It is impossible for me to describe in detail what I learned in regard to the condition of the masses of the people in the different parts of Europe I visited. As a rule I suppose the man on the soil has always represented the most backward and neglected portion of the population. This class has everywhere, until recent years, had fewer opportunities for education than the similar classes in the cities and, where the people who tilled the soil have not succeeded in getting possession of the soil—as is especially true in certain parts of Austria-Hungary and lower Italy—they have remained in a condition of greater or less subjection to the landowning classes. In lower Italy, where the masses of the farming population have neither land nor schools, they have remained in a position not far removed from slavery. In Denmark, on the contrary, where the farming class is, for the most part, made up of independent landowners, not only has agriculture been more thoroughly developed and organized than elsewhere, but farmers are a dominating influence in the political life of the country. In England, which is the home of political liberty, the working classes have all the political privileges of other Englishmen, although the bulk of the land is in the hands of a comparatively few landowners. On the other hand, the majority of the labourers in the cities have not increased their economic independence. In fact, the English city labourer, from all that I could observe, seemed to be in a position of greater dependence upon his employer and upon the capitalist than is true of any other country I visited. I recall one incident of my stay in London which emphasized this fact in my mind: I noticed one day a man who was standing, with his hands in his pockets, looking vaguely into the street, one of those types of the casual labourer of whom one meets so many examples in London. I asked if work was plentiful about this time of the year. “No,” he replied. “It is hard to get anything to do, so many people are out of town.” This man looked to me like a dock labourer. I met him somewhere, I think, on or near Mile End Road, in the East End, which is in the centre of a district of over a million inhabitants made up entirely of working people. I told him I could not understand how the absence of a few hundred or a few thousand individuals from a great city like London could make much difference to him. “It makes a great difference, sir,” he replied. “Everything seems to stop when they go away.” This man was, to be sure, a casual labourer, one who had, perhaps, been crowded out by competition from the regular avenues of employment. But there is an enormous number of these casual labourers in England. They seem to be a product of the system. [Illustration: TOMPKINS MEMORIAL HALL, HAMPTON INSTITUTE