There would always remain the sick, the infirm, and the school
children, whose wants could be satisfied from the general stock without
asking them to bear any part of the general burden. In particular, it
would be well to teach the children by actual experience the economy
and happiness which arise in the case of those who are fitly trained
from association applied to the direct satisfaction of wants, as well
as from association in the manufacture of material wealth. If we
wish to wean the children from the selfish isolation of the English
family, from the worse than savage habits produced by four generations
of capitalism, from that longing for excitement, and incapacity for
reasonable enjoyment, which are the natural results of workdays spent
in English factories, and English Sundays spent in English streets,
then we must give freely and generously to our schools. If this
generation were wise it would spend on education not only more than any
other generation has ever spent before, but more than any generation
would ever need to spend again. It would fill the school buildings
with the means not only of comfort, but even of the higher luxury;
it would serve the associated meals on tables spread with flowers,
in halls surrounded with beautiful pictures, or even, as John Milton
proposed, filled with the sounds of music; it would seriously propose
to itself the ideal of Ibsen, that every child should be brought up as
a nobleman. Unfortunately, this generation is not wise.
In considering the degree in which common owning of property would be
possible among a people just at that stage of industrial and moral
development at which we now find ourselves, it is expedient to dwell,
as I have dwelt, rather upon the necessary difficulties and limitations
of Socialism, than upon its hopes of future development. But we must
always remember that the problems which Socialism attempts to solve,
deal with conditions which themselves are constantly changing. Just as
anything like what we call Socialism would be impossible in a nation
of individualist savages like the Australian blacks, and could not,
perhaps, be introduced except by external authority among a people like
the peasants of Brittany, for whom the prospect of absolute property
in any portion of land, however small, is at once their strongest
pleasure and their only sufficient incentive to industry; so among a
people further advanced, socially and industrially, than ourselves, a
social condition would be possible which we do not now dare to work
for or even try to realise. The tentative and limited Social-Democracy
which I have sketched is the necessary and certain step to that better
life which we hope for. The interests which each man has in common with
his fellows tend more and more to outweigh those which are peculiar
to himself. We see the process even now beginning. Already, as soon
as a public library is started, the workman finds how poor a means
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account