In the same way the twenty hours' weekly labor for which the children are paid are the hours they spend in school. By going to school and learning they, too, are benefiting the community, so that their labor is also for the general good.
When school is over, children who wish to do so can wait on table in the community dining-hall, and then they earn more time-checks.
These checks can be exchanged at the general store for goods, the prices of articles not being reckoned at so many cents but at so many hours of labor.
The Ruskin people seem to be hopeful that they have solved the problem of living.
A similar experiment is to be tried under the management of Eugene Debs. He is the man who led the strikers in Chicago, got into trouble with the authorities, and was finally sent to prison.
Debs proposes to start a co-operative town in the West, taking one hundred thousand men and women along with him to settle it.
He is going to build factories and start all kinds of industries, which are to belong to all the people in common, the profits and the losses to be shared by all the citizens alike.
Peace and prosperity are promised to all who will enter this ideal town. It will be interesting to watch the experiment and see just what results can be achieved.