Democracy and Social Ethics | Page 2

LL.B.
* * * * *
_IN PREPARATION._
*CUSTOM AND COMPETITION.* BY RICHARD T. ELY, PH.D., LL.D.
*MUNICIPAL SOCIOLOGY.* BY CHARLES ZUEBLIN.
* * * * *
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 66 FIFTH AVENUE.

_THE CITIZEN'S LIBRARY_
* * * * *
DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL ETHICS
BY
JANE ADDAMS HULL-HOUSE, CHICAGO
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1902

Set up and electrotyped March, 1902. Reprinted June, September, 1902.
Norwood Press J.S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

To: M.R.S.

PREFATORY NOTE
The following pages present the substance of a course of twelve lectures on "Democracy and Social Ethics" which have been delivered at various colleges and university extension centres.
In putting them into the form of a book, no attempt has been made to change the somewhat informal style used in speaking. The "we" and "us" which originally referred to the speaker and her audience are merely extended to possible readers.
Acknowledgment for permission to reprint is extended to The Atlantic Monthly, The International Journal of Ethics, The American Journal of Sociology, and to The Commons.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER II
CHARITABLE EFFORT 13

CHAPTER III
FILIAL RELATIONS 71

CHAPTER IV
HOUSEHOLD ADJUSTMENT 102

CHAPTER V
INDUSTRIAL AMELIORATION 137

CHAPTER VI
EDUCATIONAL METHODS 178

CHAPTER VII
POLITICAL REFORM 221
INDEX 279

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL ETHICS

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless.
Certain forms of personal righteousness have become to a majority of the community almost automatic. It is as easy for most of us to keep from stealing our dinners as it is to digest them, and there is quite as much voluntary morality involved in one process as in the other. To steal would be for us to fall sadly below the standard of habit and expectation which makes virtue easy. In the same way we have been carefully reared to a sense of family obligation, to be kindly and considerate to the members of our own households, and to feel responsible for their well-being. As the rules of conduct have become established in regard to our self-development and our families, so they have been in regard to limited circles of friends. If the fulfilment of these claims were all that a righteous life required, the hunger and thirst would be stilled for many good men and women, and the clew of right living would lie easily in their hands.
But we all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements, and that it may not legitimately use a previous and less vigorous test. The advanced test must indeed include that which has already been attained; but if it includes no more, we shall fail to go forward, thinking complacently that we have "arrived" when in reality we have not yet started.
To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation.
It is perhaps significant that a German critic has of late reminded us that the one test which the most authoritative and dramatic portrayal of the Day of Judgment offers, is the social test. The stern questions are not in regard to personal and family relations, but did ye visit the poor, the criminal, the sick, and did ye feed the hungry?
All about us are men and women who have become unhappy in regard to their attitude toward the social order itself; toward the dreary round of uninteresting work, the pleasures narrowed down to those of appetite, the declining consciousness of brain power, and the lack of mental food which characterizes the lot of the large proportion of their fellow-citizens. These men and women have caught a moral challenge raised by the exigencies of contemporaneous life; some are bewildered, others who are denied the relief which sturdy action brings are even seeking an escape, but all are increasingly anxious concerning their actual relations to the basic organization of society.
The test which they would apply to their conduct is a social test. They fail to be content with the fulfilment of their family and personal obligations, and find themselves striving to respond to a new demand involving a social obligation; they have become conscious of another requirement, and the contribution they would make is toward a code of social ethics. The conception of life which they hold has not yet expressed itself in social changes or legal enactment, but rather in a mental attitude of maladjustment, and in a sense of divergence between their consciences and their conduct. They desire both a clearer definition of the code of morality adapted to present day demands and a part in its fulfilment, both a creed and a practice of