{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_7058/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_7058","id":"gutenberg_7058","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7058","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Category: Sociology","Social problems","Social sciences"],"text":"Produced by Michelle Shephard, Tiffany Vergon, Juliet\nSutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed\nProofreaders\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMANKIND IN THE MAKING\n\n\nBy H. G. Wells\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIt may save misunderstanding if a word or so be said here of the aim\nand scope of this book. It is written in relation to a previous work,\n_Anticipations_, [Footnote: Published by Harper Bros.] and together with\nthat and a small pamphlet, \u201cThe Discovery of the Future,\u201d [Footnote:\nNature, vol. lxv. (1901-2), p. 326, and reprinted in the Smithsonian\nReport for 1902] presents a general theory of social development and of\nsocial and political conduct. It is an attempt to deal with social and\npolitical questions in a new way and from a new starting-point, viewing\nthe whole social and political world as aspects of one universal\nevolving scheme, and placing all social and political activities in a\ndefined relation to that; and to this general method and trend it is\nthat the attention of the reader is especially directed. The two\nbooks and the pamphlet together are to be regarded as an essay in\npresentation. It is a work that the writer admits he has undertaken\nprimarily for his own mental comfort. He is remarkably not qualified to\nassume an authoritative tone in these matters, and he is acutely aware\nof the many defects in detailed knowledge, in temper, and in training\nthese papers collectively display. He is aware that at such points,\nfor example, as the reference to authorities in the chapter on the\nbiological problem, and to books in the educational chapter, the lacunar\nquality of his reading and knowledge is only too evident; to fill in\nand complete his design--notably in the fourth paper--he has had quite\nfrankly to jerry-build here and there. Nevertheless, he ventures to\npublish this book. There are phases in the development of every science\nwhen an incautious outsider may think himself almost necessary, when\nsketchiness ceases to be a sin, when the mere facts of irresponsibility\nand an untrained interest may permit a freshness, a freedom of mental\ngesture that would be inconvenient and compromising for the specialist;\nand such a phase, it is submitted, has been reached in this field of\nspeculation. Moreover, the work attempted is not so much special\nand technical as a work of reconciliation, the suggestion of broad\ngeneralizations upon which divergent specialists may meet, a business\nfor non-technical expression, and in which a man who knows a little of\nbiology, a little of physical science, and a little in a practical way\nof social stratification, who has concerned himself with education and\naspired to creative art, may claim in his very amateurishness a special\nqualification. And in addition, it is particularly a business for some\nirresponsible writer, outside the complications of practical politics,\nsome man who, politically, \u201cdoesn\u2019t matter,\u201d to provide the first\ntentatives of a political doctrine that shall be equally available for\napplication in the British Empire and in the United States. To that we\nmust come, unless our talk of co-operation, of reunion, is no more than\nsentimental dreaming. We have to get into line, and that we cannot do\nwhile over here and over there men hold themselves bound by old party\nformulae, by loyalties and institutions, that are becoming, that\nhave become, provincial in proportion to our new and wider needs.\nMy instances are commonly British, but all the broad project of this\nbook--the discussion of the quality of the average birth and of\nthe average home, the educational scheme, the suggestions for the\norganization of literature and a common language, the criticism of\npolling and the jury system, and the ideal of a Republic with an\napparatus of honour--is, I submit, addressed to, and could be adopted\nby, any English-reading and English-speaking man. No doubt the spirit\nof the inquiry is more British than American, that the abandonment of\nRousseau and anarchic democracy is more complete than American thought\nis yet prepared for, but that is a difference not of quality but of\ndegree. And even the appendix, which at a hasty glance may seem to be\nno more than the discussion of British parochial boundaries, does indeed\ndevelop principles of primary importance in the fundamental schism of\nAmerican politics between the local State government and the central\npower. So much of apology and explanation I owe to the reader, to the\ncontemporary specialist, and to myself.\n\nThese papers were first published in the British _Fortnightly Review_\nand in the American _Cosmopolitan_. In the latter periodical they were,\nfor the most part, printed from uncorrected proofs set up from an\nearly version. This periodical publication produced a considerable\ncorrespondence, which has been of very great service in the final\nrevision. These papers have indeed been honoured by letters from men\nand women of almost every profession, and by a really very considerable\namount of genuine criticism in the British press. Nothing, I think,\ncould witness more effectually to the demand for such discussions\nof general principle, to the need felt for some nuclear matter to\ncrystallize upon at the present time, however poor its quality, than\nthis fact. Here I can only thank the writers collectively, and call\ntheir attention to the more practical gratitude of my frequently\nmodified text.\n\nI would, however, like to express my especial indebtedness to my\nfriend, Mr. Graham Wallas, who generously toiled through the whole of\nmy typewritten copy, and gave me much valuable advice, and to Mr. C. G.\nStuart Menteath for some valuable references.\n\nH. G. WELLS.\n\nSANDGATE, _July_, 1903.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n         PREFACE\n\n      I. THE NEW REPUBLIC\n     II. THE PROBLEM OF THE BIRTH SUPPLY\n    III. CERTAIN WHOLESALE ASPECTS OF MAN-MAKING\n     IV. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MIND AND LANGUAGE\n      V. THE MAN-MAKING FORCES OF THE MODERN STATE\n     VI. SCHOOLING\n    VII. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES\n   VIII. THE CULTIVATION OF THE IMAGINATION\n     IX. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION\n      X. THOUGHT IN THE MODERN STATE\n     XI. THE MAN\u2019S OWN SHARE\n\n   APPENDIX\n\n   A PAPER ON ADMINISTRATIVE AREAS READ BEFORE THE FABIAN SOCIETY\n\n   INDEX\n\n\n\n\nMANKIND IN THE MAKING\n\n\n\n\nI. THE NEW REPUBLIC\n\n\nToleration to-day is becoming a different thing from the toleration\nof former times. The toleration of the past consisted very largely in\nsaying, \u201cYou are utterly wrong and totally accurst, there is no truth\nbut my truth and that you deny, but it is not my place to destroy you\nand so I let you go.\u201d Nowadays there is a real disposition to accept the\nqualified nature of one\u2019s private certainties. One may have arrived at\nvery definite views, one may have come to beliefs quite binding upon\none\u2019s self, without supposing them to be imperative upon other people.\nTo write \u201cI believe\u201d is not only less presumptuous and aggressive in\nsuch matters than to write \u201cit is true,\u201d but it is also nearer the\nreality of the case. One knows what seems true to one\u2019s self, but we are\ncoming to realize that the world is great and complex, beyond the utmost\npower of such minds as ours. Every day of life drives that conviction\nfurther home. And it is possible to maintain that in perhaps quite a\ngreat number of ethical, social, and political questions there is no\nabsolute \u201ctruth\u201d at all--at least for finite beings. To one intellectual\ntemperament things may have a moral tint and aspect, differing widely\nfrom that they present to another; and yet each may be in its own way\nright. The wide differences in character and quality between one human\nbeing and another may quite conceivably involve not only differences in\nmoral obligation, but differences in fundamental moral aspect--we may\nact and react upon each other towards a universal end, but without any\nuniversally applicable rule of conduct whatever. In some greater vision\nthan mine, my right and wrong may be no more than hammer and anvil in\nthe accomplishment of a design larger than I can understand. So that\nthese papers are not written primarily for all, nor with the same\nintention towards all who read them. They are designed first for those\nwho are predisposed for their reception. Then they are intended to\ndisplay in an orderly manner a point of view, and how things look from\nthat point of view, to those who are not so predisposed. These latter\nwill either develop into adherents as they read, or, what is more\nlikely, they will exchange a vague disorderly objection for a clearly\ndefined and understood difference. To arrive at such an understanding is\noften for practical purposes as good as unanimity; for in narrowing down\nthe issue to some central point or principle, we develop just how far\nthose who are divergent may go together before separation or conflict\nbecome inevitable, and save something of our time and of our lives from\nthose misunderstandings, and those secondary differences of no practical\nimportance whatever, which make such disastrous waste of human energy.\n\nNow the point of view which will be displayed in relation to a number of\nwide questions in these pages is primarily that of the writer\u2019s. But he\nhopes and believes that among those who read what he has to say, there\nwill be found not only many to understand, but some to agree with him.\nIn many ways he is inclined to believe the development of his views may\nbe typical of the sort of development that has gone on to a greater or\nlesser extent in the minds of many of the younger men during the last\ntwenty years, and it is in that belief that he is now presenting them.\n\nAnd the questions that will be dealt with in relation to this point of\nview are all those questions outside a man\u2019s purely private self--if he\nhave a purely private self--in which he interacts with his fellow-man.\nOur attempt will be to put in order, to reduce to principle, what is at\npresent in countless instances a mass of inconsistent proceedings, to\nframe a general theory in accordance with modern conditions of social\nand political activity.\n\nThis is one man\u2019s proposal, his attempt to supply a need that has\noppressed him for many years, a need that he has not only found in\nhis own schemes of conduct, but that he has observed in the thought\nof numberless people about him, rendering their action fragmentary,\nwasteful in the gross, and ineffective in the net result, the need for\nsome general principle, some leading idea, some standard, sufficiently\ncomprehensive to be of real guiding value in social and political\nmatters, in many doubtful issues of private conduct, and throughout the\nbusiness of dealing with one\u2019s fellow-men. No doubt there are many\nwho do not feel such a need at all, and with these we may part company\nforthwith; there are, for example, those who profess the artistic\ntemperament and follow the impulse of the moment, and those who consult\nan inner light in some entirely mystical manner. But neither of these I\nbelieve is the most abundant type in the English-speaking communities.\nMy impression is that with most of the minds I have been able to examine\nwith any thoroughness, the attempt to systematize one\u2019s private and\npublic conduct alike, and to reduce it to spacious general rules, to\nattempt, if not to succeed, in making it coherent, consistent, and\nuniformly directed, is an almost instinctive proceeding.\n\nThere is an objection I may anticipate at this point. If I am to leave\nthis statement unqualified, it would certainly be objected that such\na need is no more nor less than the need of religion, that a properly\nformulated religion does supply a trustworthy guide at every fork and\nlabyrinth in life. By my allusion to the failure of old formulae\nand methods to satisfy now, I am afraid many people will choose to\nunderstand that I refer to what is often spoken of as the conflict of\nreligion and science, and that I intend to propound some contribution\nto the conflict. I will at any rate anticipate that objection here, in\norder to mark out my boundaries with greater precision.\n\nTaken in its completeness, I submit that it is a greater claim than\nalmost any religion can justifiably make, to satisfy the need I have\nstated. No religion prescribes rules that can be immediately applied\nto every eventuality. Between the general rules laid down and the\nparticular instance there is always a wide gap, into which doubts and\nalternatives enter and the private judgment has play. No doubt upon\ncertain defined issues of every-day life some religions are absolutely\nexplicit; the Mahomedan religion, for example, is very uncompromising\nupon the use of wine, and the law of the Ten Commandments completely\nprohibits the making of graven images, and almost all the great variety\nof creeds professed among us English-speaking peoples prescribe certain\ngeneral definitions of what is righteous and what constitutes sin. But\nupon a thousand questions of great public importance, on the question\nof forms of government, of social and educational necessities, of one\u2019s\ncourse and attitude towards such great facts as the press, trusts,\nhousing, and the like, religion, as it is generally understood, gives by\nitself no conclusive light. It may, no doubt, give a directing light in\nsome cases, but not a conclusive light. It leaves us inconsistent and\nuncertain amidst these unavoidable problems. Yet upon these questions\nmost people feel that something more is needed than the mood of the\nmoment or the spin of a coin. Religious conviction may help us, it\nmay stimulate us to press for clearer light upon these matters, but it\ncertainly does not give us any decisions.\n\nIt is possible to be either intensely religious or utterly indifferent\nto religious matters and yet care nothing for these things. One may be a\nPietist to whom the world is a fleeting show of no importance whatever,\nor one may say, \u201cLet us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die\u201d:\nthe net result in regard to my need is the same. These questions appear\nto be on a different plane from religion and religious discussion; they\nlook outward, while essentially religion looks inward to the soul, and,\ngiven the necessary temperament, it is possible to approach them in an\nunbiassed manner from almost any starting-point of religious profession.\nOne man may believe in the immortality of the soul and another may not;\none man may be a Swedenborgian, another a Roman Catholic, another a\nCalvinistic Methodist, another an English High Churchman, another a\nPositivist, or a Parsee, or a Jew; the fact remains that they must go\nabout doing all sorts of things in common every day. They may derive\ntheir ultimate motives and sanctions from the most various sources, they\nmay worship in the most contrasted temples and yet meet unanimously in\nthe market-place with a desire to shape their general activities to the\nform of a \u201cpublic spirited\u201d life, and when at last the life of every day\nis summed up, \u201cto leave the world better than they found it.\u201d And it is\nfrom that most excellent expression I would start, or rather from a sort\nof amplified restatement of that expression--outside the province of\nreligious discussion altogether.\n\nA man who will build on that expression _as his foundation_ in political\nand social matters, has at least the possibility of agreement in the\nscheme of action these papers will unfold. For though we theorize it is\nat action that our speculations will aim. They will take the shape of an\norganized political and social doctrine. It will be convenient to give\nthis doctrine a name, and for reasons that will be clear enough to those\nwho have read my book _Anticipations_ this doctrine will be spoken of\nthroughout as \u201cNew Republicanism,\u201d the doctrine of the New Republic.\n\nThe central conception of this New Republicanism as it has shaped itself\nin my mind, lies in attaching pre-eminent importance to certain aspects\nof human life, and in subordinating systematically and always, all\nother considerations to these cardinal aspects. It begins with a way\nof looking at life. It insists upon that way, it will regard no human\nconcern at all except in that way. And the way, putting the thing as\ncompactly as possible, is to reject and set aside all abstract, refined,\nand intellectualized ideas as starting propositions, such ideas as\nRight, Liberty, Happiness, Duty or Beauty, and to hold fast to the\nassertion of the fundamental nature of life as a tissue and succession\nof births. These other things may be important, they may be profoundly\nimportant, but they are not primary. We cannot build upon any one of\nthem and get a structure that will comprehend all the aspects of life.\n\nFor the great majority of mankind at least it can be held that life\nresolves itself quite simply and obviously into three cardinal phases.\nThere is a period of youth and preparation, a great insurgence of\nemotion and enterprise centering about the passion of Love, and a third\nperiod in which, arising amidst the warmth and stir of the second,\ninterweaving indeed with the second, the care and love of offspring\nbecomes the central interest in life. In the babble of the\ngrandchildren, with all the sons and daughters grown and secure, the\ntypical life of humanity ebbs and ends. Looked at thus with a primary\nregard to its broadest aspect, life is seen as essentially a matter of\nreproduction; first a growth and training to that end, then commonly\nmating and actual physical reproduction, and finally the consummation of\nthese things in parental nurture and education. Love, Home and Children,\nthese are the heart-words of life. Not only is the general outline of\nthe normal healthy human life reproductive, but a vast proportion of the\ninfinitely complex and interwoven interests that fill that outline with\nincessant interest can be shown by a careful analysis to be more or less\ndirectly reproductive also. The toil of a man\u2019s daily work is rarely\nfor himself alone, it goes to feed, to clothe, to educate those cardinal\nconsequences of his being, his children; he builds for them, he plants\nfor them, he plans for them, his social intercourse, his political\ninterests, whatever his immediate motives, tend finally to secure their\nwelfare. Even more obviously is this the case with his wife. Even in\nrest and recreation life still manifests its quality; the books the\nordinary man reads turn enormously on love-making, his theatre has\nscarcely ever a play that has not primarily a strong love interest, his\nart rises to its most consummate triumphs in Venus and Madonna, and his\nmusic is saturated in love suggestions. Not only is this so with the\nright and proper life, but the greater portion of those acts we call\nvice draw their stimulus and pleasure from the impulses that subserve\nthis sustaining fact of our being, and they are vicious only because\nthey evade or spoil their proper end. This is really no new discovery at\nall, only the stripping bare of it is new. In nearly every religious and\nmoral system in the world indeed, the predominant mass of the exposition\nof sin and saving virtue positively or negatively centres upon birth.\nPositively in the enormous stresses, the sacramental values which are\nconcentrated upon marriage and the initial circumstances of being, and\nnegatively in a thousand significant repudiations. Even when the devotee\nmost strenuously renounces this world and all its works, when St.\nAnthony flees into the desert or the pious Durtal wrestles in his cell,\nwhen the pale nun prays in vigil and the hermit mounts his pillar, it\nis Celibacy, that great denial of life, that sings through all their\nstruggle, it is this business of births as the central fact of life they\nstill have most in mind.\n\nThis is not human life merely, it is all life. This living world, as\nthe New Republican will see it, is no more than a great birth-place,\nan incessant renewal, an undying fresh beginning and unfolding of\nlife. Take away this fact of birth and what is there remaining? A world\nwithout flowers, without the singing of birds, without the freshness of\nyouth, with a spring that brings no seedlings and a year that bears no\nharvest, without beginnings and without defeats, a vast stagnation, a\nuniverse of inconsequent matter--Death. Not only does the substance of\nlife vanish if we eliminate births and all that is related to births,\nbut whatever remains, if anything remains, of aesthetic and intellectual\nand spiritual experience, collapses utterly and falls apart, when this\nessential substratum of all experience is withdrawn. So at any rate the\nworld presents itself in the view the New Republican takes. And if it\nshould chance that the reader finds this ring untrue to him, then he may\ntake it that he stands outside us, that the New Republic is not for him.\n\nIt may be submitted that this statement that Life is a texture of\nbirths may be accepted by minds of the most divergent religious and\nphilosophical profession. No fundamental or recondite admissions are\nproposed here, but only that the every-day life for every-day purposes\nhas this shape and nature. The utter materialist may say that life\nto him is a fortuitous concurrence of atoms, a chance kinking in the\nuniversal fabric of matter. It is not our present business to confute\nhim. The fact remains this is the form the kinking has taken. The\nbeliever, sedulous for his soul\u2019s welfare, may say that Life is to\nhim an arena of spiritual conflict, but this is the character of the\nconflict, this is the business from which all the tests and exercises of\nhis soul are drawn. It matters not in this present discussion if Life is\nno more than a dream; the dream is this.\n\nAnd now one comes to another step. The reader may give his assent\nto this statement as obvious or he may guard his assent with a\nqualification or so, but I doubt if he will deny it. No one, I expect,\nwill categorically deny it. But although no one will do that, a great\nnumber of people who have not clearly seen things in this light, do in\nthought and in many details of their practice follow a line that is,\nin effect, a flat denial of what is here proposed. Life no doubt is\na fabric woven of births and the struggle to maintain and develop and\nmultiply lives. It does not follow that life is _consciously_ a fabric\nwoven of births and the struggle to maintain and develop and multiply\nlives. I do not suppose a cat or a savage sees it in that light. A cat\u2019s\nstandpoint is probably strictly individualistic. She sees the whole\nuniverse as a scheme of more or less useful, pleasurable and interesting\nthings concentrated upon her sensitive and interesting personality. With\na sinuous determination she evades disagreeables and pursues delights;\nlife is to her quite clearly and simply a succession of pleasures,\nsensations and interests, among which interests there happen to\nbe--kittens!\n\nAnd this way of regarding life is by no means confined to animals and\nsavages. I would even go so far as to suggest that it is only within\nthe last hundred years that any considerable number of thoughtful people\nhave come to look at life steadily and consistently as being shaped to\nthis form, to the form of a series of births, growths and births. The\nmost general truths are those last apprehended. The universal fact\nof gravitation, for example, which pervades all being, received its\ncomplete recognition scarcely two hundred years ago. And again children\nand savages live in air, breathe air, are saturated with air, die for\nfive minutes\u2019 need of it, and never definitely realize there is such a\nthing as air at all. The vast mass of human expression in act and art\nand literature takes a narrower view than we have here formulated; it\npresents each man not only as isolated from and antagonized with the\nworld about him, but as cut off sharply and definitely from the past\nbefore he lived and the future after he is dead; it puts what is, in\nrelation to the view we have taken, a disproportionate amount of stress\nupon his egotism, upon the pursuit of his self-interest and his personal\nvirtue and his personal fancies, and it ignores the fact, the familiar\nrediscovery which the nineteenth century has achieved, that he is\nafter all only the transitory custodian of an undying gift of life, an\ninheritor under conditions, the momentary voice and interpreter of a\nbeing that springs from the dawn of time and lives in offspring and\nthought and material consequence, for ever.\n\nThis over-accentuation in the past of man\u2019s egoistic individuality, or,\nif one puts it in another way, this unsuspicious ignorance of the\nreal nature of life, becomes glaringly conspicuous in such weighed\nand deliberate utterances as _The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius_.\nThroughout these frank and fundamental discourses one traces a\npredominant desire for a perfected inconsequent egotism. Body is\nrepudiated as a garment, position is an accident, the past that made us\nexists not since it is past, the future exists not for we shall never\nsee it; at last nothing but the abstracted ego remains,--a sort of\ncomplimentary Nirvana. One citation will serve to show the colour of all\nhis thought. \u201cA man,\u201d he remarks, \u201cis very devout to prevent the loss\nof his son. But I would have you pray rather against the fear of\nlosing him. Let this be the rule for your devotions.\u201d [Footnote: _The\nMeditations of M. A. Antoninus_, ix. 40.] That indeed is the rule\nfor all the devotions of that departing generation of wisdom. Rather\nserenity and dignity than good ensuing. Rather a virtuous man than any\nresultant whatever from his lifetime, for the future of the world. It\npoints this disregard of the sequence of life and birth in favour of an\nabstract and fruitless virtue, it points it indeed with a barbed point\nthat the son of Marcus Aurelius was the unspeakable Commodus, and that\nthe Roman Empire fell from the temporizing detachment of his rule into a\ncentury of disorder and misery.\n\nTo the thoughtful reader to whom these papers appeal, to the reader\nwhose mind is of the modern cast, who has surveyed the vistas of the\ngeological record and grasped the secular unfolding of the scheme of\nlife, who has found with microscope and scalpel that the same rhythm of\nbirth and re-birth is woven into the minutest texture of things that has\ncovered the earth with verdure and shaped the massifs of the Alps, to\nsuch a man the whole literature the world produced until the nineteenth\ncentury had well progressed, must needs be lacking in any definite and\npervading sense of the cardinal importance in the world of this central\nreproductive aspect, of births and of the training and preparation for\nfuture births. All that literature, great and imposing as we are bound\nto admit it is, has an outlook less ample than quite common men may\nhave to-day. It is a literature, as we see it in the newer view, of\nabstracted personalities and of disconnected passions and impressions.\n\nTo one extraordinary and powerful mind in the earlier half of the\nnineteenth century this realization of the true form of life came with\nquite overwhelming force, and that was to Schopenhauer, surely at once\nthe most acute and the most biassed of mortal men. It came to him as\na most detestable fact, because it happened he was an intensely\negotistical man. But his intellect was of that noble and exceptional\nsort that aversion may tint indeed but cannot blind, and we owe to him a\nseries of philosophical writings, written with an instinctive skill\nand a clearness and a vigour uncommon in philosophers, in which a very\ncomplete statement of the new view is presented to the reader in terms\nof passionate protest. [Footnote: _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung._]\n\u201cWhy,\u201d he asked, \u201cmust we be for ever tortured by this passion and\ndesire to reproduce our kind, why are all our pursuits tainted with this\napplication, all our needs deferred to the needs of the new generation\nthat tramples on our heels?\u201d and he found the answer in the presence of\nan overwhelming Will to Live manifesting itself throughout the universe\nof Matter, thrusting us ruthlessly before it, as a strong swimmer\nthrusts a wave before him as he swims. That the personal egotism should\nbe subordinated to and overwhelmed by a pervading Will to Live filled\nhis soul with passionate rebellion and coloured his exposition with the\nhues of despair. But to minds temperamentally different from his, minds\nwhose egotism is qualified by a more unselfish humour, it is possible to\navail one\u2019s self of Schopenhauer\u2019s vision, without submitting one\u2019s self\nto his conclusions, to see our wills only as temporary manifestations\nof an ampler will, our lives as passing phases of a greater Life, and\nto accept these facts even joyfully, to take our places in that larger\nscheme with a sense of relief and discovery, to go with that larger\nbeing, to serve that larger being, as a soldier marches, a mere unit\nin the larger being of his army, and serving his army, joyfully into\nbattle.\n\nHowever, it is not to Schopenhauer and his writings, at least among the\nEnglish-speaking peoples, that this increasing realization of life as\nessentially a succession of births, is chiefly ascribed. It is mainly,\nas I have already suggested, the result of that great expansion of our\nsense of time and causation that has ensued from the idea of organic\nEvolution. In the course of one brief century, the human outlook upon\nthe order of the world has been profoundly changed. It is not simply\nthat it has become much more spacious, it is not only that it has opened\nout from the little history of a few thousand years to a stupendous\nvista of ages, but, in addition to its expanded dimensions, it has\nexperienced a change in character. That wonderful and continually more\nelaborate and penetrating analysis of the evolutionary process by\nDarwin and his followers and successors and antagonists, the entire\nsubordination of the individual lot to the specific destiny that these\ncriticisms and researches have emphasized, has warped and altered the\naspect of a thousand human affairs. It has made reasonable and in order\nwhat Schopenhauer found so suggestively perplexing, it has dispelled\nproblems that have seemed insoluble mysteries to many generations of\nmen. I do not say it has solved them, but it has dispelled them and made\nthem irrelevant and uninteresting. So long as one believed that life\nspan unprogressively from generation to generation, that generation\nfollowed generation unchangingly for ever, the enormous preponderance\nof sexual needs and emotions in life was a distressing and inexplicable\nfact--it was a mystery, it was sin, it was the work of the devil. One\nasked, why does man build houses that others may live therein; plant\ntrees whose fruit he will never see? And all the toil and ambition,\nthe stress and hope of existence, seemed, so far as this life went,\nand before these new lights came, a mere sacrifice to this pointless\nreiteration of lives, this cosmic _crambe repetita_. To perceive this\naspect, and to profess an entire detachment from the whole vacuous\nbusiness was considered by a large proportion of the more thoughtful\npeople of the world the supreme achievement of philosophy. The acme\nof old-world wisdom, the ultimate mystery of Oriental philosophy is to\ncontemn women and offspring, to abandon costume, cleanliness, and all\nthe decencies and dignities of life, and to crawl, as scornfully as\npossible, but at any rate to crawl out of all these earthly shows and\nsnares (which so obviously lead to nothing), into the nearest tub.\n\nAnd the amazing revelation of our days is that they do not lead to\nnothing! Directly the discovery is made clear--and it is, I firmly\nbelieve, the crowning glory of the nineteenth century to have\nestablished this discovery for all time--that one generation does not\nfollow another in _fac simile_, directly we come within sight of\nthe reasonable persuasion that each generation is a step, a definite\nmeasurable step, and each birth an unprecedented experiment, directly it\ngrows clear that instead of being in an eddy merely, we are for all our\neddying moving forward upon a wide voluminous current, then all these\nthings are changed.\n\nThat change alters the perspective of every human affair. Things that\nseemed permanent and final, become unsettled and provisional. Social\nand political effort are seen from a new view-point. Everywhere the old\ndirection posts, the old guiding marks, have got out of line and askew.\nAnd it is out of the conflict of the new view with the old institutions\nand formulae, that there arises the discontent and the need, and the\nattempt at a wider answer, which this phrase and suggestion of the \u201cNew\nRepublic\u201d is intended to express.\n\nEvery part contributes to the nature of the whole, and if the whole of\nlife is an evolving succession of births, then not only must a man in\nhis individual capacity (_physically_ as parent, doctor, food dealer,\nfood carrier, home builder, protector, or _mentally_ as teacher, news\ndealer, author, preacher) contribute to births and growths and the\nfuture of mankind, but the collective aspects of man, his social and\npolitical organizations must also be, in the essence, organizations that\nmore or less profitably and more or less intentionally, set themselves\ntowards this end. They are finally concerned with the birth and with the\nsound development towards still better births, of human lives, just as\nevery implement in the toolshed of a seedsman\u2019s nursery, even the hoe\nand the roller, is concerned finally with the seeding and with the sound\ndevelopment towards still better seeding of plants. The private and\npersonal motive of the seedsman in procuring and using these tools\nmay be avarice, ambition, a religious belief in the saving efficacy of\nnursery keeping or a simple passion for bettering flowers, that does not\naffect the definite final purpose of his outfit of tools.\n\nAnd just as we might judge completely and criticise and improve that\noutfit from an attentive study of the welfare of plants and with an\nentire disregard of his remoter motives, so we may judge all collective\nhuman enterprises from the standpoint of an attentive study of human\nbirths and development. _Any collective human enterprise, institution,\nmovement, party or state, is to be judged as a whole and completely, as\nit conduces more or less to wholesome and hopeful births, and according\nto the qualitative and quantitative advance due to its influence made\nby each generation of citizens born under its influence towards a higher\nand ampler standard of life_.\n\nOr putting the thing in a slightly different phrasing, the New\nRepublican idea amounts to this: the serious aspect of our private\nlives, the general aspect of all our social and co-operative\nundertakings, is to prepare as well as we possibly can a succeeding\ngeneration, which shall prepare still more capably for still better\ngenerations to follow. We are passing as a race out of a state of\naffairs when the unconscious building of the future was attained by\nindividualistic self-seeking (altogether unenlightened or enlightened\nonly by the indirect moralizing influence of the patriotic instinct and\nreligion) into a clear consciousness of our co-operative share in that\nprocess. That is the essential idea my New Republic would personify and\nembody. In the past man was made, generation after generation, by forces\nbeyond his knowledge and control. Now a certain number of men are coming\nto a provisional understanding of some at least of these forces that go\nto the Making of Man. To some of us there is being given the privilege\nand responsibility of knowledge. We may plead lack of will or lack of\nmoral impetus, but we can no longer plead ignorance. Just as far as our\nlight upon the general purpose goes, just so far goes our responsibility\n(whether we respect it or not) to shape and subdue our wills to the\nMaking of Mankind.\n\nDirectly the man, who has found akin to himself and who has accepted and\nassimilated this new view, turns to the affairs of the political\nworld, to the general professions of our great social and business\nundertakings, and to the broad conventions of human conduct, he will\nfind, I think, a very wide discrepancy from the implications of this\nview. He will find--the New Republican finds--that the declared aims and\nprinciples of the larger amount of our social and political effort are\nastonishingly limited and unsatisfactory, astonishingly irrelevant to\nthe broad reality of Life. He will find great masses of men embarked\ncollectively upon enterprises that will seem to his eyes to have no\ndefinable relation to this real business of the world, or only the\nmost accidental relationship, he will find others in partial lop-sided\ncooperation or unintelligently half helpful and half obstructive, and he\nwill find still other movements and developments which set quite in\nthe opposite direction, which make neither for sound births nor sound\ngrowth, but through the thinnest shams of excuse and purpose, through\nthe most hypnotic and unreal of suggestions and motives, directly and\neven plainly towards waste, towards sterility, towards futility and\ndeath and extinction.\n\nBut not deliberately towards Death. It is only in the theoretical\naspirations of Schopenhauer that he will find an expression of conscious\nand resolved opposition to the pervading will and purpose in things.\nIn the common affairs of the world he will find neither deliberate\nopposition nor deliberate co-operation, chance opposition indeed\nand chance co-operation, but for the most part only a complete\nunconsciousness, a blind irrelevance or a purely accidental accordance\nto the essential aspect of Life.\n\nTake, for example, the great enthusiasm that set all England waving\nbunting in June, 1902. It was made clear to the most unwilling observer\nthat the great mass of English people consider themselves aggregated\ntogether in one nation mainly to support, honour, and obey a King, and\nthat they rejoice in this conception of their national purpose. Great\nsums of money were spent to emphasize this purpose, public work of all\nsorts was dislocated, and the channels of public discussion clogged and\nchoked. A discussion of the education of the next generation, a matter\nof supreme interest from the New Republican point of view, passed from\npublic sight amidst the happy tumults and splendours of the time. The\nland was filled with poetry in the Monarch\u2019s praise, bad beyond any\nsuspicion of insincerity. All that was certainly great in the land,\nall that has any hold upon the motives and confidence of the English,\ngathered itself into a respectful proximity, assumed attitudes of\nreverent subordination to the Monarch. All that was eminent in science\nand literature and art, the galaxy of the episcopate, the crowning\nintellectualities of the army, came to these rites, clad in robes and\nraiment that no sane person would ever voluntarily assume in public\nexcept under circumstances of extreme necessity. The whole business was\nconducted with a zest and gravity that absolutely forbids the theory\nthat it was a mere formality, a curious survival of medi\u00e6valism\ncherished by a country that makes no breaks with its past. The spirit\nand idea of the whole thing was intensely real and contemporary; one\ncould believe only that those who took part in it regarded it as a\nmatter of primary importance, as one of the cardinal things for which\nthey existed. The alternative is to imagine that they believe nothing\nto be of primary importance in this world; a quite incredible levity of\nsoul to ascribe to all those great and distinguished people.\n\nBut it reflects not at all upon the high intelligence, the unobtrusive\nbut sterling moral qualities, the tact, dignity, and personal charm\nof the central figure in their pageantries, a charm the pathetic\ncircumstances of his unseasonable illness very greatly enhanced, if\nthe New Republican fails to consider these ceremonials of primary\nimportance, if he declines to see them as of any necessary importance at\nall, until it has been conclusively shown that they do minister to\nthe bettering of births and of the lives intervening between birth and\nbirth. On the surface they do not do that. Unless they can be shown to\ndo that they are dissipations of energy, they are irrelevant and wrong,\nfrom the New Republican point of view. The New Republican can take no\npart in these things, or only a very grudging and qualified part, on his\nway to real service. He may or he may not, after deliberate examination,\nleave these things on one side, unchallenged but ignored.\n\nIt may be urged that all the subserviences that distinguish our kingdom\nand that become so amazingly conspicuous about a coronation, the kissing\nof hands, the shambling upon knees, the crawling of body and mind, the\nsystematic encouragement of that undignified noisiness that nowadays\ndistinguishes the popular rejoicings of our imperial people, are simply\na proof of the earnest preoccupation of our judges, bishops, and leaders\nand great officers of all sorts with remoter and nobler aims. The\nkingdom happens to exist, and it would be complex and troublesome to get\nrid of it. They stand these things, they get done with these things, and\nso are able to get to their work. The paraphernalia of a Court, the sham\nscale of honours, the submissions, the ceremonial subjection, are, it is\nargued, entirely irrelevant to the purpose and honour of our race, but\nthen so would rebellion against these things be also irrelevant and\nsecondary. To submit or to rebel is a diversion of our energies from the\nreal purpose in things, and of the two it is infinitely less bother to\nsubmit. In private conversation, I find, this is the line nine out of\nten of the King\u2019s servants will take. They will tell you the public\nunderstands; the thing is a mere excuse for festivity and colour; their\nloyalty is of a piece with their Fifth of November anti-popery.\nThey will tell you the peers understand, the bishops understand,\nthe coronating archbishop has his tongue in his cheek. They all\nunderstand--men of the world together. The King understands, a most\nadmirable gentleman, who submits to these traditional things, but who\nadmits his preference is for the simple, pure delight of the incognito,\nfor being \u201cplain Mr. Jones.\u201d\n\nIt may be so. Though the psychologist will tell you that a man who\nbehaves consistently as though he believed in a thing, will end in\nbelieving it. Assuredly whatever these others do, the New Republican\nmust understand. In his inmost soul there must be no loyalty or\nsubmission to any king or colour, save only if it conduces to the\nservice of the future of the race. In the New Republic all kings are\nprovisional, if, indeed--and this I shall discuss in a later paper--they\ncan be regarded as serviceable at all.\n\nAnd just as kingship is a secondary and debatable thing to the New\nRepublican, to every man, that is, whom the spirit of the new knowledge\nhas taken for its work, so also are the loyalties of nationality, and\nall our local and party adhesions.\n\nMuch that passes for patriotism is no more than a generalized jealousy\nrather gorgeously clad. Amidst the collapse of the old Individualistic\nHumanitarianism, the Rights of Man, Human Equality, and the rest of\nthose broad generalizations that served to keep together so many men of\ngood intention in the age that has come to its end, there has been much\nhasty running to obvious shelters, and many men have been forced to take\nrefuge under this echoing patriotism--for want of a better gathering\nplace. It is like an incident during an earthquake, when men who have\nabandoned a cleft fortress will shelter in a drinking bothy. But the\nvery upheavals that have shattered the old fastnesses of altruistic\nmen, will be found presently to be taking the shape of a new gathering\nplace--and of this the New Republic presents an early guess and\nanticipation. I do not see how men, save in the most unexpected\nemergency, can be content to accept such an artificial convention as\nmodern patriotism for one moment. On the one hand there are the patriots\nof nationality who would have us believe that the miscellany of European\nsquatters in the Transvaal are one nation and those in Cape Colony\nanother, and on the other the patriots of Empire who would have me, for\nexample, hail as my fellow-subjects and collaborators in man-making a\nhost of Tamil-speaking, Tamil-thinking Dravadians, while separating me\nfrom every English-speaking, English-thinking person who lives south of\nthe Great Lakes. So long as men are content to work in the grooves set\nfor them by dead men, to derive all their significances from the past,\nto accept whatever is as right and to drive along before the compulsions\nof these acquiescences, they may do so. But directly they take to\nthemselves the New Republican idea, directly they realize that life is\nsomething more than passing the time, that it is constructive with its\ndirection in the future, then these things slip from them as Christian\u2019s\nburthen fell from him at the very outset of his journey. Until grave\ncause has been shown to the contrary, there is every reason why all men\nwho speak the same language, think the same literature, and are akin\nin blood and spirit, and who have arrived at the great constructive\nconception that so many minds nowadays are reaching, should entirely\ndisregard these old separations. If the old traditions do no harm\nthere is no reason to touch them, any more than there is to abolish the\nboundary between this ancient and invincible kingdom of Kent in which I\nwrite and that extremely inferior country, England, which was conquered\nby the Normans and brought under the feudal system. But so soon as these\nold traditions obstruct sound action, so soon as it is necessary to\nbe rid of them, we must be prepared to sacrifice our archaeological\nemotions ruthlessly and entirely.\n\nAnd these repudiations extend also to the political parties that\nstruggle to realize themselves within the forms of our established\nstate. There is not in Great Britain, and I understand there is not in\nAmerica, any party, any section, any group, any single politician even,\nbased upon the manifest trend and purpose of life as it appears in the\nmodern view. The necessities of continuity in public activity and of a\nglaring consistency in public profession, have so far prevented any such\nfundamental reconstruction as the new generation requires. One hears of\nLiberty, of Compromise, of Imperial Destinies and Imperial Unity,\none hears of undying loyalty to the Memory of Mr. Gladstone and the\ninalienable right of Ireland to a separate national existence. One\nhears, too, of the sacred principle of Free Trade, of Empires and\nZollvereins, and the Rights of the Parent to blockade the education of\nhis children, but one hears nothing of the greater end. At the best\nall the objects of our political activity can be but means to that end,\ntheir only claim to our recognition can be their adequacy to that\nend, and none of these vociferated \u201ccries,\u201d these party labels, these\nprogramme items, are ever propounded to us in that way. I cannot see\nhow, in England at any rate, a serious and perfectly honest man, holding\nas true that ampler view of life I have suggested, can attach himself\nloyally to any existing party or faction. At the utmost he may find\ntheir faction-fighting may be turned for a time towards his remoter\nends. These parties derive from that past when the new view of life had\nyet to establish itself, they carry faded and obliterated banners that\nthe glare and dust of conflict, the vote-storms of great campaigns, have\nrobbed long since of any colour of reality they once possessed. They\nexpress no creative purpose now, whatever they did in their inception,\nthey point towards no constructive ideals. Essentially they are things\nfor the museum or the bonfire, whatever momentary expediency may\nhold back the New Republican from an unqualified advocacy of such a\ndestination. The old party fabrics are no more than dead rotting things,\nupon which a great tangle of personal jealousies, old grudges, thorny\nnicknames, prickly memories, family curses, Judas betrayals and sacred\npledges, a horrible rubbish thicket, maintains a saprophytic vitality.\n\nIt is quite possible I misjudge the thing altogether. Sir Henry\nCampbell-Bannerman, for example, may hide the profoundest and\nmost wide-reaching aims beneath his superficial effect of utter\nsuperficiality. His impersonation of an amiable, spirited,\nself-conscious, land-owning gentleman with a passion for justice in\nremote places and a whimsical dislike of motor cars in his immediate\nneighbourhood, may veil the operations of a stupendous intelligence bent\nupon the regeneration of the world. It may do, but if it does, it is a\nvery amazing and purposeless impersonation. I at any rate do not believe\nthat it does. I do not believe that he or any other Liberal leader or\nany Conservative minister has any comprehensive aim at all--as we of the\nnew generation measure comprehensiveness. These parties, and the phrases\nof party exposition--in America just as in England--date from the\ndays of the limited outlook. They display no consciousness of the new\ndissent. They are absorbed in the long standing game, the getting in,\nthe turning out, the contests and governments, that has just about the\nsame relation to the new perception of affairs, to the real drift of\nlife, as the game of cricket with the wheel as a wicket would have to\nthe destinies of a ship. They find their game highly interesting and\nno doubt they play it with remarkable wit, skill and spirit, but\nthey entirely disregard the increasing number of passengers who are\nconcerning themselves with the course and destination of the ship.\n\nThose particular passengers in the figure, present the New Republic. It\nis a dissension, an inquiry, it is the vague unconsolidated matter for a\nnew direction. \u201cWe who are young,\u201d says the spirit of the New Republic,\n\u201cwe who are in earnest can no more compass our lives under these\nold kingships and loyalties, under these old leaders and these old\ntraditions, constitutions and pledges, with their party liabilities,\ntheir national superstitions, their rotting banners and their\naccumulating legacy of feuds and lies, than we can pretend we are indeed\nimpassioned and wholly devoted subjects of King Edward, spending our\nlives in the service of his will. It is not that we have revolted\nfrom these things, it is not that we have grown askew to them and that\npatching and amendment will serve our need; it is that we have travelled\noutside them altogether--almost inadvertently, but quite beyond any\nchance of return to a simple acceptance again. We are no more disposed\nto call ourselves Liberals or Conservatives and to be stirred to party\npassion at the clash of these names, than we are to fight again the\nbattles of the Factio Albata or the Factio Prasina. These current\ndramas, these current conflicts seem scarcely less factitious. Men\nwithout faith may be content to spend their lives for things only half\nbelieved in, and for causes that are contrived. But that is not our\nquality. We want reality because we have faith, we seek the beginning of\nrealism in social and political life, we seek it and we are resolved to\nfind it.\u201d\n\nSo we attempt to give a general expression to the forces that are new\nat this time, to render something at least of the spirit of the New\nRepublic in a premature and experimental utterance. It is, at any rate,\na spirit that finds itself out of intimacy and co-ordination with all\nthe older movements of the world, that sees all pre-existing formulae\nand political constitutions and political parties and organizations\nrather as instruments or obstacles than as guiding lines and precedents\nfor its new developing will, its will which will carry it at last\nirresistibly to the conscious and deliberate making of the future of\nman. \u201cWe are here to get better births and a better result from the\nbirths we get; each one of us is going to set himself immediately to\nthat, using whatever power he finds to his hand,\u201d such is the form its\nwill must take. And such being its will and spirit these papers will\naddress themselves comprehensively to the problem, What will the New\nRepublic do? All the rest of this series will be a discussion of the\nforces that go to the making of man, and how far and how such a New\nRepublic might seek to lay its hands upon them.\n\nIt is for the adversary to explain how presumptuous such an enterprise\nmust be. But presumption is ineradically interwoven with every beginning\nthat the world has ever seen. I venture to think that even to a reader\nwho does not accept or sympathize with the conception of this\nNew Republic, a general review of current movements and current\ninterpretations of morality from this new standpoint may be suggestive\nand interesting. Assuredly it is only by some such general revision, if\nnot on these lines then on others, that a practicable way of escape is\nto be found for any one, from that base and shifty opportunism in public\nand social matters, that predominance of fluctuating aims and spiritless\nconformities, in which so many of us, without any great positive\nhappiness at all to reward us for the sacrifice we are making, bury the\nsolitary talents of our lives.\n\n\n\n\nII. THE PROBLEM OF THE BIRTH SUPPLY\n\nWithin the last minute seven new citizens were born into that great\nEnglish-speaking community which is scattered under various flags and\ngovernments throughout the world. And according to the line of thought\ndeveloped in the previous paper we perceive that the real and ultimate\nbusiness, so far as this world goes, of every statesman, every social\norganizer, every philanthropist, every business manager, every man\nwho lifts his head for a moment from the mean pursuit of his immediate\npersonal interests, from the gratification of his private desires, is,\nas the first and immediate thing, to do his best for these new-comers,\nto get the very best result, so far as his powers and activities can\ncontribute to it, from their undeveloped possibilities. And in the next\nplace, as a remoter, but perhaps finally more fundamental duty, he has\nto inquire what may be done individually or collectively to raise the\nstandard and quality of the average birth. All the great concerns of\nlife work out with a very little analysis to that, even our wars, our\norgies of destruction, have, at the back of them, a claim, an intention,\nhowever futile in its conception and disastrous in its consequences, to\nestablish a wider security, to destroy a standing menace, to open new\npaths and possibilities, in the interest of the generations still\nto come. One may present the whole matter in a simplified picture by\nimagining all our statesmen, our philanthropists and public men, our\nparties and institutions gathered into one great hall, and into this\nhall a huge spout, that no man can stop, discharges a baby every eight\nseconds. That is, I hold, a permissible picture of human life, and\nwhatever is not represented at all in that picture is a divergent and\nsecondary concern. Our success or failure with that unending stream of\nbabies is the measure of our civilization; every institution stands\nor falls by its contribution to that result, by the improvement of the\nchildren born, or by the improvement in the quality of births attained\nunder its influence.\n\nTo begin these speculations in logical order we must begin at the birth\npoint, we must begin by asking how much may we hope, now or at a later\ntime, to improve the supply of that raw material which is perpetually\ndumped upon our hands? Can we raise, and if so, what can we do to raise\nthe quality of the average birth?\n\nThis speculation is as old at least as Plato, and as living as the seven\nor eight babies born into the English-speaking world since the reader\nbegan this Paper. The conclusion that if we could prevent or discourage\nthe inferior sorts of people from having children, and if we could\nstimulate and encourage the superior sorts to increase and multiply, we\nshould raise the general standard of the race, is so simple, so obvious,\nthat in every age I suppose there have been voices asking in amazement,\nwhy the thing is not done? It is so usual to answer that it is not done\non account of popular ignorance, public stupidity, religious prejudice\nor superstition, that I shall not apologize for giving some little\nspace here to the suggestion that in reality it is not done for quite a\ndifferent reason.\n\nWe blame the popular mind overmuch. Earnest but imperfect men, with\nhonest and reasonable but imperfect proposals for bettering the world,\nare all too apt to raise this bitter cry of popular stupidity, of the\nsheep-like quality of common men. An unjustifiable persuasion of\nmoral and intellectual superiority is one of the last infirmities of\ninnovating minds. We may be right, but we must be provably, demonstrably\nand overpoweringly right before we are justified in calling the\ndissentient a fool. I am one of those who believe firmly in the\ninvincible nature of truth, but a truth that is badly put is not a\ntruth, but an infertile hybrid lie. Before we men of the study blame the\ngeneral body of people for remaining unaffected by reforming proposals\nof an almost obvious advantage, it would be well if we were to change\nour standpoint and examine our machinery at the point of application.\nA rock-drilling machine may be excellently invented and in the most\nperfect order except for a want of hardness in the drill, and yet there\nwill remain an unpierced rock as obdurate as the general public to so\nmany of our innovations.\n\nI believe that if a canvass of the entire civilized world were put to\nthe vote in this matter, the proposition that it is desirable that the\nbetter sort of people should intermarry and have plentiful children,\nand that the inferior sort of people should abstain from multiplication,\nwould be carried by an overwhelming majority. They might disagree with\nPlato\u2019s methods, [Footnote: _The Republic_, Bk. V.] but they would\ncertainly agree to his principle. And that this is not a popular error\nMr. Francis Galton has shown. He has devoted a very large amount of\nenergy and capacity to the vivid and convincing presentation of this\nidea, and to its courageous propagation. His Huxley Lecture to the\nAnthropological Institute in 1901 [Footnote: _Nature_, vol. lxiv.\np. 659.] puts the whole matter as vividly as it ever can be put. He\nclassifies humanity about their average in classes which he indicates\nby the letters R S T U V rising above the average and r s t u v falling\nbelow, and he saturates the whole business in quantitative colour.\nIndeed, Mr. Galton has drawn up certain definite proposals. He has\nsuggested that \u201cnoble families\u201d should collect \u201cfine specimens of\nhumanity\u201d around them, employing these fine specimens in menial\noccupations of a light and comfortable sort, that will leave a\nsufficient portion of their energies free for the multiplication of\ntheir superior type. \u201cPromising young couples\u201d might be given \u201chealthy\nand convenient houses at low rentals,\u201d he suggests, and no doubt it\ncould be contrived that they should pay their rent partly or entirely\nper stone of family annually produced. And he has also proposed that\n\u201cdiplomas\u201d should be granted to young men and women of high class--big\nS and upward--and that they should be encouraged to intermarry young. A\nscheme of \u201cdowries\u201d for diploma holders would obviously be the simplest\nthing in the world. And only the rules for identifying your great S T U\nand V in adolescence, are wanting from the symmetrical completeness of\nhis really very noble-spirited and high-class scheme.\n\nAt a more popular level Mrs. Victoria Woodhull Martin has battled\nbravely in the cause of the same foregone conclusion. The work\nof telling the world what it knows to be true will never want\nself-sacrificing workers. The _Humanitarian_ was her monthly organ of\npropaganda. Within its cover, which presented a luminiferous stark\nideal of exemplary muscularity, popular preachers, popular bishops, and\npopular anthropologists vied with titled ladies of liberal outlook in\nthe service of this conception. There was much therein about the Rapid\nMultiplication of the Unfit, a phrase never properly explained, and I\nmust confess that the transitory presence of this instructive little\nmagazine in my house, month after month (it is now, unhappily, dead),\ndid much to direct my attention to the gaps and difficulties that\nintervene between the general proposition and its practical application\nby sober and honest men. One took it up and asked time after time, \u201cWhy\nshould there be this queer flavour of absurdity and pretentiousness\nabout the thing?\u201d Before the _Humanitarian_ period I was entirely in\nagreement with the _Humanitarian\u2019s_ cause. It seemed to me then that to\nprevent the multiplication of people below a certain standard, and to\nencourage the multiplication of exceptionally superior people, was the\nonly real and permanent way of mending the ills of the world. I think\nthat still. In that way man has risen from the beasts, and in that way\nmen will rise to be over-men. In those days I asked in amazement\nwhy this thing was not done, and talked the usual nonsense about the\nobduracy and stupidity of the world. It is only after a considerable\namount of thought and inquiry that I am beginning to understand why\nfor many generations, perhaps, nothing of the sort can possibly be done\nexcept in the most marginal and tentative manner.\n\nIf to-morrow the whole world were to sign an unanimous round-robin\nto Mr. Francis Galton and Mrs. Victoria Woodhull Martin, admitting\nabsolutely their leading argument that it _is_ absurd to breed our\nhorses and sheep and improve the stock of our pigs and fowls, while we\nleave humanity to mate in the most heedless manner, and if, further,\nthe whole world, promising obedience, were to ask these two to gather\ntogether a consultative committee, draw up a scheme of rules, and start\nforthwith upon the great work of improving the human stock as fast as it\ncan be done, if it undertook that marriages should no longer be made in\nheaven or earth, but only under licence from that committee, I venture\nto think that, after a very brief epoch of fluctuating legislation, this\ncommittee, except for an extremely short list of absolute prohibitions,\nwould decide to leave matters almost exactly as they are now; it would\nrestore love and private preference to their ancient authority and\nfreedom, at the utmost it would offer some greatly qualified advice, and\nso released, it would turn its attention to those flaws and gaps in our\nknowledge that at present render these regulations no more than a theory\nand a dream.\n\nThe first difficulty these theorists ignore is this: we are, as a matter\nof fact, not a bit clear what points to breed for and what points to\nbreed out.\n\nThe analogy with the breeder of cattle is a very misleading one. He\nhas a very simple ideal, to which he directs the entire pairing of his\nstock. He breeds for beef, he breeds for calves and milk, he breeds\nfor a homogeneous docile herd. Towards that ideal he goes simply and\ndirectly, slaughtering and sparing, regardless entirely of any divergent\nvariation that may arise beneath his control. A young calf with an\nincipient sense of humour, with a bright and inquiring disposition, with\na gift for athleticism or a quaintly-marked hide, has no sort of chance\nwith him at all on that account. He can throw these proffered gifts\nof nature aside without hesitation. Which is just what our theoretical\nbreeders of humanity cannot venture to do. They do not want a\nhomogeneous race in the future at all. They want a rich interplay of\nfree, strong, and varied personalities, and that alters the nature of\nthe problem absolutely.\n\nThis the reader may dispute. He may admit the need of variety, but he\nmay argue that this variety must arise from a basis of common endowment.\nHe may say that in spite of the complication introduced by the\nconsideration that a divergent variation from one ideal may be a\ndivergence towards another ideal, there remain certain definable points,\nthat could be bred for universally, for all that.\n\nWhat are they?\n\nThere will be little doubt he will answer \u201cHealth.\u201d After that probably\nhe may say \u201cBeauty.\u201d In addition the reader of Mr. Galton\u2019s _Hereditary\nGenius_ will probably say, \u201cability,\u201d \u201ccapacity,\u201d \u201cgenius,\u201d and\n\u201cenergy.\u201d The reader of Doctor Nordau will add \u201csanity.\u201d And the\nreader of Mr. Archdall Reid will round up the list with \u201cimmunity\u201d from\ndipsomania and all contagious diseases. \u201cLet us mark our human beings,\u201d\n the reader of that way of thinking will suggest, \u201clet us give marks for\n\u2018health,\u2019 for \u2018ability,\u2019 for various sorts of specific immunity and so\nforth, and let us weed out those who are low in the scale and multiply\nthose who stand high. This will give us a straight way to practical\namelioration, and the difficulty you are trying to raise,\u201d he urges,\n\u201cvanishes forthwith.\u201d\n\nIt would, if these points were really points, if \u201cbeauty,\u201d \u201ccapacity,\u201d\n \u201chealth,\u201d and \u201csanity\u201d were simple and uniform things. Unfortunately\nthey are not simple, and with that fact a host of difficulties arise.\nLet me take first the most simple and obvious case of \u201cbeauty.\u201d If\nbeauty were a simple thing, it would be possible to arrange human beings\nin a simple scale, according to whether they had more or less of this\nsimple quality--just as one can do in the case of what are perhaps\nreally simple and breedable qualities--height or weight. This person,\none might say, is at eight in the scale of beauty, and this at ten,\nand this at twenty-seven. But it complicates the case beyond the\npossibilities of such a scale altogether when one begins to consider\nthat there are varieties and types of beauty having very wide\ndivergences and made up of a varying number of elements in dissimilar\nproportions. There is, for example, the flaxen, kindly beauty of the\nDutch type, the dusky Jewess, the tall, fair Scandinavian, the dark and\nbrilliant south Italian, the noble Roman, the dainty Japanese--to name\nno others. Each of these types has its peculiar and incommensurable\npoints, and within the limits of each type you will find a hundred\ndivergent, almost unanalyzable, styles, a beauty of expression, a beauty\nof carriage, a beauty of reflection, a beauty of repose, arising each\nfrom a quite peculiar proportion of parts and qualities, and having no\ndefinable relation at all to any of the others. If we were to imagine a\nhuman appearance as made up of certain elements, a, b, c, d, e, f, etc.,\nthen we might suppose that beauty in one case was attained by a certain\nhigh development of a and f, in another by a certain fineness of c and\nd, in another by a delightfully subtle ratio of f and b.\n\n                A, b, c, d, e, F, etc.\n                a, b, _c_, _d_, e, f, etc.\n                a, _b_, c, d, e, _F_, etc.,\n\nmight all, for example, represent different types of beauty. Beauty\nis neither a simple nor a constant thing; it is attainable through a\nvariety of combinations, just as the number 500 can be got by adding or\nmultiplying together a great variety of numerical arrangements. Two long\nnumerical formulae might both simplify out to 500, but half the length\nof one truncated and put end on to the truncated end of the other, might\ngive a very different result. It is quite conceivable that you might\nselect and wed together all the most beautiful people in the world and\nfind that in nine cases out of ten you had simply produced mediocre\noffspring or offspring below mediocrity. Out of the remaining tenth a\ngreat majority would be beautiful simply by \u201ctaking after\u201d one or other\nparent, simply through the predominance, the _prepotency,_ of one parent\nover the other, a thing that might have happened equally well if the\nother parent was plain. The first sort of beauty (in my three formulae)\nwedding the third sort of beauty, might simply result in a rather ugly\nexcess of F, and again the first sort might result from a combination of\n\n                a, b, c, d, e, _F_, etc.,\n                             and\n                _A_, b, c, d, e, f, etc.,\n\nneither of which arrangements, very conceivably, may be beautiful at all\nwhen it is taken alone. In this respect, at any rate, personal value and\nreproductive value may be two entirely different things.\n\nNow what the elements of personal aspect really are, what these\nelements a, b, c, d, e, f, etc., may be, we do not know with any sort\nof exactness. Possibly height, weight, presence of dark pigment in the\nhair, whiteness of skin, presence of hair upon the body, are simple\nelements in inheritance that will follow Galton\u2019s arithmetical treatment\nof heredity with some exactness. But we are not even sure of that. The\nheight of one particular person may be due to an exceptional length of\nleg and neck, of another to an abnormal length of the vertebral bodies\nof the backbone; the former may have a rather less than ordinary\nbackbone, the latter a stunted type of limb, and an intermarriage may\njust as conceivably (so far as our present knowledge goes) give the\nbackbone of the first and the legs of the second as it may a very tall\nperson.\n\nThe fact is that in this matter of beauty and breeding for beauty we are\ngroping in a corner where science has not been established. No doubt\nthe corner is marked out as a part of the \u201csphere of influence\u201d of\nanthropology, but there is not the slightest indication of an effective\noccupation among these raiding considerations and uncertain facts.\nUntil anthropology produces her Daltons and Davys we must fumble in this\ncorner, just as the old alchemists fumbled for centuries before the dawn\nof chemistry. Our utmost practice here must be empirical. We do not know\nthe elements of what we have, the human characteristics we are working\nupon to get that end. The sentimentalized affinities of young persons in\ntheir spring are just as likely to result in the improvement of the\nrace in this respect as the whole science of anthropology in its present\nstate of evolution.\n\nI have suggested that \u201cbeauty\u201d is a term applied to a miscellany of\nsynthetic results compounded of diverse elements in diverse proportions;\nand I have suggested that one can no more generalize about it in\nrelation to inheritance with any hope of effective application than one\ncan generalize about, say, \u201clumpy substances\u201d in relation to chemical\ncombination. By reasoning upon quite parallel lines nearly every\ncharacteristic with which Mr. Galton deals in his interesting and\nsuggestive but quite inconclusive works, can be demonstrated to consist\nin a similar miscellany. He speaks of \u201ceminence,\u201d of \u201csuccess,\u201d of\n\u201cability,\u201d of \u201czeal,\u201d and \u201cenergy,\u201d for example, and except for the\nlast two items I would submit that these qualities, though of enormous\npersonal value, are of no practical value in inheritance whatever; that\nto wed \u201cability\u201d to \u201cability\u201d may breed something less than mediocrity,\nand that \u201cability\u201d is just as likely or just as unlikely to be prepotent\nand to assert itself in descent with the most casually selected\npartner as it is with one picked with all the knowledge, or rather\npseudo-knowledge, anthropology in its present state can give us.\n\nWhen, however, we turn to \u201czeal\u201d or \u201cenergy\u201d or \u201cgo,\u201d we do seem to be\ndealing with a simpler and more transmissible thing. Let us assume that\nin this matter there is a wide range of difference that may be arranged\nin a direct and simple scale in quantitative relation to the gross\noutput of action of different human beings. One passes from the\nincessant employment of such a being as Gladstone at the one extreme,\na loquacious torrent of interests and achievements, to the extreme of\nphlegmatic lethargy on the other. Call the former a high energetic and\nthe latter low. Quite possibly it might be found that we could breed\n\u201chigh energetics.\u201d But before we did so we should have to consider\nvery gravely that the \u201cgo\u201d and \u201cenergy\u201d of a man have no ascertainable\nrelation to many other extremely important considerations. Your\nenergetic person may be moral or immoral, an unqualified egotist or as\npublic spirited as an ant, sane, or a raving lunatic. Your phlegmatic\nperson may ripen resolves and bring out truths, with the incomparable\nclearness of a long-exposed, slowly developed, slowly printed\nphotograph. A man who would exchange the slow gigantic toil of that\nsluggish and deliberate person, Charles Darwin, for the tumultuous\ninconsequence and (as some people think it) the net mischief of a\nGladstone, would no doubt be prepared to substitute a Catherine-wheel\nin active eruption for the watch of less adventurous men. But before\nwe could induce the community as a whole to make a similar exchange, he\nwould have to carry on a prolonged and vigorous propaganda.\n\nFor my own part--and I write as an ignorant man in a realm where\nignorance prevails--I am inclined to doubt the simplicity and\nhomogeneity even of this quality of \u201cenergy\u201d or \u201cgo.\u201d A person without\nrestraint, without intellectual conscience, without critical faculty,\nmay write and jabber and go to and fro and be here and there, simply\nbecause every impulse is obeyed so soon as it arises. Another person\nmay be built upon an altogether larger scale of energy, but may be\ndeliberate, concentrated, and fastidious, bent rather upon truth and\npermanence than upon any immediate quantitative result, and may appear\nto any one but an extremely penetrating critic, as inferior in energy to\nthe former. So far as our knowledge goes at present, what is popularly\nknown as \u201cenergy\u201d or \u201cgo\u201d is just as likely to be a certain net\npreponderance of a varied miscellany of impulsive qualities over a\nvaried miscellany of restraints and inhibitions, as it is to prove a\nsimple indivisible quality transmissible intact. We are so profoundly\nignorant in these matters, so far from anything worthy of the name of\nscience, that one view is just as permissible and just as untrustworthy\nas the other.\n\nEven the qualification of \u201chealth\u201d is not sufficient. A thoughtless\nperson may say with the most invincible air, \u201cParents should, at any\nrate, be healthy,\u201d but that alone is only a misleading vague formula for\ngood intentions. In the first place, there is every reason to believe\nthat transitory ill-health in the parent is of no consequence at all\nto the offspring. Neither does acquired constitutional ill-health\nnecessarily transmit to a child; it may or it may not react upon the\nchild\u2019s nutrition and training, but that is a question to consider\nlater. It is quite conceivable, it is highly probable, that there are\nhereditary forms of ill-health, and that they may be eliminated from the\nhuman lot by discreet and restrained pairing, but what they are and\nwhat are the specific conditions of their control we do not know. And\nfurthermore, we are scarcely more certain that the condition of \u201cperfect\nhealth\u201d in one human being is the same as the similarly named condition\nin another, than we are that the beauty of one type is made up of the\nsame essential elements as the beauty of another. Health is a balance, a\nbalance of blood against nerve, of digestion against secretion, of heart\nagainst brain. A heart of perfect health and vigour put into the body\nof a perfectly healthy man who is built upon a slighter scale than that\nheart, will swiftly disorganize the entire fabric, and burst its way\nto a haemorrhage in lung perhaps, or brain, or wherever the slightest\nrelative weakening permits. The \u201cperfect\u201d health of a negro may be\na quite dissimilar system of reactions to the \u201cperfect health\u201d of a\nvigorous white; you may blend them only to create an ailing mass of\nphysiological discords. \u201cHealth,\u201d just as much as these other things,\nis, for this purpose of marriage diplomas and the like, a vague,\nunserviceable synthetic quality. It serves each one of us for our\nprivate and conversational needs, but in this question it is not hard\nenough and sharp--enough for the thing we want it to do. Brought to the\nservice of this fine and complicated issue it breaks down altogether. We\ndo not know enough. We have not analyzed enough nor penetrated enough.