‘I do not think my presence at a conference would be of any service. I have so little knowledge of municipal affairs, never having attended a meeting since I resided in Hastings.’ The same sort of answer came from busy tradesmen and leisured gentry. It therefore seemed that a more decided educational effort was needed, an effort to show our voters how a Town Council really represented in modern days much of the practical action of the Church in past ages, and that it ought really to present the Theocratic idea--_i.e._, government by the Highest Good. But here, too, unhappily, I could find no one who did not seem to think that the function of a Town Council was to save them all trouble and responsibility, and that it must be elected on party grounds. Thus, more and more I recognised the profound character of the disease of indifference, which has become endemic in our municipalities, and the urgent need of remedial measures. I therefore entered into correspondence with the Social and Political Education League, which has borne in succession the honoured names of Professor Seeley and Mr. Froude as Presidents. I received a cordial letter from the honorary secretary, who forwarded a list of 107 names of lecturers, with numerous addresses that they would be willing to deliver. Unfortunately, in this printed list of several hundred lectures I could find nothing that met our special need--viz., short, simple, progressive instruction, inviting questions, ‘on the use of a Town Council and the meaning of a vote.’ I was meditating on what to do when I became most unexpectedly involved in municipal work, where I was compelled to take a prominent part, for which I was not fitted either by knowledge or experience.