"--Tredgold's definition of Engineering.]
Manufacturing concerns have found it pays them to provide decent tenements
for their workers, but society has not yet awakened to the fact that the
rank and file of the great army of salaried employees is left to fend for
itself in a world only too prone to take advantage of its necessities.
There is danger in this neglect of wholesome living surroundings, because
from this stratum develops normally the intelligence of the future, and
how can mentally active children grow up under the prevailing unsightly
and unsanitary conditions?
Of course with the passing of pioneer conditions will pass in a measure
the courage and adaptability which braced itself to meet and overcome
obstacles. The salaried position in a great combine, instead of work for
one's self in an independent business, tends to magnify the value of mere
money-income gained through smartness rather than by ability. If life is
made too easy, men will settle into indolent sterility, just as animals
and plants degenerate with too much food.
The future will surely bring greater mechanical perfection and thus leave
it possible for the individual, for each member of the family group, to do
for himself many little things which are not comfortable to do now.
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