\nThere is no science yet, worthy of the name, in any of these\nthings. [Footnote: This idea of attempting to define the elements in\ninheritance, although it is absent from much contemporary discussion,\nwas pretty evidently in mind in the very striking researches of the Abb\u00e9\nMendel to which Mr. Bateson--with a certain intemperance of manner--has\nrecently called attention. (Bateson, _Mendel\u2019s Principles of Heredity_,\nCambridge University Press, 1902.)]\n\nThese considerations should at least suffice to demonstrate the entire\nimpracticability of Mr. Galton\u2019s two suggestions. Moreover, this idea of\npicking out high-scale individuals in any particular quality or group of\nqualities and breeding them, is not the way of nature at all. Nature\nis not a breeder; she is a reckless coupler and--she slays. It was a\npopular misconception of the theory of the Survival of the Fittest,\na misconception Lord Salisbury was at great pains to display to the\nBritish Association in 1894, that the average of a species in any\nrespect is raised by the selective inter-breeding of the individuals\nabove the average. Lord Salisbury was no doubt misled, as most people\nwho share his mistake have been misled, by the grammatical error of\nemploying the Survival of the Fittest for the Survival of the Fitter, in\norder to escape a scarcely ambiguous ambiguity. But the use of the\nword \u201cSurvival\u201d should have sufficed to indicate that the real point of\napplication of the force by which Nature modifies species and raises\nthe average in any quality, lies not in selective breeding, but in the\ndisproportionately numerous deaths of the individuals below the average.\nAnd even the methods of the breeder of cattle, if they are to produce a\npermanent alteration in the species of cattle, must consist not only\nin breeding the desirable but in either killing the undesirable, or\nat least--what is the quintessence, the inner reality of death--in\npreventing them from breeding.\n\nThe general trend of thought in Mrs. Martin\u2019s _Humanitarian_ was\ncertainly more in accordance with this reading of biological science\nthan were Mr. Galton\u2019s proposals. There was a much greater insistence\nupon the need of \u201celimination,\u201d upon the evil of the \u201cRapid\nMultiplication of the Unfit,\u201d a word that, however, was never defined\nand, I believe, really did not mean anything in particular in this\nconnection. And directly one does attempt to define it, directly one\nsits down in a businesslike way to apply the method of elimination\ninstead of the method of selection, one is immediately confronted by\nalmost as complex an entanglement of difficulties in defining points to\nbreed out as one is by defining points to breed for. Almost, I say, but\nnot quite. For here there does seem to be, if not certainties, at least\na few plausible probabilities that a vigorous and systematic criticism\nmay perhaps hammer into generalizations of sufficient certainty to go\nupon.\n\nI believe that long before humanity has hammered out the question of\nwhat is pre-eminently desirable in inheritance, a certain number of\nthings will have been isolated and defined as pre-eminently undesirable.\nBut before these are considered, let us sweep out of our present\nregard a number of cruel and mischievous ideas that are altogether too\nascendant at the present time.\n\nAnthropology has been compared to a great region, marked out indeed as\nwithin the sphere of influence of science, but unsettled and for the\nmost part unsubdued. Like all such hinterland sciences, it is a happy\nhunting-ground for adventurers. Just as in the early days of British\nSomaliland, rascals would descend from nowhere in particular upon\nunfortunate villages, levy taxes and administer atrocity in the name of\nthe Empire, and even, I am told, outface for a time the modest heralds\nof the government, so in this department of anthropology the public mind\nsuffers from the imposition of theories and assertions claiming to be\n\u201cscientific,\u201d which have no more relation to that organized system of\ncriticism which is science, than a brigand at large on a mountain has\nto the machinery of law and police, by which finally he will be hanged.\nAmong such raiding theorists none at present are in quite such urgent\nneed of polemical suppression as those who would persuade the heedless\ngeneral reader that every social failure is necessarily a \u201cdegenerate,\u201d\n and who claim boldly that they can trace a distinctly evil and\nmischievous strain in that unfortunate miscellany which constitutes \u201cthe\ncriminal class.\u201d They invoke the name of \u201cscience\u201d with just as much\nconfidence and just as much claim as the early Victorian phrenologists.\nThey speak and write with ineffable profundity about the \u201ccriminal\u201d ear,\nthe \u201ccriminal\u201d thumb, the \u201ccriminal\u201d glance. They gain access to gaols\nand pester unfortunate prisoners with callipers and cameras, and quite\nunforgivable prying into personal and private matters, and they hold\nout great hopes that by these expedients they will evolve at last a\n\u201cscientific\u201d revival of the Kaffir\u2019s witch-smelling. We shall catch our\ncriminals by anthropometry ere ever a criminal thought has entered their\nbrains. \u201cPrevention is better than cure.\u201d These mattoid scientists\nmake a direct and disastrous attack upon the latent self-respect of\ncriminals. And not only upon that tender plant, but also upon the\nsprings of human charity towards the criminal class. For the complex\nand varied chapter of accidents that carries men into that net of\nprecautions, expedients, prohibitions, and vindictive reprisals, the\nnet of the law, they would have us believe there is a fatal necessity\ninherent in their being. Criminals are born, not made, they allege. No\nlonger are we to say, \u201cThere, but for the grace of God, go I\u201d--when the\nconvict tramps past us--but, \u201cThere goes another sort of animal that\nis differentiating from my species and which I would gladly see\nexterminated.\u201d\n\nNow every man who has searched his heart knows that this formulation of\n\u201ccriminality\u201d as a specific quality is a stupidity, he knows himself to\nbe a criminal, just as most men know themselves to be sexually rogues.\nNo man is born with an instinctive respect for the rights of any\nproperty but his own, and few with a passion for monogamy. No man who\nis not an outrageously vain and foolish creature but will confess\nto himself that but for advantages and accidents, but for a chance\nhesitation or a lucky timidity, he, too, had been there, under the\nridiculous callipers of witless anthropology. A criminal is no doubt of\nless personal value to the community than a law-abiding citizen of the\nsame general calibre, but _it does not follow for one moment that he\nis of less value as a parent._ His personal disaster may be due to the\npossession of a bold and enterprising character, of a degree of pride\nand energy above the needs of the position his social surroundings have\nforced upon him. Another citizen may have all this man\u2019s desires and\nimpulses, checked and sterilized by a lack of nervous energy, by an\nabject fear of the policeman and of the consequences of the disapproval\nof his more prosperous fellow-citizens. I will frankly confess that for\nmy own part I prefer the wicked to the mean, and that I would rather\ntrust the future to the former strain than to the latter. Whatever\npreference the reader may entertain, there remains this unmistakable\nobjection to its application to breeding, that \u201ccriminality\u201d is not a\nspecific simple quality, but a complex that may interfuse with other\ncomplexes to give quite incalculable results in the offspring it\nproduces. So that here again, on the negative side, we find a general\nexpression unserviceable for our use. [Footnote: No doubt the home of\nthe criminal and social failure is generally disastrous to the children\nborn into it. That is a question that will be fully dealt; with in\na subsequent paper, and I note it here only to point out that it is\noutside our present discussion, which is concerned not with the fate of\nchildren born into the world, but with the prior question whether we\nmay hope to improve the quality of the average birth by encouraging some\nsorts of people to have children and discouraging or forbidding others.\nIt is of vital importance to keep these two questions distinct, if we\nare to get at last to a basis for effective action.]\n\nBut it will be alleged that although criminality as a whole means\nnothing definite enough for our purpose, there can be picked out and\ndefined certain criminal (or at any rate disastrous) tendencies that\nare simple, specific and transmissible. Those who have read Mr. Archdall\nReid\u2019s _Alcoholism_, for example, will know that he deals constantly\nwith what is called the \u201cdrink craving\u201d as if it were such a specific\nsimple inheritance. He makes a very strong case for this belief, but\nstrong as it is, I do not think it is going to stand the pressure of\na rigorously critical examination. He points out that races which\nhave been in possession of alcoholic drinks the longest are the least\ndrunken, and this he ascribes to the \u201celimination\u201d of all those whose\n\u201cdrink craving\u201d is too strong for them. Nations unused to alcoholic\ndrink are most terribly ravaged at its first coming to them, may even be\ndestroyed by it, in precisely the same way that new diseases coming to\npeoples unused to them are far more malignant than among peoples who\nhave suffered from them generation after generation. Such instances\nas the terrible ravages of measles in Polynesia and the ruin worked by\nfire-water among the Red Indians, he gives in great abundance. He infers\nfrom this that interference with the sale of drink to a people may\nin the long run do more harm than good, by preserving those who would\notherwise be eliminated, permitting them to multiply and so, generation\nby generation, lowering the resisting power of the race. And he proposes\nto divert temperance legislation from the persecution of drink makers\nand sellers, to such remedies as the punishment of declared and\nindisputable drunkards if they incur parentage, and the extension of the\ngrounds of divorce to include this ugly and disastrous habit.\n\nI am not averse to Mr. Reid\u2019s remedies because I think of the wife and\nthe home, but I would not go so far with him as to consider this \u201cdrink\ncraving\u201d specific and simple, and I retain an open mind about the sale\nof drink. He has not convinced me that there is an inherited \u201cdrink\ncraving\u201d any more than there is an inherited tea craving or an inherited\nmorphia craving.\n\nIn the first place I would propound a certain view of the general\nquestion of habits. My own private observations in psychology incline me\nto believe that people vary very much in their power of acquiring habits\nand in the strength and fixity of the habits they acquire. My most\nimmediate subject of psychological study, for example, is a man of\nuntrustworthy memory who is nearly incapable of a really deep-rooted\nhabit. Nothing is automatic with him. He crams and forgets languages\nwith an equal ease, gives up smoking after fifteen years of constant\npractice; shaves with a conscious effort every morning and is capable\nof forgetting to do so if intent upon anything else. He is generally\nself-indulgent, capable of keen enjoyment and quite capable of\nintemperance, but he has no invariable delights and no besetting sin.\nSuch a man will not become an habitual drunkard; he will not become\nanything \u201chabitual.\u201d But with another type of man habit is indeed second\nnature. Instead of the permanent fluidity of my particular case, such\npeople are continually tending to solidify and harden. Their memories\nset, their opinions set, their methods of expression set, their delights\nrecur and recur, they convert initiative into mechanical habit day by\nday. Let them taste any pleasure and each time they taste it they\ndeepen a need. At last their habits become imperative needs. With such\na disposition, external circumstances and suggestions, I venture to\nbelieve, may make a man either into an habitual church-goer or\nan habitual drunkard, an habitual toiler or an habitual rake. A\nself-indulgent rather unsocial habit-forming man may very easily become\nwhat is called a dipsomaniac, no doubt, but that is not the same thing\nas an inherited specific craving. With drink inaccessible and other\nvices offering his lapse may take another line. An aggressive, proud and\ngreatly mortified man may fall upon the same courses. An unwary youth of\nthe plastic type may be taken unawares and pass from free indulgence to\nexcess before he perceives that a habit is taking hold of him.\n\nI believe that many causes and many temperaments go to the making of\ndrunkards. I have read a story by the late Sir Walter Besant, in which\nhe presents the specific craving as if it were a specific magic curse.\nThe story was supposed to be morally edifying, but I can imagine this\nugly superstition of the \u201chereditary craving\u201d--it is really nothing\nmore--acting with absolutely paralyzing effect upon some credulous\nyoungster struggling in the grip of a developing habit. \u201cIt\u2019s no good\ntrying,\u201d--that quite infernal phrase!\n\nIt may be urged that this attempt to whittle down the \u201cinherited\ncraving\u201d to a habit does not meet Mr. Reid\u2019s argument from the gradual\nincrease of resisting power in races subjected to alcoholic temptation,\nan increase due to the elimination of all the more susceptible\nindividuals. There can be no denying that those nations that have had\nfermented drinks longest are the soberest, but that, after all, may be\nonly one aspect of much more extensive operations. The nations that have\nhad fermented drinks the longest are also those that have been civilized\nthe longest. The passage of a people from a condition of agricultural\ndispersal to a more organized civilization means a very extreme change\nin the conditions of survival, of which the increasing intensity\nof temptation to alcoholic excess is only one aspect. Gluttony, for\nexample, becomes a much more possible habit, and many other vices tender\ndeath for the first time to the men who are gathering in and about\ntowns. The city demands more persistent, more intellectualized and less\nintense physical desires than the countryside. Moral qualities that were\na disadvantage in the dispersed stage become advantageous in the\ncity, and conversely. Rugged independence ceases to be helpful, and an\nintelligent turn for give and take, for collaboration and bargaining,\nmakes increasingly for survival. Moreover, there grows very slowly an\nindefinable fabric of traditional home training in restraint that is\nvery hard to separate in analysis from mental heredity. People who have\ndwelt for many generations in towns are not only more temperate and less\nexplosive in the grosser indulgences, but more _urbane_ altogether. The\ndrunken people are also the \u201cuncivil\u201d peoples and the individualistic\npeoples. The great prevalence of drunkenness among the upper classes two\ncenturies ago can hardly have been bred out in the intervening six or\nseven generations, and it is also a difficult fact for Mr. Reid that\ndrunkenness has increased in France. In most of the cases cited by\nMr. Reid a complex of operating forces could be stated in which the\nappearance of fermented liquors is only one factor, and a tangle of\nconsequent changes in which a gradually increasing insensibility to the\ncharms of intoxication was only one thread. Drunkenness has no doubt\nplayed a large part in eliminating certain types of people from the\nworld, but that it specifically eliminates one specific definable type\nis an altogether different matter.\n\nEven if we admit Mr. Reid\u2019s conception, this by no means solves the\nproblem. It is quite conceivable that the world could purchase certain\nsorts of immunity too dearly. If it was a common thing to adorn the\nparapets of houses in towns with piles of loose bricks, it is certain\nthat a large number of persons not immune to fracture of the skull by\nfalling bricks would be eliminated. A time would no doubt come\nwhen those with a specific liability to skull fracture would all be\neliminated, and the human cranium would have developed a practical\nimmunity to damage from all sorts of falling substances. But there\nwould have been far more extensive suppressions than would appear in the\nletter of the agreement.\n\nThis no doubt is a caricature of the case, but it will serve to\nillustrate my contention that until we possess a far more subtle and\nthorough analysis of the drunkard\u2019s physique and mind--if it really is a\ndistinctive type of mind and physique--than we have at present, we\nhave no justification whatever in artificial intervention to increase\nwhatever eliminatory process may at present be going on in this respect.\nEven if there is such a specific weakness, it is possible it has a\nperiod of maximum intensity, and if that should be only a brief phase\nin development--let us say at adolescence--it might turn out to be much\nmore to the advantage of humanity to contrive protective legislation\nover the dangerous years. I argue to establish no view in these matters\nbeyond a view that at present we know very little.\n\nNot only do ignorance and doubt bar our way to anything more than a\npious wish to eliminate criminality and drunkenness in a systematic\nmanner, but even the popular belief in ruthless suppression whenever\nthere is \u201cmadness in the family\u201d will not stand an intelligent scrutiny.\nThe man in the street thinks madness is a fixed and definite thing, as\ndistinct from sanity as black is from white. He is always exasperated\nat the hesitation of doctors when in a judicial capacity he demands: \u201cIs\nthis man mad or isn\u2019t he?\u201d But a very little reading of alienists will\ndissolve this clear assurance. Here again it seems possible that we have\na number of states that we are led to believe are simple because they\nare gathered together under the generic word \u201cmadness,\u201d but which\nmay represent a considerable variety of induced and curable and\nnon-inheritable states on the one hand and of innate and incurable and\nheritable mental disproportions on the other.\n\nThe less gifted portion of the educated public was greatly delighted\nsome years ago by a work by Dr. Nordau called _Degeneration_, in which\na great number of abnormal people were studied in a pseudo-scientific\nmanner and shown to be abnormal beyond any possibility of dispute.\nMostly the samples selected were men of exceptional artistic and\nliterary power. The book was pretentious and inconsistent--the late Lord\nTennyson was quoted, I remember, as a typically \u201csane\u201d poet in spite\nof the scope afforded by his melodramatic personal appearance and his\nmorbid passion for seclusion--but it did at least serve to show that if\nwe cannot call a man stupid we may almost invariably call him mad with\nsome show of reason. The public read the book for the sake of its abuse,\napplied the intended conclusion to every success that awakened its envy,\nand failed altogether to see how absolutely the definition of madness\nwas destroyed. But if madness is indeed simply genius out of hand and\ngenius only madness under adequate control; if imagination is a snare\nonly to the unreasonable and a disordered mind only an excess of\nintellectual enterprise--and really none of these things can be\npositively disproved--then just as reasonable as the idea of suppressing\nthe reproduction of madness, is the idea of breeding it! Let us take all\nthese dull, stagnant, respectable people, one might say, who do nothing\nbut conform to whatever rule is established about them and obstruct\nwhatever change is proposed to them, whose chief quality is a sheer\nincapacity to imagine anything beyond their petty experiences, and let\nus tell them plainly, \u201cIt is time a lunatic married into your family.\u201d\n Let no one run away from this with the statement that I propose such a\nthing should be done, but it is, at any rate in the present state of\nour knowledge, as reasonable a proposal, to make as its quite frequently\nreiterated converse.\n\nIf in any case we are in a position to intervene and definitely forbid\nincrease, it is in the case of certain specific diseases, which I\nam told are painful and disastrous and inevitably transmitted to the\noffspring of the person suffering from these diseases. If there are such\ndiseases--and that is a question the medical profession should be able\nto decide--it is evident that to incur parentage while one suffers\nfrom one of them or to transmit them in any avoidable way, is a cruel,\ndisastrous and abominable act. If such a thing is possible it seems to\nme that in view of the guiding principle laid down in these papers it\nmight well be put at the nadir of crime, and I doubt if any step the\nState might take to deter and punish the offender, short of torture,\nwould meet with opposition from sane and reasonable men. For my own part\nI am inclined at times almost to doubt if there are such diseases. If\nthere are, the remedy is so simple and obvious, that I cannot but blame\nthe medical profession for very discreditable silences. I am no believer\nin the final wisdom of the mass of mankind, but I do believe enough in\nthe sanity of the English-speaking peoples to be certain that any clear\nstatement and instruction they received from the medical profession, as\na whole, in these matters, would be faithfully observed. In the face\nof the collective silence of this great body of specialists, there is\nnothing for it but to doubt such diseases exist.\n\nSuch a systematic suppression of a specific disease or so is really the\nutmost that could be done with any confidence at present, so far as the\nState and collective action go. [Footnote: Since the above was written,\na correspondent in Honolulu has called my attention to a short but most\nsuggestive essay by Doctor Harry Campbell in the _Lancet_, 1898, ii.,\np. 678. He uses, of course, the common medical euphemism of \u201cshould not\nmarry\u201d for \u201cshould not procreate,\u201d and he gives the following as a list\nof \u201cbars to marriage\u201d: pulmonary consumption, organic heart disease,\nepilepsy, insanity, diabetes, chronic Bright\u2019s disease, and rheumatic\nfever. I wish I had sufficient medical knowledge to analyze that\nproposal. He mentions inherited defective eyesight and hearing also, and\nthe \u201cneurotic\u201d quality, with which I have dealt in my text. He adds two\nother suggestions that appeal to me very strongly. He proposes to bar\nall \u201ccases of non-accidental disease in which life is saved by the\nsurgeon\u2019s knife,\u201d and he instances particularly, strangulated hernia and\novarian cyst. And he also calls attention to apoplectic breakdown\nand premature senility. All these are suggestions of great value for\nindividual conduct, but none of them have that quality of certainty\nthat justifies collective action.] Until great advances are made in\nanthropology--and at present there are neither men nor endowments to\njustify the hope that any such advances will soon be made--that is as\nmuch as can be done hopefully for many years in the selective breeding\nof individuals by the community as a whole. [Footnote: If at any time\ncertainties should replace speculations in the field of inheritance,\nthen I fancy the common-sense of humanity will be found to be in favour\nof the immediate application of that knowledge to life.] At present\nalmost every citizen in the civilized State respects the rules of the\nlaws of consanguinity, so far as they affect brothers and sisters, with\nan absolute respect--an enormous triumph of training over instinct, as\nDr. Beattie Crozier has pointed out--and if in the future it should be\nfound possible to divide up humanity into groups, some of which could\npair with one another only to the disadvantage of the offspring, and\nsome of which had better have no offspring, I believe there would\nbe remarkably little difficulty in enforcing a system of taboos in\naccordance with such knowledge. Only it would have to be absolutely\ncertain knowledge proved and proved again up to the hilt. If a truth is\nworth application it is worth hammering home, and we have no right to\nexpect common men to obey conclusions upon which specialists are as\nyet not lucidly agreed. [Footnote: It has been pointed out to me by my\nfriend, Mr. Graham Wallas, that although the State may not undertake\nany positive schemes for selective breeding in the present state of our\nknowledge, it can no more evade a certain reaction upon these things\nthan the individual can evade a practical solution. Although we\ncannot say of any specific individual that he or she is, or is not, of\nexceptional reproductive value to the State, we may still be able, he\nthinks, to point out classes which are very probably, as a whole, _good_\nreproductive classes, and we may be able to promote, or at least to\navoid hindering, their increase. He instances the female elementary\nteacher as being probably, as a type, a more intelligent and more\nenergetic and capable girl than the average of the stratum from which\nshe arises, and he concludes she has a higher reproductive value--a view\ncontrary to my argument in the text that reproductive and personal value\nare perhaps independent. He tells me that it is the practice of many\nlarge school boards in this country to dismiss women teachers on\nmarriage, or to refuse promotion to these when they become mothers,\nwhich is, of course, bad for the race if personal and reproductive value\nare identical. He would have them retain their positions regardless of\nthe check to their efficiency maternity entails. This is a curiously\nindirect way towards what one might call Galtonism. Practically he\nproposes to endow mothers in the name of education. For my own part I do\nnot agree with him that this class, any more than any other class, can\nbe shown to have a high reproductive value--which is the matter under\nanalysis in this paper--though I will admit that an ex-teacher will\nprobably do infinitely more for her children than if she were an\nilliterate or untrained woman. I can only reiterate my conviction that\nnothing really effective can be organized in these matters until we are\nmuch clearer than we are at present in our ideas about them, and that\na public body devoted to education has no business either to impose\ncelibacy, or subsidize families, or experiment at all in these affairs.\nNot only in the case of elementary teachers, but in the case of\nsoldiers, sailors, and so on, the State may do much to promote or\ndiscourage marriage and offspring, and no doubt it is also true, as Mr.\nWallas insists, that the problems of the foreign immigrant and of racial\nintermarriage, loom upon us. But since we have no applicable science\nwhatever here, since there is no certainty in any direction that any\ncollective course may not be collectively evil rather than good, there\nis nothing for it, I hold, but to leave these things to individual\nexperiment, and to concentrate our efforts where there is a clearer hope\nof effective consequence. Leave things to individual initiative and some\nof us will, by luck or inspiration, go right; take public action on\nan insufficient basis of knowledge and there is a clear prospect of\ncollective error. The imminence of these questions argues for nothing\nexcept prompt and vigorous research.]\n\nThat, however, is only one aspect of this question. There are others\nfrom which the New Republican may also approach this problem of the\nquality of the birth supply.\n\nIn relation to personal conduct all these things assume another colour\naltogether. Let us be clear upon that point. The state, the community,\nmay only act upon certainties, but the essential fact in individual life\nis experiment. Individuality is experiment. While in matters of public\nregulation and control it is wiser not to act at all than to act upon\ntheories and uncertainties; while the State may very well wait for\na generation or half a dozen generations until knowledge comes up to\nthese--at present--insoluble problems, the private life _must_ go on\nnow, and go upon probabilities where certainties fail. When we do not\nknow what is indisputably right, then we have to use our judgments\nto the utmost to do each what seems to him probably right. The New\nRepublican in his private life and in the exercise of his private\ninfluence, must do what seems to him best for the race; [Footnote: He\nwould certainly try to discourage this sort of thing. The paragraph is\nfrom the _Morning Post_ (Sept., 1902):--\n\n\u201c_Wedded in Silence_.--A deaf and dumb wedding was celebrated at Saffron\nWalden yesterday, when Frederick James Baish and Emily Lettige King,\nboth deaf and dumb, were married. The bride was attended by deaf and\ndumb bridesmaids, and upwards of thirty deaf and dumb friends were\npresent. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. A. Payne, of the Deaf\nand Dumb Church, London.\u201d] he must not beget children heedlessly and\nunwittingly because of his incomplete assurance. It is pretty obviously\nhis duty to examine himself patiently and thoroughly, and if he feels\nthat he is, on the whole, an average or rather more than an average man,\nthen upon the cardinal principle laid down in our first paper, it is\nhis most immediate duty to have children and to equip them fully for\nthe affairs of life. Moreover he will, I think, lose no opportunity of\nspeaking and acting in such a manner as to restore to marriage something\nof the solemnity and gravity the Victorian era--that age of nasty\nsentiment, sham delicacy and giggles--has to so large an extent refused\nto give it.\n\nAnd though the New Republicans, in the existing lack of real guiding\nknowledge, will not dare to intervene in specific cases, there is\nanother method of influencing parentage that men of good intent may\nwell bear in mind. To attack a specific type is one thing, to attack a\nspecific quality is another. It may be impossible to set aside selected\npersons from the population and say to them, \u201cYou are cowardly, weak,\nsilly, mischievous people, and if we tolerate you in this world it is on\ncondition that you do not found families.\u201d But it may be quite possible\nto bear in mind that the law and social arrangements may foster and\nprotect the cowardly and the mean, may guard stupidity against the\ncompetition of enterprise, and may secure honour, power and authority\nin the hands of the silly and the base; and, by the guiding principle we\nhave set before ourselves, to seek every conceivable alteration of such\nlaws and such social arrangements is no more than the New Republican\u2019s\nduty. It may be impossible to select and intermarry the selected best\nof our race, but at any rate we can do a thousand things to equalize the\nchances and make good and desirable qualities lead swiftly and clearly\nto ease and honourable increase.\n\nAt present it is a shameful and embittering fact that a gifted man from\nthe poorer strata of society must too often buy his personal development\nat the cost of his posterity; he must either die childless and\nsuccessful for the children of the stupid to reap what he has sown, or\nsacrifice his gift--a wretched choice and an evil thing for the world at\nlarge. [Footnote: This aspect of New Republican possibilities comes in\nagain at another stage, and at that stage its treatment will be resumed.\nThe method and possibility of binding up discredit and failure with\nmean and undesirable qualities, and of setting a premium upon the\nnobler attributes, is a matter that touches not only upon the quality of\nbirths, but upon the general educational quality of the State in which\na young citizen develops. It is convenient to hold over any detailed\nexpansions of this, therefore, until we come to the general question,\nhow the laws, institutions and customs of to-day go to make or unmake\nthe men of to-morrow.]\n\nSo far at least we may go, towards improving the quality of the average\nbirth now, but it is manifestly only a very slow and fractional advance\nthat we shall get by these expedients. The obstacle to any ampler\nenterprise is ignorance and ignorance alone--not the ignorance of a\nmajority in relation to a minority, but an absolute want of knowledge.\nIf we knew more we could do more.\n\nOur main attack in this enterprise of improving the birth supply must\nlie, therefore, through research. If we cannot act ourselves, we may\nyet hold a light for our children to see. At present, if there is a man\nspecially gifted and specially disposed for such intricate and laborious\ninquiry, such criticism and experiment as this question demands, the\nworld offers him neither food nor shelter, neither attention nor help;\nhe cannot hope for a tithe of such honours as are thrust in profusion\nupon pork-butchers and brewers, he will be heartily despised by\nninety-nine per cent. of the people he encounters, and unless he has\nsome irrelevant income, he will die childless and his line will perish\nwith him, for all the service he may give to the future of mankind.\nAnd as great mental endowments do not, unhappily, necessarily involve\na passion for obscurity, contempt and extinction, it is probable that\nunder existing conditions such a man will give his mind to some pursuit\nless bitterly unremunerative and shameful. It is a stupid superstition\nthat \u201cgenius will out\u201d in spite of all discouragement. The fact that\ngreat men have risen against crushing disadvantages in the past proves\nnothing of the sort; this roll-call of survivors does no more than give\nthe measure of the enormous waste of human possibility human stupidity\nhas achieved. Men of exceptional gifts have the same broad needs as\ncommon men, food, clothing, honour, attention, and the help of their\nfellows in self-respect; they may not need them as ends, but they need\nthem by the way, and at present the earnest study of heredity produces\nnone of these bye-products. It lies before the New Republican to tilt\nthe balance in this direction.\n\nThere are, no doubt, already a number of unselfish and fortunately\nplaced men who are able to do a certain amount of work in this\ndirection; Professor Cossar Ewart, for example, one of those fine,\nsubtle, unhonoured workers who are the glory of British science and\nthe condemnation of our social order, has done much to clarify the\ndiscussion of telegony and prepotency, and there are many such medical\nmen as Mr. Reid who broaden their daily practice by attention to\nthese great issues. One thinks of certain other names. Professors Karl\nPearson, Weldon, Lloyd Morgan, J. A. Thomson and Meldola, Dr. Benthall\nand Messrs. Bateson, Cunningham, Pocock, Havelock Ellis, E. A. Fay\nand Stuart Menteath occur to me, only to remind me how divided their\nattention has had to be. As many others, perhaps, have slipped my\nmemory now. Not half a hundred altogether in all this wide world of\nEnglish-speaking men! For one such worker we need fifty if this science\nof heredity is to grow to practicable proportions. We need a literature,\nwe need a special public and an atmosphere of attention and discussion.\nEvery man who grasps the New Republican idea brings these needs nearer\nsatisfaction, but if only some day the New Republic could catch the\near of a prince, a little weary of being the costumed doll of grown-up\nchildren, the decoy dummy of fashionable tradesmen, or if it could\ninvade and capture the mind of a multi-millionaire, these things might\ncome almost at a stride. This missing science of heredity, this unworked\nmine of knowledge on the borderland of biology and anthropology, which\nfor all practical purposes is as unworked now as it was in the days of\nPlato, is, in simple truth, ten times more important to humanity than\nall the chemistry and physics, all the technical and industrial science\nthat ever has been or ever will be discovered.\n\nSo much for the existing possibilities of making the race better by\nbreeding. For the rest of these papers we shall take the births into the\nworld, for the most part, as we find them.\n\n[Mr. Stuart Menteath remarks _apropos_ of this question of the\nreproduction of exceptional people that it is undesirable to suggest\nvoluntary extinction in any case. If a man, thinking that his family\nis \u201ctainted,\u201d displays so much foresighted patriotism, humility, and\nlifelong self-denial as to have no children, the presumption is that the\nloss to humanity by the discontinuance of such a type is greater than\nthe gain. \u201cConceit in smallest bodies strongest works,\u201d and it does\nnot follow that a sense of one\u2019s own excellence justifies one\u2019s utmost\nfecundity or the reverse. Mr. Vrooman, who, with Mrs. Vrooman, founded\nRuskin Hall at Oxford, writes to much the same effect. He argues that\npeople intelligent enough and moral enough to form such resolutions are\njust the sort of people who ought not to form them. Mr. Stuart Menteath\nalso makes a most admirable suggestion with regard to male and female\ngeniuses who are absorbed in their careers. Although the genius may not\nhave or rear a large family, something might be done to preserve the\nstock by assisting his or her brothers and sisters to support and\neducate their children.]\n\n\n\n\nIII. CERTAIN WHOLESALE ASPECTS OF MAN-MAKING\n\n\n\u00a7 1\n\n\nWith a skin of infinite delicacy that life will harden very speedily,\nwith a discomforted writhing little body, with a weak and wailing outcry\nthat stirs the heart, the creature comes protesting into the world, and\nunless death win a victory, we and chance and the forces of life in\nit, make out of that soft helplessness a man. Certain things there are\ninevitable in that man and unalterable, stamped upon his being long\nbefore the moment of his birth, the inherited things, the inherent\nthings, his final and fundamental self. This is his \u201cheredity,\u201d his\nincurable reality, the thing that out of all his being, stands the test\nof survival and passes on to his children. Certain things he must be,\ncertain things he may be, and certain things are for ever beyond his\nscope. That much his parentage defines for him, that is the natural man.\n\nBut, in addition, there is much else to make up the whole adult man as\nwe know him. There is all that he has learnt since his birth, all that\nhe has been taught to do and trained to do, his language, the circle of\nideas he has taken to himself, the disproportions that come from unequal\nexercise and the bias due to circumambient suggestion. There are a\nthousand habits and a thousand prejudices, powers undeveloped and skill\nlaboriously acquired. There are scars upon his body, and scars upon his\nmind. All these are secondary things, things capable of modification and\navoidance; they constitute the manufactured man, the artificial man.\nAnd it is chiefly with all this superposed and adherent and artificial\nportion of a man that this and the following paper will deal. The\nquestion of improving the breed, of raising the average human heredity\nwe have discussed and set aside. We are going to draw together now as\nmany things as possible that bear upon the artificial constituent, the\nmade and controllable constituent in the mature and fully-developed man.\nWe are going to consider how it is built up and how it may be built up,\nwe are going to attempt a rough analysis of the whole complex process by\nwhich the civilized citizen is evolved from that raw and wailing little\ncreature.\n\nBefore his birth, at the very moment when his being becomes possible,\nthe inherent qualities and limitations of a man are settled for good and\nall, whether he will be a negro or a white man, whether he will be free\nor not of inherited disease, whether he will be passionate or phlegmatic\nor imaginative or six-fingered or with a snub or aquiline nose. And not\nonly that, but even before his birth the qualities that are not strictly\nand inevitably inherited are also beginning to be made. The artificial,\nthe avoidable handicap also, may have commenced in the worrying, the\noverworking or the starving of his mother. In the first few months\nof his life very slight differences in treatment may have life-long\nconsequences. No doubt there is an extraordinary recuperative power in\nvery young children; if they do not die under neglect or ill-treatment\nthey recover to an extent incomparably greater than any adult could do,\nbut there remains still a wide marginal difference between what they\nbecome and what they might have been. With every year of life the\nrecuperative quality diminishes, the initial handicap becomes more\nirrevocable, the effects of ill-feeding, of unwholesome surroundings,\nof mental and moral infections, become more inextricably a part of the\ngrowing individuality. And so we may well begin our study by considering\nthe circumstances under which the opening phase, the first five years of\nlife, are most safely and securely passed.\n\nFood, warmth, cleanliness and abundant fresh air there must be from\nthe first, and unremitting attention, such attention as only love can\nsustain. And in addition there must be knowledge. It is a pleasant\nsuperstition that Nature (who in such connections becomes feminine and\nassumes a capital N) is to be trusted in these matters. It is a pleasant\nsuperstition to which, some of us, under the agreeable counsels of\nsentimental novelists, of thoughtless mercenary preachers, and ignorant\nand indolent doctors, have offered up a child or so. We are persuaded\nto believe that a mother has an instinctive knowledge of whatever is\nnecessary for a child\u2019s welfare, and the child, until it reaches the\nknuckle-rapping age at least, an instinctive knowledge of its own\nrequirements. Whatever proceedings are most suggestive of an ideal\nnaked savage leading a \u201cnatural\u201d life, are supposed to be not only\nmore advantageous to the child but in some mystical way more moral. The\nspectacle of an undersized porter-fed mother, for example, nursing a\nspotted and distressful baby, is exalted at the expense of the clean\nand simple artificial feeding that is often advisable to-day. Yet the\nmortality of first-born children should indicate that a modern woman\ncarries no instinctive system of baby management about with her in her\nbrain, even if her savage ancestress had anything of the sort, and both\nthe birth rate and the infantile death rate of such noble savages as\nour civilization has any chance of observing, suggest a certain generous\ncarelessness, a certain spacious indifference to individual misery,\nrather than a trustworthy precision of individual guidance about\nNature\u2019s way.\n\nThis cant of Nature\u2019s trustworthiness is partly a survival of the day of\nRousseau and Sturm (of the Reflections), when untravelled men, orthodox\nand unorthodox alike, in artificial wigs, spouted in unison in this\nregard; partly it is the half instinctive tactics of the lax and\nlazy-minded to evade trouble and austerities. The incompetent medical\npractitioner, incapable of regimen, repeats this cant even to-day,\nthough he knows full well that, left to Nature, men over-eat themselves\nalmost as readily as dogs, contract a thousand diseases and exhaust\ntheir last vitality at fifty, and that half the white women in the world\nwould die with their first children still unborn. He knows, too, that to\nthe details of such precautionary measures as vaccination, for example,\ninstinct is strongly opposed, and that drainage and filterage and the\nuse of soap in washing are manifestly unnatural things. That large,\nnaked, virtuous, pink, Natural Man, drinking pure spring water, eating\nthe fruits of the earth, and living to ninety in the open air is\na fantasy; he never was nor will be. The real savage is a nest of\nparasites within and without, he smells, he rots, he starves. Forty is\na great age for him. He is as full of artifice as his civilized brother,\nonly not so wise. As for his moral integrity, let the curious inquirer\nseek an account of the Tasmanian, or the Australian, or the Polynesian\nbefore \u201csophistication\u201d came.\n\nThe very existence and nature of man is an interference with Nature\nand Nature\u2019s ways, using Nature in this sense of the repudiation of\nexpedients. Man is the tool-using animal, the word-using animal, the\nanimal of artifice and reason, and the only possible \u201creturn to\nNature\u201d for him--if we scrutinize the phrase--would be a return to the\nscratching, promiscuous, arboreal simian. To rebel against instinct,\nto rebel against limitation, to evade, to trip up, and at last to\nclose with and grapple and conquer the forces that dominate him, is the\nfundamental being of man. And from the very outset of his existence,\nfrom the instant of his birth, if the best possible thing is to be made\nof him, wise contrivance must surround him. The soft, new, living thing\nmust be watched for every sign of discomfort, it must be weighed and\nmeasured, it must be thought about, it must be talked to and sung to,\nskilfully and properly, and presently it must be given things to see and\nhandle that the stirring germ of its mind may not go unsatisfied. From\nthe very beginning, if we are to do our best for a child, there must\nbe forethought and knowledge quite beyond the limit of instinct\u2019s poor\nequipment.\n\nNow, for a child to have all these needs supplied implies certain other\nconditions. The constant loving attention is to be got only from a\nmother or from some well-affected girl or woman. It is not a thing to be\nhired for money, nor contrivable on any wholesale plan. Possibly there\nmay be ways of cherishing and nursing infants by wholesale that will\nkeep them alive, but at best these are second best ways, and we are\nseeking the best possible. A very noble, exceptionally loving and quite\nindefatigable woman might conceivably direct the development of three\nor four little children from their birth onward, or, with very good\nassistance, even of six or seven at a time, as well as a good mother\ncould do for one, but it would be a very rare and wonderful thing. We\nmust put that aside as an exceptional thing, quite impossible to provide\nwhen it is most needed, and we must fall back upon the fact that the\nchild must have a mother or nurse--and it must have that attendant\nexclusively to itself for the first year or so of life. The mother or\nnurse must be in health, physically and morally, well fed and contented,\nand able to give her attention mainly, if not entirely, to the little\nchild. The child must lie warmly in a well-ventilated room, with some\none availably in hearing day and night, there must be plentiful warm\nwater to wash it, plenty of wrappings and towellings and so forth for\nit; it is best to take it often into the open air, and for this, under\nurban or suburban conditions at any rate, a perambulator is almost\nnecessary. The room must be clean and brightly lit, and prettily and\ninterestingly coloured if we are to get the best results. These things\nimply a certain standard of prosperity in the circumstances of the\nchild\u2019s birth. Either the child must be fed in the best way from a\nmother in health and abundance, or if it is to be bottle fed, there must\nbe the most elaborate provision for sterilizing and warming the milk,\nand adjusting its composition to the changing powers of the child\u2019s\nassimilation. These conditions imply a house of a certain standard of\ncomfort and equipment, and it is manifest the mother cannot be earning\nher own living before and about the time of the child\u2019s birth, nor,\nunless she is going to employ a highly skilled, trustworthy, and\nprobably expensive person as nurse, for some year or so after it. She or\nthe nurse must be of a certain standard of intelligence and education,\ntrained to be observant and keep her temper, and she must speak her\nlanguage with a good, clear accent. Moreover, behind the mother and\nreadily available, must be a highly-skilled medical man.\n\nNot to have these things means a handicap. Not to have that very\nwatchful feeding and attention at first means a loss of nutrition, a\nretarding of growth, that will either never be recovered or will\nbe recovered later at the expense of mental development or physical\nstrength. The early handicap may also involve a derangement of the\ndigestion, a liability to stomachic and other troubles, that may last\nthroughout life. Not to have the singing and talking, and the varied\ninterest of coloured objects and toys, means a falling away from the\nbest mental development, and a taciturn nurse, or a nurse with a base\naccent, means backwardness and needless difficulty with the beginning of\nspeech. Not to be born within reach of abundant changes of clothing and\nabundant water, means--however industrious and cleanly the instincts of\nnurse and mother--a lack of the highest possible cleanliness and a\nlack of health and vitality. And the absence of highly-skilled\nmedical advice, or the attentions of over-worked and under-qualified\npractitioners, may convert a transitory crisis or a passing ailment into\npermanent injury or fatal disorder.\n\nIt is very doubtful if these most favourable conditions fall to the\nlot of more than a quarter of the children born to-day even in England,\nwhere infant mortality is at its lowest. The rest start handicapped.\nThey start handicapped, and fail to reach their highest possible\ndevelopment. They are born of mothers preoccupied by the necessity\nof earning a living or by vain occupations, or already battered and\nexhausted by immoderate child-bearing; they are born into insanity and\nugly or inconvenient homes, their mothers or nurses are ignorant and\nincapable, there is insufficient food or incompetent advice, there is,\nif they are town children, nothing for their lungs but vitiated air, and\nthere is not enough sunlight for them. And accordingly they fall away\nat the very outset from what they might be, and for the most part they\nnever recover their lost start.\n\nJust what this handicap amounts to, so far as it works out in physical\nconsequences, is to be gauged by certain almost classical figures, which\nI have here ventured to present again in graphic form. These figures\ndo not present our total failure, they merely show how far the less\nfortunate section of the community falls short of the more fortunate.\nThey are taken from Clifford Allbutt\u2019s _System of Medicine_ (art.\n\u201cHygiene of Youth,\u201d Dr. Clement Dukes). 15,564 boys and young men were\nmeasured and weighed to get these figures. The black columns indicate\nthe weight (+9 lbs. of clothes) and height respectively of youths of the\ntown artisan population, for the various ages from ten to twenty-five\nindicated at the heads of the columns. The white additions to these\ncolumns indicate the additional weight and height of the more favoured\nclasses at the same ages. Public school-boys, naval and military cadets,\nmedical and university students, were taken to represent the more\nfavoured classes. It will be noted that while the growth in height of\nthe lower class boy falls short from the very earliest years, the strain\nof the adolescent period tells upon his weight, and no doubt upon his\ngeneral stamina, most conspicuously. These figures, it must be borne in\nmind, deal with the living members of each class at the ages given. The\nmortality, however, in the black or lower class is probably far higher\nthan in the upper class year by year, and if this could be allowed for\nit would greatly increase the apparent failure of the lower class.\nAnd these matters of height and weight are only coarse material\ndeficiencies. They serve to suggest, but they do not serve to gauge, the\nfar graver and sadder loss, the invisible and immeasurable loss through\nmental and moral qualities undeveloped, through activities warped and\ncrippled and vitality and courage lowered.\n\nMoreover, defective as are these urban artisans, they are, after\nall, much more \u201cpicked\u201d than the youth of the upper classes. They are\nsurvivors of a much more stringent process of selection than goes on\namidst the more hygienic upper and middle-class conditions. The\nopposite three columns represent the mortality of children under five\nin Rutlandshire, where it is lowest, in the year 1900, in Dorsetshire, a\nreasonably good county, and in Lancashire, the worst in England, for the\nsame year. Each entire column represents 1,000 births, and the blackened\nportion represents the proportion of that 1,000 dead before the fifth\nbirthday. Now, unless we are going to assume that the children born in\nLancashire are inherently weaker than the children born in Rutland or\nDorset--and there is not the shadow of a reason why we should believe\nthat--we must suppose that at least 161 children out of every 1,000 in\nLancashire were killed by the conditions into which they were born.\nThat excess of blackness in the third column over that in the first\nrepresents a holocaust of children, that goes on year by year, a\nperennial massacre of the innocents, out of which no political capital\ncan be made, and which is accordingly outside the sphere of practical\npolitics altogether as things are at present. The same men who spouted\ninfinite mischief because a totally unforeseen and unavoidable epidemic\nof measles killed some thousands of children in South Africa, who, for\nsome idiotic or wicked vote-catching purpose, attempted to turn that\nepidemic to the permanent embitterment of Dutch and English, these\nsame men allow thousands and thousands of avoidable deaths of English\nchildren close at hand to pass absolutely unnoticed. The fact that more\nthan 21,000 little children died needlessly in Lancashire in that very\nsame year means nothing to them at all. It cannot be used to embitter\nrace against race, and to hamper that process of world unification which\nit is their pious purpose to delay.\n\nIt does not at all follow that even the Rutland 103 represents\nthe possible minimum of infant mortality. One learns from the\nRegister-General\u2019s returns for 1891 that among the causes of death\nspecified in the three counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, and Hereford,\nwhere infant mortality is scarcely half what it is in the three vilest\ntowns in England in this respect, Preston, Leicester, and Blackburn, the\nnumber of children killed by injury at birth is three times as great\nas it is in these same towns. Unclassified \u201cviolence\u201d also accounts for\nmore infant deaths in the country than in towns. This suggests pretty\nclearly a delayed and uncertain medical attendance and rough conditions,\nand it points us to still better possibilities. These diagrams and these\nfacts justify together a reasonable hope that the mortality of infants\nunder five throughout England might be brought to less than one-third\nwhat it is in child-destroying Lancashire at the present time, to a\nfigure that is well under ninety in the thousand.\n\nA portion of infant and child mortality represents no doubt the\nlingering and wasteful removal from this world of beings with inherent\ndefects, beings who, for the most part, ought never to have been born,\nand need not have been born under conditions of greater foresight.\nThese, however, are the merest small fraction of our infant mortality.\nIt leaves untouched the fact that a vast multitude of children of\nuntainted blood and good mental and moral possibilities, as many,\nperhaps, as 100 in each 1,000 born, die yearly through insufficient\nfood, insufficient good air, and insufficient attention. The plain and\nsimple truth is that they are born needlessly. There are still too many\nbirths for our civilisation to look after, we are still unfit to be\ntrusted with a rising birth-rate. [Footnote: It is a digression from\nthe argument of this Paper, but I would like to point out here a very\npopular misconception about the birth-rate which needs exposure. It is\nknown that the birth-rate is falling in all European countries--a fall\nwhich has a very direct relation to a rise in the mean standard of\ncomfort and the average age at marriage--and alarmists foretell a time\nwhen nations will be extinguished through this decline. They ascribe\nit to a certain decay in religious faith, to the advance of science\nand scepticism, and so forth; it is a part, they say, of a general\ndemoralization. The thing is a popular cant and quite unsupported by\nfacts. The decline in the birth-rate is--so far as England and Wales\ngoes--partly a real decline due to a decline in gross immorality, partly\nto a real decline due to the later age at which women marry, and partly\na statistical decline due to an increased proportion of people too old\nor too young for child-bearing. Wherever the infant mortality is falling\nthere is an apparent misleading fall in the birth-rate due to the\n\u201cloading\u201d of the population with children. Here are the sort of figures\nthat are generally given. They are the figures for England and Wales for\ntwo typical periods.\n\n           Period 1846-1850     33 8 births per 1000\n           Period 1896-1900     28 0 births per 1000\n                               ----------------------------\n                                 5.8 fall in the birth-rate.\n\nThis as it stands is very striking. But if we take the death-rates of\nthese two periods we find that they have fallen also.\n\n           Period 1846-1850     23 3 deaths per 1000\n           Period 1896-1900     17 7 deaths per 1000\n                               ----------------------------\n                                 5.6 fall in the death-rate.\n\nLet us subtract death-rate from birth-rate and that will give the\neffective rate of increase of the population.\n\n           Period 1846-1850    10 5 effective rate of increase\n           Period 1896-1900    10 3 effective rate of increase\n                              ---------------------------------\n                                 .2 fall in the rate of increase.\n\nBut now comes a curious thing that those who praise the good old\npre-Board School days--the golden age of virtuous innocence--ignore. The\n_Illegitimate births_ in 1846-1850 numbered 2.2 per 1000, in 1896-1900\nthey numbered 1.2 per 1000. So that if it were not for this fall in\nillegitimate births the period 1896-1900 would show a positive rise in\nthe effective rate of increase of .8 per thousand. The eminent persons\ntherefore who ascribe our falling birth-rate to irreligion and so forth,\neither speak without knowledge or with some sort of knowledge beyond my\nken. England is, as a matter of fact, becoming not only more hygienic\nand rational, but more moral and more temperate. The highly moral,\nhealthy, prolific, pious England of the past is just another poetical\ndelusion of the healthy savage type.]\n\nThese poor little souls are born, amidst tears and suffering they gain\nsuch love as they may, they learn to feel and suffer, they struggle and\ncry for food, for air, for the right to develop; and our civilisation at\npresent has neither the courage to kill them outright quickly, cleanly,\nand painlessly, nor the heart and courage and ability to give them what\nthey need. They are overlooked and misused, they go short of food\nand air, they fight their pitiful little battle for life against the\ncruellest odds; and they are beaten. Battered, emaciated, pitiful, they\nare thrust out of life, borne out of our regardless world, stiff little\nlife-soiled sacrifices to the spirit of disorder against which it is\nman\u2019s preeminent duty to battle. There has been all the pain in their\nlives, there has been the radiated pain of their misery, there has been\nthe waste of their grudged and insufficient food, and all the pain\nand labour of their mothers, and all the world is the sadder for them\nbecause they have lived in vain.\n\n\n\u00a7 2\n\n\nNow, since our imaginary New Republic, which is to set itself to the\nmaking of a better generation of men, will find the possibility of\nimproving the race by selective breeding too remote for anything but\nfurther organised inquiry, it is evident that its first point of attack\nwill have to be the wastage of such births as the world gets to-day.\nThroughout the world the New Republic will address itself to this\nproblem, and when a working solution has been obtained, then the New\nRepublican on press and platform, the New Republican in pulpit and\ntheatre, the New Republican upon electoral committee and in the ballot\nbox, will press weightily to see that solution realised. Upon the theory\nof New Republicanism as it was discussed in our first paper an effective\nsolution (effective enough, let us say, to abolish seventy or eighty per\ncent.) of this scandal of infantile suffering would have precedence over\nalmost every existing political consideration.\n\nThe problem of securing the maximum chance of life and health for every\nbaby born into the world is an extremely complicated one, and the reader\nmust not too hastily assume that a pithy, complete recipe is attempted\nhere. Yet, complicated though the problem is, there does not occur any\ndemonstrable impossibility such as there is in the question of selective\nbreeding. I believe that a solution is possible, that its broad lines\nmay be already stated, and that it could very easily be worked out to an\nimmediate practical application.\n\nLet us glance first at a solution that is now widely understood to be\nincorrect. Philanthropic people in the past have attempted, and many are\nstill striving, to meet the birth waste by the very obvious expedients\nof lying-in hospitals, orphanages and foundling institutions, waifs\u2019\nhomes, Barnardo institutions and the like, and within certain narrow\nlimits these things no doubt serve a useful purpose in individual cases.\nBut nowadays there is an increasing indisposition to meet the general\nproblem by such methods, because nowadays people are alive to certain\nulterior consequences that were at first overlooked. Any extensive\nrelief of parental responsibility we now know pretty certainly will\nserve to encourage and stimulate births in just those strata of society\nwhere it would seem to be highly reasonable to believe they are least\ndesirable. It is just where the chances for a child are least that\npassions are grossest, basest, and most heedless, and stand in the\ngreatest need of a sense of the gravity of possible consequences to\ncontrol their play, and to render it socially innocuous. If we were\nto take over or assist all the children born below a certain level of\ncomfort, or, rather, if we were to take over their mothers before the\nbirth occurred, and bring up that great mass of children under the best\nconditions for them--supposing this to be possible--it would only leave\nour successors in the next generation a heavier task of the same sort.\nThe assisted population would grow generation by generation relatively\nto the assisting until the Sinbad of Charity broke down. And quite early\nin the history of Charities it was found that a very grave impediment to\ntheir beneficial action lay in one of the most commendable qualities to\nbe found in poor and poorish people, and that is pride. While Charities,\nperhaps, catch the quite hopeless cases, they leave untouched the\nfar more extensive mass of births in non-pauper, not very prosperous\nhomes--the lower middle-class homes in towns, for example, which supply\na large proportion of poorly developed adults to our community. Mr.\nSeebohm Rowntree, in his \u201cPoverty\u201d (that noble, able, valuable book),\nhas shown that nearly thirty per cent. at least of a typical English\ntown population goes short of the physical necessities of life. These\npeople are fiercely defensive in such matters as this, and one may no\nmore usurp and share their parental responsibility, badly though they\ndischarge it, than one may handle the litter of a she-wolf.\n\nThese considerations alone would suffice to make us very suspicious of\nthe philanthropic method of direct assistance, so far as the remedial\naspect goes. But there is another more sweeping and comprehensive\nobjection to this method. Philanthropic institutions, as a matter of\nfact, rarely succeed in doing what they profess and intend to do.\n\nI do not allude here to the countless swindlers and sham institutions\nthat levy a tremendous tribute upon the heedless good. Quite apart\nfrom that wastage altogether, and speaking only of such _bon\u00e2 fide_\ninstitutions as would satisfy Mr. Labouchere, they do not work. It\nis one thing for the influential and opulent inactive person of good\nintentions to provide a magnificent building and a lavish endowment\nfor some specific purpose, and quite another to attain in reality the\nostensible end of the display. It is easy to create a general effect of\nproviding comfort and tender care for helpless women who are becoming\nmothers, and of tending and training and educating their children, but,\nin cold fact, it is impossible to get enough capable and devoted people\nto do the work. In cold fact, lying-in hospitals have a tendency\nto become austere, hard, unsympathetic, wholesale concerns, with a\ndisposition to confuse and substitute moral for physical well-being. In\ncold fact, orphanages do not present any perplexing resemblance to an\nearthly paradise. However warm the heart behind the cheque, the human\nbeing at the other end of the chain is apt to find the charity no more\nthan a rather inhuman machine. Shining devotees there are, but able,\ncourageous, and vigorous people are rare, and the world urges a thousand\nbetter employments upon them than the care of inferior mothers and\ninferior children. Exceptionally good people owe the world the duty of\nparentage themselves, and it follows that the rank and file of those in\nthe service of Charity falls far below the standard necessary to\ngive these poor children that chance in the world the cheque-writing\nphilanthropist believes he is giving them. The great proportion of the\nservants and administrators of Charities are doing that work because\nthey can get nothing better to do--and it is not considered remarkably\nhigh-class work. These things have to be reckoned with by every\nphilanthropic person with sufficient faith to believe that an enterprise\nmay not only look well, but do well. One gets a Waugh or a Barnardo\nnow and then, a gleam of efficiency in the waste, and for the rest this\nspectacle of stinted thought and unstinted giving, this modern Charity,\nis often no more than a pretentious wholesale substitute for retail\nmisery and disaster. Fourteen million pounds a year, I am told, go to\nBritish Charities, and I doubt if anything like a fair million\u2019s worth\nof palliative amelioration is attained for this expenditure. As for any\npermanent improvement, I doubt if all these Charities together achieve\na net advance that could not be got by the discreet and able expenditure\nof ten or twelve thousand pounds.\n\nIt is one of the grimmest ironies in life, that athwart the memory of\nsainted founders should be written the most tragic consequences. The\nFoundling Hospital of London, established by Coram--to save infant\nlives!--buried, between 1756 and 1760, 10,534 children out of 14,934\nreceived, and the Dublin Foundling Hospital (suppressed in 1835) had a\nmortality of eighty per cent. The two great Russian institutions are,\nI gather, about equally deadly with seventy-five per cent., and the\nItalian institutes run to about ninety per cent. The Florentine boasts a\nvery beautiful and touching series of _putti_ by Delia Robbia, that does\nlittle or nothing to diminish its death-rate. So far from preventing\ninfant murder these places, with the noblest intentions in the world,\nhave, for all practical purposes, organized it. The London Foundling, be\nit noted, in the reorganized form it assumed after its first massacres,\nis not a Foundling Hospital at all. An extremely limited number of\nchildren, the illegitimate children of recommended respectable but\nunfortunate mothers, are converted into admirable bandsmen for the\ndefence of the Empire or trained to be servants for people who feel the\nneed of well-trained servants, at a gross cost that might well fill the\nmind of many a poor clergyman\u2019s son with amazement and envy. And this is\nprobably a particularly well-managed charity. It is doing all that can\nbe expected of it, and stands far above the general Charitable average.\n\nEvery Poor Law Authority comes into the tangles of these perplexities.\nUpon the hands of every one of them come deserted children, the children\nof convicted criminals, the children of pauper families, a miscellaneous\npitiful succession of responsibilities. The enterprises they are forced\nto undertake to meet these charges rest on taxation, a financial basis\nfar stabler than the fitful good intentions of the rich, but apart from\nthis advantage there is little about them to differentiate them from\nCharities. The method of treatment varies from a barrack system, in\nwhich the children are herded in huge asylums like those places between\nSutton and Banstead, to what is perhaps preferable, the system of\nboarding-out little groups of children with suitable poor people.\nProvided such boarded-out children are systematically weighed, measured\nand examined, and at once withdrawn when they drop below average\nmental and bodily progress, it would seem more likely that a reasonable\npercentage should grow into ordinary useful citizens under these latter\nconditions than under the former.\n\nIt is well, however, to anticipate a very probable side result if we\nmake the boarding out of pauper children a regular rural industry. There\nwill arise in many rural homes a very strong pecuniary inducement to\nlimit the family. Side by side will be a couple with eight children--of\ntheir own, struggling hard to keep them, and another family with, let\nus say, two children of their own blood and six \u201cboarded-out,\u201d living in\nrelative opulence. That side consequence must be anticipated. For my own\npart and for the reasons given in the second of these papers, I do not\nsee that it is a very serious one so far as the future goes, because I\ndo not think there is much to choose between the \u201cheredity\u201d of the rural\nand the urban strain. It is nonsense to pretend that we shall get the\nfine flower of the cottage population to board pauper children; we shall\ninduce respectable inferior people living in healthy conditions to take\ncare of an inferior sort of children rescued from unhealthy disreputable\nconditions--that is all. The average inherent quality of the resultant\nadults will be about the same whichever element predominates.\n\nPossibly this indifference may seem undesirable. But we must bear in\nmind that the whole problem is hard to cope with, it is an aspect\nof failure, and no sentimental juggling with facts will convert the\nbusiness into a beautiful or desirable thing. Somehow or other we have\nto pay. All expedients must be palliatives, all will involve sacrifices;\nwe must, no doubt, adopt some of them for our present necessities, but\nthey are like famine relief works, to adopt them in permanence is a\ncounsel of despair.\n\nClearly it is not along these lines that the capable men-makers we\nsuppose to be attacking the problem will spend much of their energies.\nAll the experiences of Charities and Poor-Law Authorities simply confirm\nour postulate of the necessity of a standard of comfort if a child is\nto have a really good initial chance in the world. The only conceivable\nsolution of this problem is one that will ensure that no child, or only\na few accidental and exceptional children, will be born outside these\nadvantages. It is no good trying to sentimentalize the issue away. This\nis the end we must attain, to attain any effectual permanent improvement\nin the conditions of childhood. A certain number of people have to be\ndiscouraged and prevented from parentage, and a great number of homes\nhave to be improved. How can we ensure these ends, or how far can we go\ntowards ensuring them?\n\nThe first step to ensuring them is certainly to do all we can to\ndiscourage reckless parentage, and to render it improbable and\ndifficult. We must make sure that whatever we do for the children,\nthe burden of parental responsibility must not be lightened a\nfeather-weight. All the experience of two hundred years of charity\nand poor law legislation sustains that. But to accept that as a first\nprinciple is one thing, and to apply it by using a wretched little child\nas our instrument in the exemplary punishment of its parent is another.\nAt present that is our hideous practice. So long as the parents are not\nconvicted criminals, so long as they do not practise indictable cruelty\nupon their offspring, so long as the children themselves fall short of\ncriminality, we insist upon the parent \u201ckeeping\u201d the child. It may be\nmanifest the child is ill-fed, harshly treated, insufficiently clothed,\ndirty and living among surroundings harmful to body and soul alike, but\nwe merely take the quivering damaged victim and point the moral to the\nparent. \u201cThis is what comes of your recklessness,\u201d we say. \u201cAren\u2019t\nyou ashamed of it?\u201d And after inscrutable meditations the fond parent\nusually answers us by sending out the child to beg or sell matches or\nby some equally effective retort. Now a great number of excellent people\npretend that this is a dilemma. \u201cTake the child away,\u201d it is argued,\n\u201cand you remove one of the chief obstacles to the reckless reproduction\nof the unfit. Leave it in the parents\u2019 hands and you must have the\ncruelty.\u201d But really this is not a dilemma at all. There is a quite\nexcellent middle way. It may not be within the sphere of practical\npolitics at present--if not, it is work for the New Republic to get it\nthere--but it would practically settle all this problem of neglected\nchildren. This way is simply to make the parent the debtor to society on\naccount of the child for adequate food, clothing, and care for at least\nthe first twelve or thirteen years of life, and in the event of parental\ndefault to invest the local authority with exceptional powers of\nrecovery in this matter. It would be quite easy to set up a minimum\nstandard of clothing, cleanliness, growth, nutrition and education, and\nprovide, that if that standard was not maintained by a child, or if the\nchild was found to be bruised or maimed without the parents being able\nto account for these injuries, the child should be at once removed from\nthe parental care, and the parents charged with the cost of a suitable\nmaintenance--which need not be excessively cheap. If the parents failed\nin the payments they could be put into celibate labour establishments\nto work off as much of the debt as they could, and they would not be\nreleased until their debt was fully discharged. Legislation of this type\nwould not only secure all and more of the advantages children of the\nleast desirable sort now get from charities and public institutions, but\nit would certainly invest parentage with a quite unprecedented gravity\nfor the reckless, and it would enormously reduce the number of births\nof the least desirable sort. Into this net, for example, every habitual\ndrunkard who was a parent would, for his own good and the world\u2019s, be\nalmost certain to fall. [Footnote: Mr. C. G. Stuart Menteath has favored\nme with some valuable comments upon this point. He writes: \u201cI agree\nthat calling such persons as have shown themselves incapable of parental\nduties debtors to the State, would help to reconcile popular ideas of\nthe \u2018liberty of the subject\u2019 with the enforcement as well as the passing\nof such laws. But the notions of drastically enforcing parental duties,\nand of discouraging and even prohibiting the marriages of those unable\nto show their ability to perform these duties, has long prevailed. See\nNicholl\u2019s _History of the Poor Law_ (1898, New Edition), i. 229, and ii.\n140, 278, where you will find chargeable bastardy has been punishable\nin the first offence by one year\u2019s imprisonment, and in the second,\nby imprisonment until sureties are given, which thus might amount to\nimprisonment for life. See also, J. S. Mill, _Political Economy_, Bk.\nII., ch. ii., for extreme legislation on the Continent against the\nmarriage of people unable to support a family. In Denmark there seem\nto be very severe laws impeding the marriage of those who have\nbeen paupers. The English law was sufficiently effective to produce\ninfanticide, so that a law was passed making concealment of birth almost\ninfanticide.\u201d]\n\nSo much for the worst fringe of this question, the maltreated children,\nthe children of the slum, the children of drunkards and criminals, and\nthe illegitimate. But the bulk of the children of deficient growth,\nthe bulk of the excessive mortality, lies above the level of such\nintervention, and the method of attack of the New Republican must\nbe less direct. Happily there already exists a complicated mass of\nlegislation that without any essential change of principle could be\napplied to this object.\n\nThe first of the expedients which would lead to a permanent improvement\nin these matters is the establishment of a minimum of soundness and\nsanitary convenience in houses, below which standard it shall be illegal\nto inhabit a house at all. There should be a certain relation between\nthe size of rooms and their ventilating appliances, a certain minimum\nof lighting, certain conditions of open space about the house and sane\nrules about foundations and materials. These regulations would vary with\nthe local density of population--many things are permissible in Romney\nmarsh, for example, which the south-west wind sweeps everlastingly, that\nwould be deadly in Rotherhithe. At present in England there are local\nbuilding regulations, for the most part vexatious and stupid to an\nalmost incredible degree, and compiled without either imagination or\nunderstanding, but it should be possible to substitute for these a\nnational minimum of habitability without any violent revolution. A house\nthat failed to come up to this minimum--which might begin very low and\nbe raised at intervals of years--would, after due notice, be pulled\ndown. It might be pulled down and the site taken over and managed by\nthe local authority--allowing its owner a portion of its value in\ncompensation--if it was evident his failure to keep up to the standard\nhad an adequate excuse. In time it might be possible to level up the\nminimum standard of all tenements in towns and urban districts at any\nrate to the possession of a properly equipped bathroom for example,\nwithout which, for hardworking people, regular cleanliness is a\npractical impossibility. This process of levelling-up the minimum\ntenement would be enormously aided by a philanthropic society which\nwould devote itself to the study of building methods and materials,\nto the evolution of conveniences, and the direction of invention to\nlessening the cost and complication of building wholesome dwellings.\n\nThe state of repair of inhabited buildings is also already a matter of\npublic concern. All that is needed is a slow, persistent tightening-up\nof the standard. This would ensure, at any rate, that the outer shell\nof the child\u2019s surroundings gave it a fair chance in life. In the next\nplace comes legislation against overcrowding. There must be a maximum\nnumber of inhabitants to any tenement, and a really sane law will be\nfar more stringent to secure space and air for young children than\nfor adults. There is little reason, except the possible harbouring of\nparasites and infectious disease, why five or six adults should not\nshare a cask on a dust heap as a domicile--if it pleases them. But\ndirectly children come in we touch the future. The minimum permissible\ntenement for a maximum of two adults and a very young child is one\nproperly ventilated room capable of being heated, with close and easy\naccess to sanitary conveniences, a constant supply of water and easy\nmeans of getting warm water. More than one child should mean another\nroom, and it seems only reasonable if we go so far as this, to go\nfurther and require a minimum of furniture and equipment, a fire-guard,\nfor instance, and a separate bed or cot for the child. In a civilized\ncommunity little children should not sleep with adults, and the killing\nof children by \u201caccidental\u201d overlaying should be a punishable offence.\n[Footnote: In the returns I have quoted from Blackburn, Leicester, and\nPreston the number of deaths from suffocation per 100,000 infants born\nwas 232 in the first year of life. ]\n\nIf a woman does not wish to be dealt with as a half-hearted murderess\nshe should not behave like one. It should also be punishable on the part\nof a mother to leave children below a certain age alone for longer than\na certain interval. It is absurd to punish people as we do, for the\ninjuries inflicted by them upon their children during uncontrollable\nanger, and not to punish them for the injuries inflicted by uncontrolled\ncarelessness. Such legislation should ensure children space, air and\nattention. [Footnote: It is less within the range of commonly grasped\nideas, it is therefore less within the range of practical expedients,\nto point out that a graduated scale of building regulation might be\ncontrived for use in different localities. Districts could be classed\nin grades determined by the position of each district in the scale\nof infant mortality, and in those in which the rate was highest the\nhygienic standard could be made most stringent and onerous upon the\nhouse owner. This would force up the price of house-room, and that would\nforce up the price of labour, and this would give the proprietors of\nunwholesome industries a personal interest in hygienic conditions\nabout them. It would also tend to force population out of districts\nintrinsically unhealthy into districts intrinsically healthy. The\nstatistics of low-grade districts could be examined to discover the\ndistinctive diseases which determine their lowness of grade, and if\nthese were preventable diseases they could be controlled by special\nregulations. A further extension of these principles might be made.\nDirect inducements to attract the high birth-rates towards exceptionally\nhealthy districts could be contrived by a differential rating of sound\nfamilies with children in such districts, the burthen of heavy rates\ncould be thrown upon silly and selfish landowners who attempted to\nstifle sound populations by using highly habitable areas as golf links,\nprivate parks, game preserves, and the like, and public-spirited people\ncould combine to facilitate communications that would render life in\nsuch districts compatible with industrial occupation. Such deliberate\nredistribution of population as this differential treatment of districts\ninvolves, is, however, quite beyond the available power and intelligence\nof our public control at present, and I suggest it here as something\nthat our grandchildren perhaps may begin to consider. But if in the\nobscurity of this footnote I may let myself go, I would point out that,\nin the future, a time may come when locomotion will be so swift and\nconvenient and cheap that it will be unnecessary to spread out the homes\nof our great communities where the industrial and trading centres are\ngathered together; it will be unnecessary for each district to sustain\nthe renewal and increase of its own population. Certain wide regions\nwill become specifically administrative and central--the home lands, the\nmother lands, the centres of education and population, and others will\nbecome specifically fields of action. Something of this kind is to a\nslight degree already the case with Scotland, which sends out its\nhardy and capable sons wherever the world has need of them; the Swiss\nmountains, too, send their sons far and wide in the world; and on the\nother hand, with regard to certain elements of population, at any rate,\nLondon and the Gold Coast and, I suspect, some regions in the United\nStates of America, receive to consume.]\n\nBut it will be urged that these things are likely to bear rather\nseverely on the very poor parent. To which a growing number of people\nwill reply that the parent should not be a parent under circumstances\nthat do not offer a fair prospect of sound child-birth and nurture. It\nis no good trying to eat our cake and have it; if the parent does not\nsuffer the child will, and of the two, we, of the New Republic, have no\ndoubt that the child is the more important thing.\n\nIt may be objected, however, that existing economic conditions make life\nvery uncertain for many very sound and wholesome kinds of people, and\nthat it is oppressive and likely to rob the State of good citizens to\nrender parentage burthensome, and to surround it with penalties. But\nthat directs our attention to a second scheme of expedients which have\ncrystallized about the expression, the Minimum Wage. The cardinal idea\nof this group of expedients is this, that it is unjust and cruel in the\npresent and detrimental to the future of the world to let any one be\nfully employed at a rate of payment at which a wholesome, healthy, and,\nby the standards of comfort at the time, a reasonable happy life is\nimpossible. _It is better in the long run that people whose character\nand capacity will not render it worth while to employ them at the\nMinimum Wage should not be employed at all._ The sweated employment of\nsuch people, as Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb show most conclusively in\ntheir great work, \u201cIndustrial Democracy,\u201d arrests the development of\nlabour-saving machinery, replaces and throws out of employment superior\nand socially more valuable labour, enables these half capables to\nestablish base families of inadequately fed and tended children (which\npresently collapse upon public and private charity), and so lowers and\nkeeps down the national standard of life. As these writers show very\nclearly, an industry that cannot adequately sustain sound workers is\nnot in reality a source of public wealth at all, but a disease and a\nparasite upon the public body. It is eating up citizens the State\nhas had the expense of educating, and very often the indirect cost of\nrearing. Obviously the minimum wage for a civilized adult male should\nbe sufficient to cover the rent of the minimum tenement permissible\nwith three or four children, the maintenance of himself and his wife and\nchildren above the minimum standard of comfort, his insurance against\npremature or accidental death or temporary economic or physical\ndisablement, some minimum provision for old age and a certain margin for\nthe exercise of his individual freedom. [Footnote: An excellent account\nof experiments already tried in the establishment of a Minimum Wage\nwill be found in W.P. Reeves\u2019 _State Experiments in Australia and New\nZealand_, vol. ii., p. 47 _et seq_.]\n\nSo that while those who are bent on this conception of making economy\nin life and suffering the guiding principle of their public and social\nactivity, are seeking to brace up the quality of the home on the one\nhand, they must also do all they can to bring about the realization of\nthis ideal of a minimum wage on the other. In the case of government and\npublic employment and of large, well-organized industries, the way is\nstraight and open, and the outlook very hopeful. Wherever licenses,\ntariffs, and any sort of registration occurs there are practicable means\nof bringing in this expedient. But where the employment is shifting and\nsporadic, or free from regulation, there we have a rent in our social\nsieve, and the submissive, eager inferior will still come in, the\nfailures of our own race, the immigrant from baser lands, desperately\nand disastrously underselling our sound citizens. Obviously we must\nuse every contrivance we can to mend these rents, by promoting the\norganization of employments in any way that will not hamper progress in\neconomic production. And if we can persuade the Trade Unions--and there\nis every sign that the old mediaeval guild conception of water-tight\ntrade limitations is losing its hold upon those organizations--to\nfacilitate the movement of workers from trade to trade under the\nshifting stress of changing employment and of changing economy of\nproduction, we shall have gone far to bring the possibilities of the\nrising operative up to the standard of the minimum home permissible for\nchildren.\n\nThese things--if we could bring them about--would leave us with a sort\nof clarified Problem of the Unemployed on our hands. Our Minimum Wage\nwould have strained these people out, and, provided there existed what\nis already growing up, an intelligent system of employment bureaus, we\nshould have much more reason to conclude than we have at present, that\nthey were mainly unemployed because of a real incapacity in character,\nstrength, or intelligence for efficient citizenship. Our raised\nstandards of housing, our persecution of overcrowding, and our\nobstruction of employment below the minimum wage, would have swept out\nthe rookeries and hiding-places of these people of the Abyss. They would\nexist, but they would not multiply--and that is our supreme end. They\nwould be tramping on roads where mendicity laws would prevail, there\nwould be no house-room for them, no squatting-places. The casual wards\nwould catch them and register them, and telephone one to the other about\nthem. It is rare that children come into this world without a parent or\nso being traceable. Everything would converge to convince these people\nthat to bear children into such an unfavourable atmosphere is an\nextremely inconvenient and undesirable thing. They would not have many\nchildren, and such children as they had would fall easily into our\norganized net and get the protection of the criticised and improved\ndevelopment of the existing charitable institutions. [Footnote: \u201cI\nwonder whether there is any legal flaw in the second section of the\nPrevention of Cruelty to Children Act of 1894, which may have been\n_specially_ aimed at beggars with offspring. It is specially punishable\nto beg having an infant in their arms, quite apart from teaching the\ninfant in question to beg. Or is this law insufficiently enforced\nthrough popular apathy?\u201d--C. G. STUART MENTEATH.] This is the best we\ncan do for those poor little creatures. As for that increasing section\nof the Abyss that will contrive to live childless, these papers have no\nquarrel with them. A childless wastrel is a terminating evil, and it may\nbe, a picturesque evil. I must confess that a lazy rogue is very much\nto my taste, provided there is no tragedy of children to smear the joke\nwith misery. And if he or she neither taints nor tempts the children,\nwho are our care, a childless weakling we may freely let our pity and\nmercy go out to. To go childless is in them a virtue for which they\nmerit our thanks.\n\nThese are the first necessities, then, in the Making of Men and the\nbettering of the world, this courageous interference with what so many\npeople call \u201cNature\u2019s methods\u201d and \u201cNature\u2019s laws,\u201d though, indeed, they\nare no more than the methods and laws of the beasts. By such expedients\nwe may hope to see, first, a certain fall in the birth-rate, a fall\nchiefly in the birth-rate of improvident, vicious, and feeble types, a\ncontinuation, in fact, of that fall that is already so conspicuous\nin illegitimate births in Great Britain; secondly, a certain, almost\ncertainly more considerable fall in the death-rate of infants and\nyoung children, and that fall in the infantile death-rate will serve to\nindicate, thirdly, a fall no statistics will fully demonstrate in what\nI may call the partial death-rate, the dwarfing and limiting of that\ninnumerable host of children who do, in an underfed, meagre sort of a\nway, survive. This raising of the standard of homes will do a work that\nwill not end with the children; the death-line will sag downward for\nall the first twenty or thirty years of life. Dull-minded, indolent,\nprosperous people will say that all this is no more than a proposal to\nmake man better by machinery, that you cannot reform the world by Board\nof Trade Regulations and all the rest of it. They will say that such\nwork as this is a scheme of grim materialism, and that the Soul of\nMan gains no benefit by this \u201cso-called Progress,\u201d that it is not\nbirth-rates that want raising but Ideals. We shall deal later with\nIdeals in general. Here I will mention only one, and that is, unhappily,\nonly an Ideal Argument. I wish I could get together all these people\nwho are so scornful of materialistic things, out of the excessively\ncomfortable houses they inhabit, and I wish I could concentrate them in\na good typical East London slum--five or six together in each room, one\nlodging with another, and I wish I could leave them there to demonstrate\nthe superiority of high ideals to purely material considerations for\nthe rest of their earthly career while we others went on with our sordid\nwork unencumbered by their ideality.\n\nThink what these dry-looking projects of building and trade regulation,\nand inspection and sanitation, mean in reality! think of the promise\nthey hold out to us of tears and suffering abolished, of lives\ninvigorated and enlarged!\n\n\n[Endnote 1\n\nI am greatly obliged to Mr. J. Leaver for a copy of the following\nnotice:\n\n\n\u201cDEATHS OF CHILDREN FROM BURNING.\n\n\u201cTO PARENTS AND GUARDIANS.\n\n\u201cAttention is drawn to the frequency with which the death of young\nchildren is caused owing to their clothing taking fire at unprotected\nfiregrates. During the years 1899 and 1900 inquests were held on the\nbodies of 1684 YOUNG CHILDREN whose death had resulted from burning,\nand in 1425 of these cases the fire by which the burning was caused was\nunprotected by a guard.\n\n\u201cWith a view to prevent such deplorable loss of life it is suggested to\nParents and Guardians, who have the care of young children, that it is\nvery desirable that efficient fire-guards should be provided, in\norder to render it impossible for children to obtain access to the\nfire-grates.\n\n\u201cE. R. C. BRADFORD,\n\n\u201cThe Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis.\n\n\u201cMetropolitan Police Office,\n\n\u201cNew Scotland Yard,\n\n\u201cJanuary 28th, 1902.\u201d]\n\n\n\n\nIV. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MIND AND LANGUAGE\n\n\n\u00a7 1\n\n\nThe newborn child is at first no more than an animal. Indeed, it is\namong the lowest and most helpless of all animals, a mere vegetative\nlump; assimilation incarnate--wailing. It is for the first day in its\nlife deaf, it squints blindly at the world, its limbs are beyond its\ncontrol, its hands clutch drowningly at anything whatever that drifts\nupon this vast sea of being into which it has plunged so amazingly. And\nimperceptibly, subtly, so subtly that never at any time can we mark with\ncertainty the increment of its coming, there creeps into this soft and\nclaimant little creature a mind, a will, a personality, the beginning of\nall that is real and spiritual in man. In a little while there are eyes\nfull of interest and clutching hands full of purpose, smiles and frowns,\nthe babbling beginning of expression and affections and aversions.\nBefore the first year is out there is obedience and rebellion, choice\nand self-control, speech has commenced, and the struggle of the newcomer\nto stand on his feet in this world of men. The process is unanalyzable;\ngiven a certain measure of care and protection, these things come\nspontaneously; with the merest rough encouragement of things and voices\nabout the child, they are evoked.\n\nBut every day the inherent impulse makes a larger demand upon the\nsurroundings of the child, if it is to do its best and fullest.\nObviously, quite apart from physical consequences, the environment of\na little child may be good or bad, better or worse for it in a thousand\ndifferent ways. It may be distracting or over-stimulating, it may evoke\nand increase fear, it may be drab and dull and depressing, it may be\nstupefying, it may be misleading and productive of vicious habits\nof mind. And our business is to find just what is the best possible\nenvironment, the one that will give the soundest and fullest growth, not\nonly of body but of intelligence.\n\nNow from the very earliest phase the infant stands in need of a\nsuccession of interesting things. At first these are mere vague sense\nimpressions, but in a month or so there is a distinct looking at\nobjects; presently follows reaching and clutching, and soon the\nlittle creature is urgent for fresh things to see, handle, hear, fresh\nexperiences of all sorts, fresh combinations of things already known.\nThe newborn mind is soon as hungry as the body. And if a healthy wellfed\nchild cries, it is probably by reason of this unsatisfied hunger,\nit lacks an interest, it is bored, that dismal vacant suffering that\npunishes the failure of living things to live fully and completely.\nAs Mr. Charles Booth has pointed out in his _Life and Labour of the\nPeople_, it is probable that in this respect the children of the\nrelatively poor are least at a disadvantage. The very poor infant\npasses its life in the family room, there is a going and coming, and\ninteresting activity of domestic work on the part of its mother, the\npreparation of meals, the intermittent presence of the father, the whole\ngamut of its mother\u2019s unsophisticated temper. It is carried into crowded\nand eventful streets at all hours. It participates in pothouse soir\u00e9es\nand assists at the business of shopping. It may not lead a very hygienic\nlife, but it does not lead a dull one. Contrast with its lot that of\nthe lonely child of some woman of fashion, leading its beautifully\nnon-bacterial life in a carefully secluded nursery under the control of\na virtuous, punctual, invariable, conscientious rather than emotional\nnurse. The poor little soul wails as often for events as the slum baby\ndoes for nourishment. Into its grey nursery there rushes every day,\nor every other day, a breathless, preoccupied, excessively dressed,\ncleverish, many-sided, fundamentally silly, and universally incapable\nwoman, vociferates a little conventional affection, slaps a kiss or so\nupon her offspring, and goes off again to collect that daily meed of\nadmiration and cheap envy which is the gusto of her world. After that\ngushing, rustling, incomprehensible passage, the child relapses into the\nboring care of its bored hireling for another day. The nurse writes her\nletters, mends her clothes, reads and thinks of the natural interests of\nher own life, and the child is \u201cgood\u201d just in proportion to the extent\nto which it doesn\u2019t \u201cworry.\u201d\n\nThat, of course, is an extreme case. It assumes a particularly bad\nmother and a particularly ill-chosen nurse, and what is probably only\na transitory phase of sexual debasement. The average nurse of the\nupper-class child is often a woman of highly developed motherly\ninstincts, and it is probable that our upper class and our upper\nmiddle-class is passing or has already passed through that phase of\nthought which has made solitary children so common in the last decade\nor so. The effective contrast must not take us too far. We must remember\nthat all women do not possess the passion for nursing, and that some of\nthose who are defective in this direction may be, for all that, women\nof exceptional gifts and capacity, and fully capable of offspring.\nCivilization is based on the organized subdivision of labour, and, as\nthe able lady who writes as \u201cL\u2019amie Inconnue\u201d in the _County Gentleman_\nhas pointed out in a very helpful criticism of the original version\nof this paper, it is as absurd to require every woman to be a nursery\nmother as it is, to require every man to till the soil. We move from\nhomogeneous to heterogeneous conditions, and we must beware of every\ngeneralization we make.\n\nFor all that, one is inclined to think the ideal average environment\nshould contain the almost constant presence of the mother, for no one\nis so likely to be continuously various and interesting and untiring as\nshe, and only as an exception, for exceptional mothers and nurses, can\nwe admit the mother-substitute. When we admit her we admit other\nthings. It is entirely on account of such an ideal environment, we\nmust remember, that monogamy finds its practical sanction; it claims to\nensure the presiding mother the maximum of security and self-respect. A\nwoman who enjoys the full rights of a wife to maintenance and exclusive\nattention, without a complete discharge of the duties of motherhood,\nprofits by the imputation of things she has failed to perform. She may\nbe justified by other things, by an effectual co-operation with her\nhusband in joint labours for example, but she has altered her footing\nnone the less. To secure an ideal environment for children in as many\ncases as possible is the second of the two great practical ends--the\nfirst being sound births, for which the restrictions of sexual morality\nexist. In addition there is the third almost equally important matter\nof adult efficiency; we have to adjust affairs, if we can, to secure\nthe maximum of health, sane happiness and vigorous mental and physical\nactivity, and to abolish, as far as possible, passionate broodings,\nover-stimulated appetites, disease, and destructive indulgence. Apart\nfrom these aspects, sexual morality is outside the scope of the New\nRepublican altogether. . . . Do not let this passage be misunderstood.\nI do not mean that a New Republican ignores sexual morality except on\nthese grounds, but so far as his New Republicanism goes he does, just\nas a member of the Aeronautical Society, so far as his aeronautical\ninterests go, or as an ecclesiastical architect, so far as his\narchitecture goes.\n\nThe ideal environment should, without any doubt at all, centre about\na nursery--a clean, airy, brightly lit, brilliantly adorned room, into\nwhich there should be a frequent coming and going of things and people;\nbut from the time the child begins to recognize objects and individuals\nit should be taken for little spells into other rooms and different\nsurroundings. In the homely, convenient, servantless abode over which\nthe able-bodied, capable, skilful, civilized women of the ordinary sort\nwill preside in the future, the child will naturally follow its mother\u2019s\nmorning activities from room to room. Its mother will talk to it, chance\nvisitors will sign to it. There should be a public or private garden\navailable where its perambulator could stand in fine weather; and its\npromenades should not be too much a matter of routine. To go along a\nroad with some traffic is better for a child than to go along a secluded\npath between hedges; a street corner is better than a laurel plantation\nas a pitch for perambulators.\n\nWhen a child is five or six months old it will have got a certain use\nand grip with its hands, and it will want to handle and examine and test\nthe properties of as many objects as it can. Gifts begin. There seems\nscope for a wiser selection in these early gifts. At present it is\nchiefly woolly animals with bells inside them, woolly balls, and so\nforth, that reach the baby\u2019s hands. There is no reason at all why a\nchild\u2019s attention should be so predominantly fixed on wool. These toys\nare coloured very tastefully, but as Preyer has advanced strong reasons\nfor supposing that the child\u2019s discrimination of colours is extremely\nrudimentary until the second year has begun, these tasteful arrangements\nare simply an appeal to the parent. Light, dark, yellow, perhaps red\nand \u201cother colours\u201d seem to constitute the colour system of a very\nyoung infant. It is to the parent, too, that the humorous and realistic\nquality of the animal forms appeal. The parent does the shopping and has\nto be amused. The parent who ought to have a doll instead of a child is\nsufficiently abundant in our world to dominate the shops, and there is a\nvast traffic in facetious baby toys, facetious nursery furniture, \u201cart\u201d\n cushions and \u201cquaint\u201d baby clothing, all amazingly delightful things for\ngrown-up people. These things are bought and grouped about the child,\nthe child is taught tricks to complete the picture, and parentage\nbecomes a very amusing afternoon employment. So long as convenience\nis not sacrificed to the \u00e6sthetic needs of the nursery, and so long as\ncommon may compete with \u201cart\u201d toys, there is no great harm done, but it\nis well to understand how irrelevant these things are to the real needs\nof a child\u2019s development.\n\nA child of a year or less has neither knowledge nor imagination to see\nthe point of these animal resemblances--much less to appreciate either\nquaintness or prettiness. That comes only in the second year. He is much\nmore interested in the crumpling and tearing of paper, in the crumpling\nof chintz, and in the taking off and replacing of the lid of a little\nbox. I think it would be possible to devise a much more entertaining\nset of toys for an infant than is at present procurable, but, unhappily,\nthey would not appeal to the intelligence of the average parent. There\nwould be, for example, one or two little boxes of different shapes and\nsubstances, with lids to take off and on, one or two rubber things that\nwould bend and twist about and admit of chewing, a ball and a box\nmade of china, a fluffy, flexible thing like a rabbit\u2019s tail, with the\nvertebr\u00e6 replaced by cane, a velvet-covered ball, a powder puff, and so\non. They could all be plainly and vividly coloured with some non-soluble\ninodorous colour. They would be about on the cot and on the rug where\nthe child was put to kick and crawl. They would have to be too large to\nswallow, and they would all get pulled and mauled about until they were\nmore or less destroyed. Some would probably survive for many years as\nprecious treasures, as beloved objects, as powers and symbols in the\nmysterious secret fetichism of childhood--confidants and sympathetic\nfriends.\n\n\n\u00a7 2\n\n\nWhile the child is engaged with its first toys, and with the collection\nof rudimentary sense impressions, it is also developing a remarkable\nvariety of noises and babblements from which it will presently\ndisentangle speech. Day by day it will show a stronger and stronger bias\nto associate definite sounds with definite objects and ideas, a bias so\ncomparatively powerful in the mind of man as to distinguish him from\nall other living creatures. Other creatures may think, may, in a sort\nof concrete way, come almost indefinably near reason (as Professor Lloyd\nMorgan in his very delightful _Animal Life and Intelligence_ has shown);\nbut man alone has in speech the apparatus, the possibility, at any rate,\nof being a reasoning and reasonable creature. It is, of course, not\nhis only apparatus. Men may think out things with drawings, with little\nmodels, with signs and symbols upon paper, but speech is the common way,\nthe high road, the current coin of thought.\n\nWith speech humanity begins. With the dawn of speech the child ceases to\nbe an animal we cherish, and crosses the boundary into distinctly\nhuman intercourse. There begins in its mind the development of the most\nwonderful of all conceivable apparatus, a subtle and intricate keyboard,\nthat will end at last with thirty or forty or fifty thousand keys. This\nqueer, staring, soft little being in its mother\u2019s arms is organizing\nsomething within itself, beside which the most wonderful orchestra one\ncan imagine is a lump of rude clumsiness. There will come a time when,\nat the merest touch upon those keys, image will follow image and emotion\ndevelop into emotion, when the whole creation, the deeps of space,\nthe minutest beauties of the microscope, cities, armies, passions,\nsplendours, sorrows, will leap out of darkness into the conscious being\nof thought, when this interwoven net of brief, small sounds will form\nthe centre of a web that will hold together in its threads the universe,\nthe All, visible and invisible, material and immaterial, real and\nimagined, of a human mind. And if we are to make the best of a child, it\nis in no way secondary to its physical health and growth that it should\nacquire a great and thorough command over speech, not merely that it\nshould speak, but, what is far more vital, that it should understand\nswiftly and subtly things written and said. Indeed, this is more than\nany physical need. The body is the substance and the implement; the\nmind, built and compact of language, is the man. All that has gone\nbefore, all that we have discussed of sound birth and physical growth\nand care, is no more than the making ready of the soil for the mind that\nis to grow therein. As we come to this matter of language, we come a\nstep nearer to the intimate realities of our subject--we come to the\nmental plant that is to bear the flower and the ripe fruit of the\nindividual life. The next phase of our inquiry, therefore, is to examine\nhow we can get this mental plant, this foundation substance, this\nabundant mastered language best developed in the individual, and how far\nwe may go to ensure this best development for all children born into the\nworld.\n\nFrom the ninth month onward the child begins serious attempts to talk.\nIn order that it may learn to do this as easily as possible, it requires\nto be surrounded by people speaking one language, and speaking it with\na uniform accent. Those who are most in the child\u2019s hearing\nshould endeavour to speak--even when they are not addressing the\nchild--deliberately and clearly. All authorities are agreed upon\nthe mischievous effect of what is called \u201cbaby talk,\u201d the use of an\nextensive sham vocabulary, a sort of deciduous milk vocabulary that will\npresently have to be shed again. Froebel and Preyer join hands on\nthis. The child\u2019s funny little perversions of speech are really genuine\nattempts to say the right word, and we simply cause trouble and hamper\ndevelopment if we give back to the seeking mind its own blunders again.\nWhen a child wants to indicate milk, it wants to say milk, and not\n\u201cmooka\u201d or \u201cmik,\u201d and when it wants to indicate bed, the needed word is\nnot \u201cbedder\u201d or \u201cbye-bye,\u201d but \u201cbed.\u201d But we give the little thing no\nchance to get on in this way until suddenly one day we discover it\nis \u201ctime the child spoke plainly.\u201d Preyer has pointed out very\ninstructively the way in which the quite sufficiently difficult matter\nof the use of I, mine, me, my, you, yours, and your is made still more\ndifficult by those about the child adopting irregularly the experimental\nidioms it produces. When a child says to its mother, \u201cMe go mome,\u201d it\nis doing its best to speak English, and its remark should be received\nwithout worrying comment; but when a mother says to her child, \u201cMe go\nmome,\u201d she is simply wasting an opportunity of teaching her child its\nmother-tongue. One sympathizes with her all too readily, one understands\nthe sweetness to her of these soft, infantile mispronunciations; but,\nindeed, she ought to understand; it is her primary business to know\nbetter than her feelings in this affair.\n\nIn learning to speak, the children of the more prosperous classes are\nprobably at a considerable advantage when compared with their poorer\nfellow children. They hear a clearer and more uniform intonation than\nthe blurred, uncertain speech of our commonalty, that has resulted from\nthe reaction of the great synthetic process, of the past century upon\ndialects. But this natural advantage of the richer child is discounted\nin one of two ways: in the first place by the mother, in the second by\nthe nurse. The mother in the more prosperous classes is often much more\nvain and trivial than the lower-class woman; she looks to her children\nfor amusement, and makes them contributors to her \u201ceffect,\u201d and, by\ntaking up their quaint and pretty mispronunciations, and devising\nhumorous additions to their natural baby talk, she teaches them to be\nmuch greater babies than they could ever possibly be themselves. They\nspecialise as charming babies until their mother tires of the pose, and\nthen they are thrust back into the nursery to recover leeway, if they\ncan, under the care of governess or nurse.\n\nThe second disadvantage of the upper-class child is the foreign nurse\nor nursery governess. There is a widely diffused idea that a child is\nparticularly apt to master and retain languages, and people try and\ninoculate with French and German as Lord Herbert of Cherbury would have\ninoculated children with antidotes, for all the ills their flesh was\nheir to--even, poor little wretches, to an anticipatory _regimen_ for\ngout. The root error of these attempts to form infantile polyglots\nis embodied in an unverified quotation from Byron\u2019s _Beppo,_ dear to\npedagogic writers--\n\n\u201cWax to receive and marble to retain\u201d\n\nruns the line--which the curious may discover to be a description of\nthe faithful lover, though it has become as firmly associated with the\nchild-mind as has Sterne\u2019s \u201ctempering the wind to the shorn lamb\u201d with\nHoly Writ. And this idea of infantile receptivity and retentiveness is\nheld by an unthinking world, in spite of the universally accessible fact\nthat hardly one of us can remember anything that happened before the age\nof five, and very little that happened before seven or eight, and that\nchildren of five or six, removed into foreign surroundings, will in a\nyear or so--if special measures are not taken--reconstruct their idiom,\nand absolutely forget every word of their mother-tongue. This foreign\nnurse comes into the child\u2019s world, bringing with her quite weird\nerrors in the quantities, the accent and idiom of the mother-tongue, and\ngreatly increasing the difficulty and delay on the road to thought and\nspeech. And this attempt to acquire a foreign language prematurely at\nthe expense of the mother-tongue, to pick it up cheaply by making the\nnurse an informal teacher of languages, entirely ignores a fact upon\nwhich I would lay the utmost stress in this paper--which, indeed, is\nthe gist of this paper--that only a very small minority of English or\nAmerican people have more than half mastered the splendid heritage of\ntheir native speech. To this neglected and most significant limitation\nthe amount of public attention given at present is quite surprisingly\nsmall. [Footnote: My friend, Mr. L. Cope Cornford, writes _apropos_\nof this, and I think I cannot do better than print what he says as\na corrective to my own assertions: \u201cAll you say on the importance of\nletting a child hear good English cleanly accented is admirable; but\nwe think you have perhaps overlooked the importance of ear-training\nas such, which should begin by the time the child can utter its first\nattempts at speech. By ear-training I mean the differentiation of\nsounds--articulate, inarticulate, and musical--fixing the child\u2019s\nattention and causing it to _imitate_. As every sound requires a\nparticular movement of the vocal apparatus, the child will soon be able\nto adapt its apparatus unconsciously and to distinguish accurately. And\nif it does not so learn before the age of five or six, it probably will\nnever do so. By the age of two--or less--the child should be able to\n_imitate_ exactly any speech-sound. Our youngsters can do so; and,\nconsequently, the fact that they had a nurse with a Sussex accent ceased\nto matter, because they learned to distinguish her talk from correct\nEnglish. So in the case of a foreign nurse; the result of a foreigner\u2019s\ninfluence would be good in this way, that it would train a child to a\n_new series of speech-sounds_, thus enlarging its ear capacity. Nor need\nit necessarily adopt these speech-sounds as those which it should use;\nit merely knows them; and if the foreigner have a good accent, and\nspeaks her own tongue well, the child\u2019s ear is trained for life,\n_irrespective of expression_. Experience shows that a child can keep\nseparate in its mind two or three languages--at first the speech-sounds,\nlater the expression. _Modes of expression_ need not begin till after\nfive, or later. With regard to music, every child should begin to\nundergo a simple course of ear-training on the sol-fa system as\nelaborated and taught by McNaught, because the faculty of so learning\nis lost--atrophied--by the age of twelve or fourteen. But, beginning\nearly--as early as possible--every child, \u2018musical\u2019 or not, can be\ntrained, just as every child, \u2018artistic\u2019 or not, may be taught to draw\naccurately up to a certain point.\u201d]\n\nThere can be little or no dispute that the English language in its\ncompleteness presents a range too ample and appliances too subtle for\nthe needs of the great majority of those who profess to speak it. I do\nnot refer to the half-civilized and altogether barbaric races who are\ncoming under its sway, but to the people we are breeding of our own\nrace--the barbarians of our streets, our suburban \u201cwhite niggers,\u201d with\na thousand a year and the conceit of Imperial destinies. They live\nin our mother-tongue as some half-civilized invaders might live in a\ngigantic and splendidly equipped palace. They misuse this, they waste\nthat, they leave whole corridors and wings unexplored, to fall into\ndisuse and decay. I doubt if the ordinary member of the prosperous\nclasses in England has much more than a third of the English language\nin use, and more than a half in knowledge, and as we go down the social\nscale we may come at last to strata having but a tenth part of our full\nvocabulary, and much of that blurred and vaguely understood. The speech\nof the Colonist is even poorer than the speech of the home-staying\nEnglish. In America, just as in Great Britain and her Colonies, there is\nthe same limitation and the same disuse. Partly, of course, this is due\nto the pettiness of our thought and experience, and so far it can only\nbe remedied by a general intellectual amplification; but partly it is\ndue to the general ignorance of English prevailing throughout the world.\nIt is atrociously taught, and taught by ignorant men. It is atrociously\nand meanly written. So far as this second cause of sheer ignorance\ngoes, the gaps in knowledge are continually resulting in slang and the\naddition of needless neologisms to the language. People come upon ideas\nthat they know no English to express, and strike out the new phrase in a\nfine burst of ignorant discovery. There are Americans in particular who\nare amazingly apt at this sort of thing. They take an enormous pride in\nthe jargon they are perpetually increasing--they boast of it, they give\nexhibition performances in it, they seem to regard it as the culminating\nflower of their continental Republic--as though the Old World had never\nheard of shoddy. But, indeed, they are in no better case than that\nunfortunate lady at Earlswood who esteems newspapers stitched with\nunravelled carpet and trimmed with orange peel, the extreme of human\nsplendour. In truth, their pride is baseless, and this slang of theirs\nno sort of distinction whatever. Let me assure them that in our heavier\nway we in this island are just as busy defiling our common inheritance.\nWe can send a team of linguists to America who will murder and\nmisunderstand the language against any eleven the Americans may select.\n\nOf course there is a natural and necessary growth and development in\na living language, a growth that no one may arrest. In appliances,\nin politics, in science, in philosophical interpretation, there is a\nperpetual necessity for new words, words to express new ideas and new\nrelationships, words free from ambiguity and encumbering associations.\nBut the neologisms of the street and the saloon rarely supply any\noccasion of this kind. For the most part they are just the stupid\nefforts of ignorant men to supply the unnecessary. And side by side\nwith the invention of inferior cheap substitutes for existing words\nand phrases, and infinitely more serious than that invention, goes on a\nperpetual misuse and distortion of those that are insufficiently known.\nThese are processes not of growth but of decay--they distort, they\nrender obsolete, and they destroy. The obsolescence and destruction of\nwords and phrases cuts us off from the nobility of our past, from the\nsevered masses of our race overseas, far more effectually than any\ngrowth of neologisms. A language may grow--our language must grow--it\nmay be clarified and refined and strengthened, but it need not suffer\nthe fate of an algal filament, and pass constantly into rottenness and\ndecay whenever growth is no longer in progress. That has been the\nfate of languages in the past because of the feebler organization, the\nslenderer, slower intercommunication, and, above all, the insufficient\nrecords of human communities; but the time has come now--or, at the\nworst, is rapidly coming--when this will cease to be a fated thing.\nWe may have a far more copious and varied tongue than had Addison or\nSpenser--that is no disaster--but there is no reason why we should not\nkeep fast hold of all they had. There is no reason why the whole fine\ntongue of Elizabethan England should not be at our disposal still.\nConceivably Addison would find the rich, allusive English of George\nMeredith obscure; conceivably we might find a thousand words and phrases\nof the year 2000 strange and perplexing; but there is no reason why a\ntime should ever come when what has been written well in English since\nElizabethan days should no longer be understandable and fine.\n\nThe prevailing ignorance of English in the English-speaking communities,\nenormously hampers the development of the racial consciousness. Except\nfor those who wish to bawl the crudest thoughts, there is no means of\nreaching the whole mass of these communities to-day. So far as material\nrequirements go it would be possible to fling a thought broadcast like\nseed over the whole world to-day, it would be possible to get a book\ninto the hands of half the adults of our race. But at the hands and\neyes one stops--there is a gap in the brains. Only thoughts that can be\nexpressed in the meanest commonplaces will ever reach the minds of the\nmajority of the English-speaking peoples under present conditions.\n\nA writer who aims to be widely read to-day must perpetually halt, must\nperpetually hesitate at the words that arise in his mind; he must ask\nhimself how many people will stick at this word altogether or miss the\nmeaning it should carry; he must ransack his memory for a commonplace\nperiphrase, an ingenious rearrangement of the familiar; he must omit\nor overaccentuate at every turn. Such simple and necessary words as\n\u201cobsolescent,\u201d \u201cdeliquescent,\u201d \u201csegregation,\u201d for example, must be\nabandoned by the man who would write down to the general reader; he must\nuse \u201cimpertinent\u201d as if it were a synonym for \u201cimpudent\u201d and \u201cindecent\u201d\n as the equivalent of \u201cobscene.\u201d And in the face of this wide ignorance\nof English, seeing how few people can either read or write English\nwith any subtlety, and how disastrously this reacts upon the general\ndevelopment of thought and understanding amidst the English-speaking\npeoples, it would be preposterous even if the attempt were successful,\nto complicate the first linguistic struggles of the infant with the\nbeginnings of a second language. But people deal thus lightly with the\nmother-tongue because they know so little of it that they do not even\nsuspect their own ignorance of its burthen and its powers. They speak a\nlittle set of ready-made phrases, they write it scarcely at all, and all\nthey read is the weak and shallow prose of popular fiction and the daily\npress. That is knowing a language within the meaning of their minds, and\nsuch a knowledge a child may very well be left to \u201cpick up\u201d as it may.\nSide by side with this they will presently set themselves to erect a\nsimilar \u201cknowledge\u201d of two or three other languages. One is constantly\nmeeting not only women but men who will solemnly profess to \u201cknow\u201d\n English and Latin, French, German and Italian, perhaps Greek, who are in\nfact--beyond the limited range of food, clothing, shelter, trade, crude\nnationalism, social conventions and personal vanity--no better than the\ndeaf and dumb. In spite of the fact that they will sit with books in\ntheir hands, visibly reading, turning pages, pencilling comments, in\nspite of the fact that they will discuss authors and repeat criticisms,\nit is as hopeless to express new thoughts to them as it would be to\nseek for appreciation in the ear of a hippopotamus. Their linguistic\ninstruments are no more capable of contemporary thought than a tin\nwhistle, a xylophone, and a drum are capable of rendering the Eroica\nSymphony.\n\nIn being also ignorant of itself, this wide ignorance of English\npartakes of all that is most hopeless in ignorance. Except among a few\nwriters and critics, there is little sense of defect in this matter.\nThe common man does not know that his limited vocabulary limits his\nthoughts. He knows that there are \u201clong words\u201d and rare words in the\ntongue, but he does not know that this implies the existence of definite\nmeanings beyond his mental range. His poor collection of everyday words,\nworn-out phrases and battered tropes, constitute what he calls \u201cplain\nEnglish,\u201d and speech beyond these limits he seriously believes to be no\nmore than the back-slang of the educated class, a mere elaboration and\ndarkening of intercourse to secure privacy and distinction. No doubt\nthere is justification enough for his suspicion in the exploits of\npretentious and garrulous souls. But it is the superficial justification\nof a profound and disastrous error. A gap in a man\u2019s vocabulary is a\nhole and tatter in his mind; words he has may indeed be weakly connected\nor wrongly connected--one may find the whole keyboard jerry-built, for\nexample, in the English-speaking Baboo--but words he has not signify\nideas that he has no means of clearly apprehending, they are patches of\nimperfect mental existence, factors in the total amount of his personal\nfailure to live.\n\nThis world-wide ignorance of English, this darkest cloud almost upon\nthe fair future of our confederated peoples, is something more than a\npassive ignorance. It is active, it is aggressive. In England at any\nrate, if one talks beyond the range of white-nigger English, one commits\na social breach. There are countless \u201cbook words\u201d well-bred people\nnever use. A writer with any tenderness for half-forgotten phrases, any\ndisposition to sublimate the mingling of unaccustomed words, runs as\ngrave a risk of organized disregard as if he tampered with the improper.\nThe leaden censures of the _Times,_ for example, await any excursion\nbeyond its own battered circumlocutions. Even nowadays, and when they\nare veterans, Mr. George Meredith and Mr. Henley get ever and again a\nscreed of abuse from some hot champion of Lower Division Civil Service\nprose. \u201cPlain English\u201d such a one will call his desideratum, as one\nmight call the viands on a New Cut barrow \u201cplain food.\u201d The hostility\nto the complete language is everywhere. I wonder just how many homes may\nnot be witnessing the self-same scene as I write. Some little child\nis struggling with the unmanageable treasure of a new-found word, has\nproduced it at last, a nice long word, forthwith to be \u201claughed out\u201d\n of such foolish ambitions by its anxious parent. People train their\nchildren not to speak English beyond a threadbare minimum, they\nresent it upon platform and in pulpit, and they avoid it in books.\nSchoolmasters as a class know little of the language. In none of our\nschools, not even in the more efficient of our elementary schools, is\nEnglish adequately taught. And these people expect the South African\nDutch to take over their neglected tongue! As though the poor partial\nKing\u2019s English of the British Colonist was one whit better than the\nTaal! To give them the reality of what English might be: that were a\ndifferent matter altogether.\n\nThese things it is the clear business of our New Republicans to alter.\nIt follows, indeed, but it is in no way secondary to the work of\nsecuring sound births and healthy childhoods, that we should secure a\nvigorous, ample mental basis for the minds born with these bodies. We\nhave to save, to revive this scattered, warped, tarnished and neglected\nlanguage of ours, if we wish to save the future of our world. We should\nsave not only the world of those who at present speak English, but the\nworld of many kindred and associated peoples who would willingly enter\ninto our synthesis, could we make it wide enough and sane enough and\nnoble enough for their honour.\n\nTo expect that so ample a cause as this should find any support among\nthe festering confusion of the old politics is to expect too much. There\nis no party for the English language anywhere in the world. We have\nto take this problem as we took our former problem and deal with it as\nthough the old politics, which slough so slowly, were already happily\nexcised. To begin with, we may give our attention to the foundation of\nthis foundation, to the growth of speech in the developing child.\n\nFrom the first the child should hear a clear and uniform pronunciation\nabout it, a precise and careful idiom and words definitely used. Since\nlanguage is to bring people together and not to keep them apart, it\nwould be well if throughout the English-speaking world there could be\none accent, one idiom, and one intonation. This there never has been\nyet, but there is no reason at all why it should not be. There is\narising even now a standard of good English to which many dialects and\nmany influences are contributing. From the Highlanders and the Irish,\nfor example, the English of the South are learning the possibilities of\nthe aspirate _h_ and _wh_, which latter had entirely and the former very\nlargely dropped out of use among them a hundred years ago. The drawling\nspeech of Wessex and New England--for the main features of what people\ncall Yankee intonation are to be found in perfection in the cottages of\nHampshire and West Sussex--are being quickened, perhaps from the same\nsources. The Scotch are acquiring the English use of _shall_ and _will,_\nand the confusion of reconstruction is world-wide among our vowels. The\nGerman _w_ of Mr. Samuel Weller has been obliterated within the space\nof a generation or so. There is no reason at all why this natural\ndevelopment of the uniform English of the coming age should not be\ngreatly forwarded by our deliberate efforts, why it should not be\npossible within a little while to define a standard pronunciation of\nour tongue. It is a less important issue by far than that of a uniform\nvocabulary and phraseology, but it is still a very notable need.\n\nWe have available now for the first time, in the more highly evolved\nforms of phonograph and telephone, a means of storing, analyzing,\ntransmitting, and referring to sounds, that should be of very\nconsiderable value in the attempt to render a good and beautiful\npronunciation of English uniform throughout the world. It would not be\nunreasonable to require from all those who are qualifying for the work\nof education, the reading aloud of long passages in the standard accent.\nAt present there is no requirement of this sort in England, and too\noften our elementary teachers at any rate, instead of being missionaries\nof linguistic purity, are centres of diffusion for blurred and vicious\nperversions of our speech. They must read and recite aloud in their\nqualifying examinations, it is true, but under no specific prohibition\nof provincial intonations. In the pulpit and the stage, moreover, we\nhave ready to hand most potent instruments of dissemination, that need\nnothing but a little sharpening to help greatly towards this end. At the\nentrance of almost all professions nowadays stands an examination that\nincludes English, and there would be nothing revolutionary in adding to\nthat written paper an oral test in the standard pronunciation. By active\nexertion to bring these things about the New Republican could do much\nto secure that every child of our English-speaking people throughout the\nworld would hear in school and church and entertainment the same clear\nand definite accent. The child\u2019s mother and nurse would be helped\nto acquire almost insensibly a sound and confident pronunciation. No\nobservant man who has lived at all broadly, meeting and talking\nwith people of diverse culture and tradition, but knows how much our\nintercourse is cumbered by hesitations about quantity and accent, and\npetty differences of phrase and idiom, and how greatly intonation and\naccent may warp and limit our sympathy.\n\nAnd while they are doing this for the general linguistic atmosphere, the\nNew Republicans could also attempt something to reach the children in\ndetail.\n\nBy instinct nearly every mother wants to teach. Some teach by instinct,\nbut for the most part there is a need of guidance in their teaching. At\npresent these first and very important phases in education are guided\nalmost entirely by tradition. The necessary singing and talking to very\nyoung children is done in imitation of similar singing and talking; it\nis probably done no better, it may possibly be done much worse, than\nit was done two hundred years ago. A very great amount of permanent\nimprovement in human affairs might be secured in this direction by the\nexpenditure of a few thousand pounds in the systematic study of the most\neducational method of dealing with children in the first two or three\nyears of life, and in the intelligent propagation of the knowledge\nobtained. There exist already, it is true, a number of Child Study\nAssociations, Parents\u2019 Unions, and the like, but for the most part these\nare quite ineffectual talking societies, akin to Browning Societies,\nLiterary and Natural History Societies: they attain a trifling amount\nof mutual improvement at their best, the members read papers to\none another, and a few medical men and schools secure a needed\nadvertisement. They have no organization, no concentration of their\nenergy, and their chief effect seems to be to present an interest in\neducation as if it were a harmless, pointless fad. But if a few men of\nmeans and capacity were to organize a committee with adequate funds,\nsecure the services of specially endowed men for the exhaustive study of\ndeveloping speech, publish a digested report, and, with the assistance\nof a good writer or so, produce very cheaply, advertise vigorously, and\ndisseminate widely a small, clearly printed, clearly written book of\npithy instructions for mothers and nurses in this matter of early speech\nthey would quite certainly effect a great improvement in the mental\nfoundations of the coming generation. We do not yet appreciate the fact\nthat for the first time in the history of the world there exists a state\nof society in which almost every nurse and mother reads. It is no longer\nnecessary to rely wholly upon instinct and tradition, therefore, for\nthe early stages of a child\u2019s instruction. We can reinforce and organize\nthese things through the printed word.\n\nFor example, an important factor in the early stage of speech-teaching\nis the nursery rhyme. A little child, towards the end of the first year,\nhaving accumulated a really very comprehensive selection of sounds and\nnoises by that time, begins to imitate first the associated motions, and\nthen the sounds of various nursery rhymes--\u201cPat-a-cake,\u201d for example. In\nthe book I imagine, there would be, among many other things, a series of\nlittle versicles, old and new, in which, to the accompaniment of simple\ngestures, all the elementary sounds of the language could be easily and\nagreeably made familiar to the child\u2019s ears. [Footnote: Messrs. Heath of\nBoston, U.S.A., have sent me a book of Nursery Rhymes, arranged by Mr.\nCharles Welsh, which is certainly the best thing I have seen in this\nway. It is worthy of note that the neglect of pedagogic study in Great\nBritain is forcing the intelligent British parent and teacher to rely\nmore and more upon American publishers for children\u2019s books. The work of\nEnglish writers is often very tasteful and pretty, but of the smallest\neducational value. ]\n\nAnd the same book I think might well contain a list of foundation things\nand words and certain elementary forms of expression which the child\nshould become perfectly familiar with in the first three or four\nyears of life. Much of each little child\u2019s vocabulary is its personal\nadventure, and Heaven save us all from system in excess! But I think it\nwould be possible for a subtle psychologist to trace through the easy\nnatural tangle of the personal briar-rose of speech certain necessary\nstrands, that hold the whole growth together and render its later\nexpansion easy and swift and strong. Whatever else the child gets, it\nmust get these fundamental strands well and early if it is to do its\nbest. If they do not develop now their imperfection will cause delay\nand difficulty later. There are, for example, among these fundamental\nnecessities, idioms to express comparison, to express position in space\nand time, elementary conceptions of form and colour, of tense and mood,\nthe pronouns and the like. No doubt, in one way or another, most of\nthese forms are acquired by every child, but there is no reason why\ntheir acquisition should not be watched with the help of a wisely framed\nlist, and any deficiency deliberately and carefully supplied. It would\nhave to be a wisely framed list, it would demand the utmost effort of\nthe best intelligence, and that is why something more than the tradesman\nenterprise of publishers is needed in this work. The publisher\u2019s ideal\nof an author of an educational work is a clever girl in her teens\nworking for pocket-money. What is wanted is a little quintessential\nbook better and cheaper than any publisher, publishing for gain, could\npossibly produce, a book so good that imitation would be difficult, and\nso cheap and universally sold that no imitation would be profitable.\n\nUpon this foundation of a sound accent and a basic vocabulary must be\nbuilt the general fabric of the language. For the most part this must\nbe done in the school. At present in Great Britain a considerable\nproportion of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses--more particularly\nthose in secondary and private schools--are too ill-educated to do this\nproperly; there is excellent reason for supposing things are very little\nbetter in America; and, to begin with, it must be the care of every\ngood New Republican to bring about a better state of things in this\nmost lamentable profession. Until the teacher can read and write, in the\nfullest sense of these words, it is idle to expect him or her to teach\nthe pupil to do these things. As matters are at present, the attempt is\nscarcely made. In the elementary and lower secondary schools ill-chosen\nreading-books are scampered through and abandoned all too soon in favour\nof more pretentious \u201csubjects,\u201d and a certain preposterous nonsense\ncalled English Grammar is passed through the pupil--stuff which happily\nno mind can retain. Little girls and boys of twelve or thirteen, who\ncannot understand, and never will understand anything but the vulgarest\nEnglish, and who will never in their lives achieve a properly punctuated\nletter, are taught such mysteries as that there are eight--I believe it\nis eight--sorts of nominative, and that there is (or is not) a gerundive\nin English, and trained month after month and year after year to perform\nthe oddest operations, a non-analytical analysis, and a ritual called\nparsing that must be seen to be believed. It is no good mincing the\ntruth about all this sort of thing. These devices are resorted to by the\nschool teachers of the present just as the Rules of Double and Single\nAlligation and Double Rule of Three, and all the rest of that solemn\ntomfoolery, were \u201ctaught\u201d by the arithmetic teachers in the academies\nof the eighteenth century, because they are utterly ignorant, and know\nthemselves to be utterly ignorant, of the reality of the subject, and\nbecause, therefore, they have to humbug the parent and pass the time\nby unreal inventions. The case is not a bit better in the higher grade\nschools. They do not do so much of the bogus teaching of English, but\nthey do nothing whatever in its place.\n\nNow it is little use to goad the members of an ill-trained, ill-treated,\nill-organized, poorly respected and much-abused [Footnote: _Peccavi._]\nprofession with reproaches for doing what they cannot do, or to clamour\nfor legislation that will give more school time or heavier subsidies to\nthe pretence of teaching what very few people are able to teach. We all\nknow how atrociously English is taught, but proclaiming that will\nnot mend matters a bit, it will only render matters worse by making\nschoolmasters and schoolmistresses shameless and effortless, unless we\nalso show how well English may be taught. The sane course is to begin by\nestablishing the proper way to do the thing, to develop a proper method\nand demonstrate what can be done by that method in a few selected\nschools, to prepare and render acceptable the necessary class-books, and\nthen to use examination and inspector, grant in aid, training college,\nlecture, book and pamphlet to spread the sound expedients. We want an\nEnglish Language Society, of affluent and vigorous people, that will\nundertake this work. And one chief duty of that society will be to\ndevise, to arrange and select, to print handsomely, to illustrate\nbeautifully and to sell cheaply and vigorously _everywhere,_ a series\nof reading books, and perhaps of teachers\u2019 companions to these reading\nbooks, that shall serve as the basis of instruction in Standard English\nthroughout the whole world. These books, as I conceive them, would begin\nas reading primers, they would progress through a long series of subtly\ngraded stories, passages and extracts until they had given the complete\nrange of our tongue. They would be read from, recited from, quoted in\nexemplification and imitated by the pupils. Such splendid matter as\nHenley and Whibley\u2019s collection of Elizabethan Prose, for example, might\nwell find a place toward the end of that series of books. There would\nbe an anthology of English lyrics, of all the best short stories in our\nlanguage, of all the best episodes. From these readers the pupil would\npass, still often reading and reciting aloud, to such a series of\nmasterpieces as an efficient English Language Society could force upon\nevery school. At present in English schools a library is an exception\nrather than a rule, and your clerical head-master on public occasions\nwill cheerfully denounce the \u201ctrash\u201d reading, \u201csnippet\u201d reading\nhabits of the age, with that defect lying like a feather on his expert\nconscience. A school without an easily accessible library of at least a\nthousand volumes is really scarcely a school at all--it is a dispensary\nwithout bottles, a kitchen without a pantry. For all that, if the\ninquiring New Republican find two hundred linen-covered volumes of the\n_Eric, or Little by Little_ type, mean goody-goody thought dressed in\nits appropriate language, stored away in some damp cupboard of his son\u2019s\nschool, and accessible once a week, he may feel assured things are above\nthe average there. My imaginary English Language Society would make it a\nfundamental duty, firstly to render that library of at least a thousand\nvolumes or so specially cheap and easily procurable, and secondly, by\npamphlets and agitation, to render it a compulsory minimum requirement\nfor every grade of school. It is far more important, and it would be\nfar less costly even as things are, than the cheapest sort of chemical\nlaboratory a school could have, and it should cost scarcely more than a\nschool piano.\n\nI know very little of the practical teaching of English, my own very\nfragmentary knowledge of the more familiar clich\u00e9s of our tongue was\nacquired in a haphazard fashion, but I am inclined to think that in\naddition to much reading aloud and recitation from memory the work of\ninstruction might consist very largely of continually more extensive\nefforts towards original composition. Paraphrasing is a good exercise,\nprovided that it does not consist in turning good and beautiful English\ninto bad. I do not see why it should not follow the reverse direction.\nSelected passages of mean, stereotyped, garrulous or inexact prose might\nvery well be rewritten, under the direction of an intelligent master.\nRetelling a story that has just been read and discussed, with a change\nof incident perhaps, would also not be a bad sort of exercise, writing\npassages in imitation of set passages and the like. Written descriptions\nof things displayed to a class should also be instructive. Caught at\nthe right age, most little girls, and many little boys I believe,\nwould learn very pleasantly to write simple verse. This they should\nbe encouraged to read aloud. At a later stage the more settled poetic\nforms, the ballade, the sonnet, the rondeau, for example, should afford\na good practice in handling language. Pupils should be encouraged to\nimport fresh words into their work--even if the effect is a little\nstartling at times--they should hunt the dictionary for material. A good\nbook for the upper forms in schools dealing in a really intelligent and\ninstructive way with Latin and Greek, so far as it is necessary to know\nthese languages in order to use and manipulate technical English freely,\nwould, I conceive, be of very great service. It must be a good exercise\nto write precise definitions of words. Logic also is an integral portion\nof the study of the mother-tongue.\n\nBut to throw out suggestions in this way is an easy task. The\neducational papers are full of this sort of thing, educational\nconferences resound with it. What the world is not full of is the\ncapacity to organize these things, to drag them, struggling and clinging\nto a thousand unanticipated difficulties, from the region of the counsel\nof perfection to the region of manifest practicability. For that there\nis needed attention, industry, and an intelligent use of a fair sum of\nmoney. We want an industrious committee, and we want one or two rich\nmen. A series of books, a model course of instruction, has to be planned\nand made, tried over, criticised, revised and altered. When the right\nway is no longer indicated by prophetic persons pointing in a mist, but\nmarked out, levelled, mapped and fenced, then the scholastic profession,\nwherever the English language is spoken, has to be lured and driven\nalong it. The New Republican must make his course cheap, attractive,\neasy for the teacher and good for the teacher\u2019s pocket and reputation.\nJust as there are plays that, as actors say, \u201cact themselves,\u201d so, with\na profession that is rarely at its best and often at its worst, and\nwhich at its worst consists of remarkably dull young men and remarkably\ndreary young women, those who want English well taught must see to it\nthat they provide a series of books and instructors that will teach by\nthemselves, whatever the teacher does to prevent them.\n\nSurely this enterprise of text-books and teachers, of standard\nphonographs and cheaply published classics, is no fantastic impossible\ndream! So far as money goes--if only money were the one thing needful--a\nhundred thousand pounds would be a sufficient fund from first to last\nfor all of it. Yet modest as its proportions are, its consequences,\nwere it done by able men throwing their hearts into it, might be of\nincalculable greatness. By such expedients and efforts as these we might\nenormously forward the establishment of that foundation of a world-wide\nspacious language, the foundation upon which there will arise for our\nchildren subtler understandings, ampler imaginations, sounder judgments\nand clearer resolutions, and all that makes at last a nobler world of\nmen.\n\nBut in this discussion of school libraries and the like, we wander a\nlittle from our immediate topic of mental beginnings.\n\n\n\u00a7 3\n\n\nAt the end of the fifth year, as the natural outcome of its instinctive\neffort to experiment and learn, acting amidst wisely ordered\nsurroundings, the little child should have acquired a certain definite\nfoundation for the educational structure. It should have a vast variety\nof perceptions stored in its mind, and a vocabulary of three or four\nthousand words, and among these, and holding them together, there should\nbe certain structural and cardinal ideas. They are ideas that will have\nbeen gradually and imperceptibly instilled, and they are necessary as\nthe basis of a sound mental existence. There must be, to begin with,\na developing sense and feeling for truth and for duty as something\ndistinct and occasionally conflicting with immediate impulse and desire,\nand there must be certain clear intellectual elements established\nalready almost impregnably in the mind, certain primary distinctions\nand classifications. Many children are called stupid, and begin their\neducational career with needless difficulty through an unsoundness\nof these fundamental intellectual elements, an unsoundness in no\nway inherent, but the result of accident and neglect. And a starting\nhandicap of this sort may go on increasing right through the whole life.\n\nThe child at five, unless it is colour blind, should know the range\nof colours by name, and distinguish them easily, blue and green not\nexcepted; it should be able to distinguish pink from pale red and\ncrimson from scarlet. [Footnote: There could be a set of colour bands in\nthe book that the English Language Society might publish.] Many children\nthrough the neglect of those about them do not distinguish these colours\nuntil a very much later age. I think also--in spite of the fact that\nmany adults go vague and ignorant on these points--that a child of five\nmay have been taught to distinguish between a square, a circle, an oval,\na triangle and an oblong, and to use these words. It is easier to keep\nhold of ideas with words than without them, and none of these words\nshould be impossible by five. The child should also know familiarly by\nmeans of toys, wood blocks and so on, many elementary solid forms. It\nis matter of regret that in common language we have no easy, convenient\nwords for many of these forms, and instead of being learnt easily and\nnaturally in play, they are left undistinguished, and have to be studied\nlater under circumstances of forbidding technicality. It would be\nquite easy to teach the child in an incidental way to distinguish cube,\ncylinder, cone, sphere (or ball), prolate spheroid (which might be\ncalled \u201cegg\u201d), oblate spheroid (which might be called \u201csquatty ball\u201d),\nthe pyramid, and various parallelepipeds, as, for example, the square\nslab, the oblong slab, the brick, and post. He could have these things\nadded to his box of bricks by degrees, he would build with them and\ncombine them and play with them over and over again, and absorb an\nintimate knowledge of their properties, just at the age when such\nknowledge is almost instinctively sought and is most pleasant and easy\nin its acquisition. These things need not be specially forced upon\nhim. In no way should he be led to emphasize them or give a priggish\nimportance to his knowledge of them. They will come into his toys and\nplay mingled with a thousand other interests, the fortifying powder of\nclear general ideas, amidst the jam of play.\n\nIn addition the child should be able to count, [Footnote: There can be\nlittle doubt that many of us were taught to count very badly, and that\nwe were hampered in our arithmetic throughout life by this defect.\nCounting should be taught be means of small cubes, which the child can\narrange and rearrange in groups. It should have at least over a hundred\nof these cubes--if possible a thousand; they will be useful as toy\nbricks, and for innumerable purposes. Our civilization is now wedded\nto a decimal system of counting, and, to begin with, it will be well to\nteach the child to count up to ten and to stop there for a time. It is\nsuggested by Mrs. Mary Everest Boole that it is very confusing to have\ndistinctive names for eleven and twelve, which the child is apt to class\nwith the single numbers and contrast with the teens, and she proposes\nat the beginning (_The Cultivation of the Mathematical Imagination_,\nColchester: Benham & Co.) to use the words \u201cone-ten,\u201d \u201ctwo-ten,\u201d\n thirteen, fourteen, etc., for the second decade in counting. Her\nproposal is entirely in harmony with the general drift of the admirably\nsuggestive diagrams of number order collected by Mr. Francis\nGallon. Diagram after diagram displays the same hitch at twelve, the\npredominance in the mind of an individualized series over quantitatively\nequal spaces until the twenties are attained. Many diagrams also display\nthe mental scar of the clock face, the early counting is overmuch\nassociated with a dial. One might perhaps head off the establishment\nof that image, and supply a more serviceable foundation for memories\nby equipping the nursery with a vertical scale of numbers divided into\nequal parts up to two or three hundred, with each decade tinted. When\nthe child has learnt to count up to a hundred with cubes, it should be\ngiven an abacus, and it should also be encouraged to count and check\nquantities with all sorts of things, marbles, apples, bricks in a wall,\npebbles, spots on dominoes, and so on; taught to play guessing games\nwith marbles in a hand, and the like. The abacus, the hundred square\nand the thousand cube, will then in all probability become its cardinal\nnumerical memories. Playing cards (without corner indices) and dominoes\nsupply good recognizable arrangements of numbers, and train a child to\ngrasp a number at a glance. The child should not be taught the Arabic\nnumerals until it has counted for a year or more. Experience speaks\nhere. I know one case only too well of a man who learnt his Arabic\nnumerals prematurely, before he had acquired any sound experimental\nknowledge of numerical quantity, and, as a consequence, his numerical\nideas are incurably associated with the peculiarities of the figures.