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diff --git a/old/61347-0.txt b/old/61347-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 58cc953..0000000 --- a/old/61347-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1537 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Socialism and the family, by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Socialism and the family - -Author: H. G. (Herbert George) Wells - -Release Date: February 9, 2020 [EBook #61347] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOCIALISM AND THE FAMILY *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - SOCIALISM AND THE FAMILY - - - - - _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ - - - THE PLATTNER STORY, AND OTHERS. - TALES OF SPACE AND TIME. - THE STOLEN BACILLUS AND OTHER STORIES. - TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM. - - THE TIME MACHINE. - THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. - THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. - THE INVISIBLE MAN. - THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. - THE FOOD OF THE GODS. - THE SEA LADY (Methuen). - WHEN THE SLEEPER WAKES. - IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET. - - LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM. - KIPPS. - - ANTICIPATIONS. - MANKIND IN THE MAKING. - A MODERN UTOPIA. - THE FUTURE IN AMERICA. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - SOCIALISM AND THE FAMILY - - - By - H. G. WELLS - - _Author of “In the Days of the Comet,” “A Modern Utopia,” - “Anticipations,” etc._ - - - LONDON - A. C. FIFIELD, 44, FLEET STREET, E.C. - 1906 - - - - - _All rights reserved_ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - SOCIALISM AND THE FAMILY - - -_These are two papers written by Mr. H. G. Wells. The first was read to -the Fabian Society in October, 1906, under the title of “Socialism and -the Middle Classes.” The second appeared first in the “Independent -Review.” Together they state pretty completely the attitude of Modern -Socialism to family life._ - - - - - I - - -In this paper I am anxious to define and discuss the relationship -between three distinct things: - -(1) Socialism, i.e. a large, a slowly elaborating conception of a sane -and organized state and moral culture to replace our present chaotic way -of living, - -(2) the Socialist movement, and - -(3) the Middle Classes. - -The first is to me a very great thing indeed, the form and substance of -my ideal life, and all the religion I possess. Let me make my confession -plain and clear. I am, by a sort of predestination, a Socialist. I -perceive, I cannot help talking and writing about Socialism, and shaping -and forwarding Socialism. I am one of a succession—one of a growing -multitude of witnesses, who will continue. It does not—in the larger -sense—matter how many generations of us must toil and testify. It does -not matter, except as our individual concern, how individually we -succeed or fail, what blunders we make, what thwartings we encounter, -what follies and inadequacies darken our private hopes and level our -personal imaginations to the dust. We have the light. We know what we -are for, and that the light that now glimmers so dimly through us must -in the end prevail. To us Socialism is no piece of political strategy, -no economic opposition of class to class; it is a plan for the -reconstruction of human life, for the replacement of a disorder by -order, for the making of a state in which mankind shall live bravely and -beautifully beyond our present imagining. - -So, largely, I conceive of Socialism. But Socialism and the Socialist -movement are two very different things. The Socialist movement is an -item in an altogether different scale. - -I must confess that the organized Socialist movement, all the Socialist -societies and leagues and federations and parties together in England, -seem to me no more than the rustling hem of the garment of advancing -Socialism. For some years the whole organized Socialist movement seemed -to me so unimportant, so irrelevant to that progressive development and -realization of a great system of ideas which is Socialism, that, like -very many other Socialists, I did not trouble to connect myself with any -section of it. I don’t believe that the Socialist idea is as yet nearly -enough thought out and elaborated for very much of it to be realized of -set intention now. Socialism is still essentially education, is study, -is a renewal, a profound change in the circle of human thought and -motive. The institutions which will express this changed circle of -thought are important indeed, but with a secondary importance. Socialism -is the still incomplete, the still sketchy and sketchily indicative plan -of a new life for the world, a new and better way of living, a change of -spirit and substance from the narrow selfishness and immediacy and -cowardly formalism, the chaotic life individual accident that is human -life to-day, a life that dooms itself and all of us to thwartings and -misery. Socialism, therefore, is to be served by thought and expression, -in art, in literature, in scientific statement and life, in discussion -and the quickening exercise of propaganda; but the Socialist movement, -as one finds it, is too often no more than a hasty attempt to secure a -premature realization of some fragmentary suggestion of this great, -still plastic design, to the neglect of all other of its aspects. As my -own sense of Socialism has enlarged and intensified, I have become more -and more impressed by the imperfect Socialism of almost every Socialist -movement that is going on; by its necessarily partial and limited -projection from the clotted cants and habituations of things as they -are. Some Socialists quarrel with the Liberal Party and with the -Socialist section of the Liberal Party because it does not go far -enough, because it does not embody a Socialism uncompromising and -complete, because it has not definitely cut itself off from the old -traditions, the discredited formulæ, that served before the coming of -our great idea. They are blind to the fact that there is no organized -Socialism at present, uncompromising and complete, and the Socialists -who flatter themselves they represent as much are merely those who have -either never grasped or who have forgotten the full implications of -Socialism. They are just a little step further, a very little step -further in their departure from existing prejudices, in their -subservience to existing institutions and existing imperatives. - -Take, for example, the Socialism that is popular in New York and Chicago -and Germany, and that finds its exponents here typically in the inferior -ranks of the Social Democratic Federation—the crude Marxite teaching. It -still awaits permeation by true Socialist conceptions. It is a version -of life adapted essentially to the imagination of the working wage -earner, and limited by his limitations. It is the vision of poor souls -perennially reminded each Monday morning of the shadow and irksomeness -of life, perpetually recalled each Saturday pay time to a watery gleam -of all that life might be. One of the numberless relationships of life, -the relationship of capital or the employer to the employed, is made to -overshadow all other relations. Get that put right, “expropriate the -idle rich,” transfer all capital to the State, make the State the -humane, amenable, universal employer—that, to innumerable, Socialist -working men, is the horizon. The rest he sees in the forms of the life -to which he is accustomed. A little home, a trifle larger and brighter -than his present one, a more abounding table, a cheerful missus released -from factory work and unhealthy competition with men, a bright and -healthy family going to and fro to the public free schools, free medical -attendance, universal State insurance for old age, free trams to Burnham -Beeches, shorter hours of work and higher wages, no dismissals, no -hunting for work that eludes one. All the wide world of collateral -consequences that will follow from the cessation of the system of -employment under conditions of individualist competition, he does not -seem to apprehend. Such phrases as the citizenship and economic -independence of women leave him cold. That Socialism has anything to say -about the economic basis of the family, about the social aspects of -marriage, about the rights of the parent, doesn’t, I think, at first -occur to him at all. Nor does he realize for a long time that for -Socialism and under Socialist institutions will there be needed any -system of self-discipline, any rules of conduct further than the natural -impulses and the native goodness of man. He takes just that aspect of -Socialism that appeals to him, and that alone, and it is only -exceptionally at present, and very slowly, as a process of slow -habituation and enlargement, that he comes to any wider conceptions. -And, as a consequence, directly we pass to any social type to which -weekly or monthly wages is not the dominating fact of life, and a simple -unthinking faith in Yes or No decisions its dominant habit, the -phrasings, the formulæ, the statements and the discreet omissions of the -leaders of working-class Socialism fail to appeal. - -Socialism commends itself to a considerable proportion of the working -class simply as a beneficial change in the conditions of work and -employment; to other sections of the community it presents itself -through equally limited aspects. Certain ways of living it seems to -condemn root and branch. To the stockbroker and many other sorts of -trader, to the usurer, to the company promoter, to the retired butler -who has invested his money in “weekly property,” for example, it stands -for the dissolution of all comprehensible social order. It simply -repudiates the way of living to which they have committed themselves. -And to great numbers of agreeable unintelligent people who live upon -rent and interest it is a projected severing of every bond that holds -man and man, that keeps servants respectful, tradespeople in order, -railways and hotels available, and the whole procedure of life going. -They class Socialism and Anarchism together in a way that is as -logically unjust as it is from their point of view justifiable. Both -cults have this in common, that they threaten to wipe out the whole -world of the villa resident. And this sense of a threatened