THE POOR-LAW LEGISLATION, AND ITS EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE. After the thirteenth century, due in part to the rise of the wool industry in Flanders, England began to change from a farming to a sheep-raising country. Accompanying this decline in the importance of farming there had been a slow but gradual growth of trade and manufacturing in the cities, and to the cities the surplus of rural peasantry began to drift. The cost of living also increased rapidly after the fifteenth century. As a result there was a marked shifting of occupations, much unemployment, and a constantly increasing number of persons in need of poor-relief. In the time of Elizabeth (1558-1603) it has been estimated that one half the population of England did not have an income sufficient for sustenance, and great numbers of children were running about without proper food or care, and growing up in idleness and vice. The situation, which had been growing worse for two centuries, culminated at the time of the Reformation when the religious houses, which had previously provided alms, were confiscated as a result of the reformation activities. The groundwork of the old system of religious charity was thus swept away, and the relation which had for so long existed between prayer and penance and almsgiving and charity was altered. The nation was thus forced to deal with the problem of poor-relief, and with the care of the children of the poor. In the place of the old system the people were forced, by circumstances, to develop a new conception of the State as a community of peoples bound together by community interest, good feeling, charity, and service. As this new conception dawned on the English people, a series of laws were enacted which attempted to provide for the situation which had been created. These were progressive in character, and ranged over much of the sixteenth century. First the poor were restricted from begging, outside of certain specified limits. Next church collections and parish support for the poor were ordered (1553), and the people were to be urged to give. Then workhouses for the poor and their children, and materials with which to work, were ordered provided, and those persons of means who would not give freely were to be cited before the bishop first (R. 173), and the justices later, and if necessary forcibly assessed (1563). The next step was to permit the local authorities to raise needed funds by strictly local taxation (1572). In 1601 the last step was taken, when the compulsory taxation of all persons of property was ordered to provide the necessary poor-relief, and the excessive burdens of one parish were to be shared by neighboring parishes. Thus, after a long period of slowly evolving legislation (R. 173), the English Poor-Law of 1601 (R. 174) finally gave expression to the following principles: 1. The compulsory care of the poor, as an obligation of the State.