Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/92

88 next generation on more equal terms in life. The tendency is to emphasize parental obligation rather than the claims parents have upon their children. As the opportunity to acquire a free hold on the public lands has diminished, the necessity of creating other opportunities by education has come to be more generally recognized. Hence the growing liberality with which the public school systems and the state universities are supported by taxation. Trade and continuation schools are helping to bring the individual into better adjustment with his environment. The splendid system of high schools in New York City is the work of the last fifteen years. The metropolis has also undertaken to provide adults with education upon all sorts of subjects by means of lectures. Not only have the obligations of parenthood increased, but man's masterful position in the home has declined. The common law has been modified until the property rights of the married woman in many states are essentially on a par with those of the married man, or at least the trend of affairs is clearly in this direction. The idea that woman is man's inferior is in growing disrepute, and one avenue of usefulness after another is being opened to her. The movement for "votes for women" is progressing rapidly throughout the civilized world. Likewise, the health of the common man has ceased to be a matter of indifference and has become a matter of public concern. The fact that no portion of society is safe so long as any portion is left to fester and rot is more fully understood and acted upon than ever before. The fall in the death rate indicates an improvement in the state of the masses of mankind. Such scourges as yellow fever and cholera have apparently been banished, and well-defined limits set to the ravages of smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever and many other diseases. Again, the enactment of more stringent corrupt practises acts aims at abridging the influence which the property-owning classes exert in public affairs.

The insistent demand for direct primaries, the initiative, the referendum and the recall indicate a disposition on the part of the rank and file to have more to say in our political and civic life. The object of these institutions is to make our representatives more truly responsible to those whom they are supposed to represent. They evidence the popular distrust in which our legislative bodies are held. They are the result and not the cause of the failures of representative government. They are the weapons with which the people are seeking to defend themselves against the aggressions of office-seekers and the property-holding class. The one-time boss of Cincinnati, George B. Cox, was recently quoted as saying: