In half an hour we are to alight at 'Utopia,' and our eyes are to see the Socialist Palace, where Capital and Labor have made a happy marriage. In order to guard myself against disappointment, I try to imagine it beforehand as ugly as possible.

It will naturally look like a barracks, a hospital, a factory, black and repellent. 'Naturally it will be black, because it is close by an iron furnace puffing out coal-smoke,' my companion observes. So we agree that it will be black. And it cannot be clean, for twelve hundred working-people, with their wives and children, live there. So we agree that it cannot be clean. It cannot be beautiful, because people have to live there like a lot of soldiers. Therefore it must be ugly.

Yet I came here to praise and to see things in the best light in the golden in the golden

light of truth. To be perfectly honest, the fact that Saint Peter's in Rome did not come up to my expectations from previous reading, was a matter of comparative indifference. That was only a building. But this Socialist Palace is more than a triumph of architecture: it is the embryo of a new society. And yet I approach it solely from the æsthetic point of view, and am wondering whether it is beautiful, clean, and all that!

The locomotive whistles for our destination Guise. At the foot of a wooded height, nested in the valley of the Oise, I suddenly perceive a little aristocratic, ecclesiastical-looking factory town.

Is the Palace in sight? I do not know. Hanging half-way out of the window, I discover between the poplars the upper part of an immense building, with a glazed sun-parlor on the roof. Its brickred hue is not ugly; the window-frames are white, and green curtains and blue shades enliven its great expanse of wall. Flower-boxes in the windows also give

an added touch of light and color. So really it is not black!

Thank God, it is not black!

After registering at the hotel, we proceed at once to the Palace, to meet Mr. Godin. The main building of the Familistère stands there in broad daylight. However subjectively a man may regard the thing, there it is, an indubitable giant of brick and mortar. Its architecture is simple and severe; plain masonry, with just a touch of ornamentation at the cornices and windows. It does not depress one like our white barracks. Its red-brick tones are not as bright and warm as those of the Doge's Palace at Venice, but by no means as dark and dingy as those of the City Hall at Lübeck. The windows are not as heavy and low as in a modern apartment house, but large and wide, so that the structure looks like a public building. Three flights of steps interrupt the base line of the main façade. Above the one in the centre is a balustrade and a clock, designed like a little observatory. The courtyard is not sodded, and has no benches. Its soil is nearly black, on account of a coal-dust dressing, which is supposed to keep out dampness and prevent unwholesome exhalations from the earth.

We pass through the main entrance. All the doors open in both directions, in order to afford ready exit in case of fire, and to lessen noise. No door has a lock. That is a nice affectation, if it is merely affectation. The vestibule is painted white, without any attempt at decoration. The stairways are equally simple. I see traces of black hands on the balustrade; but how could that be avoided?

Director Godin, the founder of the institution, lives in the second story of the left wing. He is reputed to be worth ten millions; but the door to his apartment is as simple and unimposing as that of the workers' quarters next to

him. It has not even a copperplate or a letter-drop. A foot-scraper suggests that the occupant indulges in a carpet, and prefers to have dirt left outside.

A maid opens the door and conducts us to a waiting-room. It is the waitingroom of a well-to-do man, with rugs and red upholstered walnut furniture.

I note two busts, one of bronze, of the master of the house. His head resembles that of Victor Hugo; but the features are stronger and give the impression of a man of action.

The other bust. Hm! If a person cherishes an ideal, that ideal pursues him. It is a young head, in white marble, with the high, straight, and clean-cut forehead of a thinker, with the hair brushed back, like that of Musset between 1830 and 1840. The eyebrows are too strong for a woman, but too weak for a man. The lines of the face are as restful and composed as those of Antinoüs; no evidence of a beard. The unnatural repose of the countenance has just a suggestion of paganism. An intense gaze seems to flash under the bent brows, and a smile plays about the mouth, like that of Hermes when he is about to kill. A blouse is buttoned tightly under the chin, and a broad, thin chest is covered by the wide lapels of a double-breasted

coat.

However, there is a 'but,' which still further disturbs the not altogether consistent portrait. A medallion hangs from the neck, bearing a man's head in relief.

So it must be a woman!

As I examine the peculiar face, I am slightly repelled, as I would be by a hand with six fingers.

The nymph Salmakis prayed the gods to give her as a mate the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, and the prayer was so effective that the two became one. Happily the gods no longer hear the prayers of the children of the gods,

but the uncomprehended sighs of the children of men even now seem sometimes to reach the ear of a merciful Providence- merciful but ironical.

The door of the inner room is opened, and M. Godin enters.

He looks like a scholar or statesman. His features are refined. Sixty-eight years have left their traces on his mild and melancholy countenance, which is lighted up by the bold, black Walloon eyes of remarkable brilliance. He is dressed in black, and wears the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. He looks weary, and a light flush under his black eyes indicates that we have disturbed his midday nap.1

Since the community's elections are in progress, and, moreover, it is Sunday, our host invites us to return the next day, in order to see the machine at work. Just now all the men are at the election; the children have not yet reached the nurseries and schools; the shops and the library are closed; and he must leave at once for a meeting. In other words, we come inopportunely.

While we await the morrow, we try to learn more of Godin's life and labor. The founder of the Familistère of Guise was born in 1817, in the Department of the Aisne. His father was a locksmith, and young Godin began to work in his father's shop when he was eleven years old. When he was seventeen, he set forth in the world to perfect himself in his trade. He thus learned the hardships and oppression from which workingmen suffer, and promised himself that, if he ever made a fortune, he would devote his life to helping these comrades. When he was twenty years old, he married; but the marriage was a brief one, because the wife did not sympathize with the philanthropic ideas of her husband.

Godin seems to have been captivated 'Strindberg's visit occurred in 1885. Godin died three years later.

early in life by the theories of SaintSimon and Fourier, which he has summarized briefly as follows: Civilized man is born indebted to his fellow man, and remains constantly in debt to his fellow man. His body is nourished by food which others produce; during his whole life he is supported by the common labor of his whole generation; all his ideas come from others. Therefore he should devote his whole life to paying this debt to his fellow men, else he will die morally obligated to them. In order to pay this debt, he must first live for himself. To plan one's life on any other theory than that of self-preservation or egoism is fantastic. Hitherto men have believed that their true interests commanded them to live selfishly and in isolation. This is not due to their evil intent, but to their lack of knowledge. Our true interests, our true self-consideration, command us to work in harmony and to coöperate with others. Toward this we must strive, not out of love for humanity, but out of enlightened self-interest.

Godin began very practically by saving money, without which he could not carry out his plans. He made inventions and patented them, in order to profit by them. In that romantic epoch when poets contemned ordinary business and fancied that the capital they wasted over their wine. would bring them interest in heaven, Godin was naturally regarded as an incurable realist.

While he was waiting for better fortunes, he labored patiently side by side with his fellow workers. At the same time he kept thinking, writing, discovering, and adding to his property. The revolution of 1851 almost drove him into exile, but he escaped because he was a manufacturer and a landlord.

Meanwhile he devoted half his property to a Communist colony in Texas.

The thing failed, but Godin was great enough to see why it failed, and did not give up his theory. He did not weary of his task, but learned by the lessons of experience. In April, 1859, he laid the foundation of his Familistère which we are to visit tomorrow from cellar to attic.

When we meet Mr. Godin the next morning, he takes us first to the day nursery, which occupies a one-story pavilion in the park and is connected with the Palace proper. Here nurses take charge of the children of mothers who are regularly employed. Mothers visit their infants twice daily, and take them home at night. These trained nurses have disciplined the little ones, by firmness and kindness, to go to sleep and wake up without crying, and to wait patiently until they are fed. The children really learn to take care of themselves to some extent by the time they are one or two years old. The discipline of playing with other children seems to improve their character. In a word, these little ones seemed as healthy and contented as any babies I ever saw. They learn something of social discipline at a very early age. In fact, we human beings need to be tamed young.

On leaving the nursery we visited the general-housekeeping department. Of the four hundred married women in the establishment only one hundred are regularly employed. They are the ones who leave their children in the day nursery. We found the three hundred others in a great common kitchen. Most of them were sewing while their food was cooking. In the beginning they had a steam kitchen where the food for all was cooked in common. But the women had no other employment, since there is no fitting occupation for them around the furnaces, and so they were left idle. They enjoyed the rights of members without their obligations.

This soon became irksome, and the separate housekeeping was resumed in order that wives might have something to do. Now M. Godin is erecting a knitting-mill to employ these excess workers. When this is running, the steam kitchen will probably come back.

So we find that the Familistère has literally emancipated woman. We now wish to see whether it has lightened the labors of the man. So we visit the furnaces and foundries which support the whole undertaking. Godin's discoveries enable him to manufacture sheet-iron by a continuous process, beginning with the smelting furnace. He has thus dispensed with several intermediate operations. He has also discovered a method for coating thin cast-iron with enamel, so that it looks like lacquered sheets.

People who really try to deal justly with their employees generally discover that the working-day is too long, and that the pay for heavy manual labor is unfairly low compared with the compensation for lighter tasks. This is Godin's experience. He does not believe, however, that it is possible under present conditions to shorten the working-day, partly because the establishment, if it is to be run economically, must be kept in continuous operation, and partly because he cannot control the prices of his products. In order to increase the earnings of his employees, and to accommodate wages to the service performed, he gives everyone a share in the profits. He has established a coöperative store, where the men can buy goods at cost. He has provided cheap and excellent quarters for his people by erecting the Familistère. Last of all, he has established invalid and old-age pensions. So we have not found a theoretically ideal and perfect society in this little corner of the world. Society can be reformed only on some broader and more universal scale. The

Familistère is a miniature model, a sketch perhaps of what is to come.

Godin divides profits according to the following scheme. He believes that the laborer is entitled to a share of all he produces; but that capital, or 'passive labor,' is also entitled to a reward for its service in production. The proportion in which the two should be compensated ought to be based upon what each respectively contributes to the product. In the Familistère the share of labor is larger than that of capital. Wages amount to 1,888,000 francs per annum, while 230,000 francs are paid for the use of capital.

However, when Godin established this rule there were a number of older workingmen who had helped to create the present property, and a number of less skilled men who must still spend time and labor to perfect themselves in trades. Therefore, he divided the participators into five classes, consisting of 68 associés, 95 sociétaires, 573 participants, 258 auxiliaires, and 286 intéressés. In addition, twenty-five per cent is distributed to professional employees and managers.

Employees live very cheaply in the Familistère. For ten francs a month, a worker gets two attractive rooms, with a smaller sleeping-room in addition. His family can cook in its own apartment, if the wife prefers not to use the common kitchen. He buys whatever he needs in the same building, at a very low price and at the end of the year he receives a dividend from the store's profits, proportional to his purchases. If he is ill, he is supported through his sickness; if he dies, his wife and children receive insurance. In addition, his children have free schooling. He can lay aside money from his annual earnings.

Before we leave the works, we make a brief visit to a department where a particularly dangerous operation is performed. That is in a separate room,

where iron is enameled in a dry state by a secret process.

Two heroes stand in front of a bench containing heaps of dry lead-salts, lacquering cuspidors, for a wage of eight or ten francs a day. They are always exposed to the danger of death within twenty-four hours.

One draws the pieces at a white heat from the incandescent furnace, and the other seizes them with tongs, covers them with a powder, and returns them to the first man, who again places them in the furnace. Both are young vigorous fellows. However, they look nervous, and smoke pipes, apparently to protect their mouths as much as possible from the poisonous dust. They work only three hours a day. Two others are sitting on a bench ready to relieve them. They salute us as we leave this vestibule of death. Morituri te salutamus!

And why all this danger and worry? In order that we may have enameled cuspidors. Why can't we use a different article?

Because we cannot prevent the progress of civilization in the matter of cuspidors. That would be reactionary. Who wants to be reactionary?

After having visited both the men and women, we go back again to the children. We enter a schoolroom. A bust of the Maid of Orleans occupies a place of honor behind the teacher's chair, instead of the Madonna, for the school is a lay institution.

The instruction seems very practical. Children learn to read by a combined sound-and-symbol method. They learn to count and figure by means of wooden blocks. Wherever possible, the concrete takes the place of the abstract. What is learned is at once given some practical application. I saw a great number of little glass jars, containing respectively loam, sand, clay, various kinds of rock, grains, fibres, specimens

of different woods, and other raw materials used in manufacture. The children are taught to identify them all.

Boys and girls study and recite together until they are sixteen years old. The teacher assured me that this works excellently in practice. The two sexes learn to appreciate each other better by thus being associated in their studies. Many happy marriages have occurred between former classmates. Corporal punishment is forbidden. Committees elected by the pupils themselves distribute rewards and punishments.

In spite of its capital of six million francs, this beautiful enterprise is not yet secure. It is founded on the unstable basis of every great industry. For twenty-five years Godin's furnaces have ruled the market. Now new and improved works are coming into competition with them, and the Guise enterprise is shaky. The storehouses are overstocked, and there are no purchasers. Will the future readjust the relation between demand and supply? Industrial Socialists believe it will; agrarian Socialists believe it will not.

On the third morning, when we made our farewell visit to M. Godin, Miss Moret entertained us while we waited. Her features were those of the marble bust, only much older. The same medallion hung from her throat; but the double-breasted walking coat was absent. Her features revealed goodness of heart and character, and were almost feminine.

M. Godin soon appeared, with the Temps in his hand. Miss Moret read the leader, which deplored the results of the election. Sadness and anger shone in the eyes of our aged host, who had witnessed the revolutions of 1830, 1848, and 1871.

'If it goes on this way, we'll have no choice but to take up arms again,' he said.

I inquire: 'Do you still believe in