can be more justly described as different from those of the upper
classes than as better or worse." ("The Next Street but One." By
M. Loane. London, 1907.)

Broadly speaking, the middle-class is distinguished by the utilitarian
virtues; the virtues, that is, which are means to an end; the
profitable, discreet, expedient virtues: whereas the poor prefer what
Maeterlinck calls 'the great useless virtues'--useless because they
bring no apparent immediate profit, and great because by faith or
deeply-rooted instinct we still believe them of more account than all
the utilitarian virtues put together.[22]

[22] "When one begins to know the poor intimately, visiting the
same houses time after time, and throughout periods of as long as
eight or ten years, one becomes gradually convinced that in the
real essentials of morality, they are, as a whole, far more
advanced than is generally believed, but they range the list of
virtues in a different order from that commonly adopted by the
more educated classes. Generosity ranks far before justice,
sympathy before truth, love before chastity, a pliant and
obliging disposition before a rigidly honest one. In brief, the
less admixture of intellect required for the practice of any
virtue, the higher it stands in popular estimation." ("From their
Point of View." By M. Loane. London, 1908.)

It is difficult to see on what grounds Miss Loane implies--if she
does mean to imply--that the poor would do well to exchange their
own order of the virtues for the other order. Christianity
certainly affords no such grounds, nor does any other philosophy
or religion, except utilitarianism perhaps.

The poor, one comes to believe firmly, if not interfered with by those
who happen to be in power, are quite capable of fighting out their own
salvation. A clear ring is what they want--the opportunity for their
'something in them tending to good' to develop on its own lines. (When
I say 'a clear ring' I do not mean that one side should have seconds
and towels provided and that the other side should be left with
neither.) That their culture, so developed, will be different from our
present middle-class culture, is certain; that it will be superior is
probable. The middle class is in decay, for its reproductive instincts
are losing their effective intensity, and it is afraid of having
chi