These are examples of a very numerous class of reforms undertaken by the _joint action_ of governments. They are all comparatively recent and most of the twenty-eight unions between governments for concerted action have been established during the years of European peace between 1871 and 1914. In these instances the States of Europe have put their precious sovereignties into their pockets; although the lawyers and diplomatists explain the situation in the old terms. With respect to all these movements for social reform three points must be noticed: first, the initiative in most reform has come from private enterprise and not from diplomacy or governments. Secondly, this private interest has spread from the few of one nation to the few of another before any effective result was attained. Thirdly, the states have not acted together because of any general theory of international action, but simply because certain social evils could not be dealt with at all by any state acting separately. Whatever hampers common action, then, also hinders effective reform in dealing with disease or crime. I need not elaborate the conclusion. * * * * * There are also instances of governmental action being _directly influenced_ by the practice of other states, even when there has been no common action. The two most striking reforms of recent years have been in education and religious toleration. Of education enough has already been said. The interest from our point of view here is chiefly in the effect of education on social structure. It is increasingly evident that of all forces for transforming a nation, education is the most powerful; but no one nation can transform its education effectively without respect to the mistakes and successes of its neighbours. This has been perceived and acted upon. The influence, for example, of Germany on England is sufficiently well known. German precedents were quoted in the House of Commons in the early days of state education for England: and the Education Acts of 1870 and 1876 were largely due to the impression made in England by the success of state education in Prussia. Coleridge, Carlyle, and Matthew Arnold definitely acknowledged a debt to Germany. But Germany owed something to England in the perception of the value of surroundings and corporate life in schools. France also was affected by English education; and, in fact, French educators had to come to England to find the thing for which the French gave us the name--_Esprit de Corps_.