(1) The most formidable obstacle, perhaps, is the selfishness of those who are themselves .well enough off.  Our cities, and even, to some extent, our small towns, grow up in “quarters”; the rich living in one district and the poor in another.  This permits the suffering of the latter to go unknown or only half-realized by the former.  The well-to- do have many interests and many pleasant uses for their money; the call of the unfortunate-"Come over and help us!"- rings faint and far away in their ears.  Or they may excuse their callousness by the assertion that the poor are used to their evil living conditions, do not mind them, and are as contented, on the whole, as the rich; complacently ignoring the fact that being used to conditions is not the same as enjoying or profiting by them, and that contentment by no means implies a useful or desirable life.  It is true that the needy are often but dimly conscious of their needs; in that very fact lies a reason why the favored classes should rouse them out of their dullness, save them from the physical and moral degeneration into which they so unconsciously and helplessly drift.  The indifference of the fortunate comes not so often from a deliberate hardening of the heart as from a lack of contact with the needy or imagination to picture their destitution.  But blame must rest upon all comfortable citizens who do not bestir themselves to help in social betterment because it is too much trouble or requires a sacrifice they are not willing to make.

(2) Another serious obstacle lies in the distrust with which many people regard any duty which they have not been accustomed to regard as a duty.  This may take the form of an overdeveloped loyalty, that bows before the sacredness of existing institutions and labels any reform as “unconstitutional,” a departure from the ways that were good enough for our fathers.  It may wear the guise of a lazy piety that would leave everything with God, accepting social ills as manifestations of his will, and interference as a sort of arrogant presumption!  It may be a mere mental apathy, an inertia of habit, that sees no call for a better water supply or bothersome laws about the purity of milk.  Or it may defend itself by pointing out the uncertainties that attend untried ways and warning against the danger of experimentation.  To these warnings we may reply that our altruistic zeal must, indeed, be coupled with accurate thinking; unless we have based our proposals on wide observation and cautious inference we may find unexpected and baneful results in the place of our sanguine expectations.  But we may point out that it is “nothing venture nothing have”; we cannot work out our social salvation without experimenting; and, after all, ways that do not work well can readily be discontinued.  What is vital is to keep alive an intolerance of apathy and contentment, to realize that we are hardly more than on the threshold of a rational civilization, to recognize evils, cherish ideals, and maintain our determination in some way to actualize them.