\nWhen he hears the word seven he does not really think of seven or\nseven-ness at all, even now, he thinks of a number rather like four\nand very unlike six. Then again, six and nine are mysteriously and\nunreasonably linked in his mind, and so are three and five. He confuses\nnumbers like sixty-three and sixty-five, and finds it hard to keep\nseventy-four distinct from forty-seven. Consequently, when it came\nto the multiplication table, he learnt each table as an arbitrary\narrangement of relationships, and with an extraordinary amount of\nneedless labour and punishment. But obviously with cubes or abacus\nat hand, it would be the easiest thing in the world for a child to\nconstruct and learn its own multiplication table whenever the need\narose.] it should be capable of some mental and experimental arithmetic,\nand I am told that a child of five should be able to give the _sol-fa_\nnames to notes, and sing these names at their proper pitch. Possibly in\nsocial intercourse the child will have picked up names for some of the\nletters of the alphabet, but there is no great hurry for that before\nfive certainly, or even later. There is still a vast amount of things\nimmediately about the child that need to be thoroughly learnt, and\na premature attack on letters divides attention from these more\nappropriate and educational objects. It should, for the reason given\nin the footnote, be still ignorant of the Arabic numerals. It should\nbe able to handle a pencil and amuse itself with freehand of this\nsort:--and its mind should be quite uncontaminated by that imbecile\ndrawing upon squared paper by means of which ignorant teachers destroy\nboth the desire and the capacity to sketch in so many little children.\nSuch sketching could be enormously benefited by a really intelligent\nteacher who would watch the child\u2019s efforts, and draw with the child\njust a little above its level. For example, the teacher might stimulate\neffort by rejoining to such a sketch as the above, something in this\nvein:--\n\nThe child will already be a great student of picture-books at five,\nsomething of a critic (after the manner of the realistic school), and\nit will be easy to egg it almost imperceptibly to a level where copying\nfrom simple outline illustrations will become possible. About five, a\npresent of some one of the plastic substitutes for modelling clay\nnow sold by educational dealers, _plasticine_ for example, will be a\ndiscreet and acceptable present to the child--if not to its nurse.\n\nThe child\u2019s imagination will also be awake and active at five. He will\nlook out on the world with anthropomorphic (or rather with p\u00e6domorphic)\neyes. He will be living on a great flat earth--unless some officious\nperson has tried to muddle his wits by telling him the earth is round;\namidst trees, animals, men, houses, engines, utensils, that are all\ncapable of being good or naughty, all fond of nice things and hostile to\nnasty ones, all thumpable and perishable, and all conceivably esurient.\nAnd the child should know of Fairy Land. The beautiful fancy of the\n\u201cLittle People,\u201d even if you do not give it to him, he will very\nprobably get for himself; they will lurk always just out of reach of\nhis desiring curious eyes, amidst the grass and flowers and behind the\nwainscot and in the shadows of the bedroom. He will come upon their\ntraces; they will do him little kindnesses. Their affairs should\ninterweave with the affairs of the child\u2019s dolls and brick castles\nand toy furniture. At first the child will scarcely be in a world of\nsustained stories, but very eager for anecdotes and simple short tales.\n\nThis is the hopeful foundation upon which at or about the fifth year the\nformal education of every child in a really civilized community ought to\nbegin. [Footnote: One may note here, perhaps, the desirability too often\ndisregarded by over-solicitous parents, and particularly by the parents\nof the solitary children who are now so common, of keeping the child a\nlittle out of focus, letting it play by itself whenever it will, never\ncalling attention to it in a manner that awakens it to the fact of an\naudience, never talking about it in its presence. Solitary children\ncommonly get too much control, they are forced and beguiled upward\nrather than allowed to grow, their egotism is over-stimulated, and they\nmiss many of the benefits of play and competition. It seems a pity, too,\nin the case of so many well-to-do people, that having equipped nurseries\nthey should not put them to a fuller use--if in no other way than by\nadmitting foster children. None of this has been very fully analyzed, of\ncourse (there are enormous areas of valuable research in these matters\nwaiting for people of intelligence and leisure, or of intelligence and\nmeans), but the opinion that solitary children are handicapped by their\nloneliness is very strong. It is nearly certain that as a rule they make\nless agreeable boys and girls, but to me at any rate it is not nearly so\ncertain that they make adult failures. It would be interesting to learn\njust what proportion of solitary children there is on the roll of\nthose who have become great in our world. One thinks of John Ruskin,\na particularly fine specimen of the highly focussed single son. Prig\nperhaps he was, but this world has a certain need of such prigs.\nA correspondent (a schoolmistress of experience) who has collected\nstatistics in her own neighbourhood, is strongly of opinion not only\nthat solitary children are below the average, but that all elder\nchildren are inferior in quality. I do not believe this, but it would\nbe interesting and valuable if some one could find time for a wide and\nthorough investigation of this question.]\n\n\n\n\nV. THE MAN-MAKING FORCES OF THE MODERN STATE\n\n\nSo far we have concerned ourselves with the introductory and foundation\nmatter of the New Republican project, with the measures and methods that\nmay be resorted to, firstly, if we would raise the general quality\nof the children out of whom we have to make the next generation,\nand, secondly, if we would replace divergent dialects and partial\nand confused expression by a uniform, ample and thorough knowledge of\nEnglish throughout the English-speaking world. These two things are\nnecessary preliminaries to the complete attainment of the more essential\nnucleus in the New Republican idea. So much has been discussed. This\nessential nucleus, thus stripped, reveals itself as the systematic\ndirection of the moulding forces that play upon the developing citizen,\ntowards his improvement, with a view to a new generation of individuals,\na new social state, at a higher level than that at which we live to-day,\na new generation which will apply the greater power, ampler knowledge\nand more definite will our endeavours will give it, to raise its\nsuccessor still higher in the scale of life. Or we may put the thing\nin another and more concrete and vivid way. On the one hand imagine an\naverage little child let us say in its second year. We have discussed\nall that can be done to secure that this average little child shall be\nwell born, well fed, well cared for, and we will imagine all that can\nbe done has been done. Accordingly, we have a sturdy, beautiful healthy\nlittle creature to go upon, just beginning to walk, just beginning to\nclutch at things with its hands, to reach out to and apprehend things\nwith its eyes, with its ears, with the hopeful commencement of speech.\nWe want to arrange matters so that this little being shall develop into\nits best possible adult form. That is our remaining problem.\n\nIs our contemporary average citizen the best that could have been made\nout of the vague extensive possibilities that resided in him when he was\na child of two? It has been shown already that in height and weight\nhe, demonstrably, is not, and it has been suggested, I hope almost\nas convincingly, that in that complex apparatus of acquisition and\nexpression, language, he is also needlessly deficient. And even upon\nthis defective foundation, it is submitted, he still fails, morally,\nmentally, socially, aesthetically, to be as much as he might be. \u201cAs\nmuch as he might be,\u201d is far too ironically mild. The average citizen\nof our great state to-day is, I would respectfully submit, scarcely more\nthan a dirty clout about his own buried talents.\n\nI do not say he might not be infinitely worse, but can any one believe\nthat, given better conditions, he might not have been infinitely better?\nIs it necessary to argue for a thing so obvious to all clear-sighted\nmen? Is it necessary, even if it were possible, that I should borrow the\nmantle of Mr. George Gissing or the force of Mr. Arthur Morrison, and\nset myself in cold blood to measure the enormous defect of myself and my\nfellows by the standards of a remote perfection, to gauge the extent\nof this complex muddle of artificial and avoidable shortcomings through\nwhich we struggle? Must one, indeed, pass in review once more, bucolic\nstupidity, commercial cunning, urban vulgarity, religious hypocrisy,\npolitical clap-trap, and all the raw disorder of our incipient\ncivilization before the point will be conceded? What benefit is there in\nany such revision? rather it may overwhelm us with the magnitude of what\nwe seek to do. Let us not dwell on it, on all the average civilized man\nstill fails to achieve; admit his imperfection, and for the rest let us\nkeep steadfastly before us that fair, alluring and reasonable conception\nof all that, even now, the average man might be.\n\nYet one is tempted by the effective contrast to put against that clean\nand beautiful child some vivid presentation of the average thing, to\nsketch in a few simple lines the mean and graceless creature of our\nmodern life, his ill-made clothes, his clumsy, half-fearful, half-brutal\nbearing, his coarse defective speech, his dreary unintelligent work, his\nshabby, impossible, bathless, artless, comfortless home; one is provoked\nto suggest him in some phase of typical activity, \u201cenjoying himself\u201d on\na Bank Holiday, or rejoicing, peacock feather in hand, hat askew, and\nvoice completely gone, on some occasion of public festivity--on the\ndefeat of a numerically inferior enemy for example, or the decision of\nsome great international issue at baseball or cricket. This, one would\nsay, we have made out of that, and so point the New Republican question,\n\u201cCannot we do better?\u201d But the thing has been done so often without ever\nthe breath of a remedy. Our business is with remedies. We mean to do\nbetter, we live to do better, and with no more than a glance at our\npresent failures we will set ourselves to that.\n\nTo do better we must begin with a careful analysis of the process of\nthis man\u2019s making, of the great complex of circumstances which mould the\nvague possibilities of the average child into the reality of the citizen\nof the modern state.\n\nWe may begin upon this complex most hopefully by picking out a few of\nthe conspicuous and typical elements and using them as a basis for an\nexhaustive classification. To begin with, of course, there is the home.\nFor our present purpose it will be convenient to use \u201chome\u201d as a general\nexpression for that limited group of human beings who share the board\nand lodging of the growing imperial citizen, and whose personalities are\nin constant, close contact with his until he reaches fifteen or sixteen.\nTypically, the chief figures of this group are mother, brothers and\nsisters, and father, to which are often added nursemaid, governess,\nand other servants. Beyond these are playmates again. Beyond these\nacquaintances figure. Home has indeed nowadays, in our world, no very\ndefinite boundaries--no such boundaries as it has, for example, on the\nveldt. In the case of a growing number of English upper middle-class\nchildren, moreover, and of the children of a growing element in the life\nof the eastern United States, the home functions are delegated in a very\nlarge degree to the preparatory school. It is a distinction that needs\nto be emphasized that many so-called schools are really homes, often\nvery excellent homes, with which schools, often very inefficient\nschools, are united. All this we must lump together--it is, indeed,\nwoven together almost inextricably--when we speak of home as a formative\nfactor. The home, so far as its hygienic conditions go, we have already\ndealt with, and we have dealt, too, with the great neglected necessity,\nthe absolute necessity if our peoples are to keep together, of making\nand keeping the language of the home uniform throughout our world-wide\ncommunity. Purely intellectual development beyond the matter of language\nwe may leave for a space. There remains the distinctive mental and\nmoral function of the home, the determination by precept, example,\nand implication of the cardinal habits of the developing citizen, his\ngeneral demeanour, his fundamental beliefs about all the common and\nessential things of life.\n\nThis group of people, who constitute the home, will be in constant\nreaction upon him. If as a whole they bear themselves with grace and\nserenity, say and do kindly things, control rage, and occupy themselves\nconstantly, they will do much to impose these qualities upon the\nnew-comer. If they quarrel one with another, behave coarsely and\nspitefully, loiter and lounge abundantly, these things will also stamp\nthe child. A raging father, a scared deceitful mother, vulgarly acting,\nvulgarly thinking friends, all leave an almost indelible impress.\nPrecept may play a part in the home, but it is a small part, unless it\nis endorsed by conduct. What these people do, on the whole, believe in\nand act upon, the child will tend to believe in and act upon; what they\nbelieve they believe, but do not act upon, the child will acquire also\nas a non-operative belief; their practices, habits, and prejudices will\nbe enormously prepotent in his life. If, for example, the parent talks\nconstantly of the contemptible dirtiness of Boers and foreigners, and\nof the extreme beauty of cleanliness and--even obviously--rarely washes,\nthe child will grow to the same professions and the same practical\ndenial. This home circle it is that will describe what, in modified\nHerbartian phraseology, one may call the child\u2019s initial circle of\nthought; it is a circle many things will subsequently enlarge\nand modify, but of which they have the centering at least and the\nestablishment of the radial trends, almost beyond redemption. The\neffect of home influence, indeed, constitutes with most of us a sort\nof secondary heredity, interweaving with, and sometimes almost\nindistinguishable from, the real unalterable primary heredity, a\nmoral shaping by suggestion, example, and influence, that is a sort of\nspiritual parallel to physical procreation.\n\nIt is not simply personalities that are operative in the home influence.\nThere is also the implications of the various relations between one\nmember of the home circle and another. I am inclined to think that the\nsocial conceptions, for example, that are accepted in a child\u2019s home\nworld are very rarely shaken in afterlife. People who have been brought\nup in households where there is an organized under-world of servants are\nincurably different in their social outlook from those who have passed\na servantless childhood. They never quite emancipate themselves from\nthe conception of an essential class difference, of a class of beings\ninferior to themselves. They may theorise about equality--but theory\nis not belief. They will do a hundred things to servants that between\nequals would be, for various reasons, impossible. The Englishwoman and\nthe Anglicised American woman of the more pretentious classes honestly\nregards a servant as physically, morally, and intellectually different\nfrom herself, capable of things that would be incredibly arduous to\na lady, capable of things that would be incredibly disgraceful, under\nobligations of conduct no lady observes, incapable of the refinement\nto which every lady pretends. It is one of the most amazing aspects of\ncontemporary life, to converse with some smart, affected, profoundly\nuneducated, flirtatious woman about her housemaid\u2019s followers. There is\nsuch an identity; there is such an abyss. But at present that contrast\nis not our concern. Our concern at present is with the fact that the\nsocial constitution of the home almost invariably shapes the fundamental\nsocial conceptions for life, just as its average temperament shapes\nmanners and bearing and its moral tone begets moral predisposition. If\nthe average sensual man of our civilization is noisy and undignified in\nhis bearing, disposed to insult and despise those he believes to be his\nsocial inferiors, competitive and disobliging to his equals; abject,\nservile, and dishonest to those he regards as his betters; if his wife\nis a silly, shallow, gossiping spendthrift, unfit to rear the children\nshe occasionally bears, perpetually snubbing social inferiors and\nperpetually cringing to social superiors, it is probable that we have\nto blame the home, not particularly any specific class of homes, but our\ngeneral home atmosphere, for the great part of these characteristics.\nIf we would make the average man of the coming years gentler in manner,\nmore deliberate in judgment, steadier in purpose, upright, considerate,\nand free, we must look first to the possibility of improving the tone\nand quality of the average home.\n\nNow the substance and constitution of the home, the relations and order\nof its various members, have been, and are, traditional. But it is\na tradition that has always been capable of modification in each\ngeneration. In the unlettered, untravelling past, the factor of\ntradition was altogether dominant. Sons and daughters married and set\nup homes, morally, intellectually, economically, like those of their\nparents. Over great areas homogeneous traditions held, and it needed\nwars and conquests, or it needed missionaries and persecutors and\nconflicts, or it needed many generations of intercourse and filtration\nbefore a new tradition could replace or graft itself upon the old. But\nin the past hundred years or so the home conditions of the children of\nour English-speaking population have shown a disposition to break from\ntradition under influences that are increasing, and to become much more\nheterogeneous than were any home conditions before. The ways in which\nthese modifications of the old home tradition have arisen will indicate\nthe means and methods by which further modifications may be expected and\nattempted in the future.\n\nModification has come to the average home tradition through two\ndistinct, though no doubt finally interdependent channels. The first of\nthese channels is the channel of changing economic necessities, using\nthe phrase to cover everything from domestic conveniences at the one\nextreme to the financial foundation of the home at the other, and\nthe next is the influx of new systems of thought, of feeling, and of\ninterpretation about the general issues of life.\n\nThere are in Great Britain three main interdependent systems of home\ntradition undergoing modification and readjustment. They date from the\ndays before mechanism and science began their revolutionary intervention\nin human affairs, and they derive from the three main classes of the old\naristocratic, agricultural, and trading state, namely, the aristocratic,\nthe middle, and the labour class. There are local, there are even racial\nmodifications, there are minor classes and subspecies, but the rough\ntriple classification will serve. In America the dominant home\ntradition is that of the transplanted English middle class. The English\naristocratic tradition has flourished and faded in the Southern States;\nthe British servile and peasant tradition has never found any growth in\nAmerica, and has, in the persons of the Irish chiefly, been imported in\nan imperfect condition, only to fade. The various home traditions of\nthe nineteenth century immigrants have either, if widely different,\nsuccumbed, or if not very different assimilated themselves to the\nruling tradition. The most marked non-British influence has been the\nintermixture of Teutonic Protestantism. In both countries now the old\nhome traditions have been and are being adjusted to and modified by\nthe new classes, with new relationships and new necessities, that the\nrevolution in industrial organization and domestic conveniences has\ncreated.\n\nThe interplay of old tradition and new necessities becomes at times very\ncurious. Consider, for example, the home influences of the child of\na shopman in a large store, or those of the child of a skilled\noperative--an engineer of some sort let us say--in England. Both these\nare new types in the English social body; the former derives from\nthe old middle class, the class that was shopkeeping in the towns and\nfarming in the country, the class of the Puritans, the Quakers, the\nfirst manufacturers, the class whose mentally active members become\nthe dissenters, the old Liberals, and the original New Englanders. The\ngrowth of large businesses has raised a portion of this class to the\nposition of Sir John Blundell Maple, Sir Thomas Lipton, the intimate\nfriend of our King, and our brewer peers; it has raised a rather more\nnumerous section to the red plush glories of Wagon-Lit trains and their\nsocial and domestic equivalents, and it has reduced the bulk of the\nclass to the status of employees for life. But the tradition that our\nEnglish shopman is in the same class as his master, that he has been\napprentice and improver, and is now assistant, with a view to presently\nbeing a master himself, still throws its glamour over his life and his\nhome, and his child\u2019s upbringing. They belong to the middle class, the\nblack coat and silk-hat class, and the silk hat crowns the adolescence\nof their boys as inevitably as the toga made men in ancient Rome. Their\nhouse is built, not for convenience primarily, but to realize whatever\nconvenience is possible after the rigid traditional requirements have\nbeen met; it is the extreme and final reduction of the plan of a better\nclass house, and the very type of its owner. As one sees it in the\nLondon suburbs devoted to clerks and shopmen, it stands back a yard or\nso from the road, with a gate and a railing, and a patch, perhaps two\nfeet wide, of gravel between its front and the pavement. This is the\nlast pathetic vestige of the preliminary privacies of its original type,\nthe gates, the drive-up, the front lawn, the shady trees, that gave a\ngreat impressive margin to the door. The door has a knocker (with an\nappeal to realities, \u201cring also\u201d) and it opens into a narrow passage,\nperhaps four feet wide, which still retains the title of \u201chall.\u201d Oak\nstaining on the woodwork and marbled paper accentuate the lordly memory.\nPeople of this class would rather die than live in a house with a front\ndoor, even had it a draught-stopping inner door, that gave upon the\nstreet. Instead of an ample kitchen in which meals can be taken and one\nother room in which the rest of life goes on, these two covering the\nhouse site, the social distinction from the servant invades the house\nspace first by necessitating a passage to a side-door, and secondly\nby cutting up the interior into a \u201cdining-room\u201d and a \u201cdrawing-room.\u201d\n Economy of fuel throughout the winter and economy of the best furniture\nalways, keeps the family in the dining-room pretty constantly, but there\nyou have the drawing-room as a concrete fact. Though the drawing-room is\ninevitable, the family will manage without a bath-room well enough. They\nmay, or they may not, occasionally wash all over. There are probably\nnot fifty books in the house, but a daily paper comes and _Tit Bits_\nor _Pearson\u2019s Weekly,_ or, perhaps, _M.A.P.,_ _Modern Society,_ or some\nsuch illuminant of the upper circles, and a cheap fashion paper, appear\nat irregular intervals to supplement this literature.\n\nThe wife lives to realize the ideal of the \u201cladylike\u201d--lady she resigns\nto the patrician--and she insists upon a servant, however small. This\npoor wretch of a servant, often a mere child of fourteen or fifteen,\nlives by herself in a minute kitchen, and sleeps in a fireless attic. To\nescape vulgar associates, the children of the house avoid the elementary\nschools--the schools called in America public schools--where there\nare trained, efficient teachers, good apparatus, and an atmosphere of\nindustry, and go to one of those wretched dens of disorderly imposture,\na middle-class school, where an absolute failure to train or educate\nis seasoned with religious cant, lessons in piano-playing, lessons in\nFrench \u201cmade in England,\u201d mortarboard caps for the boys, and a high\nsocial tone. And to emphasize the fact of its social position, this\nbookless, bathless family tips! The plumber touches his hat for a tip,\nthe man who moves the furniture, the butcher-boy at Christmas, the\ndustman; these things also, the respect and the tip, at their minimum\ndimensions. Everything is at its minimum dimensions, it is the last\nchipped, dwarfed, enfeebled state of a tradition that has, in its time,\nplayed a fine part in the world. This much of honour still clings to\nit, it will endure no tip, no charity, no upper-class control of its\nprivacy. This is the sort of home in which the minds of thousands\nof young Englishmen and Englishwomen receive their first indelible\nimpressions. Can one expect them to escape the contagion of its cramped\npretentiousness, its dingy narrowness, its shy privacy of social\ndegradation, its essential sordidness and inefficiency?\n\nOur skilled operative, on the other hand, will pocket his tip. He is on\nthe other side of the boundary. He presents a rising element coming\nfrom the servile mass. Probably his net income equals or exceeds the\nshopman\u2019s, but there is no servant, no black coat and silk hat, no\nmiddle-class school in his scheme of things. He calls the shopman\n\u201cSir,\u201d and makes no struggle against his native accent. In his heart he\ndespises the middle class, the mean tip-givers, and he is inclined\nto overrate the gentry or big tippers. He is much more sociable, much\nnoisier, relatively shameless, more intelligent, more capable, less\nrestrained. He is rising against his tradition, and almost against his\nwill. The serf still bulks large in him. The whole trend of circumstance\nis to substitute science for mere rote skill in him, to demand\ninitiative and an intelligent self-adaptation to new discoveries and new\nmethods, to make him a professional man and a job and pieceworker after\nthe fashion of the great majority of professional men. Against all these\nthings the serf element in him fights. He resists education and clings\nto apprenticeship, he fights for time-work, he obstructs new inventions,\nhe clings to the ideal of short hours, high pay, shirk and let the\nmaster worry. His wife is a far more actual creature than the clerk\u2019s;\nshe does the house herself in a rough, effectual fashion, his children\nget far more food for mind and body, and far less restraint. You can\ntell the age of the skilled operative within a decade by the quantity of\nbooks in his home; the younger he is the more numerous these are likely\nto be. And the younger he is the more likely he is to be alive to\ncertain general views about his rights and his place in the social\nscale, the less readily will his finger go to his cap at the sight\nof broad-cloth, or his hand to the proffered half-crown. He will have\nlistened to Trade Union organizers and Socialist speakers; he will have\nread the special papers of his class. The whole of this home is, in\ncomparison with the shopman\u2019s, wide open to new influences. The\nchildren go to a Board School, and very probably afterwards to evening\nclasses--or music-halls. Here again is a new type of home, in which\nthe English of 1920 are being made in thousands, and which is forced\na little way up the intellectual and moral scale every year, a\nlittle further from its original conception of labour, dependence,\nirresponsibility, and servility.\n\nCompare, again, the home conditions of the child of a well-connected\nBritish shareholder inheriting, let us say, seven or eight hundred a\nyear, with the home of exactly the same sort of person deriving from\nthe middle class. On the one hand, one will find the old aristocratic\nBritish tradition in an instructively distorted state. All the\nassumptions of an essential lordliness remain--and none of the duties.\nAll the pride is there still, but it is cramped, querulous, and\nundignified. That lordliness is so ample that for even a small family\nthe income I have named will be no more than biting poverty, there will\nbe a pervading quality of struggle in this home to avoid work, to frame\narrangements, to discover cheap, loyal servants of the old type, to\ndiscover six per cent. investments without risk, to interest influential\nconnections in the prospects of the children. The tradition of the\nruling class, which sees in the public service a pension scheme for poor\nrelations, will glow with all the colours of hope. Great sacrifices will\nbe made to get the boys to public schools, where they can revive and\nexpand the family connections. They will look forward as a matter of\ncourse to positions and appointments, for the want of which men of gifts\nand capacity from other social strata will break their hearts, and they\nwill fill these coveted places with a languid, discontented incapacity.\nGreat difficulty will be experienced in finding schools for the girls\nfrom which the offspring of tradesmen are excluded. Vulgarity has to be\njealously anticipated. In a period when Smartness (as distinguished from\nVulgarity) is becoming an ideal, this demands at times extremely subtle\ndiscrimination. The art of credit will be developed to a high level.\n\nNow in the other family economically indistinguishable from this,\na family with seven or eight hundred a year from investments, which\nderives from the middle class, the tradition is one that, in spite of\nthe essential irresponsibility of the economic position, will urge this\nfamily towards exertion as a duty. As a rule the resultant lies in the\ndirection of pleasant, not too arduous exertion, the arts are attacked\nwith great earnestness of intention, literature, \u201cmovements\u201d of many\nsorts are ingredients in these homes. Many things that are imperative\nto the aristocratic home are regarded as needless, and in their\nplace appear other things that the aristocrat would despise, books,\ninstruction, travel in incorrect parts of the world, _games_, that\nmost seductive development of modern life, played to the pitch of\ndistinction. Into both these homes comes literature, comes the Press,\ncomes the talk of alien minds, comes the observation of things without,\nsometimes reinforcing the tradition, sometimes insidiously glossing upon\nit or undermining it, sometimes \u201cletting daylight through it\u201d; but\nmuch more into the latter type than into the former. And slowly the\ntwo fundamentally identical things tend to assimilate their superficial\ndifference, to homologize their traditions, each generation sees a\nrelaxation of the aristocratic prohibitions, a \u201cgentleman\u201d may tout for\nwines nowadays--among gentlemen--he may be a journalist, a fashionable\nartist, a schoolmaster, his sisters may \u201cact,\u201d while, on the other\nhand, each generation of the ex-commercial shareholder reaches out\nmore earnestly towards refinement, towards tone and quality, towards\netiquette, and away from what is \u201ccommon\u201d in life.\n\nSo in these typical cases one follows the strands of tradition into the\nnew conditions, the new homes of our modern state. In America one\nfinds exactly the same new elements shaped by quite parallel economic\ndevelopments, shopmen in a large store, skilled operatives, and\nindependent shareholders developing homes not out of a triple strand of\ntradition, but out of the predominant home tradition of an emancipated\nmiddle class, and in a widely different atmosphere of thought and\nsuggestion. As a consequence, one finds, I am told, a skilled operative\nalready with no eye (or only an angry eye) for tips, sociable shopmen,\nand shareholding families, frankly common, frankly intelligent, frankly\nhedonistic, or only with the most na\u00efve and superficial imitation of\nthe haughty incapacity, the mean pride, the parasitic lordliness of the\njust-independent, well-connected English.\n\nThese rough indications of four social types will illustrate the quality\nof our proposition, that home influence in the making of men resolves\nitself into an interplay of one substantial and two modifying elements,\nnamely:--\n\n(1) Tradition.\n\n(2) Economic conditions.\n\n(3) New ideas, suggestions, interpretations, changes in the general\natmosphere of thought in which a man lives and which he mentally\nbreathes.\n\nThe net sum of which three factors becomes the tradition for the next\ngeneration.\n\nBoth the modifying elements admit of control. How the economic\nconditions of homes may be controlled to accomplish New Republican\nends has already been discussed with a view to a hygienic minimum, and\nobviously the same, or similar, methods may be employed to secure less\nmaterialistic benefits. You can make a people dirty by denying them\nwater, you can make a people cleaner by cheapening and enforcing\nbath-rooms. Man is indeed so spiritual a being that he will turn every\nmaterialistic development you force upon him into spiritual growth. You\ncan aerate his house, not only with air, but with ideas. Build, cheapen,\nrender alluring a simpler, more spacious type of house for the clerk,\nfill it with labour-saving conveniences, and leave no excuse and no\nspare corners for the \u201cslavey,\u201d and the slavey--and all that she means\nin mental and moral consequence--will vanish out of being. You will beat\ntradition. Make it easy for Trade Unions to press for shorter hours\nof work, but make it difficult for them to obstruct the arrival of\nlabour-saving appliances, put the means of education easily within the\nreach of every workman, make promotion from the ranks, in the Army, in\nthe Navy, in all business concerns, practicable and natural, and\nthe lingering discolouration of the serf taint will vanish from the\nworkman\u2019s mind. The days of mystic individualism have passed, few\npeople nowadays will agree to that strange creed that we must deal\nwith economic conditions as though they were inflexible laws. Economic\nconditions are made and compact of the human will, and by tariffs, by\ntrade regulation and organization, fresh strands of will may be woven\ninto the complex. The thing may be extraordinarily intricate and\ndifficult, abounding in unknown possibilities and unsuspected dangers,\nbut that is a plea for science and not for despair.\n\nControllable, too, is the influx of modifying suggestions into our\nhomes, however vast and subtle the enterprise may seem. But here we\ntouch for the first time a question that we shall now continue to touch\nupon at other points, until at last we shall clear it and display it as\nthe necessarily central question of the whole matter of man-making so\nfar as the human will is concerned, and that is the preservation and\nexpansion of the body of human thought and imagination, of which\nall conscious human will and act is but the imperfect expression and\nrealization, of which all human institutions and contrivances, from\nthe steam-engine to the ploughed field, and from the blue pill to\nthe printing press, are no more than the imperfect symbols, the rude\nmnemonics and memoranda.\n\nBut this analysis of the modifying factors in the home influence, this\nformulation of its controllable elements, has now gone as far as the\npurpose of this paper requires. It has worked out to this, that the\nhome, so far as it is not traditional organization, is really only on\nthe one hand an aspect of the general economic condition of the state,\nand on the other of that still more fundamental thing, its general\natmosphere of thought. Our analysis refers back the man-maker to these\ntwo questions. The home, one gathers, is not to be dealt with separately\nor simply. Nor, on the other hand, are these questions to be dealt with\nmerely in relation to their home application. As the citizen grows\nup, he presently emerges from his home influences to a more direct and\ngeneral contact with these two things, with the Fact of the modern state\nand with the Thought of the modern state, and we must consider each of\nthese in relation to his development as a whole.\n\nThe next group of elements in the man-making complex that occurs to one\nafter the home, is the school. Let me repeat a distinction already drawn\nbetween the home element in boarding-schools and the school proper.\nWhile the child is out of the school-room, playing--except when it\nis drilling or playing under direction--when it is talking with its\nplaymates, walking, sleeping, eating, it is under those influences that\nit has been convenient for me to speak of as the home influence. The\nschoolmaster who takes boarders is, I hold, merely a substitute for the\nparent, the household of boarders merely a substitute for the family.\nWhat is meant by school here, is that which is possessed in common by\nday school and boarding-school--the schoolroom and the recess playground\npart. It is something which the savage and the barbarian distinctively\ndo not possess as a phase in their making, and scarcely even its\nrudimentary suggestion. It is a new element correlated with the\nestablishment of a wider political order and with the use of written\nspeech.\n\nNow I think it will be generally conceded that whatever systematic\nintellectual training the developing citizen gets, as distinguished from\nhis natural, accidental, and incidental development, is got in school or\nin its subsequent development of college, and with that I will put aside\nthe question of intellectual development altogether for a later, fuller\ndiscussion. My point here is simply to note the school as a factor in\nthe making of almost every citizen in the modern state, and to point\nout, what is sometimes disregarded, that it is only one of many factors\nin that making. The tendency of the present time is enormously to\nexaggerate the importance of school in development, to ascribe to it\npowers quite beyond its utmost possibilities, and to blame it for evils\nin which it has no share. And in the most preposterous invasions of the\nduties of parent, clergyman, statesman, author, journalist, of duties\nwhich are in truth scarcely more within the province of a schoolmaster\nthan they are within the province of a butcher, the real and necessary\nwork of the school is too often marred, crippled, and lost sight of\naltogether. We treat the complex, difficult and honourable task of\nintellectual development as if it were within the capacity of any\nearnest but muddle-headed young lady, or any half-educated gentleman in\norders; we take that for granted, and we demand in addition from\nthem the \u201cformation of character,\u201d moral and ethical training and\nsupervision, aesthetic guidance, the implanting of a taste for the Best\nin literature, for the Best in art, for the finest conduct; we demand\nthe clue to success in commerce and the seeds of a fine passionate\npatriotism from these necessarily very ordinary persons.\n\nOne might think schoolmasters and schoolmistresses were inaccessible\nto general observation in the face of these stupendous demands. If we\nexacted such things from our butcher over and above good service in\nhis trade, if we insisted that his meat should not only build up\nhonest nerve and muscle, but that it should compensate for all that was\nslovenly in our homes, dishonest in our economic conditions, and slack\nand vulgar in our public life, he would very probably say that it took\nhim all his time to supply sound meat, that it was a difficult\nand honourable thing to supply sound meat, that the slackness of\nbusiness-men and statesmen in the country, the condition of the arts and\nsciences, wasn\u2019t his business, that however lamentable the disorders of\nthe state, there was no reasonable prospect of improving it by upsetting\nthe distribution of meat, and, in short, that he was a butcher and not a\nCosmos-healing quack. \u201cYou must have meat,\u201d he would say, \u201canyhow.\u201d But\nthe average schoolmaster and schoolmistress does not do things in that\nway.\n\nWhat a school may do for the developing citizen, the original and the\ndeveloped function of the school, and how its true work may best be\naccomplished, we shall discuss later. But it may be well to expand a\nlittle more fully here the account of what the school has no business\nto attempt, and what the scholastic profession is, as a whole, quite\nincapable of doing, and to point to the really responsible agencies in\neach case.\n\nNow, firstly, with regard to all that the schoolmaster and\nschoolmistress means by the \u201cformation of character.\u201d A large proportion\nof the scholastic profession will profess, and a still larger proportion\nof the public believes, that it is possible by talk and specially\ndesigned instruction, to give a boy or girl a definite bias towards\n\u201ctruth,\u201d towards acts called \u201chealthy\u201d (a word it would puzzle the\nordinary schoolmaster or schoolmistress extremely to define, glib as\nthey are with it), towards honour, towards generosity, enterprise,\nself-reliance, and the like. The masters in our public schools are far\nfrom blameless in this respect, and you may gauge the quality of many\nof these gentlemen pretty precisely by their disposition towards the\n\u201cschool pulpit\u201d line of business. Half an hour\u2019s \u201cstraight talk to the\nboys,\u201d impromptu vague sentimentality about Earnestness, Thoroughness,\nTrue Patriotism, and so forth, seems to assuage the conscience as\nnothing else could do, for weeks of ill-prepared, ill-planned teaching,\nand years of preoccupation with rowing-boats and cricket. The more\nextreme examples of this type will say in a tone of manly apology,\n\u201cIt does the boys good to tell them plainly what I think about serious\nthings\u201d--when the simple fact of the case is too often that he does\nall he can not to think about any things of any sort whatever, except\ncricket and promotion. Schoolmistresses, again, will sometimes come near\nboasting to the inquiring parent of our \u201cethical hour,\u201d and if you probe\nthe facts you will find that means no more and no less than an hour\nof floundering egotism, in which a poor illogical soul, with a sort of\nnaive indecency, talks nonsense about \u201cIdeals,\u201d about the Higher and the\nBetter, about Purity, and about many secret and sacred things, things\nupon which wise men are often profoundly uncertain, to incredulous\nor imitative children. All that is needed to do this sort of thing\nabundantly and freely is a certain degree of aggressive egotism, a\ncertain gift of stupidity, good intentions, and a defective sense of\neducational possibilities and limitations.\n\nIn addition to moral discussions, that at the best are very second-rate\neloquence, and at the worst are respect destroying, mind destroying\ngabble, there are various forms of \u201cethical\u201d teaching, advocated and\npractised in America and in the elementary schools of this country.\nFor example, a story of an edifying sort is told to the children, and\ncomments are elicited upon the behaviour of the characters. \u201cWould you\nhave done that?\u201d \u201cOh, _no_, teacher!\u201d \u201cWhy not?\u201d \u201cBecause it would be\nmean.\u201d The teacher goes into particulars, whittling away at the verdict,\nand at last the fine point of the lesson stands out. Now it may\nbe indisputable that such lessons can be conducted effectively and\nsuccessfully by exceptionally brilliant teachers, that children may be\ngiven an excellent code of good intentions, and a wonderful skill in the\nresearch for good or bad motives for any given course of action they may\nor may not want to take, but that they can be systematically trained by\nthe average teacher at our disposal in this desirable \u201csubject\u201d is quite\nanother question. It is one of the things that the educational\nreformer must guard against most earnestly, the persuasion that what an\nexceptional man can do ever and again for display purposes can be done\nsuccessfully day by day in schools. This applies to many other\nthings besides the teaching of ethics. Professor Armstrong can give\ndelightfully instructive lessons in chemistry according to the heuristic\nmethod, but in the hands of the average teacher by whom teaching _must_\nbe done for the next few years the heuristic system will result\nin nothing but a pointless fumble. Mr. Mackinder teaches\ngeography--inimitably--just to show how to do it. Mr. David Devant--the\nbrilliant Egyptian Hall conjuror--will show any assembly of parents how\nto amuse children quite easily, but for some reason he does not present\nhis legerdemain as a new discovery in educational method.\n\nTo our argument that this sort of teaching is not within the capacity\nof such teachers as we have, or are likely to have, we can, fortunately\nenough, add that whatever is attempted can be done far better through\nother agencies. More or less unknown to teachers there exists a\nconsiderable amount of well-written literature, true stories and\nfiction, in which, without any clumsy insistence upon moral points, fine\nactions are displayed in their elementary fineness, and baseness is seen\nto be base. There are also a few theatres, and there might be more, in\nwhich fine action is finely displayed. Now one nobly conceived and\nnobly rendered play will give a stronger moral impression than the best\nschoolmaster conceivable, talking ethics for a year on end. One great\nand stirring book may give an impression less powerful, perhaps,\nbut even more permanent. Practically these things are as good as\nexample--they are example. Surround your growing boy or girl with a\ngenerous supply of good books, and leave writer and growing soul to\ndo their business together without any scholastic control of their\nintercourse. Make your state healthy, your economic life healthy and\nhonest, be honest and truthful in the pulpit, behind the counter, in the\noffice, and your children will need no specific ethical teaching; they\nwill inhale right. And without these things all the ethical teaching in\nthe world will only sour to cant at the first wind of the breath of the\nworld.\n\nQuite without ethical pretension at all the school is of course bound\nto influence the moral development of the child. That most important\nmatter, the habit and disposition towards industry, should be acquired\nthere, the sense of thoroughness in execution, the profound belief that\ndifficulty is bound to yield to a resolute attack--all these things are\nthe necessary by-products of a good school. A teacher who is punctual,\npersistent, just, who tells the truth, and insists upon the truth, who\nis truthful, not merely technically but in a constant search for exact\nexpression, whose own share of the school work is faultlessly done,\nwho is tolerant to effort and a tireless helper, who is obviously more\ninterested in serious work than in puerile games, will beget essential\nmanliness in every boy he teaches. He need not lecture on his virtues. A\nslack, emotional, unpunctual, inexact, and illogical teacher, a fawning\nloyalist, an incredible pietist, an energetic snob, a teacher as\neager for games, as sensitive to social status, as easy, kindly, and\nsentimental, and as shy really of hard toil as--as some teachers--is\nnone the better for ethical flatulence. There is a good deal of cant\nin certain educational circles, there is a certain type of educational\nwriting in which \u201clove\u201d is altogether too strongly present; a reasonably\nextensive observation of school-children and school-teachers makes\none doubt whether there is ever anything more than a very temperate\naffection and a still more temperate admiration on either side. Children\nsee through their teachers amazingly, and what they do not understand\nnow they will understand later. For a teacher to lay hands on all\nthe virtues, to associate them with his or her personality, to smear\ncharacteristic phrases and expressions over them, is as likely as not\nto give the virtues unpleasant associations. Better far, save through\npractice, to leave them alone altogether.\n\nAnd what is here said of this tainting of moral instruction with the\npersonality of the teacher applies still more forcibly to religious\ninstruction. Here, however, I enter upon a field where I am anxious to\navoid dispute. To my mind those ideas and emotions that centre about the\nidea of God appear at once too great and remote, and too intimate and\nsubtle for objective treatment. But there are a great number of people,\nunfortunately, who regard religion as no more than geography, who\nbelieve that it can be got into daily lessons of one hour, and\nadequately done by any poor soul who has been frightened into conformity\nby the fear of dismissal. And having this knobby, portable creed, and\nbelieving sincerely that lip conformity is alone necessary to salvation,\nthey want to force every teacher they can to acquire and impart its\nindestructible, inflexible recipes, and they are prepared to enforce\nthis at the price of inefficiency in every other school function. We\nmust all agree--whatever we believe or disbelieve--that religion is the\ncrown of the edifice we build. But it will simply ruin a vital part of\nthe edifice and misuse our religion very greatly if we hand it over to\nthe excavators and bricklayers of the mind, to use as a cheap substitute\nfor the proper intellectual and ethical foundations; for the ethical\nfoundation which is schooling and the ethical foundation which is habit.\nI must confess that there is only one sort of man whose insistence\nupon religious teaching in schools by ordinary school teachers I can\nunderstand, and that is the downright Atheist, the man who believes\nsensual pleasure is all that there is of pleasure, and virtue no more\nthan a hood to check the impetuosity of youth until discretion is\nacquired, the man who believes there is nothing else in the world but\nhard material fact, and who has as much respect for truth and religion\nas he has for stable manure. Such a man finds it convenient to profess\na lax version of the popular religion, and he usually does so, and\ninvariably he wants his children \u201ctaught\u201d religion, because he so\nutterly disbelieves in God, goodness, and spirituality that he cannot\nimagine young people doing even enough right to keep healthy and\nprosperous, unless they are humbugged into it.\n\nEqually unnecessary is the scholastic attempt to take over the relations\nof the child to \u201cnature,\u201d art, and literature. To read the educational\njournals, to hear the scholastic enthusiast, one would think that no\nhuman being would ever discover there was any such thing as \u201cnature\u201d\n were it not for the schoolmaster--and quotation from Wordsworth. And\nthis nature, as they present it, is really not nature at all, but a\nfactitious admiration for certain isolated aspects of the universe\nconventionally regarded as \u201cnatural.\u201d Few schoolmasters have discovered\nthat for every individual there are certain aspects of the universe\nthat especially appeal, and that that appeal is part of the\nindividuality--different from every human being, and quite outside their\nrange. Certain things that have been rather well treated by poets and\nartists (for the most part dead and of Academic standing) they regard\nas Nature, and all the rest of the world, most of the world in which we\nlive, as being in some way an intrusion upon this classic. They propound\na wanton and illogical canon. Trees, rivers, flowers, birds, stars--are,\nand have been for many centuries Nature--so are ploughed fields--really\nthe most artificial of all things--and all the apparatus of the\nagriculturist, cattle, vermin, weeds, weed-fires, and all the rest of\nit. A grassy old embankment to protect low-lying fields is Nature, and\nso is all the mass of apparatus about a water-mill; a new embankment\nto store an urban water supply, though it may be one mass of splendid\nweeds, is artificial, and ugly. A wooden windmill is Nature and\nbeautiful, a sky-sign atrocious. Mountains have become Nature and\nbeautiful within the last hundred years--volcanoes even. Vesuvius, for\nexample, is grand and beautiful, its smell of underground railway most\nimpressive, its night effect stupendous, but the glowing cinder heaps\nof Burslem, the wonders of the Black Country sunset, the wonderful\nfire-shot nightfall of the Five Towns, these things are horrid and\noffensive and vulgar beyond the powers of scholastic language. Such a\nmass of clotted inconsistencies, such a wild confusion of vicious mental\npractices as this, is the stuff the schoolmaster has in mind when he\ntalks of children acquiring a love of Nature. They are to be trained,\nagainst all their mental bias, to observe and quote about the canonical\nnatural objects and not to observe, but instead to shun and contemn\neverything outside the canon, and so to hand on the orthodox Love of\nNature to another generation. One may present the triumph of scholastic\nnature-teaching, by the figure of a little child hurrying to school\nalong the ways of a busy modern town. She carries a faded cut-flower,\ngot at considerable cost from a botanical garden, and as she goes she\ncounts its petals, its stamens, its bracteoles. Her love of Nature, her\n\u201cpowers of observation,\u201d are being trained. About her, all unheeded,\nis a wonderful life that she would be intent upon but for this precious\ntraining of her mind; great electric trains loom wonderfully round\ncorners, go droning by, spitting fire from their overhead wires; great\nshop windows display a multitudinous variety of objects; men and women\ncome and go about a thousand businesses; a street-organ splashes a spray\nof notes at her as she passes, a hoarding splashes a spray of colour.\n\nThe shape and direction of one\u2019s private observation is no more the\nschoolmaster\u2019s business than the shape and direction of one\u2019s nose. It\nis, indeed, possible to certain gifted and exceptional persons that they\nshould not only see acutely, but abstract and express again what they\nhave seen. Such people are artists--a different kind of people from\nschoolmasters altogether. Into all sorts of places, where people have\nfailed to see, comes the artist like a light. The artist cannot create\nnor can he determine the observation of other men, but he can, at any\nrate, help and inspire it. But he and the pedagogue are temperamentally\ndifferent and apart. They are at opposite poles of human quality. The\npedagogue with his canon comes between the child and Nature only to\nlimit and obscure. His business is to leave the whole thing alone.\n\nIf the interpretation of nature is a rare and peculiar gift, the\ninterpretation of art and literature is surely an even rarer thing.\nHundreds of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses who could not write one\ntolerable line of criticism, will stand up in front of classes by the\nhour together and issue judgments on books, pictures, and all that is\ncomprised under the name of art. Think of it! Here is your great artist,\nyour great exceptional mind groping in the darknesses beneath the\nsurface of life, half apprehending strange elusive things in those\nprofundities, and striving--striving sometimes to the utmost verge of\nhuman endeavour--to give that strange unsuspected mystery expression,\nto shape it, to shadow it in form and wonder of colour, in beautiful\nrhythms, in phantasies of narrative, in gracious and glowing words.\nSo much in its essential and precious degree is art. Think of what\nthe world must be in the wider vision of the great artist. Think,\nfor example, of the dark splendours amidst which the mind of Leonardo\nclambered; the mirror of tender lights that reflected into our world\nthe iridescent graciousness of Botticelli! Then to the faint and faded\nintimations these great men have left us of the things beyond our scope,\ncomes the scholastic intelligence, gesticulating instructively, and in\ntoo many cases obscuring for ever the naive vision of the child. The\nscholastic intelligence, succulently appreciative, blind, hopelessly\nblind to the fact that every great work of art is a strenuous, an almost\ndespairing effort to express and convey, treats the whole thing as some\nfoolish riddle--\u201cexplains it to the children.\u201d As if every picture was\na rebus and every poem a charade! \u201cLittle children,\u201d he says, \u201cthis\nteaches you\u201d--and out comes the platitude!\n\nOf late years, in Great Britain more particularly, the School has been\ncalled upon to conquer still other fields. It has become apparent\nthat in this monarchy of ours, in which honour is heaped high upon\nmoney-making, even if it is money-making that adds nothing to the\ncollective wealth or efficiency, and denied to the most splendid public\nservices unless they are also remunerative; where public applause is the\nmeed of cricketers, hostile guerillas, clamorous authors, yacht-racing\ngrocers, and hopelessly incapable generals, and where suspicion and\nridicule are the lot of every man working hard and living hard for any\nend beyond a cabman\u2019s understanding; in this world-wide Empire whose\nGovernment is entrusted as a matter of course to peers and denied as a\nmatter of course to any man of humble origin; where social pressure of\nthe most urgent kind compels every capable business manager to sell out\nto a company and become a \u201cgentleman\u201d at the very earliest opportunity,\nthe national energy is falling away. That driving zeal, that practical\nvigour that once distinguished the English is continually less apparent.\nOur workmen take no pride in their work any longer, they shirk toil and\ngamble. And what is worse, the master takes no pride in the works; he,\ntoo, shirks toil and gambles. Our middle-class young men, instead of\nflinging themselves into study, into research, into literature, into\nwidely conceived business enterprises, into so much of the public\nservice as is not preserved for the sons of the well connected, play\ngames, display an almost oriental slackness in the presence of work and\nduty, and seem to consider it rather good form to do so. And seeking for\nsome reason and some remedy for this remarkable phenomenon, a number of\npatriotic gentlemen have discovered that the Schools, the Schools are\nto blame. Something in the nature of Reform has to be waved over our\nschools.\n\nIt would be a wicked deed to write anything that might seem to imply\nthat our Schools were not in need of very extensive reforms, or that\ntheir efficiency is not a necessary preliminary condition to general\npublic efficiency, but, indeed, the Schools are only one factor in a\ngreat interplay of causes, and the remedy is a much ampler problem\nthan any Education Act will cure. Take a typical young Englishman, for\nexample, one who has recently emerged from one of our public schools,\none of the sort of young Englishmen for whom all commissions in the Army\nare practically reserved, who will own some great business, perhaps, or\ndirect companies, and worm your way through the tough hide of style\nand restraint he has acquired, get him to talk about women, about his\nprospects, his intimate self, and see for yourself how much of him, and\nhow little of him, his school has made. Test him on politics, on the\nnational future, on social relationships, and lead him if you can to\nan utterance or so upon art and literature. You will be astonished how\nlittle you can either blame or praise the teaching of his school for\nhim. He is ignorant, profoundly ignorant, and much of his style and\nreserve is draped over that; he does not clearly understand what he\nreads, and he can scarcely write a letter; he draws, calculates and\nthinks no better than an errand boy, and he has no habit of work; for\nthat much perhaps the school must answer. And the school, too, must\nanswer for the fact that although--unless he is one of the small\nspecialized set who \u201cswat\u201d at games--he plays cricket and football quite\nwithout distinction, he regards these games as much more important than\nmilitary training and things of that sort, spends days watching his\nschool matches, and thumbs and muddles over the records of county\ncricket to an amazing extent. But these things are indeed only symptons,\nand not essential factors in general inefficiency. There are much wider\nthings for which his school is only mediately or not at all to blame.\nFor example, he is not only ignorant and inefficient and secretly aware\nof his ignorance and inefficiency, but, what is far more serious,\nhe does not feel any strong desire to alter the fact; he is not only\nwithout the habit of regular work, but he does not feel the defect\nbecause he has no desire whatever to do anything that requires work in\nthe doing. And you will find that this is so because there is woven into\nthe tissue of his being a profound belief that work and knowledge \u201cdo\nnot pay,\u201d that they are rather ugly and vulgar characteristics, and that\nthey make neither for happiness nor success.\n\nHe did not learn that at school, nor at school was it possible he should\nunlearn it. He acquired that belief from his home, from the conversation\nof his equals, from the behaviour of his inferiors; he found it in the\nbooks and newspapers he has read, he breathed it in with his native\nair. He regards it as manifest Fact in the life about him. And he is\nperfectly right. He lives in a country where stupidity is, so to speak,\ncrowned and throned, and where honour is a means of exchange; and he\ndraws his simple, straight conclusions. The much-castigated gentleman\nwith the ferule is largely innocent in this account.\n\nIf, too, you ransack your young Englishman for religion, you will be\namazed to find scarcely a trace of School. In spite of a ceremonial\nadhesion to the religion of his fathers, you will find nothing but a\nprofound agnosticism. He has not even the faith to disbelieve. It is not\nso much that he has not developed religion as that the place has been\nseared. In his time his boyish heart has had its stirrings, he has\nresponded with the others to \u201cOnward, Christian Soldiers,\u201d the earnest\nmoments of the school pulpit, and all those first vague things. But\nlimited as his reading is, it has not been so limited that he does not\nknow that very grave things have happened in matters of faith, that the\ndoctrinal schemes of the conventional faith are riddled targets, that\ncreed and Bible do not mean what they appear to mean, but something\nquite different and indefinable, that the bishops, socially so much in\nevidence, are intellectually in hiding.\n\nHere again is something the school did not cause, the school cannot\ncure.\n\nAnd in matters sexual, in matters political, in matters social, and\nmatters financial you will find that the flabby, narrow-chested,\nunder-trained mind that hides in the excellent-looking body of the\ntypical young Englishman is encumbered with an elaborate duplicity.\nUnder the cloak of a fine tradition of good form and fair appearances\nyou will find some intricate disbeliefs, some odd practices. You will\ntrace his moral code chiefly to his school-fellows, and the intimates\nof his early manhood, and could you trace it back you would follow\nan unbroken tradition from the days of the Restoration. So soon as he\npierces into the realities of the life about him, he finds enforcement,\nample and complete, for the secret code. The schoolmaster has not\ntouched it; the school pulpit has boomed over its development in vain.\nNor has the schoolmaster done anything for or against the young man\u2019s\npolitical views, his ideas of social exclusiveness, the peculiar code\nof honour that makes it disgraceful to bilk a cabman and permissible to\nobtain goods on credit from a tradesman without the means to pay. All\nthis much of the artificial element in our young English gentleman was\nmade outside the school, and is to be remedied only by extra-scholastic\nforces.\n\nSchool is only one necessary strand in an enormous body of formative\ninfluence. At first that mass of formative influence takes the outline\nof the home, but it broadens out as the citizen grows until it reaches\nthe limits of his world. And his world, just like his home, resolves\nitself into three main elements. First, there is the traditional\nelement, the creation of the past; secondly, there is the contemporary\ninterplay of economic and material forces; and thirdly, there is\nliterature, using that word for the current thought about the world,\nwhich is perpetually tending on the one hand to realize itself and to\nbecome in that manner a material force, and on the other to impose fresh\ninterpretations upon things and so become a factor in tradition. Now\nthe first of these elements is a thing established. And it is the\npossibility of intervening through the remaining two that it is now our\nbusiness to discuss.\n\n\n\n\nVI. SCHOOLING\n\n\nWe left the child whose development threads through this discussion\nripe to begin a little schooling at the age of five. We have cleared the\nground since then of a great number of things that have got themselves\nmixed up in an illegitimate way with the idea of school, and we can now\ntake him on again through his \u201cschooling\u201d phases. Let us begin by asking\nwhat we require and then look to existing conditions to see how far\nwe may hope to get our requirements. We will assume the foundation\ndescribed in the fourth paper has been well and truly laid, that we\nhave a number of other similarly prepared children available to form\na school, and that we have also teachers of fair average intelligence,\nconscience, and aptitude. We will ask what can be done with such\nchildren and teachers, and then we may ask why it is not universally\ndone.\n\nEven after our clarifying discussion, in which we have shown that\nschooling is only a part, and by no means the major part, of the\neducational process, and in which we have distinguished and separated\nthe home element in the boarding-school from the schooling proper, there\nstill remains something more than a simple theme in schooling. After all\nthese eliminations we remain with a mixed function and mixed traditions,\nand it is necessary now to look a little into the nature of this\nmixture.\n\nThe modern school is not a thing that has evolved from a simple germ, by\na mere process of expansion. It is the coalescence of several things. In\ndifferent countries and periods you will find schools taking over\nthis function and throwing out that, and changing not only methods but\nprofessions and aims in the most remarkable manner. What has either been\nteachable or has seemed teachable in human development has played a\npart in some curriculum or other. Beyond the fact that there is class\ninstruction and an initial stage in which the pupil learns to read and\nwrite, there is barely anything in common. But that initial stage is to\nbe noted; it is the thing the Hebrew schoolboy, the Tamil schoolboy, the\nChinese schoolboy, and the American schoolboy have in common. So much,\nat any rate, of the school appears wherever there is a written language,\nand its presence marks a stage in the civilizing process. As I have\nalready pointed out in my book \u201cAnticipations,\u201d the presence of a\nreading and writing class of society and the existence of an organized\nnation (as distinguished from a tribe) appear together. When tribes\ncoalesce into nations, schools appear. This first and most universal\nfunction of the school is to initiate a smaller or greater proportion of\nthe population into the ampler world, the more efficient methods, of the\nreading and writing man. And with the disappearance of the slave and\nthe mere labourer from the modern conception of what is necessary in the\nstate, there has now come about an extension of this initiation to the\nwhole of our English-speaking population. And in addition to reading\nand writing the vernacular, there is also almost universally in schools\ninstruction in counting, and wherever there is a coinage, in the values\nand simpler computation of coins.\n\nIn addition to the vernacular teaching, one finds in the schools--at\nany rate the schools for males--over a large part of the world, a second\nelement, which is always the language of what either is or has been a\nhigher and usually a dominant civilization. Typically, there is a low or\nimitative vernacular literature or no literature at all, and this second\nlanguage is the key to all that literature involves--general views,\ngeneral ideas, science, poetic suggestion and association. Through this\nlanguage the vernacular citizen escapes from his parochial and national\nlimitations to a wide commonweal of thought. Such was Greek at one time\nto the Roman, such was Latin to the Bohemian, the German, the Englishman\nor the Spaniard of the middle ages, and such it is to-day to the Roman\nCatholic priest; such is Arabic to the Malay, written Chinese to the\nCantonese or the Corean, and English to the Zulu or the Hindoo. In\nGermany and France, to a lesser degree in Great Britain, and to a still\nlesser degree in the United States, we find, however, an anomalous\ncondition of things. In each of these countries civilization has long\nsince passed into an unprecedented phase, and each of these countries\nhas long since developed a great living mass of literature in which its\nnew problems are, at any rate, approached. There is scarcely a work left\nin Latin or Greek that has not been translated into and assimilated and\nmore or less completely superseded by English, French, and German works;\nbut the schoolmaster, heedless of these things, still arrests the pupil\nat the old portal, fumbles with the keys, and partially opens the door\ninto a ransacked treasure-chamber. The language of literature and of\ncivilized ideas is, for the English-speaking world to-day, English--not\nthe weak, spoken dialect of each class and locality, but the rich and\nsplendid language in which and with which our literature and philosophy\ngrow. That, however, is by the way. Our point at present is that the\nexhaustive teaching of a language so that it may serve as a key to\nculture is a second function in the school.\n\nWe find in a broad survey of schools in general that there has also been\na disposition to develop a special training in thought and expression\neither in the mother tongue (as in the Roman schools of Latin oratory),\nor in the culture tongue (as in Roman schools of Greek oratory), and we\nfind the same element in the mediaeval trivium. Quintilian\u2019s conception\nof education, the reader will remember, was oratory. This aspect of\nschool work was the traditional and logical development of the culture\nlanguage-teaching. But as in Europe the culture language has ceased to\nbe really a culture language but merely a reasonless survival, and\nits teaching has degenerated more and more into elaborate formalities\nsupposed to have in some mystical way \u201chigh educational value,\u201d and\nfor the most part conducted by men unable either to write or speak the\nculture language with any freedom or vigour, this crown of cultivated\nexpression has become more and more inaccessible. It is too manifestly\nstupid--even for our public schoolmasters--to think of carrying the\n\u201cclassical grind\u201d to that pitch, and, in fact, they carry no part of the\neducation to that pitch. There is no deliberate and professed training\nat all in logical thought--except for the use of Euclid\u2019s Elements to\nthat end--nor in expression in any language at all, in the great mass\nof modern schools. This is a very notable point about the schools of the\npresent period.\n\nBut, on the other hand, the schools of the modern period have developed\nmasses of instruction that were not to be found in the schools of the\npast. The school has reached downward and taken over, systematized, and\non the whole, I think, improved that preliminary training of the senses\nand the observation that was once left to the spontaneous activity of\nthe child among its playmates and at home. The kindergarten department\nof a school is a thing added to the old conception of schooling, a\nconversion of the all too ample school hours to complete and rectify the\nwork of the home, to make sure of the foundation of sense impressions\nand elementary capabilities upon which the edifice of schooling is\nto rise. In America it has grown, as a wild flower transferred to the\nunaccustomed richness of garden soil will sometimes do, rankly and in\nrelation to the more essential schooling, aggressively, and become\na highly vigorous and picturesque weed. One must bear in mind that\nFroebel\u2019s original thought was rather of the mother than of the\nschoolmistress, a fact the kindergarten invaders of the school find it\nconvenient to forget. I believe we shall be carrying out his intentions\nas well as the manifest dictates of common sense if we do all in our\npower by means of simply and clearly written books for nurses and\nmothers to shift very much of the kindergarten back to home and playroom\nand out of the school altogether. Correlated with this development,\nthere has been a very great growth in our schools of what is called\nmanual training and of the teaching of drawing. Neither of these\nsubjects entered into the school idea of any former period, so far as my\nnot very extensive knowledge of educational history goes.\n\nModern, too, is the development of efficient mathematical teaching; so\nmodern that for too many schools it is still a thing of tomorrow. The\narithmetic (without Arabic numerals, be it remembered) and the geometry\nof the mediaeval quadrivium were astonishingly clumsy and ineffectual\ninstruments in comparison with the apparatus of modern mathematical\nmethod. And while the mathematical subjects of the quadrivium were\ntaught as science and for their own sakes, the new mathematics is a sort\nof supplement to language, affording a means of thought about form and\nquantity and a means of expression, more exact, compact, and ready than\nordinary language. The great body of physical science, a great deal\nof the essential fact of financial science, and endless social and\npolitical problems are only accessible and only thinkable to those who\nhave had a sound training in mathematical analysis, and the time may not\nbe very remote when it will be understood that for complete initiation\nas an efficient citizen of one of the new great complex world-wide\nstates that are now developing, it is as necessary to be able to\ncompute, to think in averages and maxima and minima, as it is now to\nbe able to read and write. This development of mathematical teaching is\nonly another aspect of the necessity that is bringing the teaching of\ndrawing into schools, the necessity that is so widely, if not always\nvery intelligently perceived, of clearheadedness about quantity,\nrelative quantity, and form, that our highly mechanical, widely\nextended, and still rapidly extending environments involve.\n\nArithmetic and geometry were taught in the mediaeval school as sciences,\nin addition the quadrivium involved the science of astronomy, and now\nthat the necessary fertilizing inundation of our general education by\nthe classical languages and their literatures subsides, science of a new\nsort reappears in our schools. I must confess that a lot of the science\nteaching that appears in schools nowadays impresses me as being a very\nundesirable encumbrance of the curriculum. The schoolman\u2019s science came\nafter the training in language and expression, late in the educational\nscheme, and it aimed, it pretended--whatever its final effect was--to\nstrengthen and enlarge the mind by a noble and spacious sort of\nknowledge. But the science of the modern school pretends merely to be a\nteaching of useful knowledge; the vistas, the tremendous implications of\nmodern science are conscientiously disregarded, and it is in effect too\noften no more than a diversion of school energies to the acquisition\nof imperfectly analyzed misstatements about entrails, elements, and\nelectricity, with a view--a quite unjustifiable view--to immediate\nprofitable hygienic and commercial application. Whether there is any\neducational value in the school-teaching of science we may discuss\nlater. For the present we may note it simply as a revived and developing\nelement.