In England on the other hand political activity has always been characterised by extreme jealousy of the central power, and by the tendency to achieve everything possible by local action and voluntary private effort. All reforms are initiated from the periphery, instead of from the centre as in France. Great institutions, the universities, schools, colleges, hospitals, railways, canals, docks, insurance companies, even water supplies and telephones and many other things which, it would seem, should naturally and properly be undertaken by the State, or other official public body, have been generally set on foot and worked by individuals or private associations of individuals. Even vast colonial empires—India, Rhodesia, Canada, Sarawak, Nigeria, North Borneo—have been in the main acquired through the enterprise and efforts of individuals or associations of individuals; the State only intervening when the main work has been accomplished. In their religion, too, the English are markedly individualistic; our numerous dissenting bodies have mostly dispensed with the centralised official hierarchy which in Roman Catholic countries mediates between God and man, and have insisted upon a direct communion with God; and we have many little churches each of which governs itself in absolute independence of every other. In the family relations the same difference appears very strongly. The French family regards itself, and is regarded by law, as a community which holds its goods in common; each child has his legal claim upon his share, relies upon his family for support in his struggle with the world, and is encouraged by his parents to do so. In the English family, on the other hand, the father is a supreme despot, who disposes of his property as he wills. The children are not encouraged to look for further support, when once they become adult, but are taught that they must go out into the world to seek their fortunes unaided. At an early age, the English boy is usually thrust out of the family into the life of a school in which, by his own efforts, he must find and keep his position among his fellows; and he lives a life which, compared with that of the French boy, is one of freedom and independence. In the distribution of the people on the land we see the same difference of mental qualities revealed. The French peasants are for the most part congregated sociably in villages and small towns; the English farmer builds his homestead apart upon his own domain. And this determines one of the most striking differences in the aspect of the rural districts of both countries. In the towns also the same tendencies are clearly shown; in the separate little homes of the English and in the large houses of the French shared by several families.