profound -disturbance in their way of living pervades the attitude of nearly all -the comfortable classes towards Socialism. - -When we discuss the attitude of the middle classes to Socialism we must -always bear this keener sense of disconcerting changes in mind. It is a -part of the queer composition of the human animal that its desire for -happenings is balanced by an instinctive dread of real changes of -condition. People, especially fully adult people, are creatures who have -grown accustomed to a certain method of costume, a certain system of -meals, a certain dietary, certain apparatus, a certain routine. They -know their way about in life as it is. They would be lost in Utopia. -Quite little alterations “put them out,” as they say—create a -distressing feeling of inadequacy, make them “feel odd.” Whatever little -enlargements they may contemplate in reverie, in practice they know they -want nothing except, perhaps, a little more of all the things they like. -That’s the way with most of us, anyhow. To make a fairly complete -intimation of the nature of Socialism to an average, decent, -middle-aged, middle-class person would be to arouse emotions of -unspeakable terror, if the whole project didn’t also naturally clothe -itself in a quality of incredibility. And you will find, as a matter of -fact, that your middle-class Socialists belong to two classes; either -they are amiable people who don’t understand a bit what Socialism is—and -some of the most ardent and serviceable workers for Socialism are of -this type—or they are people so unhappily situated and so unfortunate, -or else of such exceptional imaginative force or training (which is -itself, perhaps, from the practical point of view, a misfortune), as to -be capable of a discontent with life as it is, so passionate as to -outweigh instinctive timidities and discretions. Rest assured that to -make any large section of the comfortable upper middle class Socialists, -you must either misrepresent, and more particularly under-represent -Socialism, or you must quicken their imaginations far beyond the present -state of affairs. - -Some of the most ardent and serviceable of Socialist workers, I have -said, are of the former type. For the most part they are philanthropic -people, or women and men of the managing temperament shocked into a sort -of Socialism by the more glaring and melodramatic cruelties of our -universally cruel social system. They are the district visitors of -Socialism. They do not realize that Socialism demands any change in -themselves or in their way of living, they perceive in it simply a way -of hope from the failures of vulgar charity. Chiefly they assail the bad -conditions of life of the lower classes. They don’t for a moment -envisage a time when there will be no lower classes—that is beyond them -altogether. Much less can they conceive of a time when there will be no -governing class distinctively in possession of _means_. They exact -respect from inferiors; no touch of Socialist warmth or light qualifies -their arrogant manners. Perhaps they, too, broaden their conception of -Socialism as time goes on, but so it begins with them. Now to make -Socialists of this type the appeal is a very different one from the talk -of class war and expropriation, and the abolition of the idle rich, -which is so serviceable with a roomful of sweated workers. These people -are moved partly by pity, and the best of them by a hatred for the -squalor and waste of the present _régime_. Talk of the expropriated rich -simply raises in their minds painful and disconcerting images of -distressed gentlewomen. But one necessary aspect of the Socialist’s -vision that sends the coldest shiver down the spine of the working class -Socialist is extraordinarily alluring and congenial to them, namely, the -official and organized side. They love to think of houses and factories -open to competent inspection, of municipal milk, sealed and certificated -for every cottager’s baby, of old age pensions and a high and rising -minimum standard of life. They have an admirable sense of sanitation. -They are the philanthropic and administrative Socialists as -distinguished from the economic revolutionaries. - -This class of Socialist passes insensibly into the merely Socialistic -philanthropist of the wealthy middle class to whom we owe so much -helpful expenditure upon experiments in housing, in museum and school -construction, in educational endowment, and so forth. Their activities -are not for one moment to be despised; they are a constant demonstration -to dull and sceptical persons that things may be different, better, -prettier, kindlier and more orderly. Many people impervious to tracts -can be set thinking by a model village or a model factory. However petty -much of what they achieve may be, there it is achieved—in legislation, -in bricks and mortar. Among other things, these administrative -Socialists serve to correct the very perceptible tendency of most -working men Socialists to sentimental anarchism in regard to questions -of control and conduct, a tendency due entirely to their social and -administrative inexperience. - -For more thorough-going Socialism among the middle classes one must look -to those strata and sections in which quickened imaginations and -unsettling influences are to be found. The artist should be -extraordinarily attracted by Socialism. A mind habitually directed to -beauty as an end must necessarily be exceptionally awake to the ugly -congestions of our contemporary civilisation, to the prolific futile -production of gawky, ill-mannered, jostling new things, to the shabby -profit-seeking that ousts beauty from life and poisons every enterprise -of man. And not only artistic work, but the better sort of scientific -investigation, the better sort of literary work, and every occupation -that involves the persistent free use of thought, must bring the mind -more and more towards the definite recognition of our social incoherence -and waste. But this by no means exhausts the professions that ought to -have a distinct bias for Socialism. The engineer, the architect, the -mechanical inventor, the industrial organizer, and every sort of maker -must be at one in their desire for emancipation from servitude to the -promoter, the trader, the lawyer, and the forestaller, from the -perpetually recurring obstruction of the claim of the private proprietor -to every large and hopeful enterprise, and ready to respond to the -immense creative element in the Socialist idea. Only it is that creative -element which has so far found least expression in Socialist literature, -which appears neither in the “class war” literature of the working class -Socialist nor the litigious, inspecting, fining, and regulating tracts -and proposals of the administrative Socialist. To too many of these men -in the constructive professions the substitution of a Socialist State -for our present economic method carries with it no promise of -emancipation at all. They think that to work for the public controls -which an advance towards Socialism would set up, would be worse for them -and for all that they desire to do than the profit-seeking, -expense-cutting, mercenary making of the present _régime_. - -This is, I believe, a temporary and alterable state, contrary to the -essential and permanent spirit of those engaged in constructive work. It -is due very largely to the many misrepresentations and partial -statements of Socialism that have rendered it palatable and assimilable -to the working men and the administrative Socialist. Socialism has been -presented on the one hand as a scheme of expropriation to a clamorous -popular government of working men, far more ignorant and incapable of -management than a shareholders’ meeting, and, on the other, as a scheme -for the encouragement of stupid little municipal authorities of the -contemporary type in impossible business undertakings under the guidance -of fussy, energetic, legal minded and totally unscientific instigators. -Except for the quite recent development of Socialist thought that is now -being embodied in the _New Heptarchy Series_ of the Fabian Society, -scarcely anything has been done to dispel these reasonable dreads. I -should think that from the point of view of Socialist propaganda, the -time is altogether ripe now for a fresh and more vigorous insistence -upon the materially creative aspect of the Vision of Socialism, an -aspect which is after all, much more cardinal and characteristic than -any aspect that has hitherto been presented systematically to the world. -An enormous rebuilding, remaking, and expansion is integral in the -Socialist dream. We want to get the land out of the control of the -private owners among whom it is cut up, we want to get houses, -factories, railways, mines, farms out of the dispersed management of -their proprietors, not in order to secure their present profits and -hinder development, but in order to rearrange these things in a saner -and finer fashion. An immense work of replanning, rebuilding, -redistributing lies in the foreground of the Socialist vista. We -contemplate an enormous clearance of existing things. We want an -unfettered hand to make beautiful and convenient homes, splendid cities, -noiseless great highways, beautiful bridges, clean, swift and splendid -electric railways; we are inspired by a faith in the coming of clean, -wide and simple methods of agricultural production. But it is only now -that Socialism is beginning to be put in these terms. So put it, and the -engineer and the architect and the scientific organizer, agricultural or -industrial—all the best of them, anyhow—will find it correspond -extraordinarily to their way of thinking. - -Not all of them, of course. A middle-aged architect with a note-book -full of bits of gothic, and a reputation for suburban churches, or full -of bits of “Queen Anne” and a connexion among villa builders, or an -engineer paterfamilias who has tasted blood as an expert witness, aren’t -to be won by these suggestions. They’re part of things as they are. But -that is only a temporary inconvenience to Socialism. The young men do -respond, and they are the future and what Socialism needs. - -And there’s another great constructive profession that should be -Socialist altogether, and that is the medical profession. Especially -does Socialism claim the younger men who haven’t yet sunken from the -hospitals to