To every person who wishes to join them they send a list of questions, asking the would-be settler what his ideas are on certain points.
If the answers are unsatisfactory, the applicant is told that there is no room for him in Ruskin.
If, however, his ideas agree with those of the rest of the community, his name is put up for membership, and he is elected by ballot, as he would be to a club.
When elected, the new member is obliged to pay an initiation fee of $500 toward the general funds of the town, and he and his family are then welcome to join the settlement as soon as they see fit.
When they arrive they are given a house and lot rent free. There are no taxes to pay in Ruskin; everything is free but furniture and food. Schools and school-books, doctors, medicines, all are free; the family washing is even undertaken by the community free of charge.
In return for these advantages the family is required to work.
The father must be willing to do any task that is assigned to him, without complaint. It does not matter if he has never handled a spade in his life, he must dig if required to, and dig to the best of his ability.
The payment in Ruskin is not in dollars and cents, but hours' labor, notes of one, five, and ten hours' value being printed, and passing for currency in the town.
The community allows each man the value of fifty hours' labor a week, his wife the same amount, and his children twenty hours each.
The husband is required to work the full time for the community; the wife is allowed four hours of the day to work for her home, and need only give five hours to the general good. The four hours that she spends in her housework are, however, credited to her as hours of labor, because she is benefiting the community by keeping an orderly home.