She insists that they must work and be self-supporting, that the most dangerous of all situations is idleness, that seeking one's own pleasure, while ignoring claims and responsibilities, is the most ignoble of actions.

The members of her assigned family may have other charms and virtues--they may possibly be kind and considerate of each other, generous to their friends, but it is her business to stick to the industrial side.

As she daily holds up these standards, it often occurs to the mind of the sensitive visitor, whose conscience has been made tender by much talk of brotherhood and equality, that she has no right to say these things; that her untrained hands are no more fitted to cope with actual conditions than those of her broken-down family.
The grandmother of the charity visitor could have done the industrial preaching very well, because she did have the industrial virtues and housewifely training.

In a generation our experiences have changed, and our views with them; but we still keep on in the old methods, which could be applied when our consciences were in line with them, but which are daily becoming more difficult as we divide up into people who work with their hands and those who do not.

The charity visitor belonging to the latter class is perplexed by recognitions and suggestions which the situation forces upon her.