the trading individualism of a practice. And then there are -the teachers, the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. The idea of a -great organized making is innate in the quality of their professions; -the making of sound bodies and healthy conditions, the making of -informed and disciplined minds. The methods of the profit-seeking -schoolmaster, the practice-buying doctor are imposed upon them by the -necessities of an individualist world. Both these two great professions -present nowadays, side by side, two types—the new type, highly -qualified, official, administrative, scientific, public-spirited; the -old type, capitalistic, with a pretentious house and equipment, the -doctor with a brougham, and a dispensary, the schoolmaster or -schoolmistress with some huge old stucco house converted by jerry-built -extensions to meet scholastic needs. Who would not rather, one may ask, -choose the former way who was not already irrevocably committed to the -latter? Well, I with my Socialist dreams would like to answer “No one,” -but I’m learning to check my buoyant optimism. The imagination and -science in a young man may cry out for the public position, for the -valiant public work, for the hard, honourable, creative years. He may -sit with his fellow-students and his fellow-workers in a nocturnal cloud -of tobacco smoke and fine talk, and vow himself to research and the -creative world state. In the morning he will think he has dreamed; he -will recall what the world is, what Socialists are, what he has heard -wild Socialists say about science and his art. He will elect for the -real world and a practice. - -Something more than a failure to state the constructive and educational -quality in Socialism on the part of its exponents has to be admitted in -accounting for the unnatural want of sympathetic co-operation between -them and the bulk of these noble professions. I cannot disguise from -myself certain curiously irrelevant strands that have interwoven with -the partial statements of Socialism current in England, and which it is -high time, I think, for Socialists to repudiate. Socialism is something -more than an empty criticism of our contemporary disorder and waste of -life, it is a great intimation of construction, organization, science -and education. But concurrently with its extension and its destructive -criticism of the capitalistic individualism of to-day, there has been -another movement, essentially an anarchist movement, hostile to -machinery and apparatus, hostile to medical science, hostile to order, -hostile to education, a Rousseauite movement in the direction of a -sentimentalized naturalism, a Tolstoyan movement in the direction of a -non-resisting pietism, which has not simply been confused with the -Socialist movement, but has really affected and interwoven with it. It -is not simply that wherever discussion and destructive criticism of the -present conventional bases of society occur, both ways of thinking crop -up together; they occur all too often as alternating phases in the same -individual. Few of us are so clear-headed as to be free from profound -self-contradictions. So that it is no great marvel, after all, if the -presentation of Socialism has got mixed up with Return-to-Nature ideas, -with proposals for living in a state of unregulated primitive virtue in -purely hand-made houses, upon rain water and uncooked fruit. We -Socialists have to disentangle it from these things now. We have to -disavow, with all necessary emphasis, that gibing at science and the -medical profession, at schools and books and the necessary apparatus for -collective thinking, which has been one of our little ornamental -weaknesses in the past. That has, I know, kept a very considerable -number of intelligent professional men from inquiring further into -Socialist theories and teachings. As a consequence there are, especially -in the medical profession, quite a number of unconscious Socialists, -men, often with a far clearer grip upon the central ideas of Socialism -than many of its professed exponents, who have worked out these ideas -for themselves, and are incredulous to hear them called Socialistic. - -So much for the specifically creative and imagination-using professions. -Throughout the whole range of the more educated middle classes, however, -there are causes at work that necessarily stimulate thought towards -Socialism, that engender scepticisms, promote inquiries leading towards -what is at present the least expounded of all aspects of Socialism—the -relation of Socialism to the institution of the Family.... - -The Family, and not the individual, is still the unit in contemporary -civilization, and indeed in nearly all social systems that have ever -existed. The adult male, the head of the family, has been the citizen, -the sole representative of the family in the State. About him have been -grouped his one or more wives, his children, his dependents. His -position towards them has always been—is still in many respects to this -day—one of ownership. He was owner of them all, and in many of the less -sophisticated systems of the past his ownership was as complete as over -his horse and house and land—more complete than over