5 



society ; that our interests are common interests, and the 

 highest material advantage of the individual is best at- 

 tainable by means which at the same time promote the 

 general prosperity. 



Men are bound together by conditions that make them 

 dependent upon each other. Our personal welfare is so 

 inextricably connected with the welfare of our neighbors, 

 of our fellow countrymen, that we cannot separate our- 

 selves from them if we would. We do not feel these 

 bonds, for we have so grown into and with the society in 

 which we live, that we are quite unconscious of the de- 

 tails of its operations. 



We know that life has not always been what it now is. 

 Its conditions have been slowly but constantly changing ; 

 through "the survival of the fittest" and through many 

 ages of development the world has been brought to the 

 high standard of living which we enjoy. 



There was a time when individual men were much less 

 dependent upon their fellow men than now. Their wants 

 were few and, for the most part, were supplied by their 

 own hands. They hunted the animal whose flesh they 

 ate, and from whose skin was made all the clothing they 

 required. Their shelter was either the natural caves in 

 the hillside or rude huts of the simplest possible design. 

 There was no science nor art that we should recognize as 

 such, and little culture either of the brain or hand. Their 

 rude training was in the simplest method of obtaining the 

 barest necessities of existence. Life seems then to have 

 been a mere animal existence, which to us would be abso- 

 lutely unendurable. 



From that primitive condition how great the change to 

 the civilization of the present time. The products of 



