СНАР. Humanity Demands petition Be Muffled no other gardener can be hired to touch it unless assured that the original relation has been dissolved by mutual consent. Such muffling of competition survives from the old communal that Com- organization of Japan. We individualistic Americans, on the other hand, have been willing to allow competition to permeate every part of life. Our commercial traveller cannot see why with his better goods and prices he cannot get orders the first time he visits South America. The loyalty of the South American merchant to the European house from which he has been buying seems to him unbusinesslike and unreasonable, while the merchant concludes that to Yankees money is everything. Competi tion Without Limits Is a Sign of Inexperience Relentless competition is welcomed only in a young society that has not yet learned to take the long view. With ripeness comes the recognition of limits to competition. Certain great American railroads have deliberately adopted the policy of not replacing elderly servants with younger and more vigorous men but retaining them until they are superannuated and retire on a pension. Some of their employees are past their peak of efficiency, but, on the other hand, by holding out the prospect of a life career these companies attract a higher grade of ability than the same money would command under a ruthless system. What irony that, at a time when intelligent business men are striving to build up a stable and loyal force, university presidents who have been bitten by the efficiency bug or imbibed the inhumane spirit of high finance recommend that professors be replaced as soon as the university has skimmed off the cream of their strength! The tendency of our time is just the other way-attracting good men by holding out a certain life career instead of throwing them away like squeezed lemons at the end of their prime, without caring what becomes of them. We now perceive that ease of mind is a condition of mental and especially originative work and this condition cannot be realized without security of tenure. Society will reap all the advantages of competition if every man until thirty or thirty-five years of age is liable to be passed or ousted by a better man. But after this probationary period it is well to consider a man's value to the employer as settled and to make him feel safe from displacement so long as he continues to "make good." СНАР. XVI Marriage tion for of Stabil The value of status after a period of competition is illustrated by marriage. Young people vie eagerly for the favor of individuals of the other sex, but marriage should put an end to such Excludes rivalry. Love is subject to competition with other interests in Competi life, so it is still worth while for spouse to woo spouse, but neither the Sake should be exposed to the competition of younger or more attrac-ity tive members of the same sex. "Trial marriage," by reintroducing competition, would subject the mated, or at least one of them, to a tormenting uncertainty and take away the blessed sense of security matrimony ought to bring. The folly of keeping men on tenter-hooks after this period was ustrated in the university whose president, having imbibed bigbusiness ideals, let it be known that no man, not even a worldrenowned professor," owned his job." The mature scholar might be displaced if he proved unproductive. Each professor was expected to report annually what he had published in the past year. The result was that professors dared not embark on a large and important research project which might not come to fruition for years, but busied themselves on a succession of small investiganons which would yield something to publish every year. Thus 1 the "efficiency policy" defeat itself. The intimate confidential relation which grows up between patient and practitioner - resulting in the trusted " family physician"-muffles competition, to be sure, but few would care to see it disappear. The same is true of the assumption of permanency in the relation between pastor and flock. No doubt the clergyman who, after some experience, settles into a life pastorate is happier and gives his parishioners better service than if he held a succession of pulpits. On the other hand, professional men without a permanent or responsible employer-such as newspaper men and stage people are exposed to the full force of competition with the young and after their powers begin to decline their lot is often tragic. Security Releases Value of in Per Stability sonal Re lations Public Without It is agreed that the public service must be made a career be- No Good fure the public will have able, trained and loyal servants. This Service implies security of tenure and dismissal only for cause after a Security certain period of novitiate. Such stability absolutely excludes of Tenure the idea that offices-save those at the top which determine poly-should be treated as the spoils of party victory. Public СНАР. Significance of the "Dead Line" The Muffling of Competition Not servants will never be rewarded as well as the servants of business All the more, therefore, should they be assured se curity of tenure. We ought to applaud the recognition by the courts of property in the "good will" of a business, for it encourages the business man to build up lasting relations with a group of satisfied customers. Were not good will something one can protect and sell, a merchant would have no motive to preserve it after he contemplated removal, change of business or retirement. As it is, his interest in keeping his patrons pleased remains undiminished. As the principle of security of tenure becomes established appears inevitably the "dead line." If it is taken as a matter of course that the employer-church, university, corporation or state will retain the faithful servant during his declining years, the employer will naturally insist that it must in return have him for most of his prime. If clergymen and others find increasing difficulty in obtaining permanent placement after the age of fortyfive, it is not that the employer is harder-hearted but that employment entails heavier responsibilities. Old-age pensions or allowances follow quite logically upon the policy of undisturbed tenure. The time comes when it is cheaper to retire the old servant on half or third pay than to continue paying his former salary for services of little worth. While competition thus happily is being mitigated for certain groups of brain workers, it is a shame that the great army of manual laborers should be afforded no shelter whatever from the competition of the younger and more active. Something might be done to stabilize employment by a law requiring the employer to pay the employee dismissed without fault a dismissal wage proportionate to the length of time he had been in the employer's service. As public industry extends, it will be possible to introduce permanency for all classes of employees. But if private enterprise continues to occupy a large part of the total field of employment there seems to be no remedy but state old age and invalidity insurance. The question may be raised whether the tempering of competi tion in the interest of those established is not a discrimination on behalf of age against more efficient youth. But the policy may be tice to the justified even to the young. Their being held back a little may be looked upon as the payment of premiums for insurance to an Injus Young protect their own inevitable period of decline. For example the young scholar at thirty might well take over the professorship of the scholar of sixty. But the old scholar holds his chair until he reaches the age of sixty-five and the young man continues five years more as assistant professor before the chair falls to him. When he in turn reaches the point of declining energy the rule will now work to his advantage. On the whole, then, has the blunting of competition helped him or hurt him? Viewing his life as a whole, one can hardly doubt that he makes a good bargain when by foregoing his early supplanting of the older man he saves himself in turn from being supplanted at a time of life when check or discouragement may be fatal. CHAP. XVI CHAP. Men and Differ in ment BE CHAPTER XVII SEX ANTAGONISM ETWEEN men and women (taken collectively) there smolders an antagonism which, under provocative circumstances, bursts into flame. The sources of this antagonism are various. MEN AND WOMEN DIFFER IN INSTINCTIVE EQUIPMENT Woman has at least one instinct peculiar to her - the maternal -while man is unlike her in the strength of his instinct of pugnacit. Besides, it is not at all likely that certain other instincts, e.g., the hunting instinct, the instinct of display, the instinct of domination and the instinct of self-abasement, are apportioned equally between the sexes. It is, perhaps, such differences Nietzsche has in mind when he says, "Men and women are alien - never yet has any one conceived how alien." The fact that by nature the sexes react differently to certain situations makes each of them seem queer sometimes to the other. In the refined classes the sexes are from childhood carefully trained to react in definite conventional ways; but among natural people each sex harbors a certain pitying contempt for the other. The prevalent opinion among rough old farmers when they are by themselves and talking freely is that women generally are touchy, unstable, flighty, vain, irresponsible and sly. But their women folk gathered about a quilting frame agree that for the most part, men are coarse, sensual, self-willed, violent, egoistic and unreasonable. Each opinion has something in way of solid fact to go on. Owing to this congenital difference between men and women in way of reacting to life situations, there is a chasm between the sexes, in respect to morals and esthetics, which may cause clash in matters of public opinion and politics. MAN HAS MONOPOLIZED THE AGENCIES OF CONTROL As chief trouble-maker and protector of his own from trouble. man has arrogated to himself the sole determination of the large |