constructed entirely a priori. And yet the question of Socialism and Individualism has on both sides been argued too much on merely theoretical grounds, and neither party seems to have examined with close attention such historical data as exist on the subject. The case of Peru must be considered as one of the most remarkable and important of these, and it might very reasonably be appealed to as disposing of many common anti-socialist arguments or rather assertions. To describe Collectivism as a mere idle dream of knaves or fools which could never by any possibility be realized except by a community possessed of talents and virtues far transcending anything which has yet been witnessed upon earth, sounds somewhat ridiculous in the face of the fact that it actually was realized by a people very much less advanced, if judged by the ordinary standard, than the civilized nations of the present era. It is probable that the ground of argument may be shifted, and instead of the contention that Socialism cannot possibly work in any case we may perhaps be told that it might do so under a pure despotism like that of the Incas with a government machinery which regulated every item of daily life, but that no Europeans, certainly no English-speaking people, would ever submit to such a system, and that certainly the working of a collectivist scheme would be impracticable under a democracy. That this line would be taken by many opponents of Socialism is tolerably certain, indeed it actually has been taken by several writers when discussing the question as one of pure theory.

As will be seen, we have here a considerable climbing down from the former position. It is no longer contend ed that it would be impossible for any Government, but only for a democratic Government, to secure the physical well-being of all its subjects. It is ad

mitted that a benevolent Russian autocrat might establish institutions which, like those of the Incas, should effectually banish abject poverty and misery from the whole of his vast empire, but that it is hopeless for England, France, or the United States to emulate such an example so long as they retain their

free constitutions. This is surely a surprising and disheartening position to be put forward by professed believers in hunan freedom. If it were to be demonstrated it would by no means prove autocracy to be the best form of government, for "man shall not live by bread alone," but it would be a heavy drawback to democracy if we were obliged to confess that it necessarily involved the physical depression of large sections of the population, and that the slums of the East-end cannot be abolished without first abolishing our parliament. One thing may be safely predicted, that if the masses of the unemployed and suffering once became penetrated with the conviction that their only hope of relief from their miseries lay in the establishment of a despotism, constitutional government would not endure for long. It is quite probable that there are many even now who would welcome the Peruvian system, with all its drawbacks, as an advantageous change in their present situation. They might not necessarily be wise in doing so, but the possibility ought to suggest some serious reflections to all who study with attention the social problems which beset us, as it is encouraging to think, an increasing number of careful observers are doing.

The question forcibly suggests itself: Can we not, with all the immense advantages which we possess over the Peruvians, do at least as much as they did for the material welfare of our population without finding it necessary to imitate their despotic system of government?

It would certainly be a humiliating confession if we were obliged to admit that we cannot do what these people, to whom some deny the name of civilized at all, actually did, but that while they managed to find work for all we must always be burdened with the chronic problem of the unemployed.

It may be admitted that at the outset, the establishment of a collectivist system under a democracy would be attended with difficulties which would not exist if it were imposed at the absolute will of an autocrat, but this is simply what might be said of many other reforms. We all know how it

was once contended, and with considerable show of reason, that a democratic Government could never successfully carry on a great war, and how the experience of America has demonstrated the contrary, and proved that while at the beginning matters did not go so smoothly as they might have done under a despot, yet ultimately the struggle was carried through to the end with an energy and determination which no monarchy has ever surpassed, and few have equalled. Why should we doubt that if the war against poverty were once as earnestly engaged in by the English people on either side of the Atlantic, they would achieve results which would far surpass the fruits of the Inca rule? The contention that democracy cannot exist without the degradation of large masses of the people appears quite as strange as the similar position, once defended with some show of plausibility, that democracy necessarily implied slavery.

Perhaps with all our nineteenth century pride we may yet have something to learn from these American barbarians of the middle stage. We certainly know much of which they were completely ignorant, but can we say that we have turned our great knowledge to such good results for the benefit of our whole population as they did their little knowledge? While they cultivated their soil to perfection, under the operation of our land laws much good land has gone to waste, and between the land monopoly and the railway monopoly things have come to such a pass that many products which our soil and climate are well adapted for, such as fruit, cannot be profitably cultivated, or even brought to market when they have been grown. We may be sure that the simple-minded natives of Peru would have been amazed at such a waste of the bounties of nature as often takes place during a good fruit season in England, and they would fail to comprehend how quantities of wholesome food should be allowed to rot when there were plenty of mouths which would have been glad enough to consume it. If we were, with an air of lofty superiority, to rebuke them for their childish and grovelling submission to king and

priest, they might retort upon us for allowing the exactions of the ground landlord, the sweater, and the middleman, and could with truth maintain that, man for man, their workers got a larger share of the produce of their labor than ours did, and were decidedly better off. Indeed it is quite probable that future historians may consider that the Peruvians on some important points had reached a higher stage of social evolution than any communities under the régime of unrestricted competition, and that they, Pagans as they were, practically exemplified, as few other nations have ever done, the Christian principle of bearing each other's burdens.

