it may even appear that this general
class of enterprises is of an altogether dubious economic value--as
measured in terms of the fullness or facility of life of the individuals
or classes to whose amelioration the enterprise is directed.
For instance, many of the efforts now in reputable vogue for the
amelioration of the indigent population of large cities are of the
nature, in great part, of a mission of culture. It is by this means
sought to accelerate the rate of speed at which given elements of the
upper-class culture find acceptance in the everyday scheme of life of
the lower classes. The solicitude of "settlements," for example, is in
part directed to enhance the industrial efficiency of the poor and to
teach them the more adequate utilization of the means at hand; but it
is also no less consistently directed to the inculcation, by precept and
example, of certain punctilios of upper-class propriety in manners and
customs. The economic substance of these proprieties will commonly be
found on scrutiny to be a conspicuous waste of time and goods. Those
good people who go out to humanize the poor are commonly, and advisedly,
extremely scrupulous and silently insistent in matters of decorum and
the decencies of life. They are commonly persons of an exemplary life
and gifted with a tenacious insistence on ceremonial cleanness in the
various items of their daily consumption. The cultural or civilizing
efficacy of this inculcation of correct habits of thought with respect
to the consumption of time and commodities is scarcely to be overrated;
nor is its economic value to the individual who acquires these higher
and more reputable ideals inconsiderable. Under the circumstances of
the existing pecuniary culture, the reputability, and consequently
the success, of the individual is in great measure dependent on his
proficiency in demeanor and methods of consumption that argue habitual
waste of time and goods. But as regards the ulterior economic bearing
of this training in worthier methods of life, it is to be said that
the effect wrought is in large part a substitution of costlier or
less efficient methods of accomplishing the same material results, in
relations where the material result is the fact of substantial economic
value. The propaganda of culture is in great part an inculcation of
new tastes, or rather of a new schedule of proprieties, which have been
adapted to the upper-class scheme of life under the guidance of th