Those whose aim it is to reform the material conditions in which life is spent may, as well as those who teach, claim to be strengthening character, but the admission of their claims must depend on the way in which they have worked. They themselves can alone tell how far in pursuit of their aims they have forgotten the effect of their means upon character, and how those means are now represented by people whose growth they have helped or hindered. Teachers are not above reformers, and reformers are not above teachers. The people must be taught, and conditions must be changed. It is for those who teach as well as for those who try to change conditions to judge themselves by the effect their methods have on character. If striving and crying they have avoided impatience and allowed time for the growth of originality, if working silently they have indeed done something else than find faults in others’ methods, they may be said to have secured the good and avoided the loss. SAMUEL A. BARNETT. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ XII. _PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM._[1] [1] Reprinted, by permission, from the _Nineteenth Century_ of April 1883. Some time ago I met in a tramcar a well-known American clergyman. ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘ten years’ work in New York as a minister at large made me a Christian socialist.’ The remark illustrates my own experience. Ten years ago my wife and I came to live in East London. The study of political economy and some familiarity with the condition of the poor had shown us the harm of doles given in the shape either of charity or of out-relief. We found that gifts so given did not make the poor any richer, but served rather to perpetuate poverty. We came therefore to East London determined to war against a system of relief which, ignorantly cherished by the poor, meant ruin to their possibilities of living an independent and satisfying life. The work of some devoted men on the Board of Guardians, helped by the members of the Charity Organisation Society, has enabled us to see the victory won.