We have also worked out during our years of residence a plan of
living which may be called cooperative, for the families and
individuals who rent the Hull-House apartments have the use of
the central kitchen and dining room so far as they care for them;
many of them work for hours every week in the studios and shops;
the theater and drawing-rooms are available for such social
organization as they care to form; the entire group of thirteen
buildings is heated and lighted from a central plant. During the
years, the common human experiences have gathered about the
House; funeral services have been held there, marriages and
christenings, and many memories hold us to each other as well as
to our neighbors. Each resident, of course, carefully defrays
his own expenses, and his relations to his fellow residents are
not unlike those of a college professor to his colleagues. The
depth and strength of his relation to the neighborhood must
depend very largely upon himself and upon the genuine friendships
he has been able to make. His relation to the city as a whole
comes largely through his identification with those groups who
are carrying forward the reforms which a Settlement neighborhood
so sadly needs and with which residence has made him familiar.
Life in the Settlement discovers above all what has been called
"the extraordinary pliability of human nature," and it seems
impossible to set any bounds to the moral capabilities which might
unfold under ideal civic and educational conditions.
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