labor and combine for generous, or, at all events, for public and social purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of the sentiments will make a common man dig or weave for his country as readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But the hinderance is not in the essential condition of human nature.” Ruskin expresses the thought that one ought to be as ready to give money as life for one’s country when he says: “I will tell you, good reader, what would have seemed Utopian on the side of evil instead of good: that ever men should have come to value their money so much more than their lives, that if you call upon them to become soldiers, and take chance of a bullet through their heart, and of wife and children being left desolate, for their pride’s sake, they will do it gayly; but if you ask them, for their country’s sake, to spend a hundred pounds without security of getting back a hundred and five, they will laugh in your face.”[201] The German professorial socialists held a meeting in Eisenach in October, 1872, and founded the “Union for Social Politics.” They hoped, by means of an organization holding yearly meetings, to be able to exercise greater influence on legislation and public opinion. Their proceedings were published in Leipsic, in 1873, under the title “Transactions of the Union for Social Politics,” and reports of meetings which have since been held have been published at the same place under the same title. They discussed such questions as joint-stock companies, insurance, savings-banks, and factory legislation, including the prohibition of labor on Sunday and protection of women and children in factories. Their negative work consisted in combating the empty abstractions of the English free-trade school, or, as they call it, the Manchester school. They accused the Manchester men of lacking all appreciation for the higher duties of the state or the ethical side of economic life, and of having no warmth of heart for the interests of the lower classes. The professorial socialists endeavored, on the other hand, to reconcile the laborers and social democrats to society by recognizing and favoring what might be called their just demands.