\n\nOn the other hand, while these things expand in the modern school, there\nare declining elements, once in older schemes of scholastic work much\nmore evident. In the culture of the mediaeval knight, for example, and\nof the eighteenth-century young lady, elegant accomplishments, taught\ndisconnected from the general educational scheme and for themselves,\nplayed a large part. The eighteenth-century young lady was taught\ndancing, deportment, several instruments of music, how to pretend to\nsketch, how to pretend to know Italian, and so on. The dancing still\nsurvives--a comical mitigation of high school austerities--and there\nis also a considerable interruption of school work achieved by the\nmusic-master. If there is one thing that I would say with certainty has\nno business whatever in schools, it is piano-teaching. The elementary\njustification of the school is its organization for class-teaching and\nwork in unison, and there is probably no subject of instruction that\nrequires individual tuition quite so imperatively as piano-playing;\nthere is no subject so disadvantageously introduced where children\nare gathered together. But to every preparatory and girls\u2019 school\nin England--I do not know if the same thing happens in America--the\nmusic-master comes once or twice a week, and with a fine disregard of\nthe elementary necessities of teaching, children are called one by\none, out of whatever class they happen to be attending, to have their\nmusic-lesson. Either the whole of the rest of the class must mark time\nat some unnecessary exercise until the missing member returns, or\none child must miss some stage, some explanation that will involve a\nweakness, a lameness for the rest of the course of instruction. Not\nonly is the actual music-lesson a nuisance in this way, but all day the\nschool air is loaded with the oppressive tinkling of racked and rackety\npianos. Nothing, I think, could be more indicative of the real value\nthe English school-proprietor sets on school-teaching than this easy\nadmission of the music-master to hack and riddle the curriculum into\nrags. [Footnote 1: Piano playing as an accomplishment is a nuisance and\nencumbrance to the school course and a specialization that surely lies\nwithin the private Home province. To learn to play the piano properly\ndemands such an amount of time and toil that I do not see how we can\npossibly include it in the educational scheme of the honourable citizens\nof the coming world state. To half learn it, to half learn anything, is\na training in failure. But it is probable that a different sort of\nmusic teaching altogether--a teaching that would aim, not at\ninstrumentalization, but at intelligent appreciation--might find a place\nin a complete educational scheme. The general ignorance that pervades,\nand in part inspires these papers, does, in the matter of music, become\nspecial, profound, and distinguished. It seems to me, however, that\nwhat the cultivated man or woman requires is the ability to read a score\nintelligently rather than to play it--to distinguish the threads, the\nvalues, of a musical composition, to have a quickened ear rather than a\ndisciplined hand. I owe to my friend, Mr. Graham Wallas, the suggestion\nthat the piano is altogether too exacting an instrument to use as the\npractical vehicle for such instruction, and that something simpler and\ncheaper--after the fashion of the old spinet--is required. Possibly some\nday a teacher of genius will devise and embody in a book a course of\nclass lessons, sustained by simple practice and written work, that would\nattain this end. But, indeed, after all is said and done, music is\nthe most detached and the purest of arts, the most accessory of\nattainments.] Apart from the piano work, the special teaching of elegant\naccomplishments seems just at present on the wane. And on the whole I\nthink what one might call useful or catchpenny accomplishments are\nalso passing their zenith--shorthand lessons, book-keeping lessons, and\nsuch-like impostures upon parental credulity.\n\nThere is, however, a thing that was once done in schools as a convenient\naccomplishment, and which has--with that increase in communication which\nis the salient material fact of the nineteenth century--developed in\nWestern Europe to the dimensions of a political necessity, and that\nis the teaching of one or more modern foreign languages. The\nlanguage-teaching of all previous periods has been done with a view\nto culture, artistic, as in the case of Elizabethan Italian, or\nintellectual as with English Latin. But the language-teaching of to-day\nis deliberately, almost conscientiously, not for culture. It would, I am\nsure, be a very painful and shocking thought indeed to an English parent\nto think that French was taught in school with a view to reading\nFrench books. It is taught as a vulgar necessity for purposes of vulgar\ncommunication. The stirring together of the populations that is going\non, the fashion and facilities for travel, the production of the radii\nfrom the trading foci, are rapidly making a commonplace knowledge of\nFrench, German, and Italian a necessity to the merchant and tradesman,\nand the ever more extensive travelling class. So that so far as Europe\ngoes, one may very well regard this modern modern-language teaching\nas--with the modern mathematics--an extension of the _trivium_, of the\napparatus, that is, of thought and expression. [Footnote: In the United\nStates there is less sense of urgency about modern languages, but\nsooner or later the American may wake up to the need of Spanish in\nhis educational schemes.] It is an extension and a very doubtful\nimprovement. It is a modern necessity, a rather irksome necessity, of\nlittle or no essential educational value, an unavoidable duty the school\nwill have to perform. [Footnote: In one way the foreign language may be\nmade educationally very useful, and that is as an exercise in writing\ntranslations into good English.]\n\nThere are two subjects in the modern English school that stand by\nthemselves and in contrast with anything one finds in the records\nof ancient and oriental schools, as a very integral part of what is\nregarded as our elementary general education. They are of very doubtful\nvalue in training the mind, and most of the matter taught is totally\nforgotten in adult life. These are history and geography. These two\nsubjects constitute, with English grammar and arithmetic, the four\nobligatory subjects for the very lowest grade of the London College of\nPreceptors\u2019 examinations, for example. The examination papers of this\nbody reveal the history as an affair of dated events, a record of\ncertain wars and battles, and legislative and social matters quite\nbeyond the scope of a child\u2019s experience and imagination. Scholastic\nhistory ends at 1700 or 1800, always long before it throws the faintest\nlight upon modern political or social conditions. The geography is,\nfor the most part, topography, with a smattering of quantitative facts,\nheights of mountains, for example, populations of countries, and lists\nof obsolete manufactures and obsolete trade conditions. Any one who\nwill take the trouble to run through the text-books of these subjects\ngathered together in the library of the London Teachers\u2019 Guild, will\nfind that the history is generally taught without maps, pictures,\ndescriptive passages, or anything to raise it above the level of an\narid misuse of memory; and the highest levels to which ordinary school\ngeography has attained are to be found in the little books of the late\nProfessor Meiklejohn. These two subjects are essentially \u201cinformation\u201d\n subjects. They differ in prestige rather than in educational quality\nfrom school chemistry and natural history, and their development marks\nthe beginning of that great accumulation of mere knowledge which is so\ndistinctive of this present civilization.\n\nThere are, no doubt, many minor subjects, but this revision will at\nleast serve to indicate the scope and chief varieties of school work.\nOut of some such miscellany it is that in most cases the student passes\nto specialization, to a different and narrower process which aims at\na specific end, to the course of the College. In some cases this\nspecialized course may be correlated with a real and present practice,\nas in the case of the musical, medical, and legal faculties of our\nuniversities; it may be correlated with obsolete needs and practices\nand regardless of modern requirements, as in the case of the student\nof divinity who takes his orders and comes into a world full of the\nironical silences that follow great controversies, nakedly ignorant of\ngeology, biology, psychology, and modern biblical criticism; or it may\nhave no definite relation to special needs, and it may profess to be an\nupward prolongation of schooling towards a sort of general wisdom and\nculture, as in the case of the British \u201cArts\u201d degrees. The ordinary\nOxford, Cambridge, or London B.A. has a useless smattering of Greek,\nhe cannot read Latin with any comfort, much less write or speak that\ntongue; he knows a few unedifying facts round and about the classical\nliterature, he cannot speak or read French with any comfort; he has an\nimperfect knowledge of the English language, insufficient to write it\nclearly, and none of German, he has a queer, old-fashioned, and quite\nuseless knowledge of certain rudimentary sections of mathematics, and\nan odd little bite out of history. He knows practically nothing of the\nworld of thought embodied in English literature, and absolutely nothing\nof contemporary thought; he is totally ignorant of modern political\nor social science, and if he knows anything at all about evolutionary\nscience and heredity it is probably matter picked up in a casual\nway from the magazines. Art is a sealed book to him. Still, the\ninapplicability of his higher education to any professional or practical\nneed in the world is sufficiently obvious, it seems, to justify the\nclaim that it has put him on a footing of thought and culture above the\nlevel of a shopman. It is either that or nothing. And without deciding\nbetween these alternatives, we may note here for our present purpose,\nthat the conception of a general upward prolongation of schooling beyond\nadolescence, as distinguished from a specific upward prolongation into\nprofessional training, is necessary to the complete presentation of the\nschool and college scheme in the modern state.\n\nThere has always been a tendency to utilize the gathering together of\nchildren in schools for purposes irrelevant to schooling proper, but of\nsome real or fancied benefit. Wherever there is a priestly religion,\nthe lower type of religious fanatic will always look to the schools as\na means of doctrinal dissemination; will always be seeking to replace\nefficiency by orthodoxy upon staff and management; and, with an\nunconquerable, uncompromising persistency, will seek perpetually either\nto misconduct or undermine; and the struggle to get him out and keep him\nout of the school, and to hold the school against him, will be one\nof the most necessary and thankless of New Republican duties. I have,\nhowever, already adduced reasons that I think should appeal to every\nreligious mind, for the exclusion of religious teaching from school\nwork. The school gathering also affords opportunity for training in\nsimple unifying political conceptions; the salutation of the flag, for\nexample, or of the idealized effigies of King and Queen. The quality of\nthese conceptions we shall discuss later. The school also gives scope\nfor physical training and athletic exercises that are, under the\ncrowded conditions of a modern town, almost impossible except by its\nintervention. And it would be the cheapest and easiest way of raising\nthe military efficiency of a country, and an excellent thing for the\nmoral tone and public order of a people, to impose upon the school\ngathering half an hour a day of vigorous military drill. The school,\ntoo, might very easily be linked more closely than it is at present\nwith the public library, and made a means of book distribution; and its\ncorridors may easily be utilized as a loan picture gallery, in which\ngood reproductions of fine pictures might bring the silent influence of\nthe artist mind to bear. But all these things are secondary applications\nof the school gathering; at their best they are not conducted by the\nschool-teacher at all, and I remark upon them here merely to avoid any\nconfusion their omission might occasion.\n\nNow if we dip into this miscellany of things that figure and have\nfigured in schools, if we turn them over and look at them, and seek to\ngeneralize about them, we shall begin to see that the most persistently\npresent, and the living reality of it all, is this: to expand, to add\nto and organize and supplement that apparatus of understanding and\nexpression the savage possesses in colloquial speech. The pressing\nbusiness of the school is _to widen the range of intercourse_.\n[Footnote: This way of putting it may jar a little upon the more or less\nexplicit preconceptions of many readers, who are in reality in harmony\nwith the tone of thought of this paper. They will have decided that the\nschool work is to \u201ctrain the mind,\u201d to \u201cteach the pupil to think,\u201d or\nupon some similar phrase. But I venture to think that most of these\nphrases are at once too wide and too narrow. They are too wide\nbecause they ignore the spontaneous activity of the child and the\nextra-scholastic forces of mind-training, and they are too narrow\nbecause they ignore the fact that we do not progress far with our\nthoughts unless we throw them out into objective existence by means of\nwords, diagrams, models, trial essays. Even if we do not talk to others\nwe must, silently or vocally or visibly, talk to ourselves at least to\nget on. To acquire the means of intercourse is to learn to think, so\nfar as learning goes in the matter.] It is only secondarily--so far as\nschooling goes--or, at any rate, subsequently, that the idea of shaping,\nor, at least, helping to shape, the expanded natural man into a citizen,\ncomes in. It is only as a subordinate necessity that the school is a\nvehicle for the inculcation of facts. The facts come into the school not\nfor their own sake, but in relation to intercourse. It is only upon a\ncommon foundation of general knowledge that the initiated citizens of an\neducated community will be able to communicate freely together. With the\nnet of this phrase, \u201cwidening the range of intercourse,\u201d I think it\nis possible to gather together all that is essential in the deliberate\npurpose of schooling. Nothing that remains outside is of sufficient\nmagnitude to be of any importance in the small-scale sketch of human\ndevelopment we are now making:--\n\nIf we take this and hold to it as a guide, and explore a scheme of\nschool work, in the direction it takes us, we shall find it shaping\nitself (for an English-speaking citizen) something after this fashion:\n\n\n _A_. Direct means of understanding and expression.\n      1. Reading.\n      2. Writing.\n      3. Pronouncing English correctly.\n\n      Which studies will expand into--\n\n      4. A thorough study of English as a culture language, its origin,\n         development, and vocabulary, and\n      5. A sound training in English prose composition and\n         versification.\n       And in addition--\n\n      6. Just as much of mathematics as one can get in.\n\n      7. Drawing and painting, not as \u201cart,\u201d but to train and develop\n         the appreciation of form and colour, and as a collateral\n         means of expression.\n\n    8. Music [perhaps] to the same end.\n\n _B._ To speak the ordinary speech, read with fair intelligence,\n   and write in a passably intelligible manner the foreign language\n   or languages, the social, political, and intellectual necessities\n   of the time require.\n\n And _C._ A division arising out of A and expanding in the later\n       stages of the school course to continue and replace A: the\n       acquisition of the knowledge (and of the art of acquiring\n       further knowledge from books and facts) necessary to participate\n       in contemporary thought and life.\n\nNow this project is at once more modest in form and more ambitious in\nsubstance than almost any school scheme or prospectus the reader is\nlikely to encounter. Let us (on the assumption of our opening paragraph)\ninquire what is needed to carry it into execution. So far as 1 and 2\nin this table go, we have to recognize that since the development of\nelementary schools in England introduced a spirit of endeavour into\nteaching, there has been a steady progress in the art of education.\nReading and writing are taught somehow or other to most people nowadays,\nthey are frequently taught quickly and well, especially well, I think,\nin view of the raw material, in many urban Board Schools in England, and\nthere is nothing to do here but to inquire if anything can be done to\nmake this teaching, which is so exceptional in attaining its goal, still\nquicker and easier, and in bringing the average up to the level of the\npresent best. We have already suggested as the work of an imaginary\nEnglish Language Society, how much might be done in providing\neverywhere, cheaply and unavoidably, the best possible reading-books,\nand it is manifest that the standard of copy-books for writing might\nalso be pressed upward by similar methods. In addition, we have to\nconsider--what is to me a most uncongenial subject--the possible\nrationalization of English spelling. I will frankly confess I know\nEnglish as much by sight as by sound, and that any extensive or striking\nalteration, indeed that almost any alteration, in the printed appearance\nof English, worries me extremely. Even such little things as Mr. Bernard\nShaw\u2019s weakness for printing \u201cI\u2019ve\u201d as \u201cIve,\u201d and the American \u201cfavor,\u201d\n \u201cthro,\u201d and \u201ccatalog\u201d catch at my attention as it travels along the lane\nof meaning, like trailing briars. But I have to admit this habit of the\nold spelling, which I am sure most people over four-and-twenty share\nwith me, will trouble neither me nor any one else who reads books now,\nin the year 1990. I have to admit that the thing is an accident of my\ncircumstances. I have learnt to read and write in a certain way, and I\nam concerned with the thing said and not with the vehicle, and so it\nis that it distresses me when the medium behaves in an unusual way and\ndistracts my attention from the thing it conveys. But if it is true--and\nI think it must be true--that the extremely arbitrary spelling of\nEnglish--and more especially of the more familiar English words--greatly\nincreases the trouble of learning to read and write, I do not think\nthe mental comfort of one or two generations of grown-up people must be\nallowed to stand in the way of a permanent economy in the educational\nprocess. I believe even that such a reader as I might come to be\nvery easy in the new way. But whatever is done must be done widely,\nsimultaneously, all over the English-speaking community, and after\nthe fullest consideration. The local \u201cspelling reform\u201d of a few\nhalf-educated faddists here and there, helps not at all, is a mere\nnuisance. This is a thing to be worked out in a scientific way by the\nstudents of phonetics; they must have a complete alphabet settled for\ngood, a dictionary ready, reading-books well tested, the whole system\npolished and near perfection before the thing passes out of the\nspecialists\u2019 hands. The really practical spelling-reformer will devote\nhis guineas to endowing chairs of phonetics and supporting publication\nin phonetic science, and his time to study and open-minded discussion.\nSuch organisations as the _Association Phon\u00e9tique Internationale_, may\nbe instanced. Systems concocted in a hurry, in a half-commercial or\nwholly commercial and in a wholly presumptuous manner, pushed like\nreligious panaceas and advertised like soap--Pitman\u2019s System, Barnum\u2019s\nSystem, Quackbosh the Gifted Postman\u2019s System, and all that sort of\nthing--do nothing but vulgarize, discredit, and retard this work.\n\nBefore a system of phonetic spelling can be established, it is advisable\nthat a standard pronunciation of English should exist. With that\nquestion also these papers have already dealt. But for the sake of\nemphasis I would repeat here the astonishment that has grown upon me as\nI have given my mind to these things, that, save for local exceptions,\nthere should be no pressure even upon those who desire to become\nteachers in our schools or preachers in our pulpits, to attain a\nqualifying minimum of correct pronunciation.\n\nNow directly we pass beyond these first three elementary matters,\nreading, writing, and pronunciation, and come to the fourth and fifth\nitems of our scheme, to the complete mastery of English that is, we come\nupon a difficulty that is all too completely disregarded in educational\ndiscussions--always by those who have had no real scholastic experience,\nand often by those who ought to know better. It is extremely easy for\na political speaker or a city magnate or a military reformer or an\nirresponsible writer, to proclaim that the schoolmaster must mend his\nways forthwith, give up this pointless Latin of his, and teach his\npupils the English language \u201c_thoroughly_\u201d--with much emphasis on the\n\u201cthoroughly,\u201d but it is quite another thing for the schoolmaster to obey\nour magnificent directions. For the plain, simple, insurmountable fact\nis this, that no one knows how to teach English as in our vague way\nwe critics imagine it taught; that no working schoolmaster alive can\npossibly give the thing the concentrated attention, the experimental\nyears necessary for its development, that it is worth nobody\u2019s while,\nand that (except in a vein of exalted self-sacrifice) it will probably\nnot be worth any one\u2019s while to do so for many years unless some New\nRepublicans conspire to make it so. The teaching of English requires its\nSturm, its energetic modern renascence schoolmasters, its set of school\nbooks, its branches and grades, before it can become a discipline,\neven to compare with the only subject taught with any shadow of orderly\nprogressive thoroughness in secondary schools, namely, Latin. At present\nour method in English is a foolish caricature of the Latin method; we\nspend a certain amount of time teaching children classificatory bosh\nabout the eight sorts of Nominative Case, a certain amount of time\nteaching them the \u201cderivation\u201d of words they do not understand,\nglance shyly at Anglo-Saxon and at Grimm\u2019s Law, indulge in a specific\nreminiscence of the Latin method called parsing, supplement with a more\nmodern development called the analysis of sentences, give a course of\nexercises in paraphrasing (for the most part the conversion of good\nEnglish into bad), and wind up with lessons in \u201cComposition\u201d that must\nbe seen to be believed. Essays are produced, and the teacher noses\nblindly through the product for false concords, prepositions at the end\nof sentences, and, if a person of peculiarly fine literary quality, for\nthe word \u201creliable\u201d and the split infinitive. These various exercises\nare so little parts of an articulate whole that they may be taken in\nalmost any order and any relative quantity. And in the result, if\nsome pupil should, by a happy knack of apprehension, win through this\nconfusion to a sense of literary quality, to the enterprise of even\ntrying to write, the thing is so rare and wonderful that almost\ninevitably he or she, in a fine outburst of discovered genius, takes to\nthe literary life. For the rest, they will understand nothing but\nthe flattest prose; they will be deaf to everything but the crudest\nmeanings; they will be the easy victims of the boom, and terribly shy\nof a pen. They will revere the dead Great and respect the new Academic,\nread the living quack, miss and neglect the living promise, and\nbecome just a fresh volume of that atmosphere of _azote_, in which our\nliterature stifles.\n\nNow the schoolmaster is not to blame for this any more than he is to\nblame for sticking to Latin. It is no more possible for schoolmasters\nand schoolmistresses, whose lives are encumbered with a voluminous mass\nof low-grade mental toil and worries and reasonable and unreasonable\nresponsibilities, to find the energy and mental freedom necessary to\nmake any vital changes in the methods that text-books, traditions,\nand examinations force upon them, than it is for a general medical\npractitioner to invent and make out of the native ore the steel\nimplements some operation of frequent occurrence in his practice\nmay demand. If they are made, and accessible by purchase and not too\nexpensive, he will get them; if they are not he will have to fumble\nalong with the next best thing; and if nothing that is any good can be\ngot, then there is nothing for it, though he be the noblest character,\nthe finest intelligence that ever lived behind a brass plate, but either\nto shirk that operation altogether or to run the chance of making a\ndisastrous mess of it.\n\nScolding the schoolmaster, gibing at the schoolmaster, guying,\nafflicting and exasperating the schoolmaster in every conceivable way,\nis an amusement so entirely congenial to my temperament that I do not\nfor one moment propose to abandon it. It is a devil I have, and I admit\nit. He insults schoolmasters and bishops in particular, and I do not\ncast him out, but at the same time I would most earnestly insist that\nall that sort of thing does nothing whatever to advance education, that\nit is a mere outbreak of personal grace-notes so far as this discussion\ngoes. The real practical needs in the matter are a properly worked-out\nmethod, a proper set of school books, and then a progressive alteration\nof examinations in English, to render that method and that set of school\nbooks imperative. These are needs the schoolmaster and schoolmistress\ncan do amazingly little to satisfy. Of course, when these things are\nready and the pressure to enforce them begins to tell on the schools,\nschoolmasters and schoolmistresses, having that almost instinctive dread\nof any sort of change that all hard-worked and rather worried people\nacquire, will obstruct and have to be reckoned with, but that is a\ndetail in the struggle and not a question of general objective. And to\nsatisfy those real practical needs, what is wanted is in the first place\nan organizer, a reasonable sum of money, say ten thousand pounds for\nten years, and access for experimental purposes to a variety of schools.\nThis organizer would set himself to secure the whole time and energy and\ninterest of a dozen or so of good men; they would include several expert\nteachers, a clear-headed pedagogic expert or so, a keen psychologist\nperhaps with a penetrating mind--for example, one might try and\nkidnap Professor William James in his next Sabbatical year--one or two\nindustrious young students, a literary critic perhaps, a philologist,\na grammarian, and set them all, according to their several gifts and\nfaculties, towards this end. At the end of the first year this organizer\nwould print and publish for the derision of the world in general and\nthe bitter attacks of the men he had omitted from the enterprise in\nparticular, for review in the newspapers and for trial in enterprising\nschools, a \u201ccourse\u201d in the English language and composition. His team of\ncollaborators, revised perhaps, probably weeded by a quarrel or so and\nsupplemented by the ablest of the hostile critics, would then, working\nwith all their time and energy, revise the course for the second year.\nAnd you would repeat the process for ten years. In the end at the cost\nof \u00a3100,000--really a quite trivial sum for the object in view--there\nwould exist the scheme, the method, the primers and text-books, the\nSchool Dictionary, the examination syllabus, and all that is now needed\nfor the proper teaching of English. You would have, moreover, in the\ncopyrights of the course an asset that might go far to recoup those who\nfinanced the enterprise.\n\nIt is precisely this difficulty about text-books and a general\nscheme that is the real obstacle to any material improvement in our\nmathematical teaching. Professor Perry, in his opening address to the\nEngineering Section of the British Association at Belfast, expressed\nan opinion that the average boy of fifteen might be got to the\ninfinitesimal calculus. As a matter of fact the average English boy of\nfifteen has only just looked at elementary algebra. But every one\nwho knows anything of educational science knows, that by the simple\nexpedient of throwing overboard all that non-educational, mind-sickening\nand complex rubbish about money and weights and measures, practice,\ninterest, \u201crule of three,\u201d and all the rest of the solemn clap-trap\ninvented by the masters of the old Academy for Young Gentlemen to fool\nthe foolish predecessors of those who clamour for commercial education\nto-day, and by setting aside the pretence in teaching geometry, that\nalgebraic formulae and the decimal notation are not yet invented, little\nboys of nine may be got to apply quadratic equations to problems, plot\nendless problems upon squared paper, and master and apply the geometry\ncovered by the earlier books of Euclid with the utmost ease. But to do\nthis with a class of boys at present demands so much special thought,\nso much private planning, so much sheer toil on the part of the teacher,\nthat it becomes practically impossible. The teacher must arrange the\nwhole course himself, invent his examples, or hunt them laboriously\nthrough a dozen books; he must be not only teacher, but text-book. I\nknow of no School Arithmetic which does not groan under a weight of sham\npractical work, and that does not, with an absurd priggishness, exclude\nthe use of algebraic symbols. Except for one little volume, I know of no\nsane book which deals with arithmetic and elementary algebra under\none cover or gives any helpful exercises or examples in squared\npaper calculations. Such books, I am told, exist in the seclusion of\npublishers\u2019 stock-rooms, but if I, enjoying as I do much more leisure\nand opportunity of inquiry than the average mathematical master, cannot\nget at them, how can we expect him to do so? And the thing to do now is\nobviously to discover or create these books, and force them kindly but\nfirmly into the teachers\u2019 hands.\n\nThe problem is much simpler in the case of mathematical teaching than in\nthe case of English, because the educational theory and method have\nbeen more thoroughly discussed. There is no need for the ten years of\nexperiment and trial I have suggested for the organization of English\nteaching. The mathematical reformer may begin now at a point the English\nlanguage reformer will not reach for some years. Suppose now a suitably\nauthenticated committee were to work out--on the basis of Professor\nPerry\u2019s syllabus perhaps--a syllabus of school mathematics, and then\nmake a thorough review of all the mathematical textbooks on sale\nthroughout the English-speaking world, admitting some perhaps as of real\npermanent value for teaching of the new type, provisionally recognizing\nothers as endurable, but with clear recommendations for their revision\nand improvement, and condemning the others specifically _by name_. Let\nthem make it clear that this syllabus and report will be respected by\nall public examining bodies; let them spend a hundred pounds or so\nin the intelligent distribution of their report, and the scholastic\nprofession will not be long before it is equipped with the recommended\nbooks. Meanwhile, the English and American scholastic publishers will\nbecome extremely active, the warned books will be revised, and new books\nwill be written in competition for the enormous prize of the committee\u2019s\nfinal approval, an activity that a second review, after an interval of\nfive or six years, will recognize and reward.\n\nSuch measures as these will be worth reams of essays in educational\npapers and Parents\u2019 Reviews, worth thousands of inspiring and suggestive\nlectures at pedagogic conferences. If, indeed, such essays and such\nlectures do any good at all. The more one looks into scholastic affairs\nthe more one is struck not only by the futility but the positive\nmischievousness of much of what passes for educational liberalism. The\nschoolmaster is criticised vehemently for teaching the one or two poor\nuseless subjects he can in a sort of way teach, and practically nothing\nis done to help or equip him to teach anything else. By reason of this\nuproar, the world is full now of anxious muddled parents, their poor\nbrains buzzing with echoes of Froebel, Tolstoy, Herbert Spencer, Ruskin,\nHerbart, Colonel Parker, Mr. Harris, Matthew Arnold, and the _Morning\nPost_, trying to find something better. They know nothing of what is\nright, they only know very, very clearly that the ordinary school is\nextremely wrong. They are quite clear they don\u2019t want \u201ccram\u201d (though\nthey haven\u2019t the remotest idea what cram is), and they have a pretty\ngeneral persuasion that failure at examination is a good test of a sound\neducation. And in response to their bleating demand there grows a\nfine crop of Quack Schools; schools organized on lines of fantastic\nextravagance, in which bee-keeping takes the place of Latin, and\ngardening supersedes mathematics, in which boys play tennis naked to be\ncured of False Shame, and the numerical exercises called bookkeeping and\ncommercial correspondence are taught to the sons of parents (who can pay\na hundred guineas a year), as Commercial Science. The subjects of study\nin these schools come and go like the ravings of a disordered mind;\n\u201cGreek History\u201d (in an hour or so a week for a term) is followed by\n\u201cItalian Literature,\u201d and this gives place to the production of a\nShakesperian play that ultimately overpowers and disorganizes the whole\ncurriculum. Ethical lessons and the school pulpit flourish, of course.\nA triennial walk to a chalk-pit is Field Geology, and vague half-holiday\nwanderings are Botany Rambles. \u201cArt\u201d of the copper punching variety\nreplaces any decent attempt to draw, and an extreme expressiveness in\nmusic compensates for an almost deliberate slovenliness of technique.\nEven the ladies\u2019 seminaries of the Georgian days could scarcely have\nproduced a parallel to the miscellaneous incapacity of the victim of\nthese \u201cmodern\u201d schools, and it becomes daily more necessary for those\nwho have the interests of education at heart to disavow with the most\nunmistakable emphasis these catch-parent impostures.\n\nWith the other subjects under the headings of _A_ and _B_, it is not\nnecessary to deal at any length here. Drawing begins at home, and a\nchild should have begun to sketch freely before the formal schooling\ncommences. It is the business of the school to teach drawing and not\nto teach \u201cart,\u201d which, indeed, is always an individual and spontaneous\nthing, and it need only concern itself directly with those aspects of\ndrawing that require direction. Of course, an hour set aside from the\nschool time in which boys or girls may do whatever they please with\npaper, ink, pens, pencils, compasses, and water-colour would be a most\nexcellent and profitable thing, but that scarcely counts (except in the\nQuack Schools) as teaching. As a matter of fact, teaching absolutely\nspoils all that sort of thing. A course in model drawing and in\nperspective, however, is really a training in seeing things, it demands\nrigorous instruction and it must be the backbone of school drawing, and,\nin addition, studies may be made from flowers that would not be made\nwithout direction: topography (and much else) may be learnt by copying\ngood explicit maps; chronology (to supplement the child\u2019s private\nreading of history) by the construction of time charts; and much history\nalso by drawing and colouring historical maps. With geometrical drawing\none passes insensibly into mathematics. And so much has been done not\nonly to revolutionize the teaching of modern languages, but also to\npopularize the results, that I may content myself with a mere mention of\nthe names of Rippmann, S. Alge, H\u00f6lzel, and Gouin as typical of the new\nways.\n\nThere remains the question of _C_, the amount of Information that is to\ntake a place in schooling. Now there is one \u201csubject\u201d that it would be\nconvenient to include, were it only for the sake of the mass of exercise\nand illustration it supplies to the mathematical course, and that is\nthe science of Physics. In addition, the science of physics, since it\nculminates in a clear understanding and use of the terminology of\nthe aspects of energy and a clear sense of adequate causation, is\nfundamentally necessary to modern thought. Practical work is, no doubt,\nrequired for the proper understanding of physical science, and so far it\nmust enter into schooling, but it may be pointed out here that in many\ncases the educational faddist is overdoing the manual side of science\nstudy to a ridiculous extent. Things have altered very much at the Royal\nCollege of Science, no doubt, since my student days, but fifteen years\nago the courses in elementary physics and in elementary geology were\nquite childishly silly in this respect. Both these courses seemed to\nhave been inspired by that eminent educationist, Mr. Squeers, and\nthe sequel to spelling \u201cwindow\u201d was always to \u201cgo and clean one.\u201d The\nscience in each course in those days could have been acquired just as\nwell in a fortnight as in half a year. One muddled away three or four\ndays etching a millimetre scale with hydrofluoric acid on glass--to no\nearthly end that I could discover--and a week or so in making a needless\nbarometer. In the course in geology, days and days were spent in drawing\nideal crystalline forms and colouring them in water-colours, apparently\nin order to get a totally false idea of a crystal, and weeks in the\npatient copying of microscopic rock sections in water-colours. Effectual\nmeasures of police were taken to prevent the flight of the intelligent\nstudent from these tiresome duties. The mischief done in this way is\nvery great. It deadens the average students and exasperates and\nmaddens the eager ones. I am inclined to think that a very considerable\nproportion of what passes as \u201cpractical\u201d science work, for which costly\nlaboratories are built and expensive benches fitted, consists of\nvery similar solemnities, and it cannot be too strongly urged that\n\u201cpractical\u201d work that does not illuminate is mere waste of the student\u2019s\ntime.\n\nThis physics course would cover an experimental quantitative treatment\nof the electric current, it would glance in an explanatory way at many\nof the phenomena of physical geography, and it would be correlated with\na study of the general principles of chemistry. A detailed knowledge of\nchemical compounds is not a part of general education, it keeps better\nin reference books than in the non-specialized head, and it is only the\nbroad conceptions of analysis and combination, and of the relation of\nenergy to chemical changes, that have to be attained. Beyond this, and\nthe application of map drawing to give accurate ideas and to awaken\ninterest in geography and history, it is open to discussion whether\nany Fact subject need be taught as schooling at all. Ensure the full\ndevelopment of a man\u2019s mental capacity, and he will get his Fact as he\nneeds it. And if his mind is undeveloped he can make no use of any fact\nhe has. The subject called \u201cHuman Physiology\u201d may be at once dismissed\nas absurdly unsuitable for school use. One is always meeting worthy\npeople who \u201cdon\u2019t see why children should not know something about\ntheir own bodies,\u201d and who are not apparently aware that the medical\nprofession after some generations of fairly systematic inquiry knows\nremarkably little. Save for some general anatomy, it is impossible to\nteach school-children anything true about the human body, because the\nexplanation of almost any physiological process demands a knowledge of\nphysical and chemical laws much sounder and subtler than the average\nchild can possibly attain. And as for botany, geology, history, and\ngeography (beyond the range already specified), these are far better\nrelegated to the school library and the initiative of each child.\nEvery child has its specific range of interest, and its specific way of\nregarding things. In geology, for example, one boy may be fascinated\nby the fossil hunting, another will find his interest in the effects of\nstructure in scenery, and a third, with more imagination, will give his\nwhole mind to the reconstruction of the past, and will pore over maps of\nPleistocene Europe and pictures of Silurian landscape with the keenest\nappreciation. Each will be bored, or at least not greatly interested,\nby what attracts the others. Let the children have an easily accessible\nlibrary--that is the crying need of nine hundred and ninety-nine out\nof a thousand schools to-day, a need every school-seeking parent may do\nsomething to remedy--and in that library let there be one or two good\ndensely illustrated histories, illustrated travels, bound volumes\nof such a publication as Newnes\u2019 _Wide World Magazine_ (I name these\npublications haphazard--there are probably others as good or better),\nHutchinson and Co.\u2019s _Living Animals of the World_, the Rev. H. N.\nHutchinson\u2019s _Extinct Monsters_, the Badminton volumes on big game\nshooting, mountaineering, and yachting, Kerner\u2019s \u201cBotany,\u201d collections\nof \u201cThe Hundred Best Pictures\u201d sort, collections of views of towns and\nof scenery in different parts of the world, and the like. Then let the\nschoolmaster set aside five hours a week as the minimum for reading, and\nlet the pupils read during that time just whatever they like,\nprovided only that they keep silence and read. If the schoolmaster\nor schoolmistress comes in at all here, it should be to stimulate\nsystematic reading occasionally by setting a group of five or six pupils\nto \u201cget up\u201d some particular subject--a report on \u201canimals that\nmight still be domesticated,\u201d for example--and by showing them\nconversationally how to read with a slip of paper at hand, gathering\nfacts. This sort of thing it is impossible to reduce to method and\nsystem, and, consequently, it is the proper field for the teacher\u2019s\ninitiative. It is largely in order to leave time and energy for this\nthat I am anxious to reduce the more rigorous elements in schooling to\nstandard and text-book.\n\nNow all this schooling need not take more than twenty hours a week for\nits backbone or hard-work portion, its English, mathematics, science,\nand exact drawing, and twelve hours a week for its easier, more\nindividual employments of sketching, painting, and reading, and this\nleaves a large margin of time for military drill and for physical\nexercises. If we are to get the best result from the child\u2019s\nindividuality, we must leave a large portion of that margin at the\nchild\u2019s own disposal, it must be free to go for walks, to \u201cmuck about,\u201d\n as schoolboys say, to play games, and (within limits) to consort with\ncompanions of its own choosing--to follow its interests in short. It\nis in this direction that British middle-class education fails most\nsignally at the present time. The English schoolboy and schoolgirl are\npositively hunted through their days. They do not play--using the word\nto indicate a spontaneous employment into which imagination enters--at\nall. They have games, but they are so regulated that the imagination is\neliminated; they have exercises of various stereotyped sorts. They are\ntaken to and fro to these things in the care of persons one would call\nushers unhesitatingly were it not that they also pretended to teach.\nThe rest of their waking time is preparation or supervised reading\nor walking under supervision. Their friendships are watched. They are\nnever, never left alone. The avowed ideal of many boarding schoolmasters\nis to \u201csend them to bed tired out.\u201d Largely this is due to a natural\ndread of accidents and scrapes, that will make trouble for the school,\nbut there is also another cause. If I may speak frankly and entirely as\nan unauthoritative observer, I would say it is a regrettable thing that\nso large a proportion of British secondary schoolmasters and mistresses\nare unmarried. The normal condition of a healthy adult is marriage, and\nfor all those who are not defective upon this side (and that means an\nincapacity to understand many things) celibacy is a state of unstable\nequilibrium and too often a quite unwholesome condition. Wherever\nthere are celibate teachers I am inclined to suspect a fussiness, an\nunreasonable watchfulness, a disposition to pry, an exaggeration of what\nare called \u201cDangers,\u201d a painful idealization of \u201cPurity.\u201d It is a\npart of the normal development of the human being to observe with some\nparticularity certain phenomena, to entertain certain curiosities,\nto talk of them to trusted equals--_never_, be it noted, except by\nperversion to parents or teachers--and there is not the slightest harm\nin these quite natural things, unless they are forced back into an\nabashed solitude or associated by suggestion with conceptions of shame\nand disgust. That is what happens in too many of our girls\u2019 schools and\npreparatory schools to-day, and it is to that end mainly that youthful\nintimacies are discouraged, youthful freedom is restricted, and\nimagination and individuality warped and crippled. It is astonishing how\nmuch of their adolescence grown-up people will contrive to forget.\n\nSo much for schooling and what may be done to better it in this New\nRepublican scheme of things. The upward continuation of it into a\ngeneral College course is an integral part of a larger question that\nwe shall discuss at a later stage, the larger question of the general\nprogressive thought of the community as a whole.\n\n\n\n\nVII. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCES\n\n\nThere can be few people alive who have not remarked on occasion that\nmen are the creatures of circumstances. But it is one thing to state a\nbelief of this sort in some incidental application, and quite another to\nrealize it completely. Towards such a completer realization we have been\nworking in these papers, in disentangling the share of inheritance and\nof deliberate schooling and training, in the production of the civilized\nman. The rest we have to ascribe to his world in general, of which his\nhome is simply the first and most intimate aspect. In every\ndeveloping citizen we have asserted there is a great mass of fluid and\nindeterminate possibility, and this sets and is shaped by the world\nabout him as wax is shaped by a mould. It is rarely, of course, an\nabsolutely exact and submissive cast that ensues; few men and women are\nwithout some capacity for question and criticism, but it is only\nvery rare and obdurate material--only, as one says, a very original\npersonality--that does not finally take its general form and direction\nin this way. And it is proposed in this paper to keep this statement\npersistently in focus, instead of dismissing it as a platitude and\nthinking no more about it at all after the usual fashion, while we\nexamine certain broad social and political facts and conventions which\nconstitute the general framework of the world in which the developing\ncitizen is placed. I would submit that at the present time with regard\nto such things as church and kingdom, constitution and nationality, we\nare altogether too much enslaved by the idea of \u201cpolicy,\u201d and altogether\ntoo blind to the remoter, deeper, and more lasting consequences of our\npublic acts and institutions in moulding the next generation. It\nwill not, I think, be amiss to pass beyond policy for a space, and to\ninsist--even with heaviness--that however convenient an institution\nmay be, however much it may, in the twaddle of the time, be a \u201cnatural\ngrowth,\u201d and however much the \u201cproduct of a long evolution,\u201d yet, if it\ndoes not mould men into fine and vigorous forms, it has to be destroyed.\nWe \u201csave the state\u201d for the sake of our children, that, at least, is the\nNew Republican view of the matter, and if in our intentness to save the\nstate we injure or sacrifice our children, we destroy our ultimate for\nour proximate aim.\n\nAlready it has been pointed out, with certain concrete instances, how\nthe thing that is, asserts itself over the thing that is to be; already\na general indication has been made of the trend of the argument we are\nnow about to develop and define. That argument, briefly, is this, that\nto attain the ends of the New Republic, that is to say the best results\nfrom our birth possibilities, we must continually make political\nforms, social, political and religious formul\u00e6, and all the rules and\nregulations of _life the clearest, simplest, and sincerest expression\npossible of what we believe about life and hope about life;_ that\nwhatever momentary advantage a generation may gain by accepting what\nis known to be a sham and a convention, by keeping in use the detected\nimposture and the flawed apparatus, is probably much more than made up\nfor by the reaction of this acquiescence upon the future. As the typical\ninstance of a convenient convention that I am inclined to think is now\nreacting very badly upon our future, the Crown of the British Empire,\nconsidered as the symbolical figurehead of a system of hereditary\nprivilege and rule, serves extremely well. One may deal with this\ntypical instance with no special application to the easy, kindly,\namiable personality this crown adorns at the present time. It is a\nquestion that may be dealt with in general terms. What, we would ask,\nare the natural, inseparable concomitants of a system of hereditary\nrulers in a state, looking at the thing entirely with an eye to the\nmaking of a greater mankind in the world? How does it compare with the\nAmerican conception of democratic equality, and how do both stand with\nregard to the essential truth and purpose in things? . . .\n\nTo state these questions is like opening the door of a room that has\nlong been locked and deserted. One has a lonely feeling. There are quite\nremarkably no other voices here, and the rusty hinges echo down empty\npassages that were quite threateningly full of men seventy or eighty\nyears ago. But I am only one very insignificant member of a class of\ninquirers in England who started upon the question \u201cwhy are we becoming\ninefficient?\u201d a year or two ago, and from that starting point it is\nI came to this. . . . I do not believe therefore that upon this dusty\nthreshold I shall stand long alone. We take most calmly the most\nmiraculous of things, and it is only quite recently that I have come\nto see as amazing this fact, that while the greater mass of our\nEnglish-speaking people is living under the profession of democratic\nRepublicanism, there is no party, no sect, no periodical, no teacher\neither in Great Britain or America or the Colonies, to hint at a\nproposal to abolish the aristocratic and monarchical elements in the\nBritish system. There is no revolutionary spirit over here, and very\nlittle missionary spirit over there. The great mass of the present\ngeneration on both sides of the Atlantic takes hardly any interest\nin this issue at all. It is as if the question was an impossible one,\noutside the range of thinkable things. Or, as if the last word in this\ncontroversy was said before our grandfathers died.\n\nBut is that really so? It is permissible to suggest that for a time the\nlast word had been said, and still to reopen the discussion now. All\nthese papers, the very conception of New Republicanism, rests on the\nassumption--presumptuous and offensive though it must needs seem to\nmany--that new matter for thought altogether, new apparatus and methods\nof inquiry, and new ends, have come into view since the early seventies,\nwhen the last Republican voices in England died away. We are enormously\nmore aware of the Future. That, we have already defined as the essential\ndifference of our new outlook. Our fathers thought of the Kingdom as it\nwas to them, they contrasted with that the immediate alternative, and\nwithin these limits they were, no doubt, right in rejecting the latter.\nSo, to them at any rate, the thing seemed judged. But nowadays when we\nhave said the Kingdom is so and so, and when we have decided that we do\nnot wish to convert it into a Republic upon the American or any other\nexisting pattern before Christmas, 1904, we consider we have only begun\nto look at the thing. We have then to ask what is the future of the\nKingdom; is it to be a permanent thing, or is it to develop into and\ngive place to some other condition? We have to ask precisely the same\nquestion about the American democracy and the American constitution.\nIs that latter arrangement going to last for ever? We cannot help being\ncontributory to these developments, and if we have any pretensions to\nwisdom at all, we must have some theory of what we intend with regard to\nthese things; political action can surely be nothing but folly,\nunless it has a clear purpose in the future. If these things are not\nsempiternal, then are we merely to patch the fabric as it gives way, or\nare we going to set about rebuilding--piecemeal, of course, and without\nclosing the premises or stopping the business, but, nevertheless, on\nsome clear and comprehensive plan? If so, what is the plan to be? Does\nit permit us to retain in a more or less modified form, or does it urge\nus to get rid of, the British Crown? Does it permit us to retain or does\nit urge us to modify the American constitution? That is the form, it\nseems to me, in which the question of Republicanism as an alternative\nto existing institutions, must presently return into the field of public\ndiscussion in Great Britain; not as a question of political stability\nnor of individual rights this time, but as an aspect of our general\nscheme, our scheme to make the world more free and more stimulating\nand strengthening for our children and our children\u2019s children; for the\nchildren both of our bodies and of our thoughts.\n\nIt is interesting to recall the assumptions under which the last\nvestiges of militant Republicanism died out in Great Britain. As late\nas the middle years of the reign of Queen Victoria, there were many\nin England who were, and who openly professed themselves to be,\nRepublicans, and there was a widely felt persuasion that the country was\ndrifting slowly towards the constitution of a democratic republic. In\nthose days it was that there came into being a theory, strengthened\nby the withdrawal of the Monarch from affairs, which one still hears\nrepeated, that Great Britain was a \u201ccrowned republic,\u201d that the crown\nwas no more than a symbol retained by the \u201cinnate good sense\u201d of the\nBritish people, and that in some automatic way not clearly explained,\nsuch old-time vestiges of privilege as the House of Lords would\npresently disappear. One finds this confident belief in Progress towards\npolitical equality--Progress that required no human effort, but was\ninherent in the scheme of things--very strong in Dickens, for example,\nwho spoke for the average Englishman as no later writer can be said to\nhave done. This belief fell in very happily with that disposition\nto funk a crisis, that vulgar dread of vulgar action which one must\nregretfully admit was all too often a characteristic of the nineteenth\ncentury English. There was an idea among Englishmen that to do anything\nwhatever of a positive sort to bring about a Republic was not only\ntotally unnecessary but inevitably mischievous, since it evidently meant\nstreet fighting and provisional government by bold, bad, blood-stained,\nvulgar men, in shirt sleeves as the essential features of the process.\nAnd under the enervating influence of this great automatic theory--this\ntheory that no one need bother because the thing was bound to come, was\nindeed already arriving for all who had eyes to see--Republicanism\ndid not so much die as fall asleep. It was all right, Liberalism told\nus--the Crown was a legal fiction, the House of Lords was an interesting\nanachronism, and in that faith it was, no doubt, that the last of the\nRepublicans, Mr. Bright and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, \u201ckissed hands.\u201d\n Then, presently, the frantic politics of Mr. Gladstone effected what\nprobably no other human agency could have contrived, and restored the\nprestige of the House of Lords.\n\nPractically the Crown has now gone unchallenged by press, pulpit, or\nplatform speaker for thirty years, and as a natural consequence there\nis just now a smaller proportion of men under forty who call themselves\nRepublicans even in private than there ever was since Plutarch entered\nthe circle of English reading. To-day the Aristocratic Monarchy is an\nalmost universally accepted fact in the British Empire, and it has so\ncomplete an air of unshakable permanence to contrast with its condition\nin the early nineteenth century that even the fact that it is the only\nreally concrete obstacle to a political reunion of the English-speaking\npeoples at the present time, seems merely a fact to avoid.\n\nThere are certain consequences that must follow from the unchallenged\nacceptation of an aristocratic monarchy, consequences that do not seem\nto be sufficiently recognized in this connection, and it is to these\nthat the reader\u2019s attention is now particularly drawn. There are a great\nnumber of British people who are more or less sincerely seeking the\nsecret of national efficiency at present, and I cannot help thinking\nthat sooner or later, in spite of their evident aversion, they will be\nforced to look into this dusty chamber of thought for the clue to the\nthing they need. The corner they will have to turn is the admission\nthat no state and no people can be at its maximum efficiency until every\npublic function is discharged by the man best able to perform it, and\nthat no Commonweal can be near efficiency until it is endeavouring very\nearnestly to bring that ideal condition of affairs about. And when\nthey have got round that corner they will have to face the fact that an\nHereditary Monarchy is a state in which this principle is repudiated\nat a cardinal point, a state in which one position, which no amount of\nsophistication will prevent common men and women regarding as the most\nhonourable, powerful, and responsible one of all, which is indeed by\nthat very fact alone a great and responsible one, is filled on\npurely genealogical grounds. In a state that has also an aristocratic\nconstitution this repudiation of special personal qualities is carried\nvery much further. Reluctantly but certainly the seeker after national\nefficiency will come to the point that the aristocracy and their friends\nand connections _must_ necessarily form a caste about the King, that\ntheir gradations _must_ set the tone of the whole social body, and\nthat their political position must enable them to demand and obtain a\npredominating share in any administration that may be formed. So long,\ntherefore, as your constitution remains aristocratic you must expect\nto see men of quite ordinary ability, quite ordinary energy, and\nno exceptional force of character, men frequently less clever and\ninfluential than their wives and lady friends, controlling the public\nservices, a Duke of Norfolk managing so vital a business as the Post\nOffice and succeeded by a Marquis of Londonderry, and a Marquis of\nLansdowne organizing military affairs, and nothing short of a change\nin your political constitution can prevent this sort of thing. No one\nbelieves these excellent gentlemen hold these positions by merit or\ncapacity, and no one believes that from them we are getting anything\nlike the best imaginable services in these positions. These positions\nare held by the mere accident of birth, and it is by the mere accident\nof birth the great mass of Englishmen are shut out from the remotest\nhope of serving their country in such positions.\n\nAnd this evil of reserved places is not restricted by any means to\npublic control. You cannot both have a system and not have a system,\nand the British have a system of hereditary aristocracy that infects the\nwhole atmosphere of English thought with the persuasion that what a man\nmay attempt is determined by his caste. It is here, and nowhere else,\nthat the clue to so much inefficiency as one finds it in contemporary\nBritish activity lies. The officers of the British Army instead of being\nsedulously picked from the whole population are drawn from a really\nquite small group of families, and, except for those who are called\n\u201cgentleman rankers,\u201d to enlist is the very last way in the world to\nbecome a British officer. As a very natural corollary only broken men\nand unambitious men of the lowest class will consent to become ordinary\nprivate soldiers, except during periods of extreme patriotic excitement.\nThe men who enter the Civil Service also, know perfectly well that\nthough they may possess the most brilliant administrative powers and\ndevelop and use themselves with relentless energy, they will never win\nfor themselves or their wives one tithe of the public honour that comes\nby right to the heir to a dukedom. A dockyard hand who uses his brains\nand makes a suggestion that may save the country thousands of pounds\nwill get--a gratuity.\n\nThroughout all English affairs the suggestion of this political system\nhas spread. The employer is of a different caste from his workmen,\nthe captain is of a different caste from his crew, even the Teachers\u2019\nRegister is specially classified to prevent \u201cyoung gentlemen\u201d being\ntaught by the only men who, as a class, know how to teach in England,\nnamely, the elementary teachers; everywhere the same thing is to be\nfound. And while it is, it is absurd to expect a few platitudes about\nFreedom, and snobbishness, and a few pious hopes about efficiency, to\ncounteract the system\u2019s universal, incessant teaching, its lesson of\nlimited effort within defined possibilities. Only under one condition\nmay such a system rise towards anything that may be called national\nvigour, and that is when there exists a vigorous Court which sets the\nfashion of hard work. A keen King, indifferent to feminine influence,\nmay, for a time, make a keen nation, but that is an exceptional state of\naffairs, and the whole shape of the fabric gravitates towards relapse.\nEven under such an influence the social stratification will still, in\nthe majority of cases, prevent powers and posts falling to the best\npossible man. In the majority of cases the best that can be hoped\nfor, even then, will be to see the best man in the class privileged in\nrelation to any particular service, discharging that service. The most\nefficient nation in the world to-day is believed to be Germany, which\nis--roughly speaking--an aristocratic monarchy, it is dominated by a\nman of most unkingly force of character, and by a noble tradition of\neducational thoroughness that arose out of the shames of utter defeat,\nand, as a consequence, a great number of people contrive to forget that\nthe most dazzling display of national efficiency the world has ever seen\nfollowed the sloughing of hereditary institutions by France. One credits\nNapoleon too often with the vigour of his opportunity, with the force\nand strength it was his privilege to misdirect and destroy. And one\nforgets that this present German efficiency was paralleled in the\neighteenth century by Prussia, whose aristocratic system first winded\nRepublicans at Valmy, and showed at Jena fourteen years after how much\nit had learnt from that encounter.\n\nNow our main argument lies in this: that the great mass of a generation\nof children born into a country, all those children who have no more\nthan average intelligence and average moral qualities, will accept the\nostensible institutions of that country at their face value, and will\nbe almost entirely shaped and determined by that acceptance. Only a\nsustained undertone of revolutionary protest can prevent that happening.\nThey will believe that precedences represent real superiority, and they\nwill honour what they see honoured, and ignore what they see treated\nas of no account. Pious sentiment about Equality and Freedom will enter\ninto the reality of their minds as little as a drop of water into a\ngreasy plate. They will act as little in general intercourse upon the\nproposition that \u201cthe man\u2019s the gowd for a\u2019 that,\u201d as they will upon the\nproposition that \u201cman is a spirit\u201d when it comes to the alternative of\njumping over a cliff or going down by a ladder.\n\nIf, however, your children are not average children, if you are so happy\nas to have begotten children of exceptional intelligence, it does not\nfollow that this fact will save them from conclusions quite parallel to\nthose of the common child. Suppose they do penetrate the pretence\nthat there is no intrinsic difference between the Royal Family and the\nmembers of the peerage on the one hand, and the average person in any\nother class on the other; suppose they discover that the whole scale of\nprecedence and honour in their land is a stupendous sham;--what\nthen? Suppose they see quite clearly that all these pretensions of an\ninviolate superiority of birth and breeding vanish at the touch of\na Whitaker Wright, soften to a glowing cordiality before the sunny\npromises of a Hooley. Suppose they perceive that neither King nor lords\nreally believe in their own lordliness, and that at any point in the\nsystem one may find men with hands for any man\u2019s tip, provided it is\nonly sufficiently large! Even then!--How is that going to react upon our\nchildren\u2019s social conduct?\n\nIn ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they will accept the system still,\nthey will accept it with mental reservations. They will see that to\nrepudiate the system by more than a chance word or deed is to become\nisolated, to become a discontented alien, to lose even the qualified\npermission to do something in the world. In most cases they will take\nthe oaths that come in their way and kiss the hands--just as the British\nelementary teachers bow unbelieving heads to receive the episcopal\npat, and just as the British sceptic in orders will achieve triumphs of\nambiguity to secure the episcopal see. And their reason for submission\nwill not be absolutely despicable; they will know there is no employment\nworth speaking of without it. After all, one has only one life, and it\nis not pleasant to pass through it in a state of futile abstinence\nfrom the general scheme. Life, unfortunately, does not end with heroic\nmoments of repudiation; there comes a morrow to the Everlasting Nay.\nOne may begin with heroic renunciations and end in undignified envy and\ndyspeptic comments outside the door one has slammed on one\u2019s self. In\nsuch reflections your children of the exceptional sort, it may be after\na youthful fling or two, a \u201cransom\u201d speech or so, will find excellent\nreasons for making their peace with things as they are, just as if they\nwere utterly commonplace. They know that if they can boast a knighthood\nor a baronetcy or a Privy Councillorship, they will taste day by day and\nevery day that respect, that confidence from all about them that no one\nbut a trained recluse despises. And life will abound in opportunities.\n\u201cOh, well!\u201d they will say. Such things give them influence,\nconsideration, power to do things.\n\nThe beginning of concessions is so entirely reasonable and easy! But\nthe concessions go on. Each step upward in the British system finds that\nsystem more persistently about them. When one has started out under\na King one may find amiable but whom one may not respect, admitted a\nsystem one does not believe in, when one has rubbed the first bloom off\none\u2019s honour, it is infinitely easier to begin peeling the skin. Many\na man whose youth was a dream of noble things, who was all for splendid\nachievements and the service of mankind, peers to-day, by virtue of such\nacquiescences, from between preposterous lawn sleeves or under a tilted\ncoronet, sucked as dry of his essential honour as a spider sucks a fly.\n\nBut this is going too far, the reader will object! There must be\nconcessions, there must be conformities, just as there must be some\nimpurity in the water we drink and flaws in the beauty we give our\nhearts to, and that, no doubt, is true. It is no reason why we should\ndrink sewage and kneel to grossness and base stupidity. To endure the\nworst because we cannot have the best is surely the last word of folly.\nOur business as New Republicans is not to waste our lives in the pursuit\nof an unattainable chemical purity, but to clear the air as much as\npossible. Practical ethics is, after all, a quantitative science. In\nthe reality of life there are few absolute cases, and it is foolish to\nforego a great end for a small concession. But to suffer so much\nRoyalty and Privilege as an Englishman has to do before he may make any\neffectual figure in public life is not a small concession. By the time\nyou have purchased power you may find you have given up everything that\nmade power worth having. It would be a small concession, I admit, a\nmere personal self-sacrifice, to pretend loyalty, kneel and kiss hands,\nassist at Coronation mummeries, and all the rest of it, in order, let us\nsay, to accomplish some great improvement in the schools of the country,\nwere it not for the fact that all these things must be done in the sight\nof the young, that you cannot kneel to the King without presenting a\nkneeling example to the people, without becoming as good a teacher\nof servility as though you were servile to the marrow. There lies the\ntrouble. By virtue of this reaction it is that the shams and ceremonies\nwe may fancy mere curious survivals, mere kinks and tortuosities, cloaks\nand accessories to-day, will, if we are silent and acquiescent, be\nhalfway to reality again in the course of a generation. To our children\nthey are not evidently shams; they are powerful working suggestions.\nHuman institutions are things of life, and whatever weed of falsity lies\nstill rooted in the ground has the promise and potency of growth. It\nwill tend perpetually, according to its nature, to recover its old\ninfluence over the imagination, the thoughts, and acts of our children.\n\nEven when the whole trend of economic and social development sets\nagainst the real survival of such a social and political system as\nthe British, its pretensions, its shape and implications may survive,\nsurvive all the more disastrously because they are increasingly\ninsincere. Indeed, in a sense, the British system, the pyramid of King,\nland-owning and land-ruling aristocracy, yeomen and trading middle-class\nand labourers, is dead--it died in the nineteenth century under\nthe wheels of mechanism [Footnote: I have discussed this fully in\n_Anticipations_, Chapter III., Developing Social Elements.]--and the\ncrude beginnings of a new system are clothed in its raiment, and greatly\nencumbered by that clothing. Our greatest peers are shareholders,\nare equipped by marriage with the wealth of Jews and Americans, are\nexploiters of colonial resources and urban building enterprises; their\nterritorial titles are a mask and a lie. They hamper the development of\nthe new order, but they cannot altogether prevent the emergence of\nnew men. The new men come up to power one by one, from different\nenterprises, with various traditions, and one by one, before they can\ndevelop a sense of class distinction and collective responsibility, the\nold system with its organized \u201cSociety\u201d captures them. If it finds the\nman obdurate, it takes his wife and daughters, and it waylays his sons.\n[Footnote: It is not only British subjects that are assimilated in this\nway, the infection of the British system, the annexation of certain\nsocial strata in the Republic by the British crown, is a question\nfor every thoughtful American. America is less and less separate from\nEurope, and the social development of the United States cannot be\na distinct process--it is inevitably bound up in the general social\ndevelopment of the English-speaking community. The taint has touched the\nAmerican Navy, for example, and there are those who discourage promotion\nfrom the ranks--the essential virtue of the democratic state--because\nmen so promoted would be at a disadvantage when they met the officers\nof foreign navies, who were by birth and training \u201cgentlemen.\u201d When\nthey met them socially no doubt was meant; in war the disadvantage\nmight prove the other way about.] Because the hereditary kingdom and\naristocracy of Great Britain is less and less representative of economic\nreality, more and more false to the real needs of the world, it does\nnot follow that it will disappear, any more than malarial fever will\ndisappear from a man\u2019s blood because it is irrelevant to the general\npurpose of his being. These things will only go when a sufficient number\nof sufficiently capable and powerful people are determined they shall\ngo. Until that time they will remain with us, influencing things about\nthem for evil, as it lies in their nature to do.\n\nBefore, however, any sufficiently great and capable body of men can be\nfound to abolish these shams, these shams that must necessarily hamper\nand limit the development of our children, it is necessary that they\nshould have some clear idea of the thing that is to follow, and the real\nsecurity of these obsolete institutions lies very largely in the fact\nthat at present the thing that is to follow does not define itself.\nIt is too commonly assumed that the alternative to a more or less\nhereditary government is democratic republicanism of the American type,\nand the defence of the former consists usually in an indictment of the\nlatter, complicated in very illogical cases by the assertion (drawn from\nthe French instance) that Republics are unstable. But it does not follow\nthat because one condemns the obvious shams of the British system that\none must accept the shams of the United States. While in Great Britain\nwe have a system that masks and hampers the best of our race under\na series of artificial inequalities, the United States theory of the\nessential equality of all men is equally not in accordance with the\nreality of life. In America, just as in England, the intelligent\nchild grows up to discover that the pretensions of public life are not\njustified, and quite equally to be flawed in thought and action by that\ndiscovery.\n\nThe American atmosphere has one great and indisputable superiority\nover the British: it insists upon the right of every citizen, it almost\npresents it as a duty, to do all that he possibly can do; it holds out\nto him even the highest position in the state as a possible reward for\nendeavour. Up to the point of its equality of opportunity surely no\nsane Englishman can do anything but envy the American state. In\nAmerica \u201cpresumption\u201d is not a sin. All the vigorous enterprise that\ndifferentiates the American from the Englishman in business flows quite\nnaturally from that; all the patriotic force and loyalty of the common\nAmerican, which glows beside the English equivalent as the sun beside\nthe moon, glows even oppressively. But apart from these inestimable\nadvantages I do not see that the American has much that an Englishman\nneed envy. There are certainly points of inferiority in the American\natmosphere, influences in development that are bad, not only in\ncomparison with what is ideally possible, but even in comparison with\nEnglish parallels.\n\nFor example, the theory that every man is as good as his neighbour, and\npossibly a little better, has no check for fools, and instead of the\nrespectful silences of England there seems--to the ordinary English\nmind--an extraordinary quantity of crude and unsound judgments in\nAmerica. One gets an impression that the sort of mind that is passively\nstupid in England is often actively silly in America, and, as a\nconsequence, American newspapers, American discussions, American social\naffairs are pervaded by a din that in England we do not hear and do not\nwant to hear. The real and steady development of American scientific men\nis masked to the European observer, and it must be greatly hampered by\nthe copious silliness of the amateur discoverer, and the American crop\nof new religions and new enthusiasms is a horror and a warning to\nthe common British intelligence. Many people whose judgments are not\nabsolutely despicable hold a theory that unhampered personal freedom for\na hundred years has made out of the British type, a type less deliberate\nand thorough in execution and more noisy and pushful in conduct,\nrestless rather than indefatigable, and smart rather than wise. If\nninety-nine people out of the hundred in our race are vulgar and unwise,\nit does seem to be a fact that while the English fool is generally a shy\nand negative fool anxious to hide the fact, the American fool is a loud\nand positive fool, who swamps much of the greatness of his country to\nmany a casual observer from Europe altogether. American books, American\npapers, American manners and customs seem all for the ninety and nine.