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Survivals of the Non-Invidious Interest
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industrial occupations proper. Hence the devout attitude survives in a better state of preservation among these classes than among the common run of men in the modern communities. Hence an appreciable share of the energy which seeks expression in a non-lucrative employment among these members of the vicarious leisure classes may be expected to eventuate in devout observances and works of piety. Hence, in part, the excess of the devout proclivity in women, spoken of in the last chapter. But it is more to the present point to note the effect of this proclivity in shaping the action and colouring the purposes of the non-lucrative movements and organisations here under discussion. Where this devout colouring is present it lowers the immediate efficiency of the organisations for any economic end to which their efforts may be directed. Many organisations, charitable and ameliorative, divide their attention between the devotional and the secular well-being of the people whose interests they aim to further. It can scarcely be doubted that if they were to give an equally serious attention and effort undividedly to the secular interests of these people, the immediate economic value of their work should be appreciably higher than it is. It might of course similarly be said, if this were the place to say it, that the immediate efficiency of these works of amelioration for the devout end might be greater if it were not hampered with the secular motives and aims which are usually present.

Some deduction is to be made from the economic value of this class of non-invidious enterprise, on