After all, human life and effort are governed largely by the conscious
or unconscious value put upon the varied elements that go to make up
the daily round.

It seems to be a universal law that effort must precede satisfaction,
from the infant feeding to the man building up a successful business.
The satisfaction grows in a measure as the effort was a prolonged or
sustained one.

Well-being is a product of effort and resulting satisfaction. The
child without interest in work or play does not develop; the man with
no stimulus walks through life as in a dream.

The first steps in "civilizing" (?) a nation or tribe are to suggest
_wants_--things to strive for. Struggle, with all its attendant evils,
seems the lever that moves the world. It is therefore in line that
health, and whatever favors it, is to be gained at the expense of
struggle. The one necessary element is that men should value it enough
to struggle for it.

Sanitary science above all others, when applied, benefits the whole
people, raises the level of productive life.

In the rapid development of our civilization, the laboratory, the
shop, the school can be the quickest mediums of suggesting wants.

In an earlier chapter, the indifference to clean conditions, the
ignorance of the means of obtaining pure food and clean air, were
dwelt upon, and still later the need of _will_ to choose the right
thing.

Now we should consider the means of stimulating that choice. So far it
has been chiefly exploitation for the personal gain of the
manufacturer, who has persuaded the people to buy his product
regardless of its economic or hygienic effect. Thrift has been
undermined most subtly.

"That's the secret of the whole situation we're talking about; it's
easier to buy a new shirt than to take care of the one you've
got."[15]

[15] Meredith Nicholson, Lords of High Decision, p. 133.

All sense of values has been lost, so that with no sound basis choice
is apt to be unwise, unsatisfactory, and is gradually dropped, while
the individual drifts.

No more effective agent for the dissemination of knowledge was ever
devised than the American Public School. If only it would live up to
its opportunities, its teachers could bring to its millions of
receptive minds the best practice in daily living (never mind the
theory for the children), and through the children reach the home,
where the infants may be saved from the risks that the elders have
run.

To be ef