A Traveler from Altruria | Page 6

it, but the servant couldn't."
I paused, for this was where the laugh ought to have come in. The
Altrurian did not laugh, he merely asked, "Why?"
"Well, because the servant knew, if they didn't, that they were a whole
world apart in their traditions, and were no more fit to associate than
New-Englanders and New-Zealanders. In the mere matter of
education--"
"But I thought you said that these young girls who wait at table here
were teachers."
"Oh, I beg your pardon; I ought to have explained. By this time it had
become impossible, as it now is, to get American girls to take service
except on some such unusual terms as we have in a summer hotel; and
the domestics were already ignorant foreigners, fit for nothing else. In
such a place as this it isn't so bad. It is more as if the girls worked in a
shop or a factory. They command their own time, in a measure, their
hours are tolerably fixed, and they have one another's society. In a
private family they would be subject to order at all times, and they
would have no social life. They would be in the family, out not of it.
American girls understand this, and so they won't go out to service in
the usual way. Even in a summer hotel the relation has its odious
aspects. The system of giving fees seems to me degrading to those who
have to take them. To offer a student or a teacher a dollar for personal
service--it isn't right, or I can't make it so. In fact, the whole thing is
rather anomalous with us. The best that you can say of it is that it works,
and we don't know what else to do."
"But I don't see yet," said the Altrurian, "just why domestic service is
degrading in a country where all kinds of work are honored."
"Well, my dear fellow, I have done my best to explain. As I intimated
before, we distinguish; and in the different kinds of labor we
distinguish against domestic service. I dare say it is partly because of
the loss of independence which it involves. People naturally despise a

dependant."
"Why?" asked the Altrurian, with that innocence of his which I was
beginning to find rather trying.
"Why?" I retorted. "Because it implies weakness."
"And is weakness considered despicable among you?" he pursued.
"In every community it is despised practically, if not theoretically," I
tried to explain. "The great thing that America has done is to offer the
race an opportunity--the opportunity for any man to rise above the rest
and to take the highest place, if he is able." I had always been proud of
this fact, and I thought I had put it very well, but the Altrurian did not
seem much impressed by it.
He said: "I do not see how it differs from any country of the past in that.
But perhaps you mean that to rise carries with it an obligation to those
below 'If any is first among you, let him be your servant.' Is it
something like that?"
"Well, it is not quite like that," I answered, remembering how very little
our self-made men as a class had done for others. "Every one is
expected to look out for himself here. I fancy that there would be very
little rising if men were expected to rise for the sake of others, in
America. How is it with you in Altruria?" I demanded, hoping to get
out of a certain discomfort I felt in that way. "Do your risen men
generally devote themselves to the good of the community after they
get to the top?"
"There is no rising among us," he said, with what seemed a perception
of the harsh spirit of my question; and he paused a moment before he
asked in his turn: "How do men rise among you?"
"That would be rather a long story," I replied. "But, putting it in the
rough, I should say that they rose by their talents, their shrewdness,
their ability to seize an advantage and turn it to their own account."

"And is that considered noble?"
"It is considered smart. It is considered at the worst far better than a
dead level of equality. Are all men equal in Altruria? Are they all alike
gifted or beautiful, or short or tall?"
"No, they are only equal in duties and in rights. But, as you said just
now, that is a very long story. Are they equal in nothing here?"
"They are equal in opportunities."
"Ah!" breathed the Altrurian, "I am glad to hear that."
I began to feel a little uneasy, and I was not quite sure that this last
assertion of mine would hold water. Everybody