunities for the best development of their 

 children, remains to be seen. In the long run this 

 is a question of ideals, and these, in turn, hang on 

 character and education the education of life, of 

 things, and of books. There is no doubt that modern 

 economic methods make possible for the laborer 

 what was never possible in earlier days some 

 leisure over and above the time needed to make a 

 living. All depends on the use to which this leisure 

 is put if it be to ignoble ends, there will come 

 decadence; if to enlightened ends, there will come 

 broadening opportunities. It is just in this vital 

 decision that the upper classes can most effectively 

 lend the weight of their influence toward that which 

 is worth while. The encouragement of experienced, 

 humane, and cultivated people is the leaven needed 

 by the lower strata for their uplift. This is, in fact, 

 the greatest of all opportunities of doing good of a 

 permanent kind, and there are a thousand ways in 

 which individual talents of helpfulness can be turned 

 to social use. Will the upper classes of power, of 

 intelligence, and of leisure one day see their chance, 

 as they have never yet seen it, and seize the 

 chance with enthusiastic determination to use it? 

 Will they one day turn from the selfish, vulgar uses 

 of time, to which so many devote their opportunity, 

 and, taking the dynamic view of life, come to the aid 



