“An awful blank” was made in the family group by the death of Howard, the youngest son. He bore the name of the great and good man whose friendship to his father’s uncle was the boast of his family. Had he been granted a long life even that high name might have received from him fresh honour. He was but five-and-twenty years old when he was cut off by consumption. Like many another who has suffered under that malady, he was happily buoyed up by hope nearly to the end. Almost up to his last day the light of a bright vision, on which he had for some time dwelt, had not faded away from his sky. “He was bent on showing the world an example of a community living together on principles strictly social.” He had saved some money, and all that he had, and himself too, he was ready to sacrifice for the good of his community. Much time he purposed to spend in travelling on foot gathering information, and still more time was to be spent in acquiring the power of enduring bodily toil. He hoped that others would contribute towards the furtherance of his scheme, but he would accept, he said, no contribution as a loan. His colony he meant to settle with foundling children of the age of two years. “Whether I should begin with one or ten infants, or any intermediate number, would chiefly depend on the amount of contributions raised. I would not take more than ten for the first year, and should afterwards increase according to my power, aiming to about twenty-five of each sex. These children I should endeavour to instruct to maintain and enjoy life by co-operative exertions.” His utilitarianism was of no narrow kind. His aim was the highest development of his pupils, both morally and intellectually. He was eager to begin at once, but if his brothers could for awhile but ill spare his services he was willing to wait. “It must, however, be remembered,” he wrote, “that as the success of the experiment much depends on my power of conforming to a new mode of life, every delay by which my present necessarily expensive and insincere habits are continually strengthened greatly increases the difficulty of the proposed undertaking.” He would have, he well knew, to face the judgment of the world, which is always hard on those founders of new republics or novel communities who venture to lay their foundations outside Utopia or below the sky. “I am almost careless of the opinion of others, and am labouring to make myself quite insensible to any expression of either praise or blame. Further, I propose to seclude myself and _protegés_ as far as is practicable for about fifteen years.”