46

Such an opinion will no doubt excite the ridicule of anti-socialists. They would maintain that the very fact that the Peruvian institutions exhibited so much of the collectivist type was a sufficient proof of the incapacity of the people for true civilization. They would regard what a modern historian describes as the monotonous and spiritless regimentation of the Incas as an instance of the dead level" to which, if it could be carried out, Socialism must necessarily reduce society. No doubt, as we have said, the defect of the Peruvian system was its thoroughly despotic character, which almost annihilated all individual free agency; and the problem of how to work a collectivist system consistently with the due liberty of each citizen is unquestionably one of some complexity, but there is no reason to assert that it is insoluble.

One cannot help thinking that there is a certain degree of selfishness on the part of those who so loudly denounce the Socialist dead level, and tell us that they much prefer the present picturesque inequalities of society. We feel inclined to say that no one has any right to use such language unless he himself is willing to undergo the utmost extreme of destitution, which is, unfortunately, both possible and actual under the present system, rather than be bored with the monotony of a system in which there should be no extremes of wealth or poverty. If he only means that other people ought to be willing to undergo these hardships

for his benefit, we are entitled to charge him with selfishness. And it may shrewdly be suspected that the latter rather than the former alternative best represents the real sentiments of many assailants of the dull uniformity of Socialism. Physical well-being is, it is true, by no means the highest end of life ; but such an entire absence of it as numbers among us are condemned to under the present system is not necessarily conducive to moral good. On the contrary, to raise the standard of comfort may often be the first step toward better things generally. There is a hopeful belief now gaining ground

The paper was an expression of what was in many minds and of what others' work had prepared. The movement which followed its publication was an indication of a strong stream of thought already running.

After twelve years, therefore, the question to be asked by those who would estimate the value of settlements is not, "What did the paper say?" but, "What did it mean, and how far have existing settlements carried out the meaning?"

Twelve years ago there was a stirring in the waters of benevolence which are for the healing of the weak. Men and women felt a new impulse toward doing good, and that impulse took shape in the creation of these Halls and Houses. What was the impulse? Why has

"the plan of settlement" extended? Three causes may be suggested.

DISTRUST OF MACHINERY.

I. Many people had become distrustful of the machinery for doing good. Men at the Universities, especially those who directly or indirectly felt the influence of T. H. Green, were asking for some other way than that of institutions by which to reach their neighbors. They heard the "bitter cry" of the poor; they were conscious of something wrong underneath modern progress; they realized that free trade, reform bills, philanthropic activity, and missions had made neither health nor wealth. They were drawn to do something for the poor. Charity organization societies had taught them not to give doles; they had turned from preachers who said, "Give up your business and live as monks;" they were not contented with reformers who came saying, "Change the laws, and all will be well," nor with philanthropists who said, "Support our charity to meet the need," nor with religious teachers who said, Subscribe to our church or mission."

They felt that they were bound to be themselves true to the call which had summoned them to the business and enjoyment of life, and they dis

'trusted machinery. The poor law, the chief machine, seemed to have developed pauperism, fostering the spirit which bullies or cringes." Societies had become empty shells, occupied only by officials, who had found pleasant quarters in the forms created by the life gift of the founders. Missions in making proselytes seemed sometimes to corrupt men.

Philanthropy, indeed, appeared to many to be a sort of mechanical figure beautifully framed by men to do their duty to their brother men-made with long arms, so as to reach all needs, and with iron frame, so as to be never tired. It saved its inventors all further care beyond that of supplying it with money. Drop in a coin, and the duty to a neighbor was done. But duty so done proved often more harmful than helpful. A society acting by rules sometimes patched "hearts which were breaking with handfuls of coals 'and rice." The best-advised mechanism can have neither eyes nor feeling. It must act blindly, and cannot evoke gratitude.

Thus it came about that a group of men and women at the Universities distrusted machinery for doing good. They were between two duties. On the one side they were bound to be true to themselves and do their own work. On the other side they were bound by other means than by votes and subscriptions to meet the needs of the poor. They welcomed, therefore, the proposal for a settlement where they might live their own lives and also make friends among the poor.

DEMAND FOR MORE INFORMATION.

