ON THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A HIRED MAN 557 



ever believed that he was doing missionary work and that the 

 temporary altars which he set nightly up would endure in the face 

 of long-standing family customs. 



But to return to the more strictly economic side of our work, 

 we turn to Chapter V, The Mobility of the Hired Man. In this 

 country, where land is comparatively cheap, and money readily 

 obtained, on presentation of proper security, the way is open for 

 the hired man to emerge from the province of labor into that of 

 capital. If he is a fairly good farmer, he can become a renter, 

 receiving a share of the crop in return for his service in tilling the 

 land. Or he may take up a piece of raw land, marry his former 

 employer's eldest daughter, settle down in a sod or log dwelling, 

 and, soon surrounding himself with a family and a mortgage of his 

 own, become himself an employer of hired men. 



These considerations may make more credible the statement 

 Contained in my concluding chapter on Means of Improving the 

 Condition of the Hired Man ; for my conclusion is so at variance 

 with that usually found at the close of sociological works that I 

 feel that I must present all the evidence if I am to make my 

 readers agree with me. My position is in brief that, considering 

 the numerous joys of the American farm laborer his small 

 expense account, his freedom from all perplexities as to what 

 to do with his surplus time, his high social status, his religious 

 privileges, and finally the ease with which he can rise into a 

 higher economic plane the condition of the hired man cannot 

 be improved. Since, then, I present a healthy subject, and deal 

 with a problem in social physiology rather than social pathology, 

 I may dispense with the materia medica which commonly forms 

 a considerable part of treatises of this kind. The advantage is 

 twofold. The reader is spared an enumeration of the various 

 sociological sedatives, stimulants, and narcotics usually prescribed, 

 and I am spared the labor of further writing and may bring 

 my treatise to a close. . 