\n\nDeeper and graver than the superficial defects of manner and execution\nand outlook to which these charges point, there are, one gathers, other\nthings that are traceable to the same source. There is a report of\nprofounder troubles in the American social body, of a disease of\ncorruption that renders American legislatures feeble or powerless\nagainst the great business corporations, and of an extreme\ndemoralization of the police force. The relation of the local political\norganization to the police is fatally direct, and that sense of ordered\nsubordination to defined duties which distinguishes the best police\nforces of Europe fails. Men go into the police force, we are told, with\nthe full intention of making it pay, of acquiring a saleable power.\n\nThere is probably enough soundness in these impressions, and enough\ntruth in these reports and criticisms, to justify our saying that all\nis not ideally right with the American atmosphere, and that it is not\nto present American conditions we must turn in repudiating our British\nhereditary monarchy. We have to seek some better thing upon which\nBritish and American institutions may converge. The American personal\nand social character, just like the English personal and social\ncharacter, displays very grave defects, defects that must now be\nreflected upon, and must be in course of acquisition by the children who\nare growing up in the American state. And since the American is still\npredominantly of British descent, and since he has not been separated\nlong enough from the British to develop distinct inherited racial\ncharacteristics, and, moreover, since his salient characteristics are in\nsharp contrast with those of the British, it follows that the difference\nin his character and atmosphere must be due mainly to his different\nsocial and political circumstances. Just as the relative defects of the\ncommon British, their apathy, their unreasoning conservatism, and\ntheir sordid scorn of intellectual things is bound up with their\npolitico-social scheme, so, I believe, the noisiness, the mean\npracticalness, and the dyspeptic-driving restlessness that are the\nshadows of American life, are bound up with the politico-social\ncondition of America. The Englishman sticks in the mud, and the\nAmerican, with a sort of violent meanness, cuts corners, and in both\ncases it is quite conceivable that the failure to follow the perfect way\nis really no symptom of a divergence of blood and race, but the\nnatural and necessary outcome of the mass of suggestion about them that\nconstitutes their respective worlds.\n\nThe young American grows up into a world pervaded by the theory of\ndemocracy, by the theory that all men must have an equal chance of\nhappiness, possessions, and power, and in which that theory is expressed\nby a uniform equal suffrage. No man shall have any power or authority\nsave by the free consent and delegation of his fellows--that is the\nidea--and to the originators of this theory it seemed as obvious as\nanything could be that these suffrages would only be given to those who\ndid really serve the happiness and welfare of the greatest number. The\nidea was reflected in the world of business by a conception of free\ncompetition; no man should grow rich except by the free preference of\na great following of customers. Such is still the American theory, and\ndirectly the intelligent young American grows up to hard facts he finds\nalmost as much disillusionment as the intelligent young Englishman. He\nfinds that in practice the free choice of a constituency reduces to two\ncandidates, and no more, selected by party organizations, and the free\nchoice of the customer to the goods proffered by a diminishing number\nof elaborately advertised businesses; he finds political instruments\nand business corporations interlocking altogether beyond his power of\ncontrol, and that the two ways to opportunity, honour, and reward are\neither to appeal coarsely to the commonest thoughts and feelings of the\nvulgar as a political agitator or advertising trader, or else to make\nhis peace with those who do. And so he, too, makes his concessions. They\nare different concessions from those of the young Englishman, but they\nhave this common element of gravity, that he has to submit to conditions\nin which he does not believe, he has to trim his course to a conception\nof living that is perpetually bending him from the splendid and\nrighteous way. The Englishman grows up into a world of barriers and\nlocked doors, the American into an unorganized, struggling crowd. There\nis an enormous premium in the American\u2019s world upon force and dexterity,\nand force in the case of common men too often degenerates into\nbrutality, and dexterity into downright trickery and cheating. He has\ngot to be forcible and dexterous within his self-respect if he can.\nThere is an enormous discount on any work that does not make money or\ngive a tangible result, and except in the case of those whose lot has\nfallen within certain prescribed circles, certain oases of organized\nculture and work, he must advertise himself even in science or\nliterature or art as if he were a pill. There is no recognition for him\nat all in the world, except the recognition of--everybody. There will\nbe neither comfort nor the barest respect for him, however fine his\nachievement, unless he makes his achievement known, unless he can\nmake enough din about it, to pay. He has got to shout down ninety-nine\nshouting fellow-citizens. That is the cardinal fact in life for the\ngreat majority of Americans who respond to the stirrings of ambition.\nIf in Britain capacity is discouraged because honours and power go by\nprescription, in America it is misdirected because honours do not\nexist and power goes by popular election and advertisement. In certain\ndirections--not by any means in all--unobtrusive merit, soundness of\nquality that has neither gift nor disposition for \u201cpush,\u201d has a better\nchance in Great Britain than in America. A sort of duty to help and\nadvance exceptional men is recognized at any rate, even if it is not\nalways efficiently discharged, by the privileged class in England, while\nin America it is far more acutely felt, far more distinctly impressed\nupon the young that they must \u201chustle\u201d or perish.\n\nIt will be argued that this enumeration of American and British defects\nis a mere expansion of that familiar proposition of the logic textbooks,\n\u201call men are mortal.\u201d You have here, says the objector, one of\ntwo alternatives, either you must draw your administrators, your\nlegislators, your sources of honour and reward from a limited,\nhereditary, and specially-trained class, who will hold power as a right,\nor you must rely upon the popular choice exercised in the shop and at\nthe polling booth. What else can you have but inheritance or election,\nor some blend of the two, blending their faults? Each system has its\ndisadvantages, and the disadvantages of each system may be minimized by\neducation; in particular by keeping the culture and code of honour of\nyour ruling class high in the former case and by keeping your common\nschools efficient in the latter. But the essential evils of each system\nare--essential evils, and one has to suffer them and struggle against\nthem, as one has to struggle perpetually with the pathogenic bacteria\nthat infest the world. The theory of monarchy is, no doubt, inferior to\nthe democratic theory in stimulus, but the latter fails in qualitative\neffect, much more than the former. There, the objector submits, lies the\nquintessence of the matter. Both systems need watching, need criticism,\nthe pruning knife and the stimulant, and neither is bad enough to\njustify a revolutionary change to the other. In some such conclusion as\nthis most of the English people with whom one can discuss this question\nhave come to rest, and it is to this way of looking at the matter that\none must ascribe the apathetic acquiescence in the British hereditary\nsystem, upon which I have already remarked. There is a frank and\nexcessive admission of every real and imaginary fault of the American\nsystem, and with the proposition that we are on the horns of a dilemma,\nthe discussion is dismissed.\n\nBut are we indeed on the horns of a dilemma, and is there no alternative\nto hereditary government tempered by elections, or government by the\nward politician and the polling booth? Cannot we have that sense and\ntradition of equal opportunity for all who are born into this world,\nthat generous and complete acknowledgment of the principle of promotion\nfrom the ranks that is the precious birthright of the American,\nwithout the political gerrymandering, the practical falsification, that\nrestricts that general freedom at last only to the energetic, and that\nsubordinates quality to quantity in every affair of life? It is evident\nthat for the New Republican to admit that the thing is indeed a dilemma,\nthat there is nothing for it but to make the best of whichever bad thing\nwe have at hand, that we cannot have all we desire but only a greater\nor a lesser moiety, is a most melancholy and hampering admission.\nAnd, certainly, no New Republican will agree without a certain mental\nstruggle, without a thorough and earnest inquiry into the possibility of\na third direction.\n\nThis matter has two aspects, it presents itself as two questions; the\nquestion first of all of administration, and the question of honour and\nprivilege. What is it that the New Republican idea really requires in\nthese two matters? In the matter of administration it requires that\nevery child growing up in a state should feel that he is part owner of\nhis state, completely free in his membership, and equal in opportunity\nto all other children--and it also wants to secure the management of\naffairs in the hands of the very best men, not the noisiest, not the\nrichest or most skilfully advertised, but the best. Can these two things\nbe reconciled? In the matter of honour and privilege, the New Republican\nidea requires a separation of honour from notoriety; it requires some\nvisible and forcible expression of the essential conception that there\nare things more honourable than getting either votes or money; it\nrequires a class and distinctions and privileges embodying that\nidea--and also it wants to ensure that through the whole range of life\nthere shall not be one door locked against the effort of the citizen to\naccomplish the best that is in him. Can these two things be reconciled\nalso?\n\nI have the temerity to think that in both cases the conflicting\nrequirements can be reconciled far more completely than is commonly\nsupposed.\n\nLet us take, first of all, the question of the reconciliation as it is\npresented in the administration of public affairs. The days have come\nwhen the most democratic-minded of men must begin to admit that the\nappointment of all rulers and officials by polling the manhood, or most\nof the manhood, of a country does not work--let us say perfectly--and at\nno level of educational efficiency does it ever seem likely to work in\nthe way those who established it hoped. By thousands of the most varied\nexperiments the nineteenth century has proved this up to the hilt. The\nfact that elections can only be worked as a choice between two selected\ncandidates, or groups of candidates, is the unforeseen and unavoidable\nmechanical defect of all electoral methods with large electorates.\nEducation has nothing to do with that. The elections for the English\nUniversity members are manipulated just as much as the elections in the\nleast literate of the Irish constituencies. [Footnote: There is a very\nsuggestive book on this aspect of our general question, _The Crowd_, by\nM. Gustave le Bon, which should interest any one who finds this paper\ninteresting. And the English reader who would like a fuller treatment\nof this question has now available also Ostrogorski\u2019s great work,\n_Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties_.] It is not a\nquestion of accidentals, but a question of the essential mechanism. Men\nhave sought out and considered all sorts of devices for qualifying the\npresent method by polling; Mills\u2019s plural voting for educated men will\noccur to the reader; Hare\u2019s system of vote collection, and the negative\nvoting of Doctor Grece; and the defects of these inventions have been\nsufficiently obvious to prevent even a trial. The changes have been\nrung upon methods of counting; cumulative votes and the prohibition of\nplumping, and so on, have been tried without any essential modification\nof the results. There are various devices for introducing \u201cstages\u201d in\nthe electoral process; the constituency elects electors, who elect the\nrulers and officers, for example, and there is also that futile attempt\nto bring in the non-political specialist, the method of electing\ngoverning bodies with power to \u201cco-opt.\u201d Of course they \u201cco-opt\u201d\n their fellow politicians, rejected candidates, and so on. Among other\nexpedients that people have discussed, are such as would make it\nnecessary for a man to take some trouble and display some foresight to\nget registered as a voter or to pass an examination to that end, and\nsuch as would confront him with a voting paper so complex, that only a\nvery intelligent and painstaking man would be able to fill it up without\ndisqualification. It certainly seems a reasonable thing to require that\nthe voter should be able at least to write out fully and spell correctly\nthe name of the man of his choice. Except for the last, there is\nscarcely any of these things but its adoption would strengthen the power\nof the political organizer, which they aim to defeat. Any complication\nincreases the need and the power of organization. It is possible\nto believe--the writer believes--that with all this burthen of\nshortcomings, the democratic election system is still, on the whole,\nbetter than a system of hereditary privilege, but that is no reason for\nconcealing how defective and disappointing its practical outcome has\nbeen, nor for resting contented with it in its present form. [Footnote:\nThe statement of the case is not complete unless we mention that, to the\nmethod of rule by hereditary rulers and the appointment of officials\nby noble patrons on the one hand, and of rule by politicians exercising\npatronage on the other, there is added in the British system the Chinese\nmethod of selecting officials by competitive examination. Within its\nlimits this has worked as a most admirable corrective to patronage;\nit is one of the chief factors in the cleanhandedness of British\npoliticians, and it is continually importing fresh young men from\noutside to keep officialdom in touch with the general educated world.\nBut it does not apply, and it does not seem applicable, to the broader\nissues of politics, to the appointment and endorsement of responsible\nrulers and legislators, where a score of qualities are of more\nimportance than those an examination can gauge.]\n\nIs polling really essential to the democratic idea? That is the question\nnow very earnestly put to the reader. We are so terribly under the spell\nof established conditions, we are all so obsessed by the persuasion that\nthe only conceivable way in which a man can be expressed politically is\nby himself voting in person, that we do all of us habitually overlook\na possibility, a third choice, that lies ready to our hands. There is\na way by means of which the indisputable evils of democratic\ngovernment may be very greatly diminished, without destroying or even\ndiminishing--indeed, rather enhancing--that invigorating sense of\nunhampered possibilities, that the democratic idea involves. There is\na way of choosing your public servants of all sorts and effectually\ncontrolling public affairs on perfectly sound democratic principles,\n_without ever having such a thing as an election, as it is now\nunderstood, at all_, a way which will permit of a deliberate choice\nbetween numerous candidates--a thing utterly impossible under the\ncurrent system--which will certainly raise the average quality of our\nlegislators, and be infinitely saner, juster, and more deliberate than\nour present method. And, moreover, it is a way that is typically the\ninvention of the English people, and which they use to-day in another\nprecisely parallel application, an application which they have\nelaborately tested and developed through a period of at least seven or\neight hundred years, and which I must confess myself amazed to think\nhas not already been applied to our public needs. This way is the Jury\nsystem. The Jury system was devised to meet almost exactly the same\nproblem that faces us to-day, the problem of how on the one hand to\navoid putting a man\u2019s life or property into the hands of a Ruler, a\nprivileged person, whose interest might be unsympathetic or hostile,\nwhile on the other protecting him from the tumultuous judgments of a\ncrowd--to save the accused from the arbitrary will of King and Noble\nwithout flinging him to the mob. To-day it is exactly that problem\nover again that our peoples have to solve, except that instead of one\nindividual affair we have now our general affairs to place under a\nparallel system. As the community that had originally been small enough\nand intimate enough to decide on the guilt or innocence of its members\ngrew to difficult proportions, there developed this system of selecting\nby lot a number of its common citizens who were sworn, who were\nthen specially instructed and prepared, and who, in an atmosphere of\nsolemnity and responsibility in absolute contrast with the uproar of\na public polling, considered the case and condemned or discharged the\naccused. Let me point out that this method is so universally recognized\nas superior to the common electoral method that any one who should\npropose to-day to take the fate of a man accused of murder out of the\nhands of a jury and place it in the hands of any British or American\nconstituency whatever, even in the hands of such a highly intelligent\nconstituency as one of the British universities, would be thought to be\ncarrying crankiness beyond the border line of sanity.\n\nWhy then should we not apply the Jury system to the electoral riddle?\n\nSuppose, for example, at the end of the Parliamentary term, instead of\nthe present method of electing a member of Parliament, we were, with\nevery precaution of publicity and with the most ingeniously impartial\nmachine that could be invented, to select a Jury by lot, a Jury\nsufficiently numerous to be reasonably representative of the general\nfeeling of the community and sufficiently small to be able to talk\neasily together and to do the business without debating society\nmethods--between twenty and thirty, I think, might be a good working\nnumber--and suppose we were, after a ceremony of swearing them and\nperhaps after prayer or after a grave and dignified address to them\nupon the duty that lay before them, to place each of these juries in\ncomfortable quarters for a few days and isolated from the world, to\nchoose its legislator. They could hear, in public, under a time limit,\nthe addresses of such candidates as had presented themselves, and they\ncould receive, under a limit of length and with proper precautions for\npublicity, such documents as the candidates chose to submit. They could\nalso, in public, put any questions they chose to the candidates to\nelucidate their intentions or their antecedents, and they might at any\nstage decide unanimously to hear no more of and to dismiss this or that\ncandidate who encumbered their deliberations. (This latter would be\nan effectual way of suppressing the candidature of cranks, and of\nhalf-witted and merely symbolical persons.) The Jury between and after\ntheir interrogations and audiences would withdraw from the public room\nto deliberate in privacy. Their deliberations which, of course, would\nbe frank and conversational to a degree impossible under any other\nconditions, and free from the dodges of the expert vote manipulator\naltogether, would, for example, in the case of several candidates of\nthe same or similar political colours, do away with the absurdity of\nthe split vote. The jurymen of the same political hue could settle that\naffair among themselves before contributing to a final decision.\n\nThis Jury might have certain powers of inquest. Provision might be made\nfor pleas against particular candidates; private individuals or the\nadvocates of vigilance societies might appear against any particular\ncandidate and submit the facts about any doubtful affair, financial or\notherwise, in which that candidate had been involved. Witnesses might be\ncalled and heard on any question of fact, and the implicated candidate\nwould explain his conduct. And at any stage the Jury might stop\nproceedings and report its selection for the vacant post. Then, at the\nexpiration of a reasonable period, a year perhaps, or three years\nor seven years, another Jury might be summoned to decide whether the\nsitting member should continue in office unchallenged or be subjected to\na fresh contest.\n\nThis suggestion is advanced here in this concrete form merely to show\nthe sort of thing that might be done; it is one sample suggestion, one\nof a great number of possible schemes of Election by Jury. But even in\nthis state of crude suggestion, it is submitted that it does serve to\nshow the practicability of a method of election more deliberate and\nthorough, more dignified, more calculated to impress the new generation\nwith a sense of the gravity of the public choice, and infinitely more\nlikely to give us good rulers than the present method, and that it would\ndo so without sacrificing any essential good quality whatever inherent\nin the Democratic Idea. [Footnote: There are excellent possibilities,\nboth in the United States and in this Empire, of trying over such a\nmethod as this, and of introducing it tentatively and piecemeal. In\nGreat Britain already there are quite different methods of election for\nParliament existing side by side. In the Hythe division of Kent, for\nexample, I vote by ballot with elaborate secrecy; in the University\nof London I declare my vote in a room full of people. The British\nUniversity constituencies, or one of them, might very readily be used as\na practical test of this jury suggestion. There is nothing, I believe,\nin the Constitution of the United States to prevent any one State\nresorting to this characteristically Anglo-Saxon method of appointing\nits representatives in Congress. It is not only in political\ninstitutions that the method may be tried. Any societies or institutions\nthat have to send delegates to a conference or meeting might very easily\nbring this conception to a practical test. Even if it does not prove\npracticable as a substitute for election by polling, it might be found\nof some value for the appointment of members of the specialist type, for\nwhom at present we generally resort to co-option. In many cases where\nthe selection of specialists was desirable to complete public bodies,\njuries of educated men of the British Grand Jury type might be highly\nserviceable.] The case for the use of the Jury system becomes far\nstronger when we apply it to such problems as we now attempt to solve by\nco-opting experts upon various administrative bodies.\n\nThe necessity either of raising the quality of representative bodies\nor of replacing them not only in administration but in legislation by\nbureaucracies of officials appointed by elected or hereditary rulers, is\none that presses on all thoughtful men, and is by no means an academic\nquestion needed to round off this New Republican theory. The necessity\nbecomes more urgent every day, as scientific and economic developments\nraise first one affair and then another to the level of public or\nquasi-public functions. In the last century, locomotion, lighting,\nheating, education, forced themselves upon public control or public\nmanagement, and now with the development of Trusts a whole host of\nbusinesses, that were once the affair of competing private concerns,\nclaim the same attention. Government by hustings\u2019 bawling, newspaper\nclamour, and ward organization, is more perilous every day and more\nimpotent, and unless we are prepared to see a government _de facto_\nof rich business organizers override the government _de jure_, or to\nrelapse upon a practical oligarchy of officials, an oligarchy that\nwill certainly decline in efficiency in a generation or so, we must set\nourselves most earnestly to this problem of improving representative\nmethods. It is in the direction of the substitution of the Jury method\nfor a general poll that the only practicable line of improvement known\nto the present writer seems to lie, and until it has been tried it\ncannot be conceded that democratic government has been tried and\nexhaustively proved inadequate to the complex needs of the modern state.\n\nSo much for the question of administration. We come now to a second need\nin the modern state if it is to get the best result from the citizens\nborn into it, and that is the need of honours and privileges to reward\nand enhance services and exceptional personal qualities and so to stir\nand ennoble that emulation which is, under proper direction, the most\nuseful to the constructive statesman of all human motives. In the United\nStates titles are prohibited by the constitution, in Great Britain they\ngo by prescription. But it is possible to imagine titles and privileges\nthat are not hereditary, and that would be real symbols of human worth\nentirely in accordance with the Republican Idea. It is one of the\nstock charges against Republicanism that success in America is either\npolitical or financial. In England, in addition, success is also\nsocial, and there is, one must admit, a sort of recognition accorded to\nintellectual achievement, which some American scientific men have found\nreason to envy. In America, of course, just as in Great Britain,\nthere exists that very enviable distinction, the honorary degree of a\nuniversity; but in America it is tainted by the freedom with which bogus\nuniversities can be organized, and by the unchallenged assumptions of\nquacks. In Great Britain the honorary degree of a university, in spite\nof the fact that it goes almost as a matter of course to every casual\nPrince, is a highly desirable recognition of public services.\nBeyond this there are certain British distinctions that might very\nadvantageously be paralleled in America, the Fellowship of the Royal\nSociety, for example, and that really very fine honour, as yet untainted\nby the class of men who tout for baronetcies and peerages, the Privy\nCouncil.\n\nThere are certain points in this question that are too often overlooked.\nIn the first place, _honours and titles need not be hereditary_; in the\nsecond, _they need not be conferred by the political administration_;\nand, in the third, they are not only--as the French Legion of Honour\nshows--entirely compatible with, but _they are a necessary complement to\nthe Republican Idea_.\n\nThe bad results of entrusting honours to the Government are equally\nobvious in France and Great Britain. They are predominantly given, quite\nnaturally, for political services, because they are given by politicians\ntoo absorbed to be aware of men outside the political world. In Great\nBritain the process is modified rather than improved by what one knows\nas court influence. And in spite of the real and sustained efficiency of\nthe Royal Society in distinguishing meritorious scientific workers, the\nFrench Academy, which has long been captured by aristocratic dilettanti,\nand the English Royal Academy of Arts, demonstrate the essential defects\nand dangers of a body which fills its own gaps. But there is no reason\nwhy a national system of honours and titles should not be worked upon\na quite new basis, suggested by these various considerations. Let\nus, simply for tangibleness, put the thing as a concrete plan for the\nreader\u2019s consideration.\n\nThere might, for example, be a lowest stage which would include--as\nthe English knighthood once included--almost every citizen capable\nof initiative, all the university graduates, all the men qualified to\npractice the responsible professions, all qualified teachers, all\nthe men in the Army and Navy promoted to a certain rank, all seamen\nqualified to navigate a vessel, all the ministers recognized by properly\norganized religious bodies, all public officials exercising command;\nquasi-public organizations might nominate a certain proportion of their\nstaffs, and organized trade-unions with any claim to skill, a certain\nproportion of their men, their \u201cdecent\u201d men, and every artist or writer\nwho could submit a passable diploma work; it would be, in fact, a mark\nset upon every man or woman who was qualified to do something or who had\ndone something, as distinguished from the man who had done nothing in\nthe world, the mere common unenterprising esurient man. It might carry\nmany little privileges in public matters--for instance, it might qualify\nfor certain electoral juries. And from this class the next rank might\neasily be drawn in a variety of ways. _In a modern democratic state\nthere must be many fountains of honour._ That is a necessity upon\nwhich one cannot insist too much. There must be no court, no gang,\nno traditional inalterable tribunal. Local legislative bodies, for\nexample,--in America, state legislatures and in England, county\ncouncils,--might confer rank on a limited number of men or women yearly;\njuries drawn from certain special constituencies, from the roll of the\nmedical profession, or from the Army, might assemble periodically to\nnominate their professional best, the Foreign or Colonial Office might\nconfer recognition for political services, the university governing\nbodies might be entrusted with the power--just as in the middle ages\nmany great men could confer knighthood. From among these distinguished\ngentlemen of the second grade still higher ranks might be drawn. Local\njuries might select a local chief dignitary as their \u201cearl,\u201d let us say,\nfrom among the resident men of rank, and there is no reason why certain\ngreat constituencies, the medical calling, the engineers, should not\nspecify one or two of their professional leaders, their \u201cdukes.\u201d There\nare many occasions of local importance when an honourable figure-head is\nneeded. The British fall back on the local hereditary peer or invite a\nprince, too often some poor creature great only by convention--and what\nthe Americans do I do not know, unless they use a Boss. There are\nmany occasions of something more than ceremonial importance when\na responsible man publicly honoured and publicly known, and not a\nprofessional politician, is of the utmost convenience. And there are\nendless affairs, lists, gatherings, when the only alternative to rank is\nscramble. For myself I would not draw the line at such minor occasions\nfor precedence. A Second Chamber is an essential part of the political\nscheme of all the English-speaking communities, and almost always it is\nintended to present stabler interests and a smaller and more selected\nconstituency than the lower house. From such a life nobility as I\nhave sketched a Second Chamber could be drawn much as the Irish\nrepresentative peers in the House of Lords are drawn from the general\npeerage of Ireland. It would be far less party bound and far less\nmercenary than the American Senate, and far more intelligent and capable\nthan the British House of Lords. And either of these bodies could be\nbrought under a process of deliberate conversion in this direction with\nscarcely any revolutionary shock at all. [Footnote: In the case of the\nHouse of Lords, for example, the process of conversion might begin by\nextending the Scotch and Irish system to England, and substituting a\nlesser number of representative peers for the existing English peerage.\nThen it would merely revive a question that was already under discussion\nin middle Victorian times, to create non-hereditary peerages in the\nthree kingdoms. The several Privy Councils might next be added to the\nthree national constituencies by which and from which the representative\npeers were appointed, and then advisory boards might be called from the\nvarious Universities and organized professions, and from authoritative\nColonial bodies to recommend men to be added to the voting peerage. Life\npeers already exist. The law is represented by life peers. The lords\nspiritual are representative life peers--they are the senior bishops,\nand they are appointed to represent a corporation--the Established\nChurch. So a generally non-hereditary functional nobility might come\ninto being without any violent break with the present condition of\nthings. The conversion of the American Senate would be a more\ndifficult matter, because the method of appointment of Senators is more\nstereotyped altogether, and, since 1800, unhappily quite bound up with\nthe political party system. The Senate is not a body of varied and\nfluctuating origins into which new elements can be quietly inserted. An\nEnglish writer cannot estimate how dear the sacred brace of Senators for\neach State may or may not be to the American heart. But the possibility\nof Congress delegating the power to appoint additional Senators to\ncertain non-political bodies, or to juries of a specific constitution,\nis at least thinkable as the beginning of a movement that would come at\nlast into parallelism with that in the British Empire.]\n\nWhen these issues of public honour and efficient democratic\nadministration have begun to move towards a definite solution, the\ncommunity will be in a position to extend the operation of the new\nmethods towards a profounder revolution, the control of private\nproperty. \u201cWe are all Socialists nowadays,\u201d and it is needless,\ntherefore, to argue here at any length to establish the fact that beyond\nquite personal belongings all Property is the creation of society, and\nin reality no more than an administrative device. At present, in spite\nof some quite hideous and mischievous local aspects, the institution\nof Property, even in land and the shares of quasi-public businesses,\nprobably gives as efficient a method of control, and even it may be\na more efficient method of control than any that could be devised to\nreplace it under existing conditions. We have no public bodies and\nno methods of check and control sufficiently trustworthy to justify\nextensive expropriations. Even the municipalization of industries\nneeds to go slowly until municipal areas have been brought more into\nconformity with the conditions of efficient administration. Areas too\ncramped and areas that overlap spell waste and conflicting authorities,\nand premature municipalization in such areas will lead only to the\nfinal triumph of the private company. Political efficiency must precede\nSocialism. [Footnote: See Appendix I. ] But there can be no doubt that\nthe spectacle of irresponsible property is a terribly demoralizing force\nin the development of each generation. It is idle to deny that\nProperty, both in Great Britain and America, works out into a practical\nrepudiation of that equality, political democracy so eloquently asserts.\nThere is a fatalistic submission to inferiority on the part of an\noverwhelming majority of those born poor, they hold themselves cheap in\ncountless ways, and they accept as natural the use of wealth for wanton\npleasure and purposes absolutely mischievous, they despair of effort in\nthe public service, and find their only hope in gambling, sharp greedy\ntrading, or in base acquiescences to the rich. The good New Republican\ncan only regard our present system of Property as a terribly\nunsatisfactory expedient and seek with all his power to develop a better\norder to replace it.\n\nThere are certain lines of action in this matter that cannot but be\nbeneficial, and it is upon these that the New Republican will, no doubt,\ngo. One excellent thing, for example, would be to insist that beyond\nthe limits of a reasonable amount of personal property, the community\nis justified in demanding a much higher degree of efficiency in the\nproperty-holder than in the case of the common citizen, to require him\nor her to be not only sane but capable, equal mentally and bodily to a\ngreat charge. The heir to a great property should possess a satisfactory\nknowledge of social and economic science, and should have studied with\na view to his great responsibilities. The age of twenty-one is scarcely\nhigh enough for the management of a great estate, and to raise the\nage of free administration for the owners of great properties, and to\nspecify a superannuation age would be a wise and justifiable measure.\n[Footnote: Something of the sort is already secured in France by the\npower of the _Conseil de Famille_ to expropriate a spendthrift.]\nThere should also be a possibility of intervention in the case of\nmaladministration, and a code of offences--habitual drunkenness, for\nexample, assaults of various kinds--offences that established the fact\nof unfitness and resulted in deposition, might be drawn up. It might be\nfound desirable in the case of certain crimes and misdemeanours, to add\nto existing penalties the transfer of all real or share properties to\ntrustees. Vigorous confiscation is a particularly logical punishment for\nthe proven corruption of public officers by any property owner or group\nof property owners. Rich men who bribe are a danger to any state. Beyond\nthe limits of lunacy it might be possible to define a condition of\nmalignancy or ruthlessness that would justify confiscation, attempts to\nform corners in the necessities of life, for example, could be taken\nas evidence of such a condition. All such measures as this would be\nfar more beneficial than the immediate improvement they would effect\nin public management. They would infect the whole social body with the\nsense that property was saturated with responsibility and was in effect\na trust, and that would be a good influence upon rich and poor alike.\n\nMoreover, as public bodies became more efficient and more trustworthy,\nthe principle already established in British social polity by Sir\nWilliam Vernon Harcourt\u2019s Death Duties, the principle of whittling great\nproperties at each transfer, might be very materially extended. Every\ntransfer of property might establish a state mortgage for some fraction\nof the value of that property. The fraction might be small when the\nrecipient was a public institution, considerable in the case of a son or\ndaughter, and almost all for a distant relative or no kindred at all. By\nsuch devices the evil influence of property acquired by mere accidents\nwould be reduced without any great discouragement of energetic,\nenterprising, and inventive men. And a man ambitious to found a family\nmight still found one if he took care to marry wisely and train and\neducate his children to the level of the position he designed for them.\n\nWhile the New Republican brings such expedients as this to bear upon\nproperty from above, there will also be the expedients of the Minimum\nWage and the Minimum Standard of Life, already discussed in the third of\nthese papers, controlling it from below. Limited in this way, property\nwill resemble a river that once swamped a whole country-side, but has\nnow been banked within its channel. Even when these expedients have been\nexhaustively worked out, they will fall far short of that \u201cabolition of\nproperty\u201d which is the crude expression of Socialism. There is a certain\nmeasure of property in a state which involves the maximum of individual\nfreedom. Either above or below that Optimum one passes towards slavery.\nThe New Republican is a New Republican, and he tests all things by their\neffect upon the evolution of man; he is a Socialist or an Individualist,\na Free Trader or a Protectionist, a Republican or a Democrat just so\nfar, and only so far, as these various principles of public policy\nsubserve his greater end.\n\nThis crude sketch of a possible scheme of honour and privilege, and\nof an approximation towards the socialization of property will, at any\nrate, show that in this matter, as in the matter of political control,\nthe alternative of the British system or the American system does not\nexhaust human possibilities. There is also the Twentieth Century System,\nwhich we New Republicans have to discover and discuss and bring to the\ntest of experience. And for the sake of the education of our children,\nwhich is the cardinal business of our lives, we must refuse all\nconvenient legal fictions and underhand ways, and see to it that the\nsystem is as true to the reality of life and to right and justice as we\ncan, in our light and generation, make it. The child must learn not only\nfrom preacher and parent and book, but from the whole frame and order\nof life about it, that truth and sound living and service are the only\ntrustworthy ways to either honour or power, and that, save for the\nunavoidable accidents of life, they are very certain ways. And then\nhe will have a fair chance to grow up neither a smart and hustling\ncheat--for the American at his worst is no more and no less than\nthat--nor a sluggish disingenuous snob--as the Briton too often\nbecomes--but a proud, ambitious, clean-handed, and capable man.\n\n\n\n\nVIII. THE CULTIVATION OF THE IMAGINATION\n\n\n\u00a7 1\n\n\nIn the closing years of the school period comes the dawn of the process\nof adolescence, and the simple egotism, the egotistical affections of\nthe child begin to be troubled by new interests, new vague impulses, and\npresently by a flood of as yet formless emotions. The race, the species,\nis claiming the individual, endeavouring to secure the individual for\nits greater ends. In the space of a few years the almost sexless boy\nand girl have become consciously sexual, are troubled by the still\nmysterious possibilities of love, are stirred to discontent and\nadventure, are reaching out imaginatively or actively towards what is at\nlast the recommencement of things, the essential fact in the perennial\nreshaping of the order of the world. This is indeed something of a\nsecond birth. At its beginning the child we have known begins to\nrecede, the new individuality gathers itself together with a sort of shy\njealousy, and withdraws from the confident intimacy of childhood into a\nsecret seclusion; all parents know of that loss; at its end we have an\nadult, formed and determinate, for whom indeed the drama and conflict\nof life is still only beginning, but who is, nevertheless, in a very\nserious sense finished and made. The quaint, lovable, larval human being\nhas passed then into the full imago, before whom there is no further\nchange in kind save age and decay.\n\nThis development of the sexual being, of personal dreams, and the adult\nimagination is already commencing in the early teens. It goes on through\nall the later phases of the educational process, and it ends, or,\nrather, it is transformed by insensible degrees into the personal\nrealities of adult life.\n\nNow this second birth within the body of the first differs in many\nfundamental aspects from that first. The first birth and the body\nabound in inevitable things; for example, features, gestures aptitudes,\ncomplexions, and colours, are inherited beyond any power of perversion;\nbut the second birth is the unfolding not of shaped and settled things\nbut of possibilities, of extraordinarily plastic mental faculties. No\ndoubt there are in each developing individual dispositions towards this\nor that--tendencies, a bias in the texture this way or that--but\nthe form of it all is extraordinarily a matter of suggestion and the\ninfluence of deliberate and accidental moulding forces. The universal\nWill to live is there, peeping out at first in little curiosities,\ninquiries, sudden disgusts, sudden fancies, the stumbling, slow\nrealization that for this in a mysteriously predominant way we live, and\ngrowing stronger, growing presently, in the great multitude of cases, to\npassionate preferences and powerful desires. This flow of sex comes like\na great river athwart the plain of our personal and egoistic schemes, a\ngreat river with its rapids, with its deep and silent places, a river of\nuncertain droughts, a river of overwhelming floods, a river no one who\nwould escape drowning may afford to ignore. Moreover, it is the very\naxis and creator of our world valley, the source of all our power\nin life, and the irrigator of all things. In the microcosm of each\nindividual, as in the microcosm of the race, this flood is a cardinal\nproblem.\n\nAnd from its very nature this is a discussion of especial difficulty,\nbecause it touches all of us--except for a few peculiar souls--so\nintimately and so disturbingly. I had purposed to call this paper \u201cSex\nand the Imagination,\u201d and then I had a sudden vision of the thing that\nhappens. The vision presented a casual reader seated in a library,\nturning over books and magazines and casting much excellent wisdom\naside, and then suddenly, as it were, waking up at that title, arrested,\ndisplaying a furtive alertness, reading, flushed and eager, nosing\nthrough the article. That in a vignette is the trouble in all this\ndiscussion. Were we angels--! But we are not angels; we are all\ninvolved. If we are young we are deep in it, whether we would have it\nso or not; if we are old, even if we are quite old, our memories still\nstretch out, living sensitive threads from our tender vanity to the\ngreat trouble. Detachment is impossible. The nearest we can get to\ndetachment is to recognize that.\n\nAbout this question the tragi-comic web of human absurdity thickens to\nits closest. When has there ever been a lucid view or ever will be of\nthis great business? Here is the common madness of our species, here is\nall a tissue of fine unreasonableness--to which, no doubt, we are in the\npresent paper infinitesimally adding. One has a vision of preposterous\nproceedings; great, fat, wheezing, strigilated Roman emperors, neat\nParisian gentlemen of the latest cult, the good Saint Anthony rolling\non his thorns, and the piously obscene Durtal undergoing his expiatory\ntemptations, Mahomet and Brigham Young receiving supplementary\nrevelations, grim men babbling secrets to schoolgirls, enamoured errand\nboys, amorous old women, debauchees dreaming themselves thoroughly\nsensible men and going about their queer proceedings with insane\nself-satisfaction, beautiful witless young persons dressed in the\nmost amazing things, all down the vista of history--a Vision of Fair\nWomen--looking their conscious queenliest, sentimentalists crawling over\nevery aspect and leaving tracks like snails, flushed young blockheads\ntelling the world \u201call about women,\u201d intrigue, folly--you have as much\nof it as one pen may condense in old Burton\u2019s Anatomy--and through it\nall a vast multitude of decent, respectable bodies pretending to have\nquite solved the problem--until one day, almost shockingly, you get\ntheir secret from a careless something glancing out of the eyes. Most\npreposterous of all for some reason is a figure--one is maliciously\ndisposed to present it as feminine and a little unattractive, goloshed\nfor preference, and saying in a voice of cultivated flatness, \u201cWhy\ncannot we be perfectly plain and sensible, and speak quite frankly about\nthis matter?\u201d The answer to which one conceives, would be near the last\nconclusions of Philosophy.\n\nSo much seethes about the plain discussion of the question of sexual\ninstitutions. One echoes the intelligent inquiry of that quite\nimaginary, libellously conceived lady in goloshes with a smile and a\nsigh. As well might she ask, \u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t I keep my sandwiches in\nthe Ark of the Covenant? There\u2019s room!\u201d \u201cOf course there\u2019s room,\u201d one\nanswers, \u201cbut--As things are, Madam, it is inadvisable to try. You\nsee--for one thing--people are so peculiar. The quantity of loose stones\nin this neighbourhood.\u201d\n\nThe predominant feeling about the discussion of these things is, to\nspeak frankly, Fear. We know, very many of us, that our present state\nhas many evil aspects, seems unjust and wasteful of human happiness, is\nfull of secret and horrible dangers, abounding in cruelties and painful\nthings; that our system of sanctions and prohibitions is wickedly\nvenial, pressing far more gravely on the poor than on the rich, and\nthat it is enormously sapped by sentimentalities of various sorts\nand undermined and qualified by secret cults; it is a clogged and\nan ill-made and dishonest machine, but we have a dread, in part\ninstinctive, in part, no doubt, the suggestion of our upbringing and\natmosphere, of any rash alterations, of any really free examination of\nits constitution. We are not sure or satisfied where that process of\nexamination may not take us; many more people can take machines to\npieces than can put them together again. Mr. Grant Allen used to call\nour current prohibitions Taboos. Well, the fact is, in these matters\nthere is something that is probably an instinct, a deeply felt necessity\nfor Taboos. We know perhaps that our Taboos were not devised on\nabsolutely reasonable grounds, but we are afraid of just how many\nmay not collapse before a purely reasonable inquiry. We are afraid of\nthinking quite freely even in private. We doubt whether it is wise to\nbegin, though only in the study and alone. \u201cWhy should we--? Why should\nwe not--?\u201d And the thought of a public discussion without limitations\nby a hasty myriad untrained to think, does, indeed, raise an image of\nconsequences best conveyed perhaps by that fine indefinite phrase,\n\u201cA Moral Chaos.\u201d These people who are for the free, frank, and open\ndiscussion assume so much; they either intend a sham with foregone\nconclusions, or they have not thought of all sorts of things inherent in\nthe natural silliness of contemporary man.\n\nOn the whole I think a man or woman who is no longer a fabric of pure\nemotion may, if there is indeed the passion for truth and the clear\nsight of things to justify research, venture upon this sinister seeming\nwilderness of speculation, and I think, too, it is very probable the\ncourageous persistent explorer will end at last not so very remote from\nthe starting-point, but above it, as it were, on a crest that will\ngive a wider view, reaching over many things that now confine the lower\nvision. But these are perilous paths, it must always be remembered. This\nis no public playground. One may distrust the conventional code, and\none may leave it in thought, long before one is justified in leaving it\neither in expressed opinion or in act. We are social animals; we cannot\nlive alone; manifestly from the nature of the question, here, at\nany rate, we must associate and group. For all who find the accepted\nrighteousness not good enough or clear enough for them, there is the\nchance of an ironical destiny. We must look well to our company, as we\ncome out of the city of the common practice and kick its dust from\nour superior soles. There is an abominable riff-raff gone into those\nthickets for purposes quite other than the discovery of the right thing\nto do, for quite other motives than our high intellectual desire. There\nare ugly rebels and born rascals, cheats by instinct, and liars to\nwomen, swinish unbelievers who would compromise us with their erratic\npursuit of a miscellaneous collection of strange fancies and betray us\ncallously at last. Because a man does not find the law pure justice,\nthat is no reason why he should fake his gold to a thieves\u2019 kitchen;\nbecause he does not think the city a sanitary place, why he should pitch\nhis tent on a dust-heap amidst pariah dogs. Because we criticize the old\nlimitations that does not bind us to the creed of unfettered liberty.\nI very much doubt if, when at last the days for the sane complete\ndiscussion of our sexual problems come, it will give us anything at all\nin the way of \u201cLiberty,\u201d as most people understand that word. In the\nplace of the rusty old manacles, the chain and shot, the iron yoke,\ncruel, ill-fitting, violent implements from which it was yet possible to\nwriggle and escape to outlawry, it may be the world will discover only\na completer restriction, will develop a scheme of neat gyves, light\nbut efficient, beautifully adaptable to the wrists and ankles, never\nchafing, never oppressing, slipped on and worn until at last, like\nthe mask of the Happy Hypocrite, they mould the wearer to their own\nidentity. But for all that--gyves!\n\nLet us glance for a moment or so now, in the most tentative fashion, at\nsome of the data for this inquiry, and then revert from this excursion\ninto general theory to our more immediate business, to the manner\nin which our civilized community at present effects the emotional\ninitiation of youth.\n\nThe intellectual trouble in the matter, as it presents itself to me,\ncomes in upon this, that the question does not lie in one plane. So many\ndiscussions ignore this fact, and deal with it on one plane only. For\nexample, we may take the whole business on the plane of the medical man,\nignoring all other considerations. On that plane it would probably be\nalmost easy to reason out a working system. It never has been done by\nthe medical profession, as a whole, which is fairly understandable, or\nby any group of medical men, which is the more surprising, but it\nwould be an extremely interesting thing to have done and a material\ncontribution to the sane discussion of this problem. It would not solve\nit but it would illuminate certain aspects. Let the mere physiological\nproblem be taken. We want healthy children and the best we can get. Let\nthe medical man devise his scheme primarily for that. Understand we\nare shutting our eyes to every other consideration but physical or\nquasi-physical ones. Imagine the thing done, for example, by a\nMr. Francis Galton, who had an absolutely open mind upon all other\nquestions. Some form of polygamy, marriage of the most transient\ndescription, with reproduction barred to specified types, would probably\ncome from such a speculation. But, in addition, a number of people who\ncan have only a few children or none are, nevertheless, not adapted\nphysiologically for celibacy. Conceive the medical man working that\nproblem out upon purely materialistic lines and with an eye to all\nphysiological and pathological peculiarities. The Tasmanians (now\nextinct) seem to have been somewhere near the probable result.\n\nThen let us take one step up to a second stage of consideration,\nremaining still materialistic, and with the medical man still as our\nonly guide. We want the children to grow up healthy; we want them to\nbe taken care of. This means homes, homes of some sort. That may not\nabolish polygamy, but it will qualify it, it will certainly abolish any\napproach to promiscuity that was possible at the lowest stage, it will\nenhance the importance of motherhood and impose a number of limits upon\nthe sexual freedoms of men and women. People who have become parents, at\nany rate, must be tied to the children and one another. We come at once\nto much more definite marriage, to an organized family of some sort, be\nit only Plato\u2019s state community or something after the Oneida pattern,\nbut with at least a system of guarantees and responsibilities. Let\nus add that we want the children to go through a serious educational\nprocess, and we find at once still further limitations coming in.\nWe discover the necessity of deferring experience, of pushing back\nadolescence, of avoiding precocious stimulation with its consequent\narrest of growth. We are already face to face with an enlarged case for\ndecency, for a system of suppressions and of complicated Taboos.\n\nDirectly we let our thoughts pass out of this physical plane and rise\nso high as to consider the concurrent emotions--and I suppose to a\nlarge number of people these are at least as important as the physical\naspects--we come to pride, we come to preference and jealousy, and so\nsoon as we bring these to bear upon our physical scheme, crumpling\nand fissures begin. The complications have multiplied enormously. More\nespecially that little trouble of preferences. These emotions we may\neducate indeed, but not altogether. Neither pride nor preference nor\njealousy are to be tampered with lightly. We are making men, we are\nnot planning a society of regulated slaves; we want fine upstanding\npersonalities, and we shall not get them if we break them down to\nobedience in this particular--for the cardinal expression of freedom\nin the human life is surely this choice of a mate. There is indeed no\nfreedom without this freedom. Our men and women in the future must feel\nfree and responsible. It seems almost instinctive, at least in the\nyouth of the white races, to exercise this power of choice, not simply\nrebelling when opposition is offered to it, but _wanting to rebel_; it\nis a socially good thing, and a thing we are justified in protecting if\nthe odds are against it, this passion for making the business one\u2019s very\nown private affair. Our citizens must not be caught and paired; it will\nnever work like that. But in all social contrivances we must see to it\nthat the freedoms we give are real freedoms. Our youths and maidens\nas they grow up out of the protection of our first taboos, grow into\na world very largely in the hands of older people; strong men and\nexperienced women are there before them, and we are justified in any\neffectual contrivance to save them from being \u201cgobbled up\u201d--against\ntheir real instincts. That works--the reflective man will\ndiscover--towards whittling the previous polygamy to still smaller\nproportions. Here, indeed, our present arrangements fail most\nlamentably; each year sees a hideous sacrifice of girls, mentally\nscarcely more than children--to our delicacy in discussion. We\ngive freedom, and we do not give adequate knowledge, and we punish\ninexorably. There are a multitude of women, and not a few men, with\nlives hopelessly damaged by this blindfold freedom. So many poor girls,\nso many lads also, do not get a fair chance against the adult world.\nThings mend indeed in this respect; as one sign the percentage of\nillegitimate births in England has almost halved in fifty years, but\nit is clear we have much to revise before this leakage to perdition of\nunlucky creatures, for the most part girls no worse on the average, I\nhonestly believe--until our penalties make them so--than other women,\nceases. If our age of moral responsibility is high enough, then our age\nof complete knowledge is too high. But nevertheless, things are better\nthan they were, and promise still to mend. All round we raise the age,\nthe average age at marriage rises, just as, I believe, the average age\nat misconduct has risen. We may not be approaching a period of universal\nmorality, but we do seem within sight of a time when people will know\nwhat they are doing.\n\nThat, however, is something of a digression. The intelligent inquirer\nwho has squared his initially materialistic system of morals with\nthe problems arising out of the necessity of sustaining pride and\npreference, is then invited to explore an adjacent thicket of this\ntortuous subject. It is, we hold, of supreme importance in our state to\nsustain in all our citizens, women as well as men, a sense of personal\nindependence and responsibility. Particularly is this the case with\nmothers. An illiterate mother means a backward child, a downtrodden\nmother bears a dishonest man, an unwilling mother may even hate her\nchildren. Slaves and brutes are the sexes where women are slaves.\nThe line of thought we are following out in these papers necessarily\nattaches distinctive importance to the woman as mother. Our system of\nmorals, therefore, has to make it worth while and honourable to be a\nmother; it is particularly undesirable that it should be held to be\nright for a woman of exceptional charm or exceptional cleverness to\nevade motherhood, unless, perhaps, to become a teacher. A woman evading\nher high calling, must not be conceded the same claim upon men\u2019s toil\nand service as the mother-woman; more particularly Lady Greensleeves\nmust not flaunt it over the housewife. And here also comes the question\nof the quality of jealousy, whether being wife of a man and mother\nof his children does not almost necessarily give a woman a feeling of\nexclusive possession in him, and whether, therefore, if we are earnest\nin our determination not to debase her, our last shred of polygamy does\nnot vanish. From first to last, of course, it has been assumed that a\nprolific polygamy alone can be intended, for long before we have plumbed\nthe bottom of the human heart we shall know enough to imagine what the\nugly and pointless consequences of permitting sterile polygamy must be.\n\nThen into all this tangle, whether as a light or an added confusion it\nis hard to say, comes the fact that while we are ever apt to talk of\nwhat \u201ca woman\u201d feels and what \u201ca man\u201d will do, and so contrive our code,\nthere is, indeed, no such woman and no such man, but a vast variety of\ntemperaments and dispositions, monadic, dyadic, and polymeric souls, and\nthis sort of heart and brain and that. It is only the young fool and the\nbrooding mattoid who believe in a special separate science of \u201cwomen,\u201d\n there are all sorts of people, and some of each sort are women and some\nare men. With every stage in educational development people become more\nvaried, or, at least, more conscious of their variety, more sensitively\ninsistent upon the claim of their individualities over any general\nrules. Among the peasants of a countryside one may hope to order\nhomogeneous lives, but not among the people of the coming state. It is\nwell to sustain a home, it is noble to be a good mother, and splendid to\nbear children well and train them well, but we shall get no valid rules\nuntil we see clearly that life has other ways by which the future may\nbe served. There are laws to be made and altered, there are roads\nand bridges to be built, figuratively and really; there is not only a\nsuccession of flesh and blood but of thought that is going on for ever.\nTo write a fruitful book or improve a widely used machine is just as\nmuch paternity as begetting a son.\n\nThe last temporary raft of a logical moral code goes to pieces at this,\nand its separated spars float here and there. So I will confess they\nfloat at present in my mind. I have no System--I wish I had--and I never\nencountered a system or any universal doctrine of sexual conduct that\ndid not seem to me to be reached by clinging tight to one or two of\nthese dissevered spars and letting the rest drift disregarded, making\na law for A, B, and C, and pretending that E and F are out of the\nquestion. That motherhood is a great and noble occupation for a good\nwoman, and not to be lightly undertaken, is a manifest thing, and so\nalso that to beget children and see them full grown in the world is the\ncommon triumph of life, as inconsequence is its common failure. That to\nlive for pleasure is not only wickedness but folly, seems easy to admit,\nand equally foolish, as Saint Paul has intimated, must it be to waste\na life of nervous energy in fighting down beyond a natural minimum our\nnatural desires. That we must pitch our lives just as much as we can\nin the heroic key, and hem and control mere lasciviousness as it were\na sort of leprosy of the soul, seems fairly certain. And all that\nlove-making which involves lies, all sham heroics and shining snares,\nassuredly must go out of a higher order of social being, for here more\nthan anywhere lying is the poison of life. But between these data there\nare great interrogative blanks no generalization will fill--cases,\nsituations, temperaments. Each life, it seems to me, in that\nintelligent, conscious, social state to which the world is coming, must\nsquare itself to these things in its own way, and fill in the details of\nits individual moral code according to its needs. So it seems, at least,\nto one limited thinker.\n\nTo be frank, upon that common ground of decent behaviour, pride and\nself-respect, health and the heroic habit of thinking, we need for\nourselves not so much rules as wisdom, and for others not, indeed, a\nfoolish and indiscriminate toleration but at least patience, arrests\nof judgment, and the honest endeavour to understand. Now to help the\nimagination in these judgments, to enlarge and interpret experience, is\nmost certainly one of the functions of literature. A good biography may\ngive facts of infinite suggestion, and the great multitude of novels at\npresent are, in fact, experiments in the science of this central field\nof human action, experiments in the \u201cway of looking at\u201d various cases\nand situations. They may be very misleading experiments, it is true,\ndone with adulterated substances, dangerous chemicals, dirty flasks and\nunsound balances; but that is a question of their quality and not of\ntheir nature, they are experiments for all that. A good novel may become\na very potent and convincing experiment indeed. Books in these matters\nare often so much quieter and cooler as counsellors than friends. And\nthere, in truth, is my whole mind in this matter.\n\nMeanwhile, as we work each one to solve his own problems, the young\npeople are growing up about us.\n\n\n\u00a7 2\n\n\nHow do the young people arrive at knowledge and at their interpretation\nof these things? Let us for a few moments at least, put pretence and\nclaptrap aside, and recall our own youth. Let us recognize that this\ncomplex initiation is always a very shy and secret process, beyond\nthe range of parent and guardian. The prying type of schoolmaster or\nschoolmistress only drives the thing deeper, and, at the worst, blunders\nwith a hideous suggestiveness. It is almost an instinct, a part of the\nnatural modesty of the growing young, to hide all that is fermenting in\nthe mind from authoritative older people. It would not be difficult to\nfind a biological reason for that. The growing mind advances slowly,\nintermittently, with long pauses and sudden panics, that is the law of\nits progress; it feels its way through three main agencies, firstly,\nobservation, secondly, tentative, confidential talk with unauthoritative\nand trusted friends, and thirdly, books. In the present epoch\nobservation declines relatively to books; books and pictures, these dumb\nimpersonal initiators, play a larger and a larger part in this great\nawakening. Perhaps for all but the children of the urban poor, the\nfurtive talk also declines and is delayed; a most desirable thing in a\ncivilizing process that finds great advantage in putting off adolescence\nand prolonging the average life.\n\nNow the furtive talk is largely beyond our control, only by improving\nthe general texture of our communal life can we effectually improve the\nquality of that. But we may bear in mind that factor of observation, and\ngive it a casting vote in any decision upon public decency. That is\nall too often forgotten. Before Broadbeam, the popular humorist, for\nexample, flashes his glittering rapier upon the County Council for\nsuppressing some vulgar obscenity in the music-halls, or tickles the\nribs of a Vigilance Association for its care of our hoardings, he should\ndo his best to imagine the mental process of some nice boy or girl he\nknows, \u201ctaking it in.\u201d To come outright to the essential matter of this\npaper, we are all too careless of the quality of the stuff that\nreaches the eyes and ears of our children. It is not that the stuff\nis knowledge, but that it is knowledge in the basest and vulgarest\ncolourings, knowledge without the antiseptic quality of heroic\ninterpretation, debased, suggestive, diseased and contagious knowledge.\n\nHow the sexual consciousness of a great proportion of our young people\nis being awakened, the curious reader may see for himself if he will\nexpend a few pennies weekly for a month or so upon the halfpenny or\npenny \u201ccomic\u201d papers which are bought so eagerly by boys. They begin\nupon the facts of sex as affairs of nodding and winking, of artful\ninnuendo and scuffles in the dark. The earnest efforts of Broadbeam\u2019s\nminor kindred to knock the nonsense out of even younger people may be\nheard at almost any pantomime. The Lord Chamberlain\u2019s attempts to stem\nthe tide amaze the English Judges. No scheme for making the best of\nhuman lives can ignore this system of influences.\n\nWhat could be done in a sanely ordered state to suppress this sort of\nthing?\n\nThere immediately arises the question whether we are to limit art and\nliterature to the sphere permissible to the growing youth and \u201cyoung\nperson.\u201d So far as shop windows, bookstalls, and hoardings go, so far\nas all general publicity goes, I would submit the answer is Yes. I am on\nthe side of the Puritans here, unhesitatingly. But our adults must not\nwalk in mental leading strings, and were this world an adult world\nI doubt if there is anything I would not regard as fit to print and\npublish. But cannot we contrive that our adult literature shall be\nas free as air while the literature and art of the young is sanely\nexpurgated?\n\nThere is in this matter a conceivable way, and as it is the principal\nbusiness of these papers to point out and discuss such ways, it may be\ngiven here. It will be put, as for the sake of compact suggestion so\nmuch of these papers is put, in the form of a concrete suggestion, a\nsample suggestion as it were. This way, then, is to make a definition\nof what is undesirable matter for the minds of young people, and to make\nthat cover as much suggestive indecency and coarseness as possible, to\ncover everything, indeed, that is not _virginibus puerisque_, and to\ncall this matter by some reasonably inoffensive adjective, \u201cadult,\u201d for\nexample. One might speak of \u201cadult\u201d art, \u201cadult\u201d literature, and \u201cadult\u201d\n science, and the report of all proceedings under certain specified\nlaws could be declared \u201cadult\u201d matter. In the old times there was an\nexcellent system of putting \u201cadult\u201d matter into Latin, and for\nmany reasons one regrets that Latin. But there is a rough practical\nequivalent to putting \u201cadult\u201d matter into Latin even now. It depends\nupon the fact that very few young people of the age we wish to protect,\nunless they are the children of the imbecile rich, have the spending of\nlarge sums of money. Consequently, it is only necessary to state a high\nminimum price for periodicals and books containing \u201cadult\u201d matter or\n\u201cadult\u201d illustrations, and to prosecute everything below that limit, in\norder to shut the flood-gates upon any torrent of over-stimulating and\ndebasing suggestions there may be flowing now. It should be more clearly\nrecognized in our prosecutions for obscenity, for example, that the\ngravity of the offence is entirely dependent upon the accessibility of\nthe offensive matter to the young. The application of the same method\nto the music-hall, the lecture-theatre, and the shelves of the public\nlibrary, and to several other sources of suggestion would not be\nimpossible. If the manager of a theatre saw fit to produce \u201cadult\u201d\n matter without excluding people under the age of eighteen, let us say,\nhe would have to take his chance, and it would be a good one, of a\nprosecution. This latter expedient is less novel than the former, and it\nfinds a sort of precedent in the legislative restriction of the sale of\ndrink to children and the protection of children\u2019s morals under specific\nunfavourable circumstances.\n\nThere is already a pretty lively sense in our English-speaking\ncommunities of the particular respect due to the young, and it is\nprobable that those who publish these suggestive and stimulating prints\ndo not fully realize the new fact in our social body, that the whole\nmass of the young now not only read but buy reading matter. The last\nthirty or forty years have established absolutely new relations for\nour children in this direction. Legislation against free art and free\nwriting is, and one hopes always will be, intensely repugnant to our\npeoples. But legislation which laid stress not on the indecorum but on\nthe accessibility to the young, which hammered with every clause upon\nthat note, is an altogether different matter. We want to make the\npantomime writer, the proprietor of the penny \u201ccomic,\u201d the billsticker,\nand the music-hall artist extremely careful, punctiliously clean, but we\ndo not want, for example, to pester Mr. Thomas Hardy.\n\nYet there is danger in all this. The suppression of premature and base\nsuggestions must not overleap itself and suppress either mature thought\n(which has been given its hemlock not once but many times on this\nparticular pretext) or the destruction of necessary common knowledge. If\nwe begin to hunt for suggestion and indecency it may be urged we shall\nend by driving all these things underground. Youth comes to adult life\nnow between two dangers, vice, which has always threatened it, and\nmorbid virtue, which would turn the very heart of life to ugliness and\nshame. How are we, or to come closer to the point, how is the average\njuryman going to distinguish between these three things; between\nadvisable knowledge and corruptingly presented knowledge, and\nunnecessary and undesirable knowledge? In practice, under the laws I\nhave sketched, it is quite probable the evil would flourish extremely,\nand necessary information would be ruthlessly suppressed. Many of our\npresent laws and provisions for public decency do work in that manner.\nThe errand-boy may not look at the Venus de Medici, but he can cram his\nmind with the lore of how \u201cnobs\u201d run after ballet girls, and why Lady\nX locked the door. One can only plead here, as everywhere, no law, no\nsuccinct statement can save us without wisdom, a growing general wisdom\nand conscience, coming into the detailed administration of whatever law\nthe general purpose has made.\n\nBeside our project for law and the state, it is evident there is scope\nfor the individual. Certain people are in a position of exceptional\nresponsibility. The Newsagents, for example, constitute a fairly strong\ntrade organization, and it would be easy for them to think of the\nboy with a penny just a little more than they do. Unfortunately such\ninstances as we have had of voluntary censorship will qualify the\nreader\u2019s assent to this proposition. Another objection may be urged to\nthis distinction between \u201cadult\u201d and general matter, and that is the\npossibility that what is marked off and forbidden becomes mysterious and\nattractive. One has to reckon with that. Everywhere in this field one\nmust go wisely or fail. But what is here proposed is not so much\nthe suppression of information as of a certain manner of presenting\ninformation, and our intention is at the most delay, and to give the\nwholesome aspect first.\n\nLet us leave nothing doubtful upon one point; the suppression of\nstimulus must not mean the suppression of knowledge. There are things\nthat young people should know, and know fully before they are involved\nin the central drama of life, in the serious business of love. There\nshould be no horrifying surprises. Sane, clear, matter-of-fact books\nsetting forth the broad facts of health and life, the existence of\ncertain dangers, should come their way. In this matter books, I would\ninsist, have a supreme value. The printed word may be such a quiet\ncounsellor. It is so impersonal. It can have no conceivable personal\nreaction with the reader. It does not watch its reader\u2019s face, it is\nitself unobtrusively unabashed and safer than any priest. The power of\nthe book, the possible function of the book in the modern state is still\nbut imperfectly understood. It need not be, it ought not, I think, to\nbe, a book specifically on what one calls delicate questions, that would\nbe throwing them up in just the way one does not want them thrown up;\nit should be a sort of rationalized and not too technical handbook of\nphysiological instruction in the College Library--or at home. Naturally,\nit would begin with muscular physiology, with digestion, and so on.\nOther matters would come in their due place and proportion. From first\nto last it would have all that need be known. There is a natural and\nright curiosity on these matters, until we chase it underground.