All this organization of the workmen was accomplished by the university men of the time. They were mainly clergymen, but they had in them not only the wish, but the faculty to help those around them, and so there arose the beautiful creations of that time in art, architecture, literature and political freedom which did so much for the masses of the people. There were more students at the universities at the end of the thirteenth century to the population of the various countries of Europe than there are at the present time. That seems impossible, but so do all the other achievements of the thirteenth century,--their cathedrals, their arts and crafts, their {423} universities, their literature,--until you go back to study them. There is absolutely no doubt about these statistics. These university men were trained to self-government and to the government of others in the university life of the time. They took that training out with them, not for selfish purposes alone, but for the help of others. What they accomplished is to be found in the social uplift that followed. There is scarcely a right or a development of liberty that we have now that cannot be found, in germ at least, often in complete evolution, in the thirteenth century. The Supreme Courts of most of our states still make their decisions following the old English common law which was laid down in that century. But it will be said, while so much was done for the workman, have we not heard that his wages were a few cents, almost nothing, and that his hours were long and he was little better than a slave? Only the first portion of this has any truth in it. He did get what seems to us a mere pittance for his day's wages. As pointed out by M. Urbain Gohier, the French socialist, when he visited this country to lecture a few years ago, the workmen of this time had already obtained the eight-hour day, the three eights as they are called, eight hours of work, eight hours for sleep and eight hours for themselves. Besides they had the Saturday half-holiday, or at least, after the Vesper hour, work could not be required of them, and there was more than one holy-day of {424} obligation every two weeks, on which they did not work, and on the Vigil of which work ceased at four o'clock. As for their wages, by Act of Parliament they got fourpence a day at the end of the century and this does not seem much, but the same Act of Parliament set the minimum wage and the maximum price that could be charged for the necessities of life. A pair of hand-made shoes could be bought for fourpence, and no workman can do anything like that for a day's wage at the present or usually for more than double his daily wages. A fat goose cost but twopence halfpenny, and when the father of a family can buy two fat geese for his daily wages, there is no danger of the family starving. Our wages are higher, but the necessities of life have gone up so high that the wages can scarcely touch them.