II. Alongside of this distrust of machinery was a demand for more accurate information as to the condition of the people, as to their thoughts and their hopes. The sensational descriptions of the ill-housed, the ill-paid, and the ignorant had roughly awakened easy-going citizens, but those descriptions did not give assurance that they represented facts or their meaning. A generation which had breathed something of the modern scientific spirit was not content with hearsay knowledge and with sentimental references;

it required facts and figures-critical investigation into the causes of poverty and personal knowledge of the poor. Thus it was that many men and women received with favor a proposal that they themselves should go and live in a neighborhood where they would come into contact with the industrial classes, see with their own eyes their houses and surroundings, and hear from their own lips how they lived.

GROWTH OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT.

III. The Human Spirit is always growing in strength. It bursts traditions as the life in a tree bursts the bark which protected its tender age. It strains to reach beyond class distinctions, old habits, party lines, and any. thing which hinders man from helping man. Nowhere is the growth of this human spirit more evident than at the Universities.

Twelve years ago there was a clear recognition that old forms of benevolence were often patronizing in character, that charities and missions often assumed a superiority in their supporters, and that sectarian philanthropy often developed party bitterness. Many men and women, therefore, anxious to assert their fellowship with the poor, resented the ways which in the name of love made their brothers humble themselves to take gifts. They did not want to appear as "benefactors" or as "missionaries." They had no belief in their nostrum as a Morrison's pill for the cure of all evils. Their desire was, as human beings, to help human beings, and their human feeling protested against forms of help which put the interest of a class or of a party before that of individuals, reaching out handfuls of gifts across impassable gulfs and making party shibboleths the condition of association.

Working people, on the other side, under the influence of the same human spirit, had come more and more to resent exclusion from the good things enjoyed by other classes. They wanted to know more of what their richer neighbors did, and at any rate before heaving a brick at an aristocrat they desired to find out something about him.

Thus it was that a way was prepared for a suggestion that members of the University might live as neighbors of the poor, and, without affecting the superiority of an ascetic life, or claiming to have come as teachers, or having any sectarian object, might form the friendships which are the channels of all true service.

The establishment of settlements is the work of those who believe that the gifts to modern times are good; that culture is gain, not loss; that cleanliness is better than dirt, beauty better than ugliness, knowledge better than ignorance-Isaacs not to be sacrificed. Settlements stand as an acknowledgment of the claims of all the citizens to a share in these good things, and as a protest against meeting those claims by the substitution of philanthropic machinery for human hands and personal knowledge. They express the desire on the part of those "who have" to see, to know, and to serve those "who have not."

HOW FAR HAVE SETTLEMENTS SUC

CEEDED?

Settlements are not to be judged out of the mouths of their critics or supporters. Both try them by measures used for weighing and testing things seen and felt. They fasten, therefore, on what is done for education, for relief, or for entertainment, and they give praise or blame. They compare the lists of classes, the results of examinations; they count up the number relieved or converted; they get out accounts of entertainments, and say, "How small," or "How great. It may be, it probably is, the case that much of the strength of settlements has gone to such objects, and that some of the Houses and Halls have become identified with special methods and special objects. But my claim is that settlements are not fairly judged by such standards.

A SETTLEMENT AS IT SEEMS.

Toynbee Hall, for example, is not what it seems. The visitor who, Bacdeker in hand, is shown over the lecture-room, the library, and the class

rooms, and hears that there are 1,000 or 1,500 students, imagines that the sitting-rooms and bedrooms are occupied by men who give up their time to teaching and lecturing. "All the residents are, I suppose, professors," is a frequent American comment. Such visitors are apt to go away regarding the place as a centre of education.

If, however, the visitor happens to be told that most of the residents concern themselves with other objects, he makes up his mind that this object must be " temperance' or conversion." He asks, “What is the effect of the work on the criminal population ?" "Are the lowest people attracted ?" "What is the spiritual outcome of the movement ?" He gets, perhaps, as an answer, "that spiritual results are not visible,' ""that the residents have friends and acquaintances of all sorts," "that there is no common action which could be called the work of the place." He feels that his questions may have been impertinent, and he goes away somewhat confused, but on the whole assured that the place is a sort of mission.

If a visitor with more time or perseverance arrives in the evening, he by Dr. Gardiner's history students or finds, perhaps, the lecture-room filled. Mr. Rudler's geology students, the class-rooms occupied by small groups studying English or foreign literature, the laboratory in the hands of a few the principles of science or economics, practical workers, the library in the use of its quiet readers, the club-room noisy with the hum of talk about excursions, entertainments, and parties to be undertaken by the Students' Union. He is told that the distinction Union.

of all the educational work is that it is for the encouragement of knowledge which is not saleable, that lectures and classes aim at adding joy to life rather than of peace to wages, that their object is the better use of leisure time

rather than of work time. He then determines that the place is a sort of polytechnic, with "university" classes in place of technical" classes; he wonders so much is done without endowment; he criticises or admires. But when, the next moment, he goes into the drawing-room to find a party