\n\nRestriction alone is not half this business. It is inherent in the\npurpose of things that these young people should awaken sexually, and\nin some manner and somewhere that awakening must come. To ensure they do\nnot awaken too soon or in a fetid atmosphere among ugly surroundings\nis not enough. They cannot awaken in a void. An ignorance kept beyond\nnature may corrupt into ugly secrecies, into morose and sinister\nseclusions, worse than the evils we have suppressed. Let them awaken as\ntheir day comes, in a sweet, large room. The true antiseptic of the\nsoul is not ignorance, but a touch of the heroic in the heart and in the\nimagination. Pride has saved more men than piety, and even misconduct\nloses something of its evil if it is conceived upon generous lines.\nThere lurks a capacity for heroic response in all youth, even in\ncontaminated youth. Before five-and-twenty, at any rate, we were all\nsentimentalists at heart.\n\nAnd the way to bring out these responses?\n\nAssuredly it is not by sermons on Purity to Men Only and by nasty little\npamphlets of pseudo-medical and highly alarming information stuffed into\nclean young hands [Footnote: See Clouston\u2019s _Mental Diseases_, fifth\nedition, p. 535, for insanity caused by these pamphlets; see also p. 591\n_et seq._ for \u201cadolescent\u201d literature.]--ultra \u201cadult\u201d that stuff should\nbe--but in the drum and trumpet style the thing should be done. There\nis a mass of fine literature to-day wherein love shines clean and\nnoble. There is art telling fine stories. There is a possibility in the\nTheatre. Probably the average of the theatre-goer is under rather than\nover twenty-two. Literature, the drama, art; that is the sort of food\nupon which the young imagination grows stout and tall. There is the\nliterature and art of youth that may or may not be part of the greater\nliterature of life, and upon this mainly we must depend when our\nchildren pass from us into these privacies, these dreams and inquiries\nthat will make them men and women. See the right stuff is near them and\nthe wrong stuff as far as possible away, chase cad and quack together,\nand for the rest, in this matter--_leave them alone._\n\n\n\n\nIX. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION\n\n\nWhen we digressed to the general question of the political, social, and\nmoral atmosphere in which the English-speaking citizen develops, we left\nthe formal education of the average child, whose development threads\nthrough these papers and holds them together, at about the age of\nfifteen and at the end of the process of Schooling. We have now to carry\non that development to adult citizenship. It is integral in the New\nRepublican idea that the process of Schooling, which is the common\natrium to all public service, should be fairly uniform throughout the\nsocial body, that although the average upper-class child may have all\nthe advantages his conceivably better mental inheritance, his better\nhome conditions, and his better paid and less overworked teachers may\ngive him, there shall be no disadvantages imposed upon the child of any\nclass, there shall be no burking of the intellectual education for\nany purpose whatever. To keep poor wretches in serfdom on the land by\ndepriving them of all but the most rudimentary literary education, as\na very considerable element in the new Nature Study Movement certainly\nintends, is altogether antagonistic to New Republican ideas, and there\nmust be no weeding out of capable and high-minded teachers by filtering\nthem through grotesque and dishonouring religious tests--dishonouring\nbecause compulsory, whatever the real faith of the teacher may be. And\nat the end of the Schooling period there must begin a process of sorting\nin the mass of the national youth--as far as possible, regardless\nof their social origins--that will go on throughout life. For the\ncompetition of public service must constitute the Battle for Existence\nin the civilized state. All-round inferiority in school life--failure\nnot simply at this or that or at the total result (which, indeed, may be\ndue very often to the lopsidedness of exceptional gifts) but failure all\nalong the line--is a mark of essential inferiority. A certain proportion\nof boys and girls will have shown this inferiority, will have done\nlittle with any of their chances in or out of school during their\nschool life, and these--when they are poorer-class children--will very\nnaturally drop out of the educational process at this stage and pass\ninto employment suited to their capacity, employment which should not\ncarry with it any considerable possibility of prolific marriage.\nA really well-contrived leaving-school examination--and it must be\nremembered that the theory and science of examinations scarcely exists\nas yet--an examination which would take account of athletic development\nand moral influence (let us say provisionally by the vote of\nfellow-pupils) and which would be so contrived as to make specially high\nquality in one department as good as all-round worth--could effect this\nfirst classification. It would throw out the worst of the duffers and\nfools and louts all along the social scale. What is to become of the\nrejected of the upper and wealthy class is, I admit, a difficult problem\nas things are to-day. At present they carry a loutish ingredient to the\npublic schools, to the Army, to Oxford and Cambridge, and it is open to\nquestion whether it would not be well to set aside one public school,\none especially costly university, and one gentlemen\u2019s regiment of an\nattractively smart type, into which this mass of expensive slackness\nmight be drained along a channel of specially high fees, low standards,\nand agreeable social conditions. That, however, is a quite subsidiary\nquestion in this discussion. A day may come, as I have already\nsuggested, when it will be considered as reasonable to insist upon a\nminimum mental qualification for the administration of property as\nfor any other form of power in the state. Pride and their many\nadvantages--of which one is quite conceivably an average essential\nsuperiority--will probably ensure a satisfactory result from the\nSchooling process in the case of a much greater proportion of\nbetter-class than of lower-class boys and girls. [Footnote: In most big\npublic schools, I am told, there is a system of superannuation about\nsixteen, but I know nothing of the provision for those who are weeded\nout.]\n\nFrom the mass who show a satisfactory result at the end of the Schooling\nprocess, the functional manhood and womanhood of our peoples have to be\ndeveloped, and we have now to discuss the nature of the second phase\nof education, the phase that should be the mental parallel and\naccompaniment of physical adolescence in all the citizens who are\nto count for strength in the state. There is a break in the whole\ndevelopment of the human being at this age, and it may very well be\nparalleled by a break in methods and subjects of instruction. In Great\nBritain, in the case of the wealthier classes, schooling and puerile\ndiscipline is prolonged altogether too far, largely through the gross\nincapacity of our secondary teachers. These men are unable, boring away\nday after day, week after week, year after year, with vain repetitions,\nimbecile breaks and new beginnings, through all the vast period from\neleven or twelve until twenty, to achieve that mastery of Latin and\nGreek which was once the necessary preliminary to education, and which\nhas become at last, through the secular decline in scholastic energy\nand capacity due to the withdrawal of interest in these studies, the\nunattainable educational ideal. These classical pedagogues,\nhowever, carry the thing up to three or four and twenty in the\nUniversities--though it is inconceivable that any language spoken\nsince the antediluvian age of leisure, can need more than ten years to\nlearn--and if they could keep the men until forty or fifty they would\nstill be fumbling away at the keys to the room that was ransacked long\nago. But with educated men as teachers and practical handbooks to help,\nand practical examiners to guide them, there is no reason whatever why\nthe great mass of the linguistic training of the citizen, in the use of\nhis own and any other necessary language, should not be done for good\nand all by fourteen, why he should not have a fairly complete mastery of\nform and quantity through mathematical training and drawing, and why the\nway should not be clear and immediate for the development of that adult\nmental edifice of which this is the foundation.\n\nBy fourteen the power of abstract reasoning and of an analytical\ntreatment of things is in existence, the learner is now less to be\nmoulded and more to be guided than he was. We want now to give this mind\nwe have established, the most stimulating and invigorating training we\ncan, we want to give it a sane coherent view of our knowledge of the\nuniverse in relation to itself, and we want to equip it for its own\nspecial work in the world. How, on the basis of the Schooling we have\npredicated, are these ends to be attained?\n\nNow let us first have it perfectly clear that this second stage in\ndevelopment lies no more completely within the idea of College than\nthe former lay completely within the idea of School. In the general\ndiscussion of these things we are constantly faced by the parallel error\nto that we have tried to dissipate in regard to schools, the error that\nthe Professor and his Lecture and (in the case of experimental sciences)\nhis Laboratory make, or can make, the man, just precisely in the same\nway that the Schoolmaster or Schoolmistress is supposed to be omnipotent\nin the education of the boy or girl. And, unhappily, the Professor,\nunless he is a man of quite exceptional mental power for a Professor,\nshares this groundless opinion. The Schoolmaster is under-educated in\nregard to his work, and incapable of doing it neatly; the Professor\nis too often over-specialized and incapable of forming an intelligent,\nmodest idea of his place in education; and the same consequence flows\nfrom the defect of either, an attempt to use an improperly large portion\nof the learner\u2019s time and energy. Over-direction, and what one may call\nintellectual sectarianism, are faults from which few College courses\nare free to-day. The Professor stands between his students and books,\nhe says in lectures in his own way what had far better be left for other\nmen\u2019s books to tell, he teaches his beliefs without a court of appeal.\nStudents are kept writing up their notes of his not very brilliant\nimpromptus, and familiarizing themselves with his mental constitution\ninstead of the subject of study. They get no training in the use of\nbooks as sources of knowledge and ideas, albeit such a training is one\nof the most necessary of all acquisitions for an efficient citizen,\nand whatever discussion the modern student indulges in is all too\noften treated rather as presumption to be discouraged than as the most\nnecessary and hopeful of mental processes. Our Universities and Colleges\nare still but imperfectly aware of the recent invention of the Printed\nBook; and its intelligent use in this stage of education has made little\nor no headway against their venerable traditions. That things are only\nunderstood by being turned over in the mind and looked at from various\npoints of view is, of course, altogether too modern a conception for\nour educationists. At the London Royal College of Science, for example,\nwhich is an exceptionally new and efficient College, there is no\nproperly organized escape from the orthodoxy of the lecture-theatre, no\ncirculating library whatever available to the students, no library, that\nis, which will ensure a copious supply and exchange of the best books on\neach subject, and, consequently, even to look up an original paper that\nhas been quoted or discussed, involves an expenditure of time that is\npractically prohibitive of the thing as a general practice. [Footnote:\nThere are three very fine libraries in the adjacent South Kensington\nMuseum, especially available to students, but, like almost all existing\nlibraries, they are managed in most respects on lines conceived when\na copy of a book was an almost unique thing made specially by the\ncopyist\u2019s hand. However much a book is in demand, however cheap its\nprice of publication may be, no library in England, unless it is a\nmodern subscription library, ever gets duplicate copies. This is the\ncause of the dearness of serious books; they are bought as rarities, and\nhave to be sold in the same spirit. But when libraries learn to buy by\nthe dozen and the hundred, there is no reason why the sort of book\nnow published at 10s. 6d. should not be sold at a shilling from the\nbeginning.] The Professors, being busy and important men, lecture from\ntheir particular standpoints, and having lectured, bolt; there is no\nprovision whatever for the intelligent discussion of knotty points, and\nthe only way to get it is to buttonhole a demonstrator and induce him to\nneglect his task of supervising prescribed \u201cpractical\u201d work in favour of\neducational talk. Let us, therefore, in view of this state of affairs,\ndeal with the general question how a branch of thought and knowledge may\nbe most beneficially studied under modern conditions, before discussing\nthe more particular question what subjects should or should not be\nundertaken.\n\nNow the full statement not only of what is known of a subject, but\nof its difficulties, dark places, and conflicting aspects should be\nluminously set forth in the College text-books, large, well-written,\nwell-illustrated books by one or several hands, continually revised and\nkept abreast of the advance of knowledge by capable and critical-minded\nyoung men. Such books are essential and cardinal in proper modern\nteaching. The country may be speckled with universities until they are\nas thick as public-houses, and each may be provided with its score or so\nof little lecturers, and if it does not possess one or more good general\ntext-books in each principal subject then all this simply means that\na great number of inadequate, infertile little text-books are being\ndictated, one by each of these lecturers. Not the course of lectures,\nbut the sound, full text-book should be the basis of College\ninstruction, and this should be supplemented by a greater or lesser\nnumber of more or less controversial pamphlets or books, criticising,\nexpanding or correcting its matter or putting things in a different\nand profitable way. This text-book should be paralleled in the case\nof experimental science by a hand-book of illustrative and explanatory\nlaboratory work. Portions of the book could be set for preparation at\neach stage in the course with appropriate experiments, students could\nsubmit difficulties in writing to be dealt with by the Professor in\nconversational lectures, and the reading of the students could be\nchecked by periodic examinations upon cardinal parts, and supplemented,\nif these examinations showed it to be necessary, by dissertations upon\nspecial issues of difficulty. Upon the matters that were distinctively\nhis \u201csubject,\u201d or upon his points of disagreement with the general\nissues of the book, the Professor might lecture in the accepted way.\nThis is surely the proper method of work for adolescent students in any\nsubject, in philology just as much as in comparative anatomy, and in\nhistory just as much as in economics. The cheapening of printing, paper,\nand, above all, of illustration has done away with the last excuse for\nthe vocal course of instruction and the lecturer\u2019s diagrams. But it has\nnot done away with them.\n\nIt is one of the most curious of human phenomena, this persistence of\ntradition against what one might have imagined the most destructive\nfacts, and in no connection is this aspect more remarkable than in\nall that concerns the higher stages of education. One might think that\nsomewhere in the seventeenth century it would have been recognized\nat the Seats of Learning that thought and knowledge were progressive\nthings, and that a periodic revision of courses and syllabuses, a\nperiodic recasting of work and scope, a re-arrangement of chairs and\nof the appliances of the faculties, was as necessary to the continued\nhealthy existence of a University as periodic meals and sleep and\nexercise are necessary to a man. But even today we are founding\nUniversities without any provision for this necessary change, and the\nchances are that in a century or so they will present just as much\nbackwardness and illiteracy as do the ordinary graduation organizations\nof Oxford and Cambridge today, that a hundred years from now the past\ngraduates of ripe old Birmingham, full of spite against newfangled\nthings \u201cno fellow can understand,\u201d will be crowding up to vote against\nthe substitution of some more modern subject for \u201cHuxley\u201d--\u201cHuxley\u201d\n they will call the subject, and not Comparative Anatomy, on the model\nof \u201cEuclid\u201d--or for the retention of compulsory \u201cCommercial Geography\nof the Nineteenth Century,\u201d or \u201cLonghand Bookkeeping\u201d in the Little\nGo. (And should any germinating noble founder read these pages I would\nimplore him with all the earnestness that is possible in printed\nmatter, to provide that every fifty years, let us say, the whole of his\nprospective foundation shall go into solution, shall re-apportion its\nfunds and reorganize the entire mechanism of its work.)\n\nThe idea that a text-book should be regularly reset and reprinted is\nstill quite foreign to the Professorial mind, as, indeed, is the idea\nthat the care of text-books and publications is a University function at\nall. No one is startled by a proposal to apply \u00a3800 or \u00a31000 a year to\na new chair in any subject, but to apply that sum yearly as a standing\ncharge to the revision and perfection of a specific text-book would\nseem, even today, quite fantastically extravagant to most University\nmen. Yet what could be more obviously helpful to sound and thorough\nteaching than for a University, or a group of Universities, to sustain\na Professor in each of the chief subjects of instruction, whose business\nwould be neither teaching as it is now understood, nor research, but the\ncritical and exhaustive editing of the College textbook of his subject,\na text-book which would stand in type at the University Press, which\nwould be revised annually and reprinted annually, primarily for the\nuse of the matriculated students of the University and incidentally for\npublication. His business would be not only to bring the work up to date\nand parallel with all the newest published research and to invite and\nconsider proposals of contributions and footnotes from men with new\nviews and new matter, but also to substitute for obscure passages fuller\nand more lucid expositions, to cut down or relegate to smaller type\npassages of diminishing importance and to introduce fresh and\nmore efficient illustrations, and his work would be carried on in\nconsultation with the General Editor of the University Press who would\nalso be a specialist in modern printing and book-making, and who\nwould be constantly taking up, trying, and adopting fresh devices of\narrangement, and newer, better, and cheaper methods of printing and\nillustration. It would not merely raise the general efficiency of\nthe College work of adolescents very greatly to have this series of\ntextbooks living and growing in each subject at one or (better) at\nseveral Universities or grouped Universities, but in each subject the\nperiodic change in these books would afford a most valuable corrective\nto the influence of specialized work by keeping the specialist worker\neasily in touch with the current presentation of his science as a whole.\n\nThe text-book, however good, and the lecturer, however able, are only\none of two necessary factors in College work, the reciprocal element\nis the students\u2019 activity. Unless the students are actively engaged not\nsimply in taking in what they are told, but in rearranging it, turning\nit over, trying and testing it, they are doing little good. We recognize\nthis quite abundantly in the laboratory nowadays, but we neglect it\nenormously in the more theoretical study of a subject. The facts of a\nsubject if it is a science may be got at in the most thorough way by\nhandling in the laboratory, but the ideas of a subject must be handled\nin discussion, reproduction and dispute. Examinations, examinations\nby teachers who understand this very fine art, in which the student is\nobliged to restate, apply, and use the principles of his subject, are\nof the utmost value in keeping the mind active and not simply receptive.\nThey are just as good and as vitally necessary as examination papers\nwhich merely demand definitions and lists and bald facts are bad. And\nthen there might be discussions--if the Professor were clever enough\nto conduct them. If the students of a class could be induced to submit\npropositions for discussion, from which a topic could be selected, and\ncould then be made to prepare for a disputation to which all would have\nto contribute, with the Professor as a controlling influence in the\nchair to check facts and logic and to conclude, it would have the value\nof a dozen lectures. But Professors who are under the burthen of perhaps\nninety or a hundred lectures a year cannot be expected to do anything\nof this sort. Directed reading, conferences on knotty points, special\nlectures followed by the questioning of the lecturer, discussions upon\nmatters of opinion, laboratory work when needful, fairly frequent\ntest examinations, and a final examination for places, are the proper\ningredients of a good modern College course, and in the necessity of\nleaving the Professor\u2019s energies free for the direction of all this\nreally educational work, lies another reason for that complete,\nexplicit, well-arranged text-book upon which I am insisting.\n\nComing back now from these general propositions about books and teaching\nto our mass of young people about fifteen years old, our adolescent\nnation, who have accomplished their Schooling and are ready for the\nCollege phase, we have to consider what subjects they are to be taught,\nand how far they are to go with these subjects. Whether they are to give\nall or part of their time to these College studies, whether they are\ngoing to pursue them in evening classes or before breakfast in\nthe morning or during the livelong day is a question of secondary\nconveniences that may very well be disregarded here. We are concerned\nwith the general architecture now, and not with the tactical necessities\nof the clerk of the works. [Footnote: But I may perhaps point out here\nhow integral to a sane man-making scheme is the raising of the minimum\nage at which children may work. A day will come, I hope, when even the\npartial employment of children under fifteen will be prohibited, and\nwhen, as Mr. Sidney Webb suggested some time ago, employment up to the\nage of twenty-one will be limited to so few hours a week--his suggestion\nwas thirty--as to leave a broad margin for the more or less compulsory\ncollege work and physical training that are becoming essential to the\nmodern citizen.]\n\nWe need waste little time nowadays, I submit, in disposing of\nEncyclopaedic conceptions of College Education, conceptions that\nplayed a part in almost all educational schemes--Bentham\u2019s stupendous\nChrestomathia is the fearful example--before the middle nineteenth\ncentury. We are all agreed in theory, at any rate, that to know one\nsubject or group of subjects exhaustively is far better than a universal\nsmattering, that the ideal of education is more particularly \u201call about\nsomething\u201d with \u201csomething about everything\u201d in a very subordinate\nplace. The fact remains that the normal curriculum of our higher schools\nand colleges is a pointless non-educational miscellany, and the\naverage graduate in Arts knows something, but not enough, of science,\nmathematics, Latin, Greek, literature, and history; he has paid tribute\nto several conflicting schemes of education, and is a credit to none. We\nhave to get rid of this state of affairs, and we have to provide (i)\na substantial mental training which shall lead at last to a broad\nand comprehensive view of things, and which shall be a training\nin generalization, abstraction, and the examination of evidence,\nstimulating and disciplining the imagination and developing the habit of\npatient, sustained, enterprising and thorough work, and (ii) we have\nto add a general culture, a circle of ideas about moral, aesthetic,\nand social matters that shall form a common basis for the social and\nintellectual life of the community. The former of these two elements\nmust at some stage develop--after two or five or seven or some such\nperiod of years, which may be different in different cases--into the\nspecial training for the definite function of the individual in the\nsocial body, whether as engineer, business manager, doctor, priest,\njournalist, public administrator, professional soldier, or what not.\nAnd before we ask what must constitute (i) it may be well to define the\nrelation between the first and the second section of the College stage\nof education.\n\nIt is (i) that will constitute the essential _work_ of the College,\nwhich will be the especial concern of the Professorial staff, which will\n\u201ccount\u201d in examinations, and I conceive it as occupying typically four\nfull working days in the week, four good, hard-driving days, and no\nmore, of the students\u2019 time. The remaining three, so far as they are\nnot engaged by physical exercise, military training, and mere amusement,\nmust be given to (ii), which I imagine an altogether more general,\ndiscursive, various, and spontaneous series of activities. To put the\nthing briefly, with the use of a convenient slang word (i), is \u201cgrind,\u201d\n and (ii) is general culture, elements that are altogether too greatly\nconfused in adolescent education. A large number of people will consider\nit right and proper that (ii) on the seventh day of the week should\nbecome devotional exercise or religious thought and discussion. I would\nsubmit that under (ii) there should be formally recognized certain\nextremely valuable educational influences that are at present too often\nregarded as irregular or improper invasions of school and college\nwork, the collegiate debating society, for example, private reading,\nexperimental science outside the curriculum, and essays in various arts.\nIt should be possible to provide a certain definite number of hours\nweekly in which the student should be required merely to show that he\nwas doing something of a developmental kind, he would have his choice\nbetween the Library--every College ought to have a good and not too\npriggishly conceived Library, in which he might either read or write--or\nthe music master, the debating society, the museum, the art studio,\nthe dramatic society, or any concern of the sort that the College\nauthorities had satisfactory reason for supposing to be alive and\nefficient. In addition (ii) should include certain minor but necessary\nstudies not included in (i), but pursued for all that with a certain\ninsistence, taught or directed, and controlled perhaps by examinations.\nIf, for example, the acquisition of a foreign language was a part of the\npreliminary schooling, it could be kept alive by a more fastidious study\nin the higher grade. For the making of the good, all-round, average\ncitizen (i) will be the essential educational factor, but for the boy or\ngirl with a dash of genius (ii) will rise from the level of culture to\nthat of a great opportunity.\n\nWhat subject or group of subjects is to constitute (i)? There are at\nleast three, and quite probably beyond the very limited range of my\nknowledge there are other, arrangements of studies that can be contrived\nto supply this essential substantial part of the College course. Each\nsuffices completely, and I would hesitate to express any preference for\none or the other. Each has its special direction towards certain sorts\nof adult function, and for that reason it may be suggested that the\nsecondary education of an English-speaking country might very well\nafford all three (or more) types of secondary course. The small schools\nmight specialize upon the type locally most desirable, the larger might\ngroup its triplicate (or quadruplicate) system of sustained and serious\ncourses about a common Library and the common arrangements for Section\nii. of the College scheme.\n\nThe first of these possible College courses, and the one most likely to\nbe useful and fruitful for the mass of the male population in a modern\ncommunity, is an expansion of the Physics of the Schooling stage. It may\nbe very conveniently spoken of as the Natural Philosophy, course. Its\nbackbone will be an interlocking arrangement of Mathematics, Physics,\nand the principles of Chemistry, and it will take up as illustrative and\nmind-expanding exercises, Astronomy, Geography, and Geology conceived as\na general history of the Earth. Holding the whole together will be the\ntheory of the Conservation of Energy in its countless aspects and a\nspeculative discussion of the constitution of matter. A certain minimum\nof Historical and Political reading and of general \u201cLibrary\u201d would\nbe insisted upon in Section ii. This could be made a quite noble and\nspacious course of instruction extending over from three to five years,\nfrom fourteen or fifteen up to eighteen or twenty-one (or even longer\nin the case of those partially employed); its less successful products\nwould drop out--it might be before completion--to take up the work\nof more or less skilled artisans and technical workers, and its more\nsuccessful ones would pass some of them into the technical colleges for\nspecial industries with a view to business direction, into special study\nfor the engineering trades, for the profession of soldiering, [Footnote:\nI may perhaps explain that my conception of military organization is a\nuniversal service of citizens--non-professional soldiers--who will be\ntrained--possibly in boyhood and youth, to shoot very well indeed,\nto ride either horses or bicycles, and to take up positions and move\nquickly and easily in organized bodies, and, in addition, a special\ngraduated profession of soldiers who will be in their various ranks\nengineers, gunners, special-force men of various sorts, and, in the\nhigher ranks, masters of all the organization and methods necessary for\nthe rapid and effective utilization of the non-professional manhood of\nthe country, of volunteers, militia, or short-service enlistment\nlevies, drawn from this general supply, and of all the machinery of\ncommunication, provisioning, and so forth. They will not be necessarily\nthe \u201csocial superiors\u201d of their commands, but they will naturally\nexercise the same authoritative command in warfare that a doctor does in\na sick-room.] or for the naval and mercantile services, or into research\nand the literature of science. Some also would pass on to study for\nthe profession of medicine through more special work in Chemistry and\nPhysiology, and some with a proclivity for drawing and design would\nbecome architects, designers of appliances, and the like. The idea of\nthe ordinary development of this course is not so very remote from what\nalready exists in Great Britain as the Organized Science School, but,\nas with all these courses, it would be done in varying degrees of\nthoroughness and extension under varying conditions. This is the first\nof my three alternative College courses.\n\nThe second course will probably seem less acceptable to many readers,\nbut all who are qualified to speak will testify to its enormous\neducational value. It is what one may speak of as the Biological Course.\nJust as the conception of Energy will be the central idea of the Natural\nPhilosophy course, so the conception of Organic Evolution will be the\ncentral idea of the Biological Course. A general review of the whole\nfield of Biology--not only of the Natural History of the present but\nof the geological record--in relation to the known laws and the various\nmain theories of the evolutionary process will be taken, and in\naddition some special department, either the Comparative Anatomy of\nthe Vertebrata chiefly, or of the plants chiefly, or of several\nInvertebrated groups chiefly, will be exhaustively worked out in\nrelation to these speculations. The first of these alternatives is not\nonly probably the most invigorating mental exercise of the three but\nbears also more directly upon the practical concerns of life. Physiology\nwill be taken up in relation to this special exhaustive study, and the\n\u201cElementary Physics of the Schooling\u201d stage will be prolonged up into a\ntreatment of Chemistry with especial reference to biological problems.\nThrough such a course as this students might pass to the study of\nmedicine just as well as through Natural Philosophy, and the medical\nprofession would profit by the clash of the two types of student. The\nbiological course, with its insistence upon heredity and physiological\nfacts, would also give the very best and gravest preparation in the\nworld for the practical concerns of motherhood. From it students would\npass on illuminated to the study of psychology, philosophical science,\nand educational method. The training in the discussion of broad\ngeneralization, and much of the fact involved, would be a most excellent\npreliminary to special theological study and also to the advanced study\nof economics and political science. From this course also artists of\nvarious sorts would escape through the avenue of Section ii. which, by\nthe by, would have to involve Historical Reading. So much for my second\nsuggested College course.\n\nThe third of these three alternative courses is the History course, done\nextensively in relation to general geography, economic theory, and the\ngeneral evolution of the world, and intensively in relation to British\nor American history, and perhaps to some particular period. Out of it\nwould spring a thorough study of the development of English literature\nand also of the legal systems of the English-speaking peoples. This\ncourse also would be a way of approach to philosophical science, to\ntheology, to the thorough study of economic and political science, and\npossibly it would contribute a larger proportion of its students to\nimaginative literature than either of the two preceding courses. It\nwould also be the natural preliminary course to the special study of\nlaw and so a source of politicians. In the Section ii. of this course a\nlight but lucid treatment of the great generalizations of physical and\nbiological science would be desirable. And from this course also the\nartist would break away.\n\nConceivably there are other courses. The course in Mathematics as\none sees it given to the Cambridge Tripos men, and what is called the\nClassical course, will occur to the reader. Few people, however, are to\nbe found who will defend the exclusively mathematical \u201cgrind\u201d as a sound\nintellectual training, and so it need not be discussed here. The case,\nhowever, is different with the classical course. It is alleged by those\nwho have had the experience that to learn Latin and Greek more or\nless thoroughly and then to stumble through one or two Latin and Greek\nauthors \u201cin the original\u201d has an educational value surpassing any\nconceivable alternative. There is a mysterious benefit from one\u2019s\nprivate translation however bad that no other translation however good\ncan impart. Plato, for example, who has certainly in the very best\ntranslations, quite perceptibly no greater mind than Lord Bacon, Newton,\nDarwin, or Adam Smith, becomes god-like to all who pass beyond the\nLittle-Go. The controversy is as old as the Battle of the Books, a quite\ninterminable wrangle, which I will not even attempt to summarize here.\nFor my own part I believe all this defence of the classics on the part\nof men with classical education is but one more example of that human\nweakness that splashes Oxford metaphysical writings with needless tags\nand shreds of Greek and set Demetrius the silversmith bawling in the\nstreets. If the reader is of another opinion there is no need to convert\nhim in this present argument, provided only that he will admit the\nuselessness of his high mystery for the training of the larger mass of\nmodern men. By his standards they are beneath it. A convention upon this\nissue between the two parties therefore is attainable. Let us admit the\nclassical course for the parents who like and can afford this sort of\nthing for their sons and daughters. Let us withdraw all objections to\nits endowment, unless it is quite excessive endowment. Let the classical\nbe the senior service, and the classical professor, to use his own queer\nway of putting things, _primus inter pares_. That will make four courses\naltogether, the Classical, the Historical, the Biological, and the\nPhysical, for one or more of which all the secondary schools and\ncolleges in that great English-speaking community at which the New\nRepublic aims should be organized. [Footnote: One may, however, suggest\none other course as possible under special conditions. There is one sort\nof art that requires not only a very rigorous and exhaustive training,\nbut also an early commencement, and that is music, at once the most\nisolated and the most universal of arts. Exceptional gifts in the\ndirection of music will have appeared in the schooling stage, and it is\nquite conceivable that the college phase for those who are destined for\na musical career should have as its backbone a \u201cgrind\u201d in the theory\nand practice of music, with languages and general culture relegated to a\nSection ii.]\n\nIt may be objected that this is an idealized proposal, and that\nexisting conditions, which are, of course, the material out of which new\nconditions are to be made do not present anything like this form. As a\nmatter of fact, if only the reader will allow for a certain difference\nin terminology, they do. What I have here called Schooling is, so far as\nthe age of the pupils go, typically presented in Great Britain by what\nis called the elementary school, and in America by the public school,\nand certain schools that unanalytical people in England, mistaking\na social for an educational difference, seem disposed to class with\nsecondary schools, the inferior Grammar Schools, the cheaper private\nschools, and what are called Preparatory Schools, [Footnote: As things\nare, there is no doubt a considerable advantage in the child from a good\nhome going on to a good preparatory school instead of entering a public\nelementary school, and the passage above must not be misread as\na sweeping condemnation of such establishments.] are really also\nelementary schools. The latter have more social pretension and sometimes\nfar less efficiency than a Government Elementary School, but that is all\nthe difference. All these schools admit of a gradual approximation to\nthe ideal of schooling already set forth in the sixth of these papers.\nSome are already within a measureable distance of that ideal. And above\nthese elementary schools, above the School grade proper, and answering\nto what is here called College, there is a great variety of day and\nevening schools of the most varied description which agree all of\nthem in the presentation of a second phase in the educational process\nbeginning about the age of thirteen to sixteen and going on to nineteen\nand twenty. In Great Britain such institutions are sometimes called\nsecondary schools and sometimes colleges, and they have no distinct\nboundary line to separate them from the University proper, on the\none hand, or the organized Science Schools and the Higher Grade Board\nSchools and evening classes of the poorer sort. The Universities and\nmedical schools are, indeed, hampered with work quite similar to that of\nsecondary schools and which the secondary schools have failed to do,\nthe Cambridge undergraduate before his Little-Go, the London University\nmedical student before his Preliminary Scientific Examination, are\nsimply doing the belated work of this second stage. And there is, I\ndoubt not, a similar vague complexity in America. But through the fog\nsomething very like the boundary line here placed about fourteen\nis again and again made out; not only the general requirements for\nefficient education, but the trend of present tendency seems to be\ntowards a scheme of three stages in which a first stage of nine or ten\nyears of increasingly serious Schooling (Primary Education), from a very\nlight beginning about five up to about fourteen, is to be followed by a\nsecond stage of College education (Secondary Education), from fourteen\nor sixteen to an upward boundary determined by class and various\nfacilities, and this is to be succeeded by a third stage, which we will\nnow proceed to consider in detail.\n\nLet us make it clear at once that this third stage is a much ampler\nthing than the graduation or post graduation work of a university. It\nmay or it may not include that as an ingredient. But the intention is to\nexpress all those agencies (other than political, social, and economic\nforces, and the suggestions that arise from them), that go to increase\nand build up the mental structure of the man or woman. This includes the\npulpit, so far as it is still a vehicle for the importation of ideas\nand emotions, the stage, books that do anything more than pass the time,\nnewspapers, the Grove and the Agora. These all, in greater or lesser\ndegrees, work powerfully together to make the citizen. They work most\npowerfully, of course, in those plastic unsettled years that last from\nadolescence to the middle twenties, but often in very slowly diminishing\nintensity right into the closing decades of middle age. However things\nmay have been in the quieter past when newspapers did not exist, when\ncreeds were rigid, plays mere spectacles to be seen only \u201cin Town,\u201d and\nbooks rare, the fact remains that to-day everybody goes much further and\nlearns far more than any of the professedly educational agencies can be\nheld accountable for. There was a time, perhaps, when a man really did\n\u201csettle down\u201d intellectually, at the end of his days of learning, when\nthe only way--outside the libraries and households of a few princely\npersonages--to go on thinking and to participate in the secular\ndevelopment of ideas, was to go to a University and hear and dispute.\nBut those days have gone for a hundred years at least. They have gone\nby, and the strange thing is that a very large proportion of those who\nwrite and talk about education have not discovered they have gone by,\nand still think and talk of Universities as though they were the only\nsources and repositories of wisdom. They conjure up a vision in my mind\nof an absent-minded water-seller, bearing his precious jars and crying\nhis wares knee-deep, and going deeper into a rising stream. Or if\nthat does not seem just to the University in the past, an image of a\ngardener, who long ago developed a novel variety of some great flower\nwhich has now scattered its wind-borne seed everywhere, but who still\nproffers you for sale in a confidential, condescending manner a very\nlittle, very dear packet of that universal commodity. Until the advent\nof Mr. Ewart (with his Public Libraries\u2019 Act), Mr. Passmore Edwards, and\nMr. Andrew Carnegie, the stream of endowment for research and teaching\nflowed just as exclusively to the Universities as it did in Tudor times.\n\nLet us deal, then, first with the finally less important and more formal\nportion of the third stage in the educational process; that is to say,\nwith the University Course. One may conceive that so far as positive\nteaching and learning go, a considerable proportion of the population\nwill never pass beyond the second stage at all. They will fail to keep\nup in the course of that stage, or they will branch off into the special\ndevelopment of some special aptitude. The failures will gravitate into\npositions a little better perhaps, but analogous to those taken up\nby the failures of the Schooling phase. The common clerks and common\nshop-hands, for example, would come out here. The others, who fall out\nwithout completing their College course, but who may not be College\nfailures at all, will be all sorts of artists and specializing persons\nof that type. A great many girls, for economic and other reasons, will\nprobably never get beyond the College stage. They will pass from the\nBiological and Historical courses into employment, or marry, or enter\ndomestic life. But what may finally become a much larger proportion\nof New Republican citizens will either from the beginning, taking the\nCollege course in the evening, or after a year or so of full attendance\nat the College course, start also upon the third-grade work, the\npreparation for the upper ranks of some technical and commercial\nemployment, for the systematic and liberal instruction that will replace\nthe old rule-of-thumb apprenticeship. One can imagine a great variety of\nmethods of combining the apprenticeship phase of serious occupation with\nthe College course. Many waking up to the demands of life may do better\nfor themselves with a desperately clutched College course of evening\nclasses than others who will have progressed comfortably in day\nColleges. There should be opportunity by means of scholarship openings\nfor such cases of a late awakening to struggle back into the higher\neducation. There may be every gradation from such students to those who\nwill go completely and exhaustively through the College and who will\nthen go on at one and twenty or two and twenty to equally complete and\nexhaustive work in the third grade. One imagines the third grade in its\ncompleteness as a most varied choice of thorough studies carried on for\nthree or four years after eighteen or twenty-one, special schools\nof medicine, law, engineering, psychology, and educational science,\neconomics and political science, economics and commercial science,\nphilosophy and theology, and physical science. Quite apart from the\nobvious personal limitation, the discussion of the method of dealing\nspecifically with each of these subjects would be too diversified and\nspecial a theme to occupy me now. The larger fact to which attention has\nto be given is this: that all these studies and all the technical study\nand such like preparation at lower levels of the third stage must be\nas it were floating in a common body of Thought, which is the unifying\nprinciple, the common initiative, the real common life of the truly\ncivilized state, and that this body of Thought is no longer to be\ncontained within the form of a University. It is the larger of the two\nthings. And the last question, therefore, in these speculations is\nthe general organization of that body of Thought, that is to say of\ncontemporary literature, using the word in its widest sense to cover all\nthat is good in journalism, all untechnical speculative, philosophical\nwriting, all that is true and new in the drama, in poetry, fiction or\nany other distinctly literary form, and all scientific publication\nthat is not purely a matter of recording or technical working out, all\nscientific publication that is, that deals with general ideas.\n\nThere was a time when the higher education was conceived of as entirely\na matter of learning. To endow chairs and teachers, and to enable\npromising scholars to come and hear the latter was the complete\norganization of the higher education. It is within quite recent years\nthat the conception of endowing research for its own sake, leaving the\nResearch Professor free altogether from direct teaching or with only a\nfew good pupils whose work consisted chiefly in assimilating his ideas\nand helping with his researches, has become at all widely acceptable.\nIndirectly, of course, the Research Professor is just as much a teacher\nas the Teaching Professor, because his results become accessible as he\nwrites them. Our work now is to broaden both the conception of research\nand of teaching, to recognize that whatever imports fresh and valid\nideas, fresh and valid aspects--not simply of chemical and physical\nmatters, but of aesthetic, social, and political matters, partakes of\nthe honour and claims of research--and that whatever conveys ideas and\naspects vividly and clearly and invigoratingly, not simply by word of\nmouth but by book or picture or article, is teaching. The publication\nof books, the whole business of bringing the contemporary book most\nefficiently home to the general reader, the business of contemporary\ncriticism, the encouragement and support of contemporary writers, _is\njust as vitally important in the modern state as the organisation of\nColleges and Schools_, and just as little to be left to the enterprise\nof isolated individuals working primarily upon commercial lines for\ngain.\n\nThere are two aspects of this question. There is the simpler one of\ngetting an abundance of good books, classical and contemporary, and of\ngood publications distributed everywhere through the English-speaking\nworld, and there is the more subtle and complex problem of getting,\nstimulating, and sustaining the original writers and the original\ncritics and investigators upon whom the general development of\ncontemporary thought, upon whom indeed the progress of the world finally\ndepends. The latter problem may be reserved for the next paper, and here\nwe will deal simply with the question of access and distribution.\n\nFor the present we must assume the quality of the books; all that sort\nof question must be deferred for our final discussion. We will simply\nspeak of good books, serious books, on the one hand, and of light and\nmerely amusing books on the other, in an intentionally vague way.\nThe former sort of books is our present concern; pleasure as an end,\npleasure except as necessary recuperation, is no affair for the state.\n\nBooks are either bought or borrowed for reading, and we have to consider\nwhat can be done to secure the utmost efficiency in the announcement,\nlending and selling of books. We have also to consider the best possible\nmeans of distributing periodicals. We have particularly to consider how\nbooks specifically \u201cgood,\u201d or \u201cthorough,\u201d or \u201cserious,\u201d and periodicals\nthat are \u201csound\u201d and \u201cstimulating\u201d are to be made as widely and\ninvitingly accessible as possible. The machinery we have in hand are\nthe booksellers and the newsvendors, the circulating libraries,\nthe post-office, and the free public libraries that are now being\nenergetically spread throughout the land [by men who, in this aspect,\nanswer very closely to the conception of New Republicans as it is here\nunfolded], and to bring and keep all this machinery to the very\nhighest level of efficiency is integral to the New Republican scheme of\nactivity.\n\nIt may be objected that the organization of bookselling and publishing\nis the discussion of trivial details in the intellectual life of a\npeople, but indeed that is not so. It is a constant trouble, a perpetual\ndrain upon the time and energy of every man who participates in that\nlife, to get the books that are necessary to the development of his\nthoughts. The high price of books, burthensome as it is, is the lesser\nevil, the great trouble is the trouble of access. There are a great\nnumber of people now who read nothing at all, or only promiscuous\nfiction, who would certainly become real readers were books of any other\nsort attractively available. These things are not trivial. The question\nof book distribution is as vitally important to the intellectual health\nof a modern people as are open windows in cases of phthisis. No nation\ncan live under modern conditions unless its whole population is mentally\naerated with books.\n\nThat allusion to the predominance of fiction brings one round to the\nquestion of the Public Library. One is constantly reading attacks on\nthese new and most promising institutions, and always these attacks base\nthemselves on the fact that the number of novels taken out was so many\ntimes, so many hundred times greater than the number of \u201cserious books.\u201d\n Follows nonsense about \u201cscrappy\u201d reading, shallowness of the public\nmind, and so forth. In Great Britain public pomposities take up the\nstrain and deliver large vague, foolish discourses on our intellectual\ndecline. It occurs to none of these people--nothing, indeed, ever does\nseem to occur to this sort of people--to inquire if a man or woman _can_\nget serious reading from a public library. An inspection of a Public\nLibrary Catalogue reveals, no doubt, a certain proportion of \u201cserious\u201d\n books available, but, as a rule, that \u201cserious side\u201d is a quite\nhiggledy-piggledy heap of fragments. Suppose, for example, an\nintelligent mechanic has a proclivity for economic questions, he will\nfind no book whatever to guide him to what literature there may be upon\nthose questions. He will plunge into the catalogue, and discover perhaps\na few publications of the Cobden Club, Henry George\u2019s _Progress and\nPoverty_, J. S. Mill\u2019s _Autobiography_, Ruskin\u2019s _Unto This Last, The\nStatesman\u2019s Year Book for 1895_, and a text-book specially adapted\nto such and such an examination by the tutors of some Correspondence\nCollege. What can you expect from such a supply but a pitiful mental\nhash? What is the most intelligent of mechanics likely to secure for\nhimself from this bran pie? Serious subjects are not to be read in this\nwild disorderly way. But fiction can be. A novel is fairly complete in\nitself, and in sticking to novels, the Public Library readers show, I\nsubmit, a better literary sense and a finer intellectual feeling than\nthe muddle-headed, review-inspired, pretentious people who blame them.\n\nBut manifestly the Public Libraries ought to be equipped for serious\nreading. Too many of them are covers without meat, or, at least, with\nnothing to satisfy a respectable mind hunger. And the obvious direct\nmethod to equip them is to organize an Association, to work, if\npossible, with the Librarians, and get this \u201cserious\u201d side of the\nLibraries, this vitally important side, into better order. A few men\nwith a little money to spend could do what is wanted for the whole\nEnglish-speaking world. The first business of such an Association would\nbe to get \u201cGuides\u201d to various fields of human interest written, guides\nthat should be clear, explicit Bibliographies, putting all the various\nwriters into their relationships one to another, advising what books\nshould be first taken by the beginner in the field, indicating their\ntrend, pointing out the less technical ones and those written obscurely.\nDifferential type might stamp the more or less important works. These\nGuides ought to go to every Public Library, and I think also that all\nsorts of people would be eager to buy them if they were known to be\ncomprehensive, intelligent, and inclusive. They might even \u201cpay.\u201d Then I\nwould suggest this Association should make up lists of books to present\nan outline course or a full course corresponding to each Guide. Where\nbooks were already published in a cheap edition, the Association would\nmerely negotiate with the publisher for the special supply of a\nfew thousand copies of each. Where books were modern and dear the\nAssociation would negotiate with publisher and author, for the printing\nof a special Public Library Edition. They would then distribute these\nsets of books either freely or at special rates, three or four sets or\nmore to each Library. In many cases the Association would probably\nfind it preferable to print its editions afresh, with specially written\nintroductions, defining the relationship of each book to the general\nliterature of the subject. [Footnote: In America Mr. George Iles is\nalready organizing the general appraisement of books for the public\nlibrary reader in a most promising manner. _The Bibliography of the\nLiterature of American History_, with an appraisal of each book, which\nhas appeared under his direction, is edited by Mr. Larned, and is a most\nefficient performance; it is to be kept up to date by Mr. P. P. Wells,\nlibrarian of the Yale Law School. It includes an appendix by Professor\nChanning, of Harvard, which is on the lines of the \u201cGuides\u201d I suggest,\nthough scarcely so full as I should like them. This appendix is\nreprinted separately for five cents, and it is almost all English public\nlibrarians and libraries need so far as American history goes. The\nEnglish Fabian Society, I may note, publishes a sixpenny bibliography of\nsocial and economic science, but it is a mere list for local librarians,\nand of little use to the uninitiated reader.]\n\nSuch an Association in the present state of publishing would become--in\nGreat Britain, at any rate--quite inevitably a Publishing Association.\nA succession of vigorous, well-endowed Voluntary Publishing Associations\nis a quite vital necessity in the modern state. A succession is needed\nbecause each age has its unexpected new needs and new methods, and it\nwould not be a bad idea to endow such associations with a winding-up\nclause that would plump them, stock, unspent capital, and everything\nexcept perhaps a pension fund for the older employ\u00e9s, into the funds of\nsome great Public Library at the end of thirty or forty years. Several\nsuch Associations have played, or are still playing a useful part in\nBritish affairs, but most of them have lost the elasticity of youth.\nLord Brougham\u2019s Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge was one\nof the earliest, and we have today, for example, the Society for the\nPromotion of Christian Knowledge, the Catholic Truth Society, the\nRationalist Press Association, and the Fabian Society. There is a\nreal need to-day for one--indeed there is room for several--Publishing\nAssociations that would set themselves to put bright modern lights into\nthese too often empty lanterns, the Public Libraries. So lit, Great\nBritain and America would have in them an instrument of public\neducation unparalleled in the world, infinitely better adapted to the\nindividualistic idiosyncracy of our peoples than any imitation of German\ncolleges can possibly be. Propaganda of all sorts could be diverted to\nthis purpose. Persons of imperialistic tendencies might well consider\nthe advisability of Guides to good geographical and historical reading\nand sets of travel books, and of geographical and historical works.\nAmericanisers might consider the possibility of sets that would help\nthe common British to a clearer idea of America, and Americans to a\nrealization that the British Islands are something more than three\nobscure patches of land entirely covered by a haughty peerage and\na slightly absurd but historically interesting Crown. . . . Indeed,\nwhatever you want thought or believed, I would say, _give books!_\n\nBut the good New Republican would have a wider scope for his Publishing\nAssociation than to subdue it to this specific doctrine or that. It is\nnot the opinion makes the man; it is not the conclusion makes the\nbook. We live not in the truth, but in the promise of the truth. Sound\nthinking, clearly and honestly set forth, that is the sole and simple\nfood of human greatness, the real substance and the real wealth of\nnations; the key that will at last unlock the door to all we can dream\nof or desire.\n\n\n\n\nX. THOUGHT IN THE MODERN STATE\n\n\nThese speculations upon the possibilities and means of raising\nthe average human result have brought us at last to the problem of\nincreasing the amount of original intellectual activity in the state, as\na culminating necessity. That average child who threads our speculations\nhas been bred and fed, we now suppose, educated in school and college,\nput under stimulating political and social conditions and brought within\nreach and under the influence of the available literature of the time,\nand he is now emerging into adult responsibility. His individual thought\nand purpose has to swim in and become part of the general thought and\npurpose of the community. If that general flow of thought is meagre, his\nindividual life will partake of its limitations. As the general thought\nrises out of its pools and narrow channels towards a wide flood, so\neach individual becomes more capable of free movements and spacious\nco-operations towards the general end. We have bred our citizen and\ntrained him only to waste all his energy at last; he is no better than\nthe water in an isolated dry-season pool in the bed of a tropical river,\nunless he can mingle in the end with the general sea of thought and\naction.\n\nThought is the life, the spontaneous flexibility of a community. A\ncommunity that thinks freely and fully throughout its population is\ncapable of a thousand things that are impossible in an unthinking mass\nof people. The latter, collectively considered, is a large rigid thing,\na lifeless thing, that will break rather than bend, that will die rather\nthan develop. Its inevitable end is dust and extinction. Look at the\nthing from the baser level of political conceptions, and still that\nfloating tide of thought is a necessity. With thought and gathered\nknowledge things that mean tumult, bloodshed, undying hatreds, schisms\nand final disaster to uncivilized races, are accomplished in peace;\nconstitutional changes, economic reorganizations, boundary modifications\nand a hundred grave matters. Thought is the solvent that will make a\nroad for men through Alpine difficulties that seem now unconquerable,\nthat will dissolve those gigantic rocks of custom and tradition that\nloom so forbiddingly athwart all our further plans. For three thousand\nyears and more the Book has been becoming more and more the evident\nsalvation of man. If our present civilization collapse, it will collapse\nas all previous civilizations have collapsed, not from want of will\nbut from the want of organization for its will, for the want of that\nknowledge, that conviction, and that general understanding that would\nhave kept pace with the continually more complicated problems that arose\nabout it. [Footnote: Dr. Beattie Crozier, in his most interesting and\nsuggestive _History of Intellectual Development_, terms the literary\napparatus that holds a people together to a common purpose, the \u201cBible\u201d\n of that people, and suggests that the \u201cBible\u201d of a modern people should\nbe the History of Civilization. His work expresses by very different\nphrases and methods a line of thought closely akin to the thesis of this\npaper.]\n\nOne writes \u201cour present civilization\u201d and of previous civilizations, but\nindeed no civilizations have yet really come into existence. Tribes have\naggregated into nations, nations have aggregated into empires, and then,\nafter a struggle, has come a great confusion of thought, a failure to\nclarify a common purpose, and disintegration. Each successive birth has\ndeveloped a more abundant body of thought, a more copious literature\nthan the last, each has profited by the legacy of the previous failure,\nbut none have yet developed enough. Mankind has been struggling to win\nthis step of a permanent civilized state, and has never yet attained\nany sort of permanency--unless perhaps in China. And that sole imperfect\npermanency was based primarily upon a literature. A literature is the\ntriumphant instrument of the invincible culture of the Jews. Through the\nwhole volume of history the thoughtful reader cannot but exclaim,\nagain and again, \u201cBut if they had only understood one another, all this\nbloodshed, all this crash, disaster, and waste of generations could\nhave been avoided!\u201d Our time has come, and we of the European races are\nmaking our struggle in our turn. Slavery still fights a guerilla war in\nfactory and farm, cruelty and violence peep from every slum, barbaric\nhabits, rude barbaric ways of thinking, grossness and stupidity are\nstill all about us. And yet in many ways we seem to have got nearer to\nthe hope of permanent beginnings than any of those previous essays in\ncivilization. Collectively we know a great deal more, and more of us are\nin touch with the general body of knowledge than was ever the case at\nany earlier stage. Assuredly we know enough to hope that we have\npassed the last of the Dark Ages. But though we hope, we deal with no\ncertainties, and it is upon the broadening and increase of the flow of\nideas that our hope depends.\n\nAt present this stream of thought and common understanding is not nearly\nso wide and deep as it might conceivably become, as it must become if\nindeed this present civilization is to be more than another false start.\nOur society [Footnote: _Anticipations_, Chapter III. Developing\nSocial Elements.] has ceased to be homogeneous, and it has become a\nheterogeneous confusion without any secure common grounds of action,\nunder the stress of its own material achievements. For the lack of\na sufficient literature we specialize into inco-ordinated classes.\nA number of new social types are developing, ignorant of each other,\nignorant almost of themselves, full of mutual suspicions and mutual\nmisunderstandings, narrow, limited, and dangerously incapable of\nintelligent collective action in the face of crises. The medical man\nsees nothing beyond his profession; he misunderstands the artist,\nthe divine, and the engineer. The engineer hates and despises the\npolitician, the lawyer misses the aims of the medical man, the artist\nlives angrily in a stuffy little corner of pure technique; none of them\nread any general literature at all except perhaps a newspaper. Each\nthinks parochially in his own limits, and, except for his specialty,\nis an illiterate man. It is absolutely necessary to the progress of\nour civilization that these isolations should be overcome, that the\ncommunity should become aware of itself collectively and should think as\na whole. And the only thing that can overcome these isolations and put\nthe mass of intelligent men upon a common basis of understanding, is an\nabundant and almost universally influential contemporary literature.\n\nWe have already discussed the possibility of developing the innervation\nof the state, the distribution of books, the stimulation and direction\nof reading, and all the peripheral aspects of literature, and we\ncome now to the difficult and intricate problem of whether we can do\nanything, and what it is we may do, to stimulate the central thought.\nCan we hope to improve the conditions of literary production, to make\nour literature more varied, quintessential and abundant, to enforce it\nwith honour and help, to attract to its service every man and woman with\ngifts of value, and to make the most of these gifts?\n\nQuite a number of people will assert that those things that constitute\nliterature come and go beyond the control and will of man, they will\nspeak of Shakespeare as being a sort of mystical consequence, of Roger\nBacon or Newton as men independent of circumstances, inevitably great.\nAnd if they are by way of being comic writers--the word \u201chumorist,\u201d as\nSchopenhauer long since pointed out, is a stolen lion\u2019s skin for these\ngentry--they will become extremely facetious about the proposed school\nfor Bacons and Shakespeares. But a little reflection will convince\nthe reader that none of the great figures of the past appeared without\ncertain conditions being added to their inherent powers. In the first\nplace, they had to be reasonably sure of a sympathetic and intelligent\natmosphere, however limited in extent--there was no Plato in the heroic\nage, and no Newton during the Heptarchy--and in the second, the medium,\nlanguage or what not, had to be ready for their use. In the third place\nthey needed personally a certain minimum of training and preparation,\nand in the fourth they had to feel that for some reason--not necessarily\na worldly one--the thing was \u201cworth while.\u201d Given a \u201cdeveloper\u201d of these\ningredients, and they appeared. But without this developer they would\nnot have appeared, and it is therefore reasonable to suppose, first,\nthat a great number of men of a quality as rare as were those who\nconstitute the unparalleled roll of English intellectual greatness,\nlived and died undeveloped before ever the developer was compounded\nat all, and that even in the last few hundred years the necessary\ncombination has fallen upon so small an area of our racial life as to\nhave missed far more than it has hit. The second of these papers is,\nindeed, an attempt to present quite convincingly what the comic man\nwill probably regard as his effectual objection, that inherent tendency\ncannot be produced at will. But that the developer may conceivably be\nmade in much greater quantities and spread much wider than it is at\npresent is an altogether different thing. There are, one submits,\nenormous reserves of intellectual force unworked and scarcely touched,\neven to-day.\n\nWe have already discussed the means and possibilities of a net of\neducation that should sweep through the whole social body, and of the\ncreation of an atmosphere more alert and active than our present one.\nWe have now to consider how the greatest proportion of those born with\nexceptional literary powers may be picked out and induced to exercise\nthose powers to the utmost. Let us admit at once that this is a research\nof extraordinary subtlety and complexity, that there are ten thousand\nways of going wrong, and perhaps mischievously wrong. That one may\nsubmit, is not a sufficient reason for abandonment and despair. To take\nan analogous case, it may be a complex and laborious thing to escape out\nof a bear-pit into which one has fallen, but few people will consider\nthat a reason for inaction. Even if they had small hope of doing\nanything effectual they might find speculation and experiments in\nescape, a congenial way of passing the time. It is the sort of project\none should only abandon at the final and conclusive proof of its\nimpossibility. Exactly the same principle applies to human destinies\nand the saving of other lives than our own. As a matter of fact, the\nenterprise is not at all a hopeless one if it is undertaken honestly,\nwarily, and boldly.\n\nLet us consider the lines upon which men must go to ensure the greatest\npossible growth of original thought in the state, original thought of\nwhich what scientific men call Research is only one phase.\n\nBefore we can consider how we may endow him and equip him and help him,\nwe have to consider how we may find the original thinker, and we have,\nif we can, to define him and to discover whatever we can of his\nmethods and habits, his natural history as it were. We are attempting\ngeneralization about a class of remarkably peculiar and difficult\npersons. They are persons either of great intellectual power or simply\nof great imaginative power, whose bias and quality it is to apply these\nexceptional powers not directly and simply to their personal advancement\nand enrichment, but primarily through philosophical, scientific, or\nartistic channels, to the increase of knowledge or of wisdom or of both.\nAnd here is the peculiar point in this problem, they are men who put,\nor who wish to put the best of themselves and most of themselves into\noccupations and interests that do not lead to practical results, that\noften for the individual in open competition and the market fail more or\nless completely to \u201cpay.\u201d Their activities, of course, pay tremendously\nat last for the race, but that is not their personal point of\napplication. They take their lives and their splendid powers, they waste\nthemselves in remote and inaccessible regions and bring back precious\nthings that immediately any sharp commercial-minded man will turn into\ncurrent coin for himself and the use of the world.\n\nThere are certain things follow naturally from this remote\nconcentration, and we must persistently keep them in mind. These men\nof exceptional mental quality, if they are really to do what they are\nspecially fitted to do, with all their power, will be unable to give\ntheir personal affairs, their personal advancement, sustained attention.\nIn a democratic community whose principle is \u201chustle,\u201d in a leisurely\nmonarchy where only opulence, a powerful top-note, and conspicuous\nsocial gifts succeed, they will have either to neglect or taint their\nspecial talent in order to survive. It does not follow that because\na man\u2019s special qualities and inclinations are towards, let us say,\nilluminating inquiries into the constitution of matter, or profound and\nbeautiful or simply beautiful renderings of his individual vision of\nlife, that he is indifferent to or independent of honour, of all the\nfreedoms to do and to rest from doing that come with wealth, or of\nthe many lures and pleasures of life. Posthumous Fame is losing its\nattractiveness in an age which has discovered excellent reasons for\ndoubting whether after all _\u00e6re perennius_ was not rather too strong\na figure. However powerful the impulse to think, to state and create,\nthere comes a point--often a point a long way from starvation--at\nwhich a genius will stop working. Your man of scientific, literary,\nor artistic genius will not work below his conception of the endurable\nminimum, the minimum of hope and honour and attention as well as of\nmaterial things, any more than a coal-heaver will--and we live in a\nperiod when the Standard of Life tends to rise. To secure these things\nwhich most men make the entire objective of their lives is, or should\nbe, an irrelevancy to the man of exceptional gifts. This means an\nenormous handicap for him. Unless, therefore, we endow him and make life\neasy for him so long as he does his proper work, he will have either to\npervert his powers more or less completely to these irrelevant ends, or\nif his powers do not admit of such perversion, he will have no use for\nthem whatever. He will take some subordinate place in the world as a\nrather less than average man and, it may be, find the leisure to give\njust an amateurish ineffectual expression of the thing he might have\nbeen.\n\nNow this is the case with a great deal of scientific and artistic work,\nand with nearly all literature at the present time, throughout the\nEnglish-speaking community. There are a few sciences slightly endowed,\nthere are a few arts patronized with some intelligence and generosity,\nand for the rest there is nothing for it, for the man who wants to do\nthese most necessary and vital things, but to hammer some at least of\nhis precious gold into the semblance of a brass trumpet and to devote\na certain proportion of his time and energy to blowing that trumpet and\nwith that air of conscious modesty the public is pleased to consider\ngenuine, proclaiming the value of his wares. Some men seem able to do\nthis sort of thing without any deterioration in quality and some with\nonly a partial deterioration, but the way of self-advertisement is on a\nslippery slope, and it has brought many a man of indisputable gifts to\nabsolute vulgarity and ineffectiveness of thought and work. At the best\nit is a shameful business, this noise and display, for all that Scott\nand Dickens were past masters in the art. And some men cannot do it at\nall. Moreover, what the good man may do with an effort, the energetic\nquack, whose only gift is simulation, can do infinitely better. It is\nonly in the unprofitable branches of intellectual work that the best now\nholds the best positions unchallenged. In the really popular branches\nof artistic work every honourable success draws a parasitic swarm of\nimitators like fish round bread in a pool. In the world of thought, far\nmore than in the world of politics, the polling method, the democratic\nmethod has broken down, the method that will only permit an author to\nwrite--unless his subject is one that allows him to hold a Professorial\nChair--on condition that he can get a publisher to induce the public to\nbuy a certain minimum number of copies of each of his works, a\nmethod that will give him no rest, once he is in the full swing of\n\u201cproduction,\u201d until the end, no freedom to change his style or matter,\nlest he should lose that paying following by the transition or the\npause.\n\nNow before we can discuss how else we can deal with those who constitute\nthe current thought of the community, we must consider how we are to\ndistinguish what is worth sustaining from what is not.\n\nThis is the public aspect of Criticism. It is the mineralogy of\nliterature and art. At present Criticism, as a public function,\nis discharged by private persons, usually anonymous and frequently\nmysterious, and it is discharged with an astonishing ineffectiveness.\nNowhere in the whole English-speaking world is there anything one can\ncompare to a voice and a judgment--much less any discussion between\nreputable voices. There are periodicals professing criticism, but\nmost of them have the effect of an omnibus in which disconnected\nheterogeneous people are continually coming and going, while the\nconductor asks first one of his fluctuating load and then another\nhaphazard for an opinion on this or that. The branch of literature\nthat has first to be put on a sound footing is critical literature. The\norganization into efficiency of the criticism of contemporary work one\nis forced to believe an almost necessary preliminary to the hopeful\ntreatment of the rest of the current of thought.