Liberty of thought and speech is enjoyed in France, and especially in Paris, to an extent impossible in any other country, and it is due principally to the intellectual emancipation of our workmen. They have rid themselves of theology in all its forms, and yet have not accepted any metaphysical system. At the same time, though totally devoid at present of systematic convictions, there is in them a submissiveness of mind which predisposes them to receive convictions combining reality with utility. In all other classes there is a tendency to use forcible measures in spreading their doctrines when discussion fails. It is only to the people that philosophers can look for the support and extension of Liberty, which is so essential to their objects; and from this they derive moral confidence far more reassuring than any legal security. However reactionary or stationary the views of particular leaders or sects may be, with such a population as that of Paris, no real oppression is possible. Of all the claims which France has to the leadership of Europe, this is the strongest. The resistance which is still offered to freedom of association and freedom of education will soon be overcome by the force of its liberal sympathies. A population of such strong social feeling as ours will certainly not allow itself to be permanently deprived of the power of meeting together freely in clubs; institutions most conducive both to its culture and to the protection of its interests. It will insist with equal force upon perfect liberty of teaching, feeling deeply the need of solid instruction, and the incapacity of metaphysicians and theologians to give it. Without popular pressure, the essential conditions of educational liberty will always be evaded.