odging-house which hundreds of others accept as an apology for a
home, joins the multitude of unemployed in a search for work, and is
happy if he finds it in an office that is smaller and darker than the
wood-shed on the farm, or behind a counter where fresh air and
sunlight never penetrate. He will put up with these non-essentials,
for he expects in days ahead to move higher up, when the large rewards
that are worth while will be his.

In the ranks of business he measures his wits with others of his kind.
He apes their manners, their slang, and their tone inflections. He
imitates their fashions in clothes, learns the popular dishes in the
restaurants, and if of feminine tastes gives up pie for salad. He goes
home after hours to his small and dingy bedroom, tired from the drain
upon his vitality because of ill-ventilated rooms and ill-nourishing
food, but happy and free. There are no chores waiting for him now, and
there is somewhere to go for entertainment. Not far away he may have
his choice of theatres and moving-picture shows. If he is aesthetically
or intellectually inclined, there are art-galleries and libraries
beckoning him. If his earnings are a pittance and he cannot afford the
theatre, and if his tastes do not draw him to library or museum, the
saloon-keeper is always ready to be his friend. The youth from the
country would be welcomed at the Young Men's Christian Association on
the other side of the city, or at a church if there happened to be a
social or religious function that opened the building, but the saloon
is always near, always open, and always cordial. Poor or rich, or a
stranger, it matters not, let him enter and enjoy the poor man's club.
It is warm and pleasant there and he will soon make friends.

182. =Mental and Moral Changes.=--The readjustments that are necessary
in the transfer from country to city are not accomplished without
considerable mental and moral shock. Changing habits of living are
paralleled by changing habits of thought. Old ideas are jostled by
new every hour of the day. At the table, on the street, in office or
store, at the theatre or church the currents of thought are different.
Social contacts are more numerous, relations are more shifting,
intellectual affinities and repulsions are felt constantly; mental
interactions are so frequent that stability of beliefs and
independence of thought give way to flexibility and uncertainty and
openness to impression. Group influence