“Quite a number of your families have already reached such a stage of culture as the foregoing; but such is not the end of family freedom. Long after a husband and wife do no more interfere with each other’s labor affairs, they still often interfere with each other’s private affairs on jealousy and other grounds. One is often not free to act as he desires for fear that he may thereby offend the other. I find the same also to be true with regard to children. You have many parents that have put aside the rod long ago; yet they believe that a child ought to remain at home and work for the parents until it is eighteen or twenty-one years of age, and such parents do not hesitate to enact statute laws to that effect. “Such parents seem to think that a child owes a parent a great sum for the parental care it received from them, and that it requires the labor of the child up to that age. Notice that the parent alone, without the consultation of the child, names this age, and he could make it fifty years as well as twenty-one. But these parents seem to forget that they _received_ parental care during their infancy and that they, in turn, are bound to _give_ parental care or else die a debtor to human equity. _Free_ persons are those who are not forcibly prevented by others from going _where_, _when_, and with whom they please, and act as they see fit, provided they do not invade the equal rights of others. For example, I believe that Mr. Uwins’ family enjoys such freedom, and that many others are gradually maturing for it. At least during my stay with you, I have heard no command from any one. You all seem to know how to live an orderly life without invading the rights, or frustrating the wishes of each other. The children, as far as I can see, enjoy the same freedom and privileges as the parents. The only ties which are respected between husband and wife, parent and child are those which are mutually agreeable. The foregoing is the direction in which our family government up to this point developed, and a similar growth is already discernible here on earth. “But do not understand me here that the family development was the only one. Religious and political toleration also kept pace with the family. The witch fires were slowly extinguished, the ‘Benefit of Clergy’ disregarded, trial by ordeal abandoned, direct tithes were regarded impositions, church and state were separated first in theory and later in practice also, colossal churches and cathedrals, which were once built by compulsory taxation, were later on built by voluntary donation, the army of clergy who were once a social caste maintained by compulsory taxation became later on dependent on the voluntary gifts of their congregation. So step by step, we, like you are now doing, moved toward justice and freedom.