The difference between the lout and the man of refinement is generally a difference of education, of knowledge, and training. The root cause of most prejudice and malice, of much violence, folly, and crime, is ignorance. There would be no despised and under-paid poor, no slums, no landless peasants, no serfs, were it not for the ignorance of the masses, _and_ the classes. The rich impose upon the poor, and the poor submit, for the one reason: they do not understand. If they were taught better they would do better. And the better teaching would be--improved environment. It is not enough that people should be "educated," in the narrow sense of the word. Teaching may do harm, as surely as it may do good. All depends upon the things that are taught. Much of the teaching in our Board Schools, our Public Schools, and our Universities is _bad_. If teaching is to be "good environment," the teaching must be good. National or local ideals are part of our environment. We are born into these ideals as we are born into our climate, and few escape their rule. The ideals of England are not good. To succeed, to make wealth, to win applause--these are not high ideals. To buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest; to make England the workshop of the world; to seize all rich and unprotected lands, and force their inhabitants into the British Empire--these are not great ideals. But such national ideals are part of our environment, and tell against, or for, the development of our noblest human qualities. A gospel of greed, vanity, and empire does not tend to make a people modest, nor just, nor kindly. Indeed, it is chiefly because of their greediness for commerce and wealth, and their ambition for empire, that the nations to-day are armed and jealous rivals. And it is chiefly because of their hunger for wealth, and their worship of vain display and empty honours, that the classes and the masses are hostile and divided. Ignorance again: they do not understand. The force of environment, and especially the uses of education, are stamped upon our proverbs, are bedded deep in universal custom. "Knowledge is power," "As the twig is bent----" "He who touches pitch shall be defiled," "Evil communications corrupt good manners." And what educated parent would allow his children to grow up in ignorance, or would expose them to the evil influences of impure literature or bad companions. Every church and chapel, every school and college, every book that teaches, every moral lesson, every chaperon and tutor, is an acknowledgment of the power of environment to wreck or save our young. In practice we all fear or prize the influences of environment--upon ourselves, and upon those we love. It is when we have to deal with the "Bottom Dog" that we ignore the facts which plead so strongly in his defence. PERSONAL INFLUENCES