all at once into the family ways, when the
family has no ways.

In the sociological sense, shelter may mean protection from noise, from
too close contact with other human beings, enemies only in the sense of
depriving us of valuable nerve-force. It should mean sheltering the
children from contact with degrading influences.

Charles P. Neill, United States Commissioner of Labor, in his address at
the New York School of Philanthropy, July 16, 1905, said: "In my own
estimation home, above all things, means privacy. It means the possibility
of keeping your family off from other families. There must be a separate
house, and as far as possible separate rooms, so that at an early period
of life the idea of rights to property, the right to things, to privacy,
may be instilled."

There may be such a thing as too much shelter. To cover too closely breeds
decay. Are we in danger of covering ourselves and our children too closely
from sun and wind and rain, making them weak and less resistant than they
should be? The prevalence of tuberculosis and its cure by fresh air seems
to indicate this. The attempt to gain privacy under prevailing conditions
tends this way.

Hitherto students of social economics have usually considered the most
pressing problem in the life of the wage-earner to be that of sufficient
and suitable food. But in any large city and in most smaller communities
there are found those who have refined instincts, aspirations for a life
of physical and moral cleanness, who by force of circumstances are obliged
to come in contact with filth and squalor and careless disorder in order
to find shelter. If they can be kept from degenerating, their rise when
it comes will lift those below them, but it is a Herculean task to lift
them by lifting all below as well. The burden which presses most heavily
on this valuable material for social betterment is that of shelter rather
than of food.

The thought underlying this whole series on Cost is that the place to put
the leaven of progress is in the middle. The class to work for is the
great mass of intelligent, industrious, and ambitious young people turned
out by our public schools with certain ideals for self-betterment, but in
grave danger of losing heart in the crush due to the pressure of society
around them and above them. They fear to incur the responsibility of
marriage when they see the pecuniary requirements it involves.

This growing body makes up so large a propor