\n\nThere is, of course, also the suggestion that an English Academy of\nLetters might be of great service in discounting vulgar \u201csuccesses\u201d and\ndirecting respect and attention to literary achievements. One may doubt\nwhether such an Academy as a Royal Charter would give the world would\nbe of any service at all in this connection. But Mr. Herbert Trench has\nsuggested recently that it might be possible to organize a large Guild\nof literary men and women, which would include all capable writers, and\nfrom which a sort of Academy could be elected, either by a general\npoll or, I would suggest, by a Jury of Election or successive Juries\nconfirming one another. The New Republican would like to see such a\nGuild not purely English, but Anglo-American, or in duplicate for the\ntwo countries. With a very carefully chosen nucleus and some little\nelaboration in the admission of new members--whose works might be\nsubmitted to the report of a critical jury--such a Guild might be made\nfairly representative of literary capacity. Election, one may suggest,\nshould be involuntary. There would be a number of literary men, one\nfears--great men some of them--who would absolutely refuse to work with\nany such body, and from the first the Guild would have to determine to\nmake such men unwilling members, members to whom all the honours and\nprivileges of the Guild would be open whenever they chose to abandon\ntheir attitude of scorn or distrust. Such a Guild would furnish a useful\nconstituency, a useful jury-list. It could be used to recommend writers\nfor honours, to check the distribution of public pensions for literary\nservices, perhaps even to send a member or so to the Upper Chamber. It\nis, at any rate, an experiment worth trying.\n\nBut such a Guild at best is only one of many possible expedients in this\nmatter. Another is for a few people of means to subsidize a magazine for\nthe exhaustive criticism of contemporary work for a few years. Quite a\nsmall number of people, serious in this matter, a couple of thousand or\nso, could float such a magazine by the simple expedient of guaranteeing\nsubscriptions. [Footnote: It may be suggested that among other methods\nof putting the criticism of contemporary literature upon a better\nfooting is one that might conceivably be made to pay its own expenses.\nThere is so much room for endowments nowadays that where one can get at\nthe purse of the general public one should certainly prefer it to that\nof the generous but overtaxed donor. The project would require a strong\nendowment, but that endowment might be of the nature of a guarantee\nfund, and might in the end return unimpaired to the lender. The\nsuggestion is the establishment of a well-planned and reasonably cheap\nmonthly or weekly critical magazine, written on a level at present\nunattainable--chiefly because of the low rate of payment for all\nliterary criticism. There can be no doubt among those who read much\namong literary and quasi-literary periodicals in English that there is a\nvery considerable amount of high critical ability available. Buried and\nobscured to an ineffectual degree among much that is formal, foolish,\nand venial, there is to be found to-day a really quite remarkable number\nof isolated reviews, criticisms and articles in which style is\napparent, in which discrimination shines fitfully, in which there is the\nunmistakable note of honest enthusiasm for good work. For the most part,\nsuch criticism bears also the marks of haste--as, indeed, it must do\nwhen a review as long as the column of a daily paper, a day\u2019s work, that\nis, of steady writing, earns scarcely a pound. But the stuff is there.\nScarcely a number of the _Academy_, or the _Spectator_, scarcely a week\nof the _Morning Post_, the _Daily News_, or the _Daily Chronicle_, but\nthere is a review, or a piece of a review, that has the stigmata of\nliterature. And this suggestion is that some of these writers shall\nbe got together, shall be paid at least as well as popular short-story\nwriters are paid, shall each have a definite department marked out under\na trustworthy editor, and be pledged to limit their work to the pages of\nthis new critical magazine. Their work would be signed, and there they\nwould be, conspicuously urged to do the best that was in them, _apropos_\nof more or less contemporary books and writers. They would have leisure\nfor deliberate judgments, for the development of that consistency of\nthought which the condition of journalism renders so impossible. This\nreview would mean for them status, reputation, and opportunity. They\nwould deal with contemporary fiction, with contemporary speculative\nliterature, and with the style, logic, methods and vocabulary of\nscientific and philosophical writers. Their work would form the mass of\nthe magazine, but there would also be (highly paid) occasional writers,\ntowards whose opinions the regular staff would very carefully define\ntheir attitude. The project, of course, in foolish hands, might be very\nfoolishly misinterpreted. It might be quite easy to drive a team of\negregious asses in this way over contemporary work, leaving nothing but\nhoof-marks and injuries, but we are assuming the thing to be efficiently\ndone. It is submitted that such a magazine, patiently and generously\nsustained for a few years, would at last probably come to pay its way.\nUnless the original selection of the staff was badly done, it would by\nsheer persistent high quality win its way to authority with the reading\npublic, and so fill its covers with a swelling mass of advertisement\npages. And once it paid, then forthwith a dozen rivals would be in the\nfield, all of them, of course, also paying highly for critical matter\nand competing for critics of standing. Such an enterprise would be a\nlever for criticism through the whole of our literary world.]\n\nThen it should also be possible to endow university lectureships and\nreaderships in contemporary criticism, lectureships and readerships in\nwhich questions of style and method could be illustrated by quotation\n(not necessarily of a flattering sort) from contemporary work.\nWhy should there not be an endowment which would enable a man of\nindisputable critical capacity to talk through an illuminating course,\nto sit before a little pile of marked books and reading sometimes here\nand sometimes there and talking between, to distinguish the evil from\nthe good? What a wholesome thing to have Mr. Henley, for example, at\nthat in the place of some of the several specialists who will lecture\nyou so admirably on the Troubadours! How good to hear Mr. Frederic\nHarrison (with some one to follow) adjusting all our living efforts\nto the scale of the divine Comte, and Mr. Walkley and Mr. Herbert Paul\nmaking it perfectly clear that a dead dog is better than a living lion,\nby demonstrations on the lion. Criticism to-day is all too much in\nthe case of that doctor whose practice was deadly, indeed, but his\npost-mortems admirable! No doubt such lectures would consist at times\nof highly contentious matter, but what of that? There could be several\nchairs. It would not be an impossible thing to set a few Extension\nLecturers afloat upon the same channel. We have now numerous courses of\nlectures on the Elizabethan Dramatists and the evolution of the Miracle\nPlay, and the people who listen to this sort of thing will depart\nstraight away to recreate their souls in the latest triumph of vehement\nbookselling. Why not base the literary education of people upon the\nliterature they read instead of upon literature that they are scarcely\nmore in touch with than with Chinese metaphysics? A few carefully\nchosen pages of contemporary rubbish, read with a running comment, a few\ncarefully chosen pages of what is, comparatively, not rubbish, a little\nlucid discussion of effects and probabilities, would do more to quicken\nthe literary sense of the average person than all the sham enthusiasm\nabout Marlowe and Spenser that was ever concocted. There are not a few\nauthors who would be greatly the better and might even be subsequently\ngrateful for a lecture upon themselves in this style. Let no one say\nfrom this that the classics of our tongue are depreciated here. But\nthe point is, that for people who know little of history, little of\nour language, whose only habitual reading is the newspaper, the popular\nnovel, and the sixpenny magazine, to plunge into the study of works\nwritten in the language of a different period, crowded with obsolete\nallusions, and saturated with obsolete ideas and extinct ways of\nthinking, is pretentious and unprofitable, and that most of such\nExtension Lecturing is fruitless and absurd. And I appeal to these two\nfacts in confirmation, to the thousands of people who every year listen\nto such lectures and to the hundreds of thousands of copies of our\nnational classics sold by the booksellers, on the one hand, and on the\nother to the absolute incapacity of our public to judge any new literary\nthing or to protect itself in any way from violently and vulgarly\nboomed rubbish of the tawdriest description. Without a real and popular\ncriticism of contemporary work as a preliminary and basis, the criticism\nand circulation of the classics is quite manifestly vain.\n\nBy such expedients very much might be done for the literary atmosphere.\nBy endowing a critical review or so, by endowing a few chairs and\nreaderships in contemporary criticism, by organizing a Guild of\nLiterature and a system of exemplary honours for literature, by\nstimulating the general discussion of contemporary work through lectures\nand articles, criticism could, I believe, be made \u201cworth while\u201d to an\nextent that is now scarcely imaginable, and there might be created an\natmosphere of attention, appreciation, and judgment that would be in\nitself extraordinarily stimulating to all forms of literary effort.\nOf course all this sort of thing may be done cheaply, stupidly,\ndishonestly, and vulgarly, and one imagines the shy and exquisite\ntype of mind recoiling from the rude sanity of these suggestions. But,\nindeed, they need not be done any other way than finely and well. People\nwhose conception of what is good in art and literature is inseparable\nfrom rarity ought, I submit, to collect stamps. At an earlier phase in\nthis series of discussions there was broached a project for an English\nLanguage Society, which would set itself to do or get done a number of\nservices necessary to the teaching and extension of the language of our\nuniversal peoples. With such a Society those who undertook this project\nfor the habilitation of criticism would necessarily co-operate and\ninterlock.\n\nIt is upon this basis of an organized criticism and of a well-taught and\ncherished language that the English literature of the Twentieth Century,\nthe literature of analysis and research, and the literature of creative\nimagination, has to stand. Upon such a basis it becomes possible to\nconsider the practicability of the endowment of general literature.\nFor to that at last we come. I submit that it is only by the payment of\nauthors, and if necessary their endowment in a spacious manner, and in\nparticular by the entire separation of the rewards of writing from the\naccidents of the book market, that the function of literature can be\nadequately discharged in the modern state. The laws of supply and demand\nbreak down altogether in this case. We have to devise some means of\nsustaining those who discharge this necessary public function in the\nprogressive state.\n\nThere are several general propositions in this matter that it may be\nworth while to state at this point. The first is that both scientific\ngeneralization and literature proper have been and are and must continue\nto be the product of a quite exceptionally heterogeneous aggregation of\npersons. They are persons of the most various temperaments, of the most\nvaried lop-sidedness, of the most various special gifts, and the most\nvarious social origins, having only this in common, the ability to add\nto the current of the world\u2019s thought. They are not to be dealt with\nas though they were a class of persons all of exceptional general\nintelligence, of exceptional strength of character, or of exceptional\nsanity. To do that, would be to hand over literature from the man of\ngenius to the man of talent. A single method of selection, help, honour,\nand payment, measurement by one general standard cannot, therefore, be\naccepted as a solution. There must not be any one single central body,\nany authoritative single control, for such a body or authority would\ninevitably develop a \u201ccharacter\u201d in its activity and greet with especial\nfavour (or with especial disfavour) certain types. In this case, at any\nrate, organization is not centralization, and it is also not uniformity.\nThe proposition may indeed be thrown out that the principle of Many\nChannels (a principle involving the repudiation both of the monarchical\nand the democratic idea) is an essential one to go upon in all questions\nof honour and promotion in the modern state. And not only Many Channels,\nbut Many Methods. Whatever the value of that as a universally valuable\nproposition, it certainly applies here.\n\nAnd next we may suggest that we must take great care that we pay for the\nthing we need and not for some subsidiary qualification of less value.\nThe reward must be directly related to the work, and independent of\nall secondary considerations. It must have no taint of charity. The\nrecipient must not have to show that he is in want. Because a writer or\ninvestigator is a sober, careful body and quite solvent in a modest\nway, that is no reason why we should not pay him stimulatingly for his\nvaluable contributions to the general mind, or because he is a shiftless\nseeker of misfortunes, why we should pay him in excess. But pay him\nanyhow. Almost scandalous private immorality, I submit, should not bar\nthe literary worker from his pay any more than it justifies our stealing\nhis boots. We must deal with immorality as immorality, and with work as\nwork. Above all, at the present time, we must keep clearly in view that\npopularity has no relation to literary, philosophic or scientific value,\nit neither justifies nor condemns. At present, except in the case\nof certain forms of research and in relation to the altogether too\ncharitable-looking British Civil List, we make popularity the sole\nstandard by which a writer may be paid. The novelist, for example,\ngets an income extraordinarily made up of sums of from sixpence to two\nshillings per person sufficiently interested to buy his or her books.\nThe result is entirely independent of real literary merit. The sixpences\nand shillings are, of course, greatly coveted, and success in getting\nthem on anything like a magnificent scale makes a writer, good or bad,\nvehemently hated and abused, but the hatred and abuse--unaccompanied as\nthey are by any proposals for amelioration--are hardly less silly than\nthe system. And for our present purpose it really does not matter if the\nfortunate persons who interest the great public are or are not overpaid.\nOur concern is with the underpaid, and with all this affair of mammoth\neditions and booming only as it affects that aspect. We are concerned\nwith the exceptional man\u2019s necessities and not with his luxuries. The\nfly of envy in the True Artist\u2019s ointment may, I think, very well stop\nthere until magnanimity becomes something more of a cult in the literary\nand artistic worlds than it is at the present time.\n\nThis, perhaps, is something of a digression from our second general\nproposition, that we must pay directly for the work itself. But it leads\nto a third proposition. The whole history of literature and science\nabundantly shows that no critical judgment is more than an approximation\nto the truth. Criticism should be equal to the exposure of the imitator\nand the pure sham, of course, it should be able to analyze and expose\nthese types, but above that level is the disputed case. At the present\ntime in England only a very few writers or investigators hold high\npositions by anything approaching the unanimous verdict of the\nintelligent public--of that section of the public that counts. In the\ndepartment of fiction, for example, there is a very audible little\nminority against Mr. Kipling, and about Mr. George Moore or Mr. Zangwill\nor Mr. Barrie one may hear the most diverse opinions. By the test\nof blackballing, only the unknown would survive. The valuation is as\nerratic in many branches of science. The development of criticism will\ndiminish, but it certainly will not end, this sort of thing, and since\nour concern is to stimulate rather than punish, we must do just exactly\nwhat we should not do if we were electing men for a club, we must\ninclude rather than exclude. I am told that Americans remark in relation\nto University endowments, \u201cwe speculate in research,\u201d and that will\nserve for only a slight exaggeration of this third proposition. So long\nas we get most of the men of exceptional mental gifts in the community\nunder the best conditions for their work, it scarcely matters if, for\neach one of them, we get four or five shams or mere respectabilities\nupon our hands. Respectabilities and shams have a fatal facility for\nliving on the community anyhow, and there is no more reason in not doing\nthese things on their account than there would be in burning a house\ndown to get rid of cockroaches and rats. The rat poison of sound\ncriticism--to follow that analogy--is the remedy here. And if the\nrespectability lives, his work at any rate dies.\n\nBut if the reward must be directly for the work, it must not have any\nquantitative relation to the output of work. It is quality we want, not\nquantity; we want absolutely to invert the abominable conditions of\nthe present time by which every exercise of restraint costs an author a\nfine. It is my personal conviction that almost every well-known\nliving writer is or has been writing too much. \u201cNo book, no income\u201d is\npractically what the world says to an author, and the needy authors make\na pace the independent follow; there is no respect for fine silences, if\nyou cease you are forgotten. The literature of the past hundred years\nis unparalleled in the world\u2019s history in this feature that the greater\nportion of it is or has been written under pressure. It was the case\nwith Scott, the case with Dickens, Tennyson, even with Browning, and\na host of other great contributors to the edifice. No one who loves\nDickens and knows anything of the art he practised but deplores that\nevil incessant demand that never permitted him to revise his plans,\nto alter, rearrange and concentrate, that never released him from the\nobligation to touch dull hearts and penetrate thick skins with obtrusive\npathos and violent caricature.\n\nOnce embarked upon his course, he never had a moment for reconstruction.\nHe had no time to read, no time to think. A writer nowadays has to think\nin books and articles; to read a book he must criticize or edit it; if\nhe dare attempt an experiment, a new departure, comes his agent in a\npanic. Every departure from the lines of his previous success involves\nchaffering, unless he chance to be a man of independent means. When one\nreflects on these things it is only amazing that the average book is not\nmore copious and crude and hasty than it is, and how much in the way of\ncomprehensive and unifying work is even now in progress. There are all\ntoo many books to read. It would be better for the public, better\nfor our literature, altogether better, if this obligation to write\nperpetually were lifted. Few writers but must have felt at times the\ndesire to stop and think, to work out some neglected corner of their\nminds, to admit a year\u2019s work as futile and thrust it behind the fire,\nor simply to lie fallow, to camp and rest the horses. Let us, therefore,\npay our authors as much not to write as though they wrote; instead of\nthat twenty or thirty volumes, which is, I suppose, the average product,\nlet us require a book or so, worth having. Which means, in fact, that we\nmust find some way of giving an author, once he has proved his quality,\na fixed income quite irrespective of what he does. We might, perhaps,\nrequire evidence that he was doing some work now and then, we might\nprohibit alien occupations, but for my own part I do not think even that\nis necessary. Most authors so sustained will write, and all will have\nwritten. We are presupposing, be it remembered, the stimulus of honours\nand criticism and of further honours and further emoluments.\n\nFinally, in making schemes for the endowment of original mental\nactivity, we must not ignore the possibility of a perversion that has\nalready played its part in the histories of painting and music, and\nthat is the speculative financing of promising candidates for these\nendowments. If we are going to make research, criticism, and creation\n\u201cworth while\u201d we must see to it that in reality we are not simply making\nit worth while for Solomons and Moses to \u201cspot\u201d the early promise, to\nstimulate its modesty, to help it to its position, and to draw the major\nprofits of the enterprise. The struggling young man of exceptional gifts\nwho is using his brains not to make his position but to do his destined\nwork, is by that at a great disadvantage in dealing with the business\nman, and it is to the interest of the community that he should be\nprotected from his own inexperience and his own self-distrust. The\naverage Whitechapel Jew could cheat a Shakespeare into the workhouse in\nno time, and our idea is rather to make the world easy for Shakespeares\nthan to hand it over to the rat activities of the \u201csmart\u201d business man.\n\nFreedom of Contract is an idea no one outside a debating society dreams\nof realizing in the state. We protect tenants from landlords in all\nsorts of ways, our law overrides all sorts of bargains, and in the\nimportant case of marriage we put almost all the conditions outside\nbargaining and speculative methods altogether by insisting upon one\nuniversal contract or none. We protect women who are physically and\neconomically weak in this manner, not so much for their own good as the\ngood of the race. The state already puts literary property into a class\napart by limiting its duration. At a certain point, which varies in\ndifferent circumstances, copyright expires. It is possible for an\nauthor, whose fame comes late, to be present as a row of dainty volumes\nin half the comfortable homes in the world, while his grandchildren\nbeg their bread. The author\u2019s blood is sacrificed to the need the whole\nworld has of cheap access to his work. And since we do him this injury\nfor the sake of our intellectual life, it is surely not unreasonable to\ninterfere for his benefit also if that subserves the greater end.\n\nNow there are two ways at least in which the author may be and should be\nprotected from the pressure of immediate necessities. The first of these\nis to render his copyright in his work inalienably his, to forbid him to\nmake any bargain by which the right to revise, abbreviate, or alter what\nhe has written passes out of his hands, and to make every such bargain\ninvalid. He would be free himself to alter or to endorse alterations,\nbut to yield no _carte blanche_ to others. He would be free also to make\nwhatever bargain he chose for the rights of publication. But, and this\nis the second proposal, no bargain he made should be valid for a longer\nperiod than seven years from the date of its making. Every seven years\nhis book would come back into his control, to suppress, revise, resell,\nor do whatever he liked to do with it. Only in one way could he escape\nthis property, and that would be by declaring it void and making his\ncopyright an immediate present to the world. And upon this proposal it\nis possible to base one form--and a very excellent form--of paying for\nthe public service of good writing and so honouring men of letters\nand thought, and that is by buying and, more or less, completely\nextinguishing their copyrights, and so converting them into contemporary\nclassics.\n\nThroughout these papers a disposition to become concrete has played\nunchecked. Always definite proposals have been preferred to vague\ngeneralizations, and here again it will be convenient to throw out an\nalmost detailed scheme--simply as an illustration of the possibilities\nof the case. I am going to suggest to the reader that to endow a\nthousand or so authors, as authors, would be a most wise and admirable\nproceeding for a modern statesman, and I would ask him before he\ndismisses this suggestion as absurd and impossible, to rest contented\nwith no vague rejection but to put to himself clearly why the thing\nshould under present conditions be absurd and impossible. Always in the\npast the need of some organ for the establishment and preservation of a\ncommon tone and substance of thought in the state has been recognized;\ncommonly this organ has taken the form of a Church, a group of Churches\n(as in America) or an educational system (as in China). But all previous\nschemes of social and political organization have been static, have\naimed at a permanent state. Our modern state we know can only live by\nadaptation, and we have to provide not a permanent but a developing\nsocial, moral and political culture. Our new scheme must include not\nonly priests and teachers but prophets and seekers. Literature is a\nvitally necessary function of the modern state.\n\nLet us waive for the moment the subtle difficulty that arises when we\nask who are the writers of literature, the guides and makers of opinion,\nthe men and women of wisdom, insight, and creation, as distinguished\nfrom those who merely resonate to the note of the popular mind; let us\nassume that this is determined, and let us make a scheme in the air to\nsupport these people under such conditions as will give us their best.\nSuppose the thing done boldly, and that for every hundred thousand\npeople in our population we subsidize an author--if we can find as many.\nSuppose we give him some sort of honour or title and the alternative\nof going on writing under copyright conditions--which many popular\nfavourites would certainly prefer--or of giving up his copyrights to the\npublic and receiving a fixed income, a respectable mediocre income, \u00a3800\nor \u00a31000 for example.\n\nThat means four hundred or more subsidized authors for Great Britain,\nwhich would work out, perhaps, as eighteen or twenty every year, and a\nproportionate number for America and the Colonial States of the British\nEmpire. Suppose, further, that from this general body of authors we\ndraw every year four or five of the seniors to form a sort of Academy,\na higher stage of honour and income; this would probably give something\nunder a hundred on this higher stage. Taking the income of the two\nstages as \u00a31000 and \u00a32000 respectively, this would work out at about\n\u00a3500,000 a year for Great Britain--a quite trivial addition to what\nis already spent on educational work. A scheme that would provide for\nwidows and children whose education was unfinished, and for the official\nprinting and sale of correct texts of the books written, would still\nfall within the dimensions of a million pounds. I am assuming this will\nbe done quite in addition to the natural growth of Universities and\nColleges, to the evolution of great text-books and criticism, and to the\norganization and publication of special research in science and letters.\nThis is to be an endowment specifically for unspecialized literature,\nfor untechnical philosophy that is, and the creative imagination.\n\nIt must not be imagined that such an endowment would be a new payment,\nby the community. In all probability we are already paying as much,\nor more, to authors, in the form of royalties, of serial fees, and the\nlike. We are paying now with an unjust unevenness--we starve the new and\ndeep and overpay the trite and obvious. Moreover, the community would\nhave something in exchange for its money; it would have the copyright\nof the works written. It may be suggested that by a very simple device a\nlarge proportion of these payments could be recovered. Suppose that\nall books, whether copyright or not, and all periodicals sold above a\ncertain price--sixpence, let us say--had to bear a defaced stamp of--for\nexample--a halfpenny for each shilling of price. This would probably\nyield a revenue almost sufficient to cover these literary pensions. In\naddition the books of the pensioned authors might bear an additional\nstamp as the equivalent of the present royalty.\n\nThe annual selection of eighteen or twenty authors might very well be\na dispersed duty. One or two each might be appointed in some way by\ngrouped Universities, or by three or four of the Universities taken in\nrotation, by such a Guild of Authors as we have already considered, by\nthe British Academy of History and Philosophy, by the Royal Society,\nby the British Privy Council. The Jury system would probably be of very\ngreat value in making these appointments.\n\nThat is a rough sketch of a possible scheme--presented in the most\nopen-minded way. It would not meet all conceivable cases, so it would\nneed to be supplemented in many directions; moreover, it is presented\nwith hideous crudity, but for all that, would not something of the\nsort work well? How would it work? There would certainly be a great\ndiminution in the output of written matter from the thousand or more\nrecognized writers this would give us, and almost as certainly a great\nrise in effort and deliberation, in distinction, quality, and value\nin their work. This would also appear in the work of their ambitious\njuniors. Would it extinguish anything? I do not see that it would. Those\nwho write trivially for the pleasure of the public would be just as well\noff as they are now, and there would be no more difficulty than there is\nat present for those who begin writing. Less, indeed; for the thousand\nsubsidized writers, at least, would not be clamorously competing to fill\nup magazines and libraries; they might set a higher and more difficult\nstandard, but they would leave more space about them. The thing would\nscarcely affect the development of publishing and book distribution,\nnor injure nor stimulate--except by raising the standard and ideals of\nwriting--newspapers, magazines, and their contributors in any way.\n\nI do not believe for one moment the thing would stop at such a\nsubsidized body of authors, such a little aristocracy of thought, as\nthis project presents. But it would be an efficient starting-point.\nThere are those who demand a thinking department for Army and Navy; and\nthat idea admits of extension in this direction, this organized general\nliterature of mine would be the thinking organization of the race. Once\nthis deliberate organization of a central ganglion of interpretation and\npresentation began, the development of the brain and nervous system in\nthe social body would proceed apace. Each step made would enable the\nnext step to be wider and bolder. The general innervation of society\nwith books and book distributing agencies would be followed by the\nlinking up of the now almost isolated mental worlds of science, art,\nand political and social activity in a system of intercommunication and\nsympathy.\n\nWe have now already in the history of the world one successful\nexperiment in the correlation of human endeavour. Compare all that was\naccomplished in material science by the isolated work of the great men\nbefore Lord Verulam, and what has been done since the system of\nisolated inquiry gave place to a free exchange of ideas and collective\ndiscussion. And this is only one field of mental activity and one\naspect of social needs. The rest of the intellectual world is still\nunorganized. The rest of the moral and intellectual being of man is\ndwarfed and cowed by the enormous disproportionate development of\nmaterial science and its economic and social consequences. What if we\nextend that same spirit of organization and free reaction to the whole\nworld of human thought and emotion? That is the greater question at\nwhich this project of literary endowment aims.\n\nIt may seem to the reader that all this insistence upon the supreme\nnecessity for an organized literature springs merely from the obsession\nof a writer by his own calling, but, indeed, that is not so. We who\nwrite are not all so blinded by conceit of ourselves that we do not know\nsomething of our absolute personal value. We are lizards in an empty\npalace, frogs crawling over a throne. But it is a palace, it is a\nthrone, and, it may be, the reverberation of our ugly voices will\npresently awaken the world to put something better in our place. Because\nwe write abominably under pressure and for unhonoured bread, none the\nless we are making the future. We are making it atrociously no doubt;\nwe are not ignorant of that possibility, but some of us, at least, would\nlike to do it better. We know only too well how that we are out of touch\nwith scholarship and contemplation. We must drive our pens to live\nand push and bawl to be heard. We must blunder against men an ampler\ntraining on either side would have made our allies, we must smart and\nlose our tempers and do the foolish things that are done in the heat of\nthe day. For all that, according to our lights, we who write are trying\nto save our world in a lack of better saviours, to change this mental\ntumult into an order of understanding and intention in which great\nthings may grow. The thought of a community is the life of that\ncommunity, and if the collective thought of a community is disconnected\nand fragmentary, then the community is collectively vain and weak. That\ndoes not constitute an incidental defect, but essential failure. Though\nthat community have cities such as the world has never seen before,\nfleets and hosts and glories, though it count its soldiers by the army\ncorps and its children by the million, yet if it hold not to the reality\nof thought and formulated will beneath these outward things, it will\npass, and all its glories will pass, like smoke before the wind, like\nmist beneath the sun; it will become at last only one more vague and\nfading dream upon the scroll of time, a heap of mounds and pointless\nhistory, even as are Babylon and Nineveh.\n\n\n\n\nXI. THE MAN\u2019S OWN SHARE\n\n\nIn this manner it is that the initial proposition of New Republicanism\nworks itself out. It shapes into the rough outline of an ideal new\nstate, a New Republic, a great confederation of English-speaking\nrepublican communities, each with its non-hereditary aristocracy,\nscattered about the world, speaking a common language, possessing a\ncommon literature and a common scientific and, in its higher stages at\nleast, a common educational organization, and it indicates in crude,\nbroad suggestions the way towards that state from the present condition\nof things. It insists as a cardinal necessity, not indeed as an end but\nas an indispensable instrument by which this world state must be\nmade and sustained, upon a great, a contemporary, and a universally\naccessible literature, a literature not simply of thought and science\nbut of power, which shall embody and make real and living the sustaining\ndreams of the coming time, and which shall draw together and bring into\nintelligent correlation all those men and women who are working now\ndiscontentedly and wastefully towards a better order of life. For,\nindeed, a great number of men and women are already working for this\nNew Republic, working with the most varied powers and temperaments and\nformul\u00e6, to raise the standard of housing and the standard of living,\nto enlarge our knowledge of the means by which better births may be\nattained, to know more, to educate better, to train better, to write\ngood books for teachers, to organize our schools, to make our laws\nsimpler and more honest, to clarify our political life, to test and\nreorganize all our social rules and conventions, to adjust property to\nnew conditions, to improve our language, to increase intercourse of\nall sorts, to give our ideals the justice of a noble presentation; at a\nthousand points the New Republic already starts into being. And while\nwe scattered pioneers and experimenters piece together our scattered\nefforts into a coherent scheme, while we become more and more clearly\nconscious of our common purpose, year by year the old order and those\nwho have anchylosed to the old order, die and pass away, and the\nunhampered children of the new time grow up about us.\n\nIn a few years this that I call New Republicanism here, under I know not\nwhat final name, will have become a great world movement conscious of\nitself and consistent within itself, and we who are making now the crude\ndiscovery of its possibility will be working towards its realization in\nour thousand different ways and positions. And coming to our help, to\nreinforce us, to supersede us, to take the growing task out of our hands\nwill come youth, will come our sons and daughters and those for whom we\nhave written our books, for whom we have taught in our schools, for whom\nwe have founded and ordered libraries, toiled in laboratories, and in\nwaste places and strange lands; for whom we have made saner and cleaner\nhomes and saner and cleaner social and political arrangements, foregoing\na hundred comfortable acquiescences that these things might be done.\nYouth will come to take over the work from us and go on with it in a\nbolder and ampler manner than we in these limited days dare to attempt.\n\nAssuredly youth will come to us, if this is indeed to be the dawn of\na new time. Without the high resolve of youth, without the constant\naccession of youth, without recuperative power, no sustained forward\nmovement is possible in the world. It is to youth, therefore, that this\nbook is finally addressed, to the adolescents, to the students, to those\nwho are yet in the schools and who will presently come to read it, to\nthose who being still plastic can understand the infinite plasticity of\nthe world. It is those who are yet unmade who must become the makers.\nAfter thirty there are few conversions and fewer fine beginnings; men\nand women go on in the path they have marked out for themselves. Their\nimaginations have become firm and rigid even if they have not withered,\nand there is no turning them from the conviction of their brief\nexperience that almost all that is, is inexorably so. Accomplished\nthings obsess us more and more. What man or woman over thirty in Great\nBritain dares to hope for a republic before it is time to die? Yet the\nthing might be. Or for the reunion of the English-speaking peoples? Or\nfor the deliverance of all of our blood and speech from those fouler\nthings than chattel slavery, child and adolescent labour? Or for an\ninfantile death-rate under ninety in the thousand and all that would\nmean in the common life? These and a hundred such things are coming now,\nbut only the young know how near they may be brought to us. As for us\nothers, we plant a tree never believing we shall eat the fruit, we build\na house never hoping to live therein. The desert, we believe in our\nhearts, is our home and our destined grave, and whatever we see of the\nPromised Land we must see through the eyes of the young.\n\nWith each year of their lives they come more distinctly into conscious\nparticipation with our efforts. Those soft little creatures that we have\nfigured grotesquely as dropping from an inexorable spout into our\nworld, those weak and wailing lumps of pink flesh more helpless than any\nanimal, for whom we have planned better care, a better chance of life,\nbetter conditions of all sorts, those laval souls who are at first\nhelpless clay in our hands, presently insensibly have become helpers\nbeside us in the struggle. In a little while they are beautiful\nchildren, they are boys and girls and youths and maidens, full of the\nzest of new life, full of an abundant, joyful receptivity. In a little\nwhile they are walking with us, seeking to know whither we go, and\nwhither we lead them, and why. Our account of the men-makers is not\ncomplete until we add to birth and school and world, the increasing\nelement of deliberate co-operation in the man or woman we are seeking to\nmake. In a little while they are young men and women, and then men and\nwomen, save for a fresher vigour, like ourselves. For us it comes\nat last to fellowship and resignation. For them it comes at last to\nresponsibility, to freedom, and to introspection and the searching of\nhearts. We must if we would be men-makers, as the first and immediate\npart of the business, correct and finish ourselves. The good New\nRepublican must needs ask and ask repeatedly: What have I done and what\nam I doing with myself while I tamper with the lives of others? His\nself-examination will be no monstrous egotism of perfectibility, indeed,\nno virtuosity of virtue, no exquisite retreat and slinking \u201cout of the\nrace, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and\nheat.\u201d But he will seek perpetually to gauge his quality, he will watch\nto see himself the master of his habits and of his powers; he will take\nhis brain, blood, body, and lineage as a trust to be administered for\nthe world. To know all one can of one\u2019s self in relation to the world\nabout one, to think out all one can, to take nothing for granted except\nby reason of one\u2019s unavoidable limitations, to be swift, indeed, but not\nhasty, to be strong but not violent, to be as watchful of one\u2019s self as\nit is given one to be, is the manifest duty of all who would subserve\nthe New Republic. For the New Republican, as for his forerunner the\nPuritan, conscience and discipline must saturate life. He must be ruled\nby duties and a certain ritual in life. Every day and every week he must\nset aside time to read and to think, to commune with others and himself,\nhe must be as jealous of his health and strength as the Levites of\nold. Can we in this generation make but a few thousands of such men and\nwomen, men and women who are not afraid to live, men and women with a\ncommon faith and a common understanding, then, indeed, our work will be\ndone. They will in their own time take this world as a sculptor takes\nhis marble and shape it better than all our dreams.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nA PAPER ON ADMINISTRATIVE AREAS READ BEFORE THE FABIAN SOCIETY\n\n{Footnote: I am indebted to Mr. E. R. Pease for some valuable\ncorrections.--H. G. W.}\n\n\nLet me begin this paper upon the question of Scientific Administrative\nareas in relation to municipal undertakings by defining the sort of\nSocialism I profess. Because, you know, it is quite impossible to\nconceal that there are very many different sorts of socialism, and your\nsociety is, and has long been, a remarkably representative collection of\nthe various types. We have this much in common, however, that we insist\nupon and hammer home and never lose sight of the fact that Property is\na purely provisional and law-made thing, and that the law and the\ncommunity which has given may also, at its necessity, take away. The\nwork which the Socialist movement has done is to secure the general\nrepudiation of any idea of sacredness about property. But upon the\nextent to which it is convenient to sanction a certain amount of\nproperty, and the ways in which existing excesses of property are to\nbe reduced, Socialists differ enormously. There are certain extreme\nexpressions of Socialism that you will connect with the names of Owen\nand Fourier, and with Noyes\u2019s \u201cHistory of American Socialism,\u201d in which\nthe abolition of monopoly is carried out with logical completeness to\nthe abolition of marriage, and in which the idea seems to be to extend\nthe limits of the Family and of intimate intercourse to include all\nhumanity. With these Socialisms I have nothing in common. There are a\nlarge number of such questions concerning the constitution of the family\nupon which I retain an open and inquiring mind, and to which I find the\nanswers of the established order, if not always absolutely incorrect, at\nany rate glaringly incomplete and totally inadequate; but I do not\nfind the answers of these Socialistic Communities in any degree more\nsatisfactory.\n\nThere are, however, more limited Socialisms, systems which deal mainly\nwith economic organizations, which recognize the rights of individuals\nto possessions of a personal sort, and which assume without detailed\ndiscussion the formation of family groups within the general community.\nThere are limited socialisms whose repudiation of property affects\nonly the common interests of the community, the land it occupies,\nthe services in which all are interested, the necessary minimum of\neducation, and the sanitary and economic interaction of one person or\nfamily group upon another; socialisms which, in fact, come into touch\nwith an intelligent individualism, and which are based on the attempt\nto ensure equality of opportunity and freedom for complete individual\ndevelopment to every citizen. Such socialists look not so much to the\nabolition of property as to the abolition of inheritance, and to the\nintelligent taxation of property for the services of the community. It\nis among such moderate socialists that I would number myself. I would\nmake no hard and fast rule with regard to any portion of the material\nand apparatus used in the service of a community. With regard to any\nparticular service or concern, I would ask, Is it more convenient, more\nlikely to lead to economy and efficiency, to let this service rest in\nthe hands of some single person or group of persons who may offer to do\nthe service or administer the concern, and whom we will call the owners,\nor to place it in the hands of some single person or group of persons,\nelected or chosen by lot, whom we will call the official or group of\nofficials? And if you were to suggest some method of election that would\nproduce officials that, on the whole, were likely to manage worse than\nprivate owners, and to waste more than the private owner\u2019s probable\nprofits, I should say then by all means leave the service or concern in\nprivate hands.\n\nYou see upon this principle the whole question of the administration\nof any affair turns upon the question, Which will give the maximum\nefficiency? It is very easy to say, and it stirs the heart and produces\ncheering in crowded meetings to say, \u201cLet everything be owned by all and\ncontrolled by all for the good of all,\u201d and for the general purposes of\na meeting it is quite possible to say that and nothing more. But if you\nsit down quietly by yourself afterwards and try and imagine things\nbeing \u201cowned by all and controlled by all for the good of all,\u201d you\nwill presently arrive at the valuable discovery in social and political\nscience that the phrase means nothing whatever. It is also very\nstriking, on such rhetorical occasions, to oppose the private owner to\nthe community or the state or the municipality, and to suppose all the\nvices of humanity concentrated in private ownership, and all the virtues\nof humanity concentrated in the community, but indeed that clear and\nstriking contrast will not stand the rough-and-tumble of the workaday\nworld. A little examination of the matter will make it clear that the\ncontrast lies between private owners and public officials--you must\nhave officials, because you can\u2019t settle a railway time-table or make a\nbridge by public acclamation--and even there you will find it is not\na simple question of the white against black order. Even in our state\nto-day there are few private owners who have absolute freedom to do what\nthey like with their possessions, and there are few public officials\nwho have not a certain freedom and a certain sense of proprietorship in\ntheir departments, and in fact, as distinguished from rhetoric, there is\nevery possible gradation between the one thing and the other. We have\nto clear our minds of misleading terms in this affair. A clipped and\nregulated private ownership--a private company, for example, with\ncompletely published accounts, taxed dividends, with a public\nrepresentative upon its board of directors and parliamentary powers--may\nbe an infinitely more honest, efficient, and controllable public service\nthan a badly elected or badly appointed board of governors of officials.\nWe may--and I for one do--think that a number of public services, an\nincreasing number of public services, can be best administered as public\nconcerns. Most of us here to-night are, I believe, pretty advanced\nmunicipalizers. But it does not follow that we believe that any sort\nof representative or official body pitched into any sort of area is\nnecessarily better than any sort of private control. The more we are\ndisposed to municipalize, the more incumbent it is upon us to search\nout, study, and invent, and to work to develop the most efficient\npublic bodies possible. And my case to-night is, that the existing local\ngovernment bodies, your town councils, borough councils, urban district\nboards, and so forth, are, for the purposes of municipalization, far\nfrom being the best possible bodies, and that even your county councils\nfall short, that by their very nature all these bodies must fall far\nshort of the highest possible efficiency, and that as time goes on they\nmust fail even more than they do now to discharge the duties we Fabians\nwould like to thrust upon them. And the general reason upon which I\nwould have you condemn these bodies and seek for some newer and ampler\nones before you press the municipalization of public concerns to its\nfinal trial, is this--that their areas of activity are impossibly small.\n\nThe areas within which we shape our public activities at present,\nderive, I hold, from the needs and conditions of a past order of things.\nThey have been patched and repaired enormously, but they still preserve\nthe essential conceptions of a vanished organization. They have been\npatched and repaired first to meet this urgent specific necessity and\nthen that, and never with any comprehensive anticipation of coming\nneeds, and at last they have become absolutely impossible. They are\nlike fifteenth-century houses which have been continuously occupied by\na succession of enterprising but short-sighted and close-fisted owners,\nand which have now been, with the very slightest use of lath-and-plaster\npartitions and geyser hot-water apparatus, converted into modern\nresidential flats. These local government areas of to-day represent\nfor the most part what were once distinct, distinctly organized, and\nindividualized communities, complete minor economic systems, and they\npreserve a tradition of what was once administrative convenience and\neconomy. To-day, I submit, they do not represent communities at all, and\nthey become more wasteful and more inconvenient with every fresh change\nin economic necessity.\n\nThis is a double change. Let me first of all say a word in justification\nfor my first assertion that existing areas do not represent communities,\nand then pass to a necessary consequence or so of this fact. I submit\nthat before the railways, that is to say in the days in which the\ncurrent conception of local government areas arose, the villages,\nand still more the boroughs, and even the counties, were practically\ncomplete minor economic systems. The wealth of the locality was, roughly\nspeaking, local; rich people resided in contact with their property,\nother people lived in contact with their work, and it was a legitimate\nassumption that a radius of a mile or so, or of a few miles,\ncircumscribed most of the practical interests of all the inhabitants\nof a locality. You got rich and poor in visible relationships; you got\nlandlord and tenant, you got master and workman all together. But now,\nthrough a revolution in the methods of locomotion, and chiefly through\nthe making of railways, this is no longer true. You can still see\nthe villages and towns separated by spaces of fields and physically\ndistinct, but it is no longer the case that all who dwell in these old\nlimits are essentially local inhabitants and mutually interdependent as\nonce they would have been. A large proportion of our population to-day,\na large and an increasing proportion, has no localized interests at all\nas an eighteenth-century person would have understood locality.\n\nTake for example Guildford, or Folkestone, and you will find that\npossibly even more than half the wealth in the place is non-local\nwealth--wealth, that is, having no relation to the local production of\nwealth--and that a large majority of the more educated, intelligent and\nactive inhabitants derive their income, spend their energies, and find\ntheir absorbing interests outside the locality. They may rent or own\nhouses, but they have no reality of participation and little illusion\nof participation in any local life. You will find in both towns a\nconsiderable number of hotels, inns, and refreshment places which,\nalthough they are regulated by local magistrates upon a basis of one\nlicense to so many inhabitants, derive only a small fraction of their\nprofits from the custom of the inhabitants. You find too in Folkestone,\nas in most seaside places, a great number of secondary schools, drawing\nscarcely a pupil from the neighbourhood. And on the other hand you will\nfind labour in both towns, coming in by a morning train and going out at\nnight. And neither of these instances is an extreme type. As you come\nin towards London you will find the proportion of what I would call\nnon-local inhabitants increasing until in Brixton, Hoxton, or West Ham\nyou will find the really localized people a mere thread in the mass of\nthe population. Probably you find the thinnest sham of a community\nin the London boroughs, where a clerk or a working man will shift his\nsticks from one borough to another and move on to a third without ever\ndiscovering what he has done. It is not that all these people do not\nbelong to a community, but that they belong to a larger community of a\nnew type which your administrators have failed to discover, and which\nyour working theory of local government ignores. This is a question I\nhave already written about with some completeness in a book published\na year or so ago, and called \u201cAnticipations,\u201d and in that book you\nwill find a more lengthy exposition than I can give here and now of\nthe nature of this expansion. But the gist of the argument is that the\ndistribution of population, the method of aggregation in a community,\nis determined almost entirely by the available means of locomotion. The\nmaximum size of any community of regular daily intercourse is determined\nby the length of something that I may best suggest to your mind by the\nphrase--the average possible suburban journey in an hour. A town,\nfor example, in which the only method of progression is on foot along\ncrowded ways, will be denser in population and smaller in area than one\nwith wide streets and a wheeled traffic, and that again will be denser\nand compacter than one with numerous tubes, trams, and light railways.\nEvery improvement in locomotion forces the suburban ring of houses\noutward, and relieves the pressure of the centre. Now, this principle of\nexpanding communities holds not only in regard to towns, but also on the\nagricultural country side. There, also, facilities for the more rapid\ncollection of produce mean finally the expansion and coalescence of what\nwere previously economic unities.\n\nNow if, while this expansion of the real communities goes on, you keep\nto the old boundary lines, you will find an increasing proportion of\nyour population straddling those lines. You will find that many people\nwho once slept and worked and reared their children and worshipped and\nbought all in one area, are now, as it were, delocalized; they have\noverflowed their containing locality, and they live in one area, they\nwork in another, and they go to shop in a third. And the only way in\nwhich you can localize them again is to expand your areas to their new\nscale.\n\nThis is a change in human conditions that has been a very distinctive\nevent in the history of the past century, and it is still in progress.\nBut I think there is excellent reason for supposing that for practical\npurposes this change, made by the railway and the motor, this\ndevelopment of local locomotion, will reach a definite limit in the next\nhundred years. We are witnessing the completion of a great development\nthat has altered the average possible suburban journey in an hour from\none of four or five miles to one of thirty miles, and I doubt very much\nwhether, when every tendency of expansion has been reckoned with, this\naverage hour journey will ever get much beyond sixty or seventy miles an\nhour. A radius of four or five miles marked the maximum size of the old\ncommunity. A radius of a hundred miles will certainly mark the maximum\nof the new community. And so it is no effectual answer to my general\nargument to say that a revision of administrative areas always has been\nand always will be a public necessity. To a certain extent that always\nhas been and always will be true, but on a scale in no way comparable\nto the scale on which it is true to-day, because of these particular\ninventions. This need in its greatness is a peculiar feature of the\npresent time, and a peculiar problem of the present time. The municipal\nareas that were convenient in the Babylonian, ancient Egyptian, or Roman\nempires were no larger and no smaller than those that served the purpose\nof seventeenth-century Europe, and I believe it is highly probable--I\nthink the odds are in favour of the belief--that the most convenient\nadministrative areas of the year 2000 will be no larger and no smaller\nthan those for many subsequent centuries. We are, in this respect, in\nthe full flow of a great and permanent transition. And the social and\npolitical aspect of the change, is this steadily increasing proportion\nof people--more especially in our suburban areas--who are, so far as our\nold divisions go, delocalized. They represent, in fact, a community of a\nnew sort, the new great modern community, which is seeking to\nestablish itself in the room of the dwindling, little, highly localized\ncommunities of the past.\n\nNow what are the practical consequences of this large and increasing\nnon-local element in your old local government areas? First, there is\nthis. The non-local people do not follow, have neither the time, nor\nthe freedom, nor the stimulus of sufficient interests to follow, local\npolitics. They are a sort of Outlanders. Local politics remain therefore\nmore and more in the hands of the dwindling section of people whose\ninterests really are circumscribed by the locality. These are usually\nthe small local tradesmen, the local building trade, sometimes a doctor\nand always a solicitor; and the most energetic and active and capable\nof these, and the one with the keenest eye to business, is usually\nthe solicitor. Whatever you put into the hands of a local\nauthority--education, lighting, communications--you necessarily put into\nthe hands of a group of this sort. Here and there, of course, there may\nbe variations; an organized labour vote may send in a representative,\nor some gentleman of leisure and philanthropic tastes, like Mr. Bernard\nShaw, may confer distinction upon local deliberations, but that will not\nalter the general state of affairs. The state of affairs you must expect\nas the general rule, is local control by petty local interests, a state\nof affairs that will certainly intensify in the years to come,\nunless some revision of areas can be contrived that will overtake the\namplifying interests of the delocalized section of the population.\n\nLet me point out what is probably the result of a dim recognition of\nthis fact by the non-local population, and that is the extreme jealousy\nof rates and municipal trading by the less localized paying classes in\nthe community. That is a question we Socialists, believing as we do\nall of us at least in the abstract theory of municipalization, must\nparticularly consider. The easy exasperation of the \u00a31000-a-year man\nat the rates and his extreme patience under Imperial taxation is\nincomprehensible, unless you recognize this fact of his delocalization.\nThen at once it becomes clear. He penetrates the pretences of the\nsystem to a certain extent; and he is infuriated by the fact of taxation\nwithout representation, tempered by a mysteriously ineffective voting\npaper left at his door. I myself, as one of the delocalized class, will\nconfess he has my sympathy. And those who believe in the idea of the\nultimate municipalization of most large industries, will continue to\nfind in this non-localized class, working especially through the medium\nof Parliament, a persistent and effective obstruction to all such\nprojects, unless such a rectification of areas can be contrived as will\novertake the delocalization and the diffusion of interests that has\nbeen and is still going on. I will confess that it seems to me that this\nopposition between the localized and the non-localized classes in the\nfuture, or to be more correct, the opposition between the man whose\nideas and life lie in a small area, and the man whose ideas and life lie\nin a great area, is likely to give us that dividing line in politics for\nwhich so many people are looking to-day. For this question of areas\nhas its Imperial as well as its local side. You have already seen the\nLiberal party split upon the Transvaal question; you yourselves have--I\nam told--experienced some slight parallel tendency to fission, and it\nis interesting to note that this was, after all, only another aspect of\nthis great question of areas, which I would now discuss in relation to\nmunicipal trading. The small communities are fighting for existence and\ntheir dear little ways, the synthetic great communities are fighting to\ncome into existence, and to absorb the small communities. And curiously\nenough at our last meeting you heard Mr. Belloc, with delightful wit\nand subtlety, expounding the very antithesis of the conceptions I\nam presenting to-night. Mr. Belloc--who has evidently never read his\nMalthus--dreams of a beautiful little village community of peasant\nproprietors, each sticking like a barnacle to his own little bit of\nproperty, beautifully healthy and simple and illiterate and Roman\nCatholic and _local_, local over the ears. I am afraid the stars in\ntheir courses fight against such pink and golden dreams. Every tramway,\nevery new twopenny tube, every light railway, every improvement in your\nomnibus services, in your telephonic services, in your organization of\ncredit, increases the proportion of your delocalized class, and sucks\nthe ebbing life from your old communities into the veins of the new.\n\nWell, you may say, no doubt this is right so far as it goes; existing\nlocal government areas do not represent real countries, but still these\nlocal government devices are of service for cutting up and distributing\nadministrative work. But that is exactly what they are not. They are\nworse when you consider them in regard to function, than when you\nconsider them in regard to representation. Since our conceptions of what\nconstitutes a local administrative area were developed there has arisen\nthe problems of water supply and of organized sewage, of railways,\ntramways, and communications generally, and of lighting and telephonic\nintercourse; there hangs over us, though the average local authority has\nno eyes to see it, the necessity of adapting our roads to accommodate an\nincreasing new traffic of soft-tyred vehicles, and it is not improbable\nthat heating by wholesale, either by gas or electricity, will presently\nbe also possible and desirable. For all these things we need wide views,\nwide minds and wide areas, and still more do we want wide views for the\nbusiness of education that is now also coming into the sphere of local\nadministration.\n\nIt happens that I have had an object-lesson in this matter of local\ngovernment; and indeed it is my object-lesson that has led to this paper\nto-night. I live upon the boundary line of the Sandgate Urban District\nBoard, a minute authority with a boundary line that appears to have been\ndetermined originally about 1850 by mapping out the wanderings of\nan intoxicated excursionist, and which--the only word is\ninterdigitates--with the borough of Folkestone, the Urban District of\nCheriton, and the borough of Hythe. Each of these bodies is by way of\nbeing a tramway authority, each is at liberty to secure powers to set up\ngenerating stations and supply electricity, each is a water authority,\nand each does its own little drainage, and the possibilities of friction\nand litigation are endless. The four places constitute an urban\narea greatly in need of organized intercommunication, but the four\nauthorities have never been able to agree upon a scheme; and now\nFolkestone is concerning itself with the project of a little internal\ntramway system all of its very own. Sandgate has succumbed to the spell\nof the South Eastern Railway Company, and has come into line with\na project that will necessitate a change of cars at the Folkestone\nboundary. Folkestone has conceded its electrical supply to a company,\nbut Sandgate, on this issue, stands out gallantly for municipal trading,\nand proposes to lay down a plant and set up a generating station all\nby itself to supply a population of sixteen hundred people, mostly\nindigent. In the meanwhile, Sandgate refuses its inhabitants the\nelementary convenience of the electric light, and when, quite\ninadvertently, I connected across the convolutions of the boundary with\nthe Folkestone supply, my life was darkened by the threat of impossible\nlitigation. But if Folkestone repudiates municipal enterprise in\nthe matter of lighting, I gather it does not do so in the matter\nof telephones; and there has been talk of a neat little Folkestone\ntelephonic system competing against the National Telephone Company,\na compact little conversazione of perhaps a hundred people, rate\nsustained. And how is the non-local inhabitant to come into these\nthings? The intelligent non-local inhabitant can only save his two or\nthree pounds of contribution to this folly or that by putting in twenty\nor thirty pounds\u2019 worth of work in local politics. He has no local\nconnections, no local influence, he hasn\u2019t a chance against the plumber.\nWhen the house I occupy was built, it was a mere interposition of\nProvidence that the drain did not go southward into a Folkestone\nsewer instead of northward into Sandgate. Heaven knows what would have\nhappened if it had! I and my neighbours are by a special concession\npermitted to have water from the Folkestone source. By incessant\nvigilance we do, I believe, usually succeed in deducting the Folkestone\nwater rate from the Sandgate general rate which covers water, but the\nwear and tear is enormous. However, these are details, dear to my heart,\nbut the merest marginal comments to my argument. The essential fact is\nthe impracticable silliness of these little divisions, the waste of men,\nthe waste of nervous energy, the waste of administrative energy they\ninvolve. I am convinced that in the case of almost any public service in\nthe Folkestone district with our present boundaries, the administrative\nwaste will more than equal the profit of a private company with\nparliamentary powers overriding our local authorities; that if it is\nsimply a choice between these little bodies and a company (of the common\ntype even), then in lighting, locomotion, and indeed in almost any\ngeneral public service, I would say, \u201cgive me the company.\u201d With\ncompanies one may hope to deal later; they will not stand in the way\nof developing saner areas, but an obstinate little authority clutching\neverything in its hands, and led by a clerk naturally interested\nin litigation, and who is also something of an expert in political\norganization, will be an altogether harder thing to supersede.\n\nThis difficulty in greater or lesser degree is everywhere. In the\ncase of poor law administration in particular, and also in the case of\nelementary education, the whole country displays what is another aspect\nof this same general phenomenon of delocalization; the withdrawal of all\nthe wealthier people from the areas that are specializing as industrial\ncentres, and which have a rising population of poor workers, to areas\nthat are specializing as residential, and which have, if anything,\na falling proportion of poor labourers. In a place like West Ham\nor Tottenham you find starved schools and an abundant delocalized\nindustrial population, and, by way of contrast, at Guildford or Farnham\nfor example, you will find enormously rich delocalized people, belonging\nto the same great community as these workers, who pay only the most\ntrivial poor rate and school rate for the benefit of their few immediate\nneighbours, and escape altogether from the burthens of West Ham.\nBy treating these places as separate communities you commit a cruel\ninjustice on the poor. So far as these things go, to claim convenience\nfor the existing areas is absurd. And it is becoming more and more\nevident that with tramways, with lighting, with electric heating and\nforce supply, and with the supply of water to great populations, there\nis an enormous advantage in large generating stations and large areas;\nthat these things must be handled in areas of hundreds of square miles\nto be efficiently done.\n\nIn the case of secondary and higher education one discovers an equal\nstress and incompatibility. At present, I must point out, even the\nboundaries of the projected educational authority for London are\nabsurdly narrow. For example, in Folkestone, as in every town upon\nthe south coast, there are dozens of secondary schools that are purely\nLondon schools, and filled with London boys and girls, and there are\nendless great schools like Tonbridge and Charterhouse outside the London\narea that are also London schools. If you get, for example, a vigorous\nand efficient educational authority for London, and you raise a fine\neducational system in the London area, you will find it incomplete in an\nalmost vital particular. You will give the prosperous middle class and\nthe upper class of London the alternative of good teaching and bad air,\nor of what very probably, under tolerant local authorities, will be\nrelatively bad teaching and open air and exercise out of London. You\nwill have to tax this influential class of people for the magnificent\nschools they in many cases will be unable to use. As a consequence, you\nwill find again all the difficulties of their opposition, practically\nthe same difficulties that arise so naturally in the way of municipal\ntrading. I would suggest that it would be not only logical but politic,\nfor the London Educational Authority, and not the local authority, to\ncontrol every secondary school wherever it happened to be, which in\nan average of years drew more than half its attendance from the London\narea. That, however, by the way. The point more material to my argument\nhere is that the educational organization of the London area, the Thames\nvalley, and the southern counties are inseparable; that the question of\nlocal locomotion is rapidly becoming impossible upon any smaller basis\nthan such an area; that roads, light railways, drainage, water, are all\nclamouring now to be dealt with on the big scale; and that the more\nyou cut this great area up, the more you leave it in the hands of the\nlocalized men, the more you sin against efficiency and the light.\n\nI hope that you will consider this first part of my case proved. And\nnow I pass on to the more debatable question--the nature of the new\ndivisions that are to replace the old. I would suggest that this is a\nmatter only to be answered in detail by an exhaustive analysis of the\ndistribution of population in relation to economic standing, but I may\nperhaps just indicate roughly what at a first glance I imagine would be\none suitable local government area. Let me remind you that some years\nago the Conservative party, in an outbreak of intelligence, did in\na sort of transitory way see something of what I have been trying to\nexpress to-night, and created the London County Council--only to quarrel\nwith it and hate it and fear it ever since. Well, my proposal would\nbe to make a much greater area even than the London County, and try to\ninclude in it the whole system of what I might call the London-centred\npopulation. I believe If you were to take the whole valley of the Thames\nand its tributaries and draw a line along its boundary watershed, and\nthen include with that Sussex and Surrey, and the east coast counties up\nto the Wash, you would overtake and anticipate the delocalizing process\nalmost completely. You would have what has become, or is becoming very\nrapidly, a new urban region, a complete community of the new type, rich\nand poor and all sorts and aspects of economic life together. I would\nsuggest that watersheds make excellent boundaries. Let me remind you\nthat railways, tramways, drain-pipes, water-pipes, and high-roads\nhave this in common--they will not climb over a watershed if they can\npossibly avoid doing so, and that population and schools and poor tend\nalways to distribute themselves in accordance with these other things.\nYou get the minimum of possible overlap--such overlap as the spreading\nout of the great midland city to meet London must some day cause--in\nthis way. I would suggest that for the regulation of sanitation,\neducation, communications, industrial control, and poor relief, and for\nthe taxation for these purposes, this area should be one, governed by\none body, elected by local constituencies that would make its activities\nindependent of imperial politics. I propose that this body should\nreplace your county councils, boards of guardians, urban and rural\ndistrict councils, and all the rest of them altogether; that you should\nelect it, perhaps triennially, once for all. For any purpose of a more\nlocal sort, local water-supply systems, local tramway systems--the\ntramways between Brighton and Shoreham, for example--this body might\ndelegate its powers to subordinate committees, consisting, it has\nbeen suggested to me by Mrs. Sidney Webb, of the members for the\nlocal constituencies concerned, together with another member or so to\nsafeguard the general interests, or perhaps with an appointed expert or\nso in addition. These committees would submit their detailed schemes for\nthe approval of committees appointed by the general body, and they would\nbe controllable by that body. However, there is no need for detailed\nscheming here and now. Let us keep to the main idea.\n\nI submit that such a mammoth municipality as this will be, on the one\nhand, an enormously more efficient substitute for your present little\nlocal government bodies, and on the other hand, will be able to take\nover a considerable proportion of the detailed work and a considerable\nproportion of the detailed machinery, of your overworked and too\nextensive central machinery, your local government board, education\ndepartment, and board of trade. It will be great enough and fine enough\nto revive the dying sentiment of local patriotism, and it will be a body\nthat will appeal to the ambition of the most energetic and capable men\nin the community. They will be picked men, to a much greater extent than\nare your guardians, your urban district councillors and town councillors\nand so on, at present, because there will be perhaps a hundred or a\ncouple of hundred of them in the place of many thousands. And I\nventure to think that in such a body you may confidently hope to find a\ncollective intelligence that may be pitted against any trust or board of\ndirectors the world is likely to produce.\n\nI suggest this body as a sort of concrete sample of the thing I have\nin mind. I am quite open to hear and accept the most far-reaching\nmodification of this scheme; it is _the idea of the scale_ that I wish\nparticularly to enforce. Municipalize on this scale, I would say, and\nI am with you altogether. Here is something distinctly and clearly\nsubserving that making of mankind upon which all sane social and\npolitical proposals must ultimately base themselves. But to put\nmore power, and still more power in the hands of these petty little\nadministrative bodies that we have to-day, is, I submit, folly and\ndarkness. If the existing areas are to remain the same, then, on the\nwhole, my vote is against municipal trading, and on the whole, with\nregard to light, to tramways and communications, to telephones, and\nindeed to nearly all such public services, I would prefer to see these\nthings in the hands of companies, and I would stipulate only for the\nmaximum publicity for their accounts and the fullest provision for\ndetailed regulation through the Board of Trade.","title":"Mankind in the Making","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":103018}