Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/353

Rh of the whole bodily condition, the improvement of the vital forces, the restoration of regular circulation of the blood, the stimulation of the activity of the heart. Thus poor-relief, as a means of protecting the poor from direct want, is only the court plaster which serves as a temporary relief, but does not produce a real cure. The farther the measures taken to counteract poverty are removed from this most external measure of poor-relief, the more effective are they. In the first rank stand all those measures which are fitted to elevate the general condition of prosperity. Here belong all those measures which concern public and economic life, commerce, the labor market, the administration of justice, etc., and also the question of protection and free trade, the conclusion of commercial treaties, the extension of the means of communication by land and water. In a similar position stand those measures for the elevation of the public weal through regulations promoting health and education, such as the fundamental demand of universal free elementary schools and of night schools, the equipment of technical, business, and higher educational institutions, the procuring of a good water supply, the removal of garbage, the supervision of slaughter-houses, a good milk supply, the promotion of physical training in the schools and homes, the furtherance of the building of sanitary dwellings—in short, those measures which are fitted to improve the mental and physical condition of all the various classes of population.

The second division is formed by those regulations which have to do with single occupations and classes, especially the agricultural, artisan, and industrial wage-earning classes. Of first importance here is the regulation of the labor conditions, the legal protection of labor, labor coalition, and labor employment bureaus. Side by side with legal regulations, the claim to the highest importance lies with the activity of the independent organizations, of the artisan associations and trade unions, of producers' and consumers' leagues, of building societies in short, of all those associations of laborers in a common field which are built upon self-help as their basal principle, and whose object is the regulation of the conditions of labor and mutual encouragement and support.