The finest result of this teaching is to be seen in the democratic spirit that gradually arose as a consequence of these gilds and their teaching of self-government in all local affairs to the people. The gilds were arranged and organized in the various parishes. These parishes were independent communities for local affairs who had charge of the police system, the health, the road-making, the path-keeping, the boundary-guarding and, in general, the comfort and convenience of the community. The gildsmen, more than any others, were the factors in these parishes. They accumulated money for the various purposes and had great influence in the development of the community life and the solution of local government problems. It would be very easy to think that the gilds could not have fulfilled all these duties and subserved all these needs. If we recall, however, that there were 80,000 gilds in England at the end of the fifteenth century, when there were not more than 4,000,000 of people in the whole country, then we can see how much could be accomplished. Alas, at the beginning of the next century all their moneys were confiscated, and because they were Church societies, every one of them requiring attendance at Church duties and at Mass, as well as at the Masses for the dead, but, above all, for the crime of having money in their treasuries at a time when the King needed money and his appetite had been whetted by the spoil of the {190} monasteries and the churches, the gilds were obliterated. Only a few of them in London that had powerful protectors and that escaped on the plea that they were commercial organizations and not religious societies, were able to preserve something of their old-time integrity. These are now so rich that they are the wonder of those who know them. They give us a good idea, however, of the deep foundations that had been established out of the common chest in the purchase of property for these gilds. In solving the problems of industrial insurance, of providing for the widows and the orphans, of securing annuities when they would be needed, these gilds set us an example that it would be well for us to follow. The insurance money was not accumulated in such huge sums that it would be a constant temptation for exploitation on the part of officials. It was distributed in comparatively small sums in many thousands of treasuries, and was under the surveillance of those most interested in it. The old-age pensions were not governmental, issued in large numbers and open to inevitable abuses, but were given by those who knew, to those whose necessities were well known.