his land. He could -sell his children into slavery, barter his wives. There has been a -secular mitigation of the rights of this sort of private property; the -establishment of monogamy, for instance, did for the family what -President Roosevelt’s proposed legislation against large accumulations -might do for industrial enterprises, but to this day in our own -community, for all such mitigations and many euphemisms, the ownership -of the head of the family is still a manifest fact. He votes. He keeps -and protects. He determines the education and professions of his -children. He is entitled to monetary consolation for any infringement of -his rights over wife or daughter. Every intelligent woman understands -that, as a matter of hard fact, beneath all the civilities of to-day, -she is actual or potential property, and has to treat herself and keep -herself as that. She may by force or subtlety turn her chains into -weapons, she may succeed in exacting a reciprocal property in a man, the -fact remains fundamental that she is either isolated or owned. - -But I need not go on writing facts with which every one is acquainted. -My concern now is to point out that Socialism repudiates the private -ownership of the head of the family as completely as it repudiates any -other sort of private ownership. Socialism involves the responsible -citizenship of women, their economic independence of men, and all the -personal freedom that follows that, it intervenes between the children -and the parents, claiming to support them, protect them, and educate -them for its own ampler purposes. Socialism, in fact, is the State -family. The old family of the private individual must vanish before it, -just as the old water works of private enterprise, or the old gas -company. They are incompatible with it. Socialism assails the triumphant -egotism of the family to-day, just as Christianity did in its earlier -and more vital centuries. So far as English Socialism is concerned (and -the thing is still more the case in America) I must confess that the -assault has displayed a quite extraordinary instinct for taking cover, -but that is a question of tactics rather than of essential antagonism. - -It is possible to believe that so far as the middle classes are -concerned this discretion has been carried altogether too far. -Socialists would have forwarded their cause better if they had been more -outspoken. It has led to preposterous misunderstandings; and among -others to the charge that Socialism implied free-love.... The -middle-class family, I am increasingly convinced, is a group in a state -of tension. I believe that a modest but complete statement of the -Socialist criticism of the family and the proposed Socialist substitute -for the conventional relationships might awaken extraordinary responses -at the present time. The great terror of the eighties and early nineties -that crushed all reasonable discussion of sexual relationship is, I -believe, altogether over. - -The whole of the present system is riddled with discontents. One factor -is the enhanced sense of the child in middle-class life: the old -sentiment was that the parent owned the child, the new is that the -children own the parents. There has come an intensified respect for -children, an immense increase in the trouble, attention and expenditure -devoted to them—and a very natural and human accompaniment in the huge -fall in the middle-class birth-rate. It is felt that to bear and rear -children is the most noble and splendid and responsible thing in life, -and an increasing number of people modestly evade it. People see more -clearly the social service of parentage, and are more and more inclined -to demand a recognition from the State for this service. The -middle-class parent might conceivably be horrified if you suggested the -State should pay him for his offspring, but he would have no objection -whatever to being indirectly and partially paid by a differential income -tax graduated in relation to the size of his family. - -With this increased sense of the virtue and public service of parentage -there has gone on a great development of the criticism of schools and -teaching. The more educated middle-class parent has become an amateur -educationist of considerable virulence. He sees more and more distinctly -the inadequacy of his own private attempts to educate, the necessary -charlatanry and insufficiency of the private adventure school. He finds -much to envy in the elementary schools. If he is ignorant and -short-sighted, he joins in the bitter cry of the middle classes, and -clamours against the pampering of the working class, and the rising of -the rates which renders his efforts to educate his own children more -difficult. But a more intelligent type of middle-class parent sends his -boy in for public scholarships, sets to work to get educational -endowment for his own class also, and makes another step towards -Socialism. Moreover, the increasing intelligence of the middle-class -parent and the steady swallowing up of the smaller capitalists and -smaller shareholders by the larger enterprises and fortunes, alike bring -home to him the temporary and uncertain nature of the advantages his -private