attained. What would have been comparative luxury a hundred years ago it
is our duty to view as nothing less than a degrading and life-destroying
poverty to-day.

Opportunity is not becoming equal. The tendency is in the opposite
direction, and not all the reforms of "State Socialism" promise to
counteract it. The _citizen owes it to society_ to ask of every
proposed program of change, "Will it, within a reasonable period, bring
equality of opportunity?" To rest satisfied with less--a so-called
tendency of certain reforms in the right _direction_ may be wholly
illusory--is not only to abandon one's rights and those of one's
children, but to rob society of the only possible assurance of the
maximum of progress.

FOOTNOTES:

[83] Henry George, "Progress and Poverty," Vol. II, p. 515.

[84] John Mitchell, "Organized Labor" (Preface).

[85] John A. Hobson, "The Crisis of Liberalism," p. 100.

[86] For this and later quotations from Dr. Eliot in this chapter, see
his little book entitled "More Money for the Public Schools."

[87] See article by Dr. Eliot in the _School Review_, April, 1909.

[88] "Knowledge and Education," the _Independent_, 1910.

[89] Dexter, "History of Education in the United States," p. 173.

CHAPTER VIII

THE "FIRST STEP" TOWARDS SOCIALISM

"State Socialism" as I have described it will doubtless continue to be
the guiding policy of governments during a large part, if not all, of
the present generation. Capitalism, in this new collectivist form, must
bring about extremely deep-seated and far-reaching changes in society.
And every step that it takes in the nationalization of industry and the
appropriation of land rent would also be a step in Socialism, _provided_
the rents and profits so turned into the coffers of the State were not
used entirely for the benefit either of industry or of the community as
a whole, as it is now constituted, but were reserved in part _for the
special benefit of the less wealthy, less educated, and less
advantageously placed, so as gradually to equalize income, influence,
and opportunity_.

But what, as matter of fact, are the ways in which the new revenues are
likely to be used before the Socialists are either actually or
practically in control of the government? First of all, they will be
used for the further development of industry itself and of schemes which
aid industry, as by affording cheaper credit, cheaper transportation,
cheaper lumber, che