[218] "America's Bildungswesen," by Prof. Emil Hausknecht.
[219] "The person who has led an honorable and active life until old age should not then have to live either on the charity of his children or of bourgeois society. An independent old age, free from cares or toil, is the natural reward for continuous exertions in the days of strength and health."—v. Thuenen's "Der Isolirte Staat." But how is it to-day in this bourgeois society? Millions look with dread towards the time when, having grown old, they are thrown upon the street. And our industrial system causes people to age prematurely. The very much boasted about old-age and invalid pensions in the German Empire afford but a very scanty substitute: even its most zealous defenders admit that. Their aids are still more inadequate than the pensions which the municipalities allow to the large majority of the officials whom they provide with pensions.
[220] [It is a feature of theology to be positive, precise and emphatic in descriptions of what the describer knows nothing about. No less theologic, in this sense of the term, are negative assertions concerning matters that science has not yet illumined. Whether "to be dead means to be ended" or not, is no part either of the general question of Socialism, or the specific question of Woman. Nevertheless, while respecting the author's private opinion in the matter, and leaving his sentence untouched, the following phrasing would seem preferable, as free from the taint of what may be called the "theologic method," and also more in keeping with the mental posture of positive knowledge: "Whether to be dead means to be ended or not, is a matter on which man awaits the fiat of Science."—The Translator.]
[221] [It is otherwise in the United States, where, as a rule, clergymen have to "hustle"—both to curry favor with their parishioners and to countermine the mines laid by their competitors for fatter "calls," or by their numerous unemployed "brothers of the cloth." According to the census of 1900, clergymen had the very highest death rate (23.5) among the professional occupations for the registration area,—and it was among the highest altogether. It was excelled only by the death rate of the coopers (23.8); of the millers, flour and grist, (26.6); of the sailors, pilots, fishermen and oystermen (27.7); and of the stock raisers, herders and drovers (32.1). The census also shows that the death rate of clergymen is on the increase—18.2 in 1890; now 23.5.—The Translator.]
[222] Herr Eugen Richter in his "Irrelehren" is also raving mad over the idea of abolishing the private kitchen. As far as we know, Herr Richter is a bachelor. Obviously he does not miss his own kitchen: to judge from the rotundity of his body, he does not fare ill. If Herr Richter were a married man and possessed a wife, who had herself to administer the kitchen department and to perform in it the needed work, instead of leaving all that to servants, as is the fashion with the women of the property classes, then, a hundred to one his wife would nicely prove to him how happy she would be if she only could be freed from the bondage of the kitchen through the large and thoroughly equipped communal institute for meals.
[223] Niemeyer, "Gesundheitslehre."