Lastly, the passing of the Education Act seemed to many to be the beginning of a new age. Schools were rapidly built, money was freely voted, and the children were compelled to attend. The Education Act has not, however, taught the people what is due to themselves or to others. Greed is not eradicated because its form is changed, and, though criminals may be fewer, gambling is as degrading as thieving, and oppression legally exerted over the weak is as cruel as the illegal blow. The children do not leave school with the self-respect born of consciousness of powers of heart and brain and hand, nor with the humanity born of knowledge of others’ burdens. It seems, indeed, as if their chief belief was in the value of competition, and their chief aptitude a skill in satisfying an inspector with the least possible amount of work. At any rate, at the end of twenty years, when a generation has been through the schools, our streets are filled with a mob of careless youths, and our labour market is overstocked with workers whose work is not worth 4_d._ an hour. Poverty, Ignorance and Sin threaten the city. Free Trade, the Suffrage, the Education Act have been tried, and the doom still impends. What is to be done? The principle of true action lies, I think, imbedded in the old Jewish tale. It is not laws and institutions which save a city--it is persons. Institutions are good, just in so far as they are vivified by personal action; laws are good just in so far as they allow for the free play of person on person. There may be need of reform in institutions and in laws, so as to give to all an open career and equality of opportunity, but it is persons who save; and if to-day fifty--a company of righteous--men could be found in London, the city might be spared and saved. In support of this position I would offer two considerations. (1) The common mind is now scientific. Professor Huxley, in summing up the results of fifty years of science, claims the creation of a new habit of thought as a greater achievement than any material invention. The common man in the street no longer expects a miracle or worships a theory as men once worshipped the theory of social contract; he asks for a fact. The fact, therefore, that a neighbour is righteous does most to extend righteousness. He who knows a just man is likely to give a fair day’s wage and do a fair day’s work, to live simply and tell the truth, and it is bad pay and bad work, luxury and lying, which do most to make poverty. He who knows a wise man is likely to search after what is hidden in thought and things, and it is carelessness of what is out of sight which makes ignorance. He who knows a good man is likely to have a passion for honour, for purity, for humanity, and it is the want of higher passion which makes sin.