The Poor Law provides relief for the destitute and medical care for the poor. By a system of outdoor relief it has won the condemnation of many who care for the poor, and see that outdoor relief robs them of their energy, their self-respect, and their homes. There is no reason, however, why the Poor Law should not be developed in more healthy ways. Pensions of 8_s._ or 10_s._ a week might be given to every citizen who had kept himself until the age of 60 without workhouse aid. If such pensions were the right of all, none would be tempted to lie to get them, nor would any be tempted to spy and bully in order to show the undesert of applicants. So long as relief is a matter of desert, and so long as the most conscientious relieving officers are liable to err, there must be mistakes both on the side of indulgence and of neglect. The one objection to out-relief, which is at present recognised by the poor, is that the system puts it in the power of the relieving officer to act as judge in matters of which he must be ignorant, so that he gives relief to the careless or crafty and passes over those who in self-respect hide their trouble. Pensions, too, it may be added, would be no more corrupting to the labourer who works for his country in the workshop than for the civil servant who works for his country at the desk, and the cost of pensions would be no greater than is the cost of infirmaries and almshouses. In one way or another the old and the poor are now kept by those who are richer, and the present method is not a cheap one. Many men and women fail because they do not know how to work. The workhouses might be made schools of industry. If the ignorant could be detained in workhouses until they had learnt the use of a tool and the pleasure of work, these establishments would become technical schools of the kind most needed, and yearly add a large sum to the wealth of the nation.