and the just use of power. We are no longer satisfied with
increase in the vast unwieldy bulk of our possessions, we eagerly seek
to direct them to definite ends. Even here in America we are beginning
to feel that "progress" is not an end in itself. Whether it is desirable
or not, depends on the direction of it. Our glee over the census reports
is chastened. We are not so certain that it is a clear gain to have a
million people live where a few thousand lived before. We insist on
asking, How do they live? Are they happier, healthier, wiser? As a city
becomes bigger, does it become a better place in which to rear children?
If it does not, must not civic ambition seek to remedy the defect?

The author of Ecclesiastes made the gloomy comment upon the civilization
of his own day: "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not
to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the
wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of
skill." In so far as that is true to-day, things are working badly. It
must be within our power to remedy such an absurd situation. We have to
devise more efficient means for securing fair play, and for enforcing
the rules of the game. We want to develop a better breed of men. In
order to do so, we must make this the first consideration. In proportion
as the end is clearly conceived and ardently desired, will the effective
means be discovered and employed.

Why has the reign of peace and good-will upon the earth been so long
delayed? We grow impatient to hear the bells

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand.

The answer must be that "the valiant man and free" must, like every one
else, learn his business before he can expect to have any measure of
success. The kindlier hand must be skilled by long practice before it
can direct the vast social mechanism.

The Fury in Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound" described the predicament in
which the world has long found itself:--

The good want power but to weep barren tears.
The powerful goodness want; worse need for them.

The wise want love, and those who love want wisdom;
And all best things are thus confused to ill.

This is discouraging to the unimaginative mind,