At that time I had come to
believe that if the activities of Hull-House were ever
misunderstood, it would be either because there was not time to
fully explain or because our motives had become mixed, for I was
convinced that disinterested action was like truth or beauty in
its lucidity and power of appeal.
But more gratifying than any understanding or response from
without could possibly be, was the consciousness that a growing
group of residents was gathering at Hull-House, held together in
that soundest of all social bonds, the companionship of mutual
interests. These residents came primarily because they were
genuinely interested in the social situation and believed that
the Settlement was valuable as a method of approach to it. A
house in which the men residents lived was opened across the
street, and at the end of the first five years the Hull-House
residential force numbered fifteen, a majority of whom still
remain identified with the Settlement.
Even in those early years we caught glimpses of the fact that
certain social sentiments, which are "the difficult and
cumulating product of human growth" and which like all higher
aims live only by communion and fellowship, are cultivated most
easily in the fostering soil of a community life.
Occasionally I obscurely felt as if a demand were being made upon
us for a ritual which should express and carry forward the hope
of the social movement.
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