extreme. A truly philanthropic spirit may be in entire agreement with the
massing of labor for greatest accomplishment. The places of least
development are always found where crowds of laborers work in mere gangs
or wholly unorganized. The wholesome influences surrounding rural life are
everywhere granted so far as physical development goes. They may also be
granted in communities of general enterprise with reference to ready
ingenuity and judgment. The farmer's boys moving to the cities carry not
only physical strength and endurance but a mental capacity for ready
adaptation to emergencies which develops into wisdom. The majority of
leaders in great enterprises are still expected to grow up on the farm.
This is undoubtedly in part due to the impossibility of cramping by
extreme division of labor. At the same time a partial application of its
principles is needed to bring leisure for some general culture and larger
acquaintance with the progress of the world. As the evils of factory life
can be cured by attention, so the weaknesses of rural life can be removed
by a careful study of its needs. True education in both quarters is
essential as a means of mutual understanding and adjustment of interests.

Chapter XIV. Aggregation Of Industry.

_Great combinations._--The tendency toward improvement by combination of
laborers through the possibilities of division of labor leads to still
larger combinations in so-called factory systems, and even to a
combination of factories in large corporations. This tendency has been
especially marked since the multiplication of labor-saving machines and
more perfect systems of transportation. Indeed, the possibility of
extensive machine using, as well as extended division of labor, rests upon
a combination of many forces under one general management. Beyond these
advantages, saving is found in the necessary care for waste products,
which often may be turned into profit, greater freedom of action from
closer community of interests, greatly enlarged facilities for marketing,
and the best possible devices for handling and transporting products.

All these advantages in great establishments are readily perceived, yet
some have doubted whether the gains are so distributed as actually to
increase the general welfare. Farmers, perhaps, as readily as any persons,
distrust the power of great corporations. Wage earners, generally, in the
expression, "corporations have no souls," express the