efforts give his children over those of the working man. He sees -no more than a brief respite for them against the economic cataclysms of -the coming time. He is more and more alive to the presence of secular -change in the world. He does not feel sure his sons will carry on the -old business, continue the old practice. He begins to appreciate the -concentration of wealth. The secular development of the capitalistic -system robs him more and more of his sense of securities. He is uneasier -than he used to be about investments. He no longer has that complete -faith in private insurance companies that once sustained him. His mind -broadens out to State insurance as to State education. He is far more -amenable than he used to be to the idea that the only way to provide for -one’s own posterity is to provide for every one’s posterity, to merge -parentage in citizenship. The family of the middle-class man which -fights for itself alone, is lost. - -Socialism comes into the middle-class family offering education, -offering assurances for the future, and only very distantly intimating -the price to be paid in weakened individual control. But far profounder -disintegrations are at work. The internal character of the middle-class -family is altering fundamentally with the general growth of -intelligence, with the higher education of women, with the comings and -goings for this purpose and that, the bicycles and games, the enlarged -social appetites and opportunities of a new time. The more or less -conscious _Strike against Parentage_ is having far-reaching effects. The -family proper becomes a numerically smaller group. Enormous numbers of -childless families appear; the middle-class family with two, or at most -three, children is the rule rather than the exception in certain strata. -This makes the family a less various and interesting group, with a -smaller demand for attention, emotion, effort. Quite apart from the -general mental quickening of the time, it leaves more and more social -energy, curiosity, enterprise free, either to fret within the narrow -family limits or to go outside them. The _Strike against Parentage_ -takes among other forms the form of a strike against marriage; great -numbers of men and women stand out from a relationship which every year -seems more limiting and (except for its temporary passional aspect) -purposeless. The number of intelligent and healthy women inadequately -employed, who either idle as wives in attenuated modern families, -childless or with an insufficient child or so, or who work for an -unsatisfying subsistence as unmarried women, increases. To them the -complete conceptions of Socialism should have an extraordinary appeal. - -The appearance of the feminine mind and soul in the world as something -distinct and self-conscious, is the appearance of a distinct new engine -of criticism against the individualist family, against this dwindling -property of the once-ascendant male—who no longer effectually rules, no -longer, in many cases, either protects or sustains, who all too often is -so shorn of his beams as to be but a vexatious power of jealous -restriction and interference upon his wife and children. The educated -girl resents the proposed loss of her freedom in marriage, the educated -married woman realizes as well as resents the losses of scope and -interest marriage entails. If it were not for the economic disadvantages -that make intelligent women dread a solitary old age in bitter poverty, -vast numbers of women who are married to-day would have remained single -independent women. This discontent of women is a huge available force -for Socialism. The wife of the past was, to put it brutally, caught -younger—so young that she had had no time to think—she began forthwith -to bear babies, rear babies, and (which she did in a quite proportionate -profusion) bury babies—she never had a moment to think. Now the wife -with double the leisure, double the education and half the emotional -scope of her worn prolific grandmother, sits at home and thinks things -over. You find her letting herself loose in clubs, in literary -enterprises, in schemes for joint households to relieve herself and her -husband from the continuation of a duologue that has exhausted its -interest. The husband finds himself divided between his sympathetic -sense of tedium and the proprietary tradition in which we live. - -For these tensions in the disintegration of the old proprietary family -no remedy offers itself to-day except the solutions that arise as -essential portions of the Socialist scheme. The alternative is hypocrisy -and disorder. - -There is yet another and still more effectual system of strains at work -in the existing social unit, and that is the strain between parents and -children. That has always existed. It is one of our most transparent -sentimental pretences that there is any natural subordination of son to -father, of daughter to mother. As a matter of fact a good deal of -natural antagonism appears at the adolescence of the young. Something -very like an instinct stirs in them, to rebel, to go out. The old habits -of solicitude, control and restraint in the parent become more and more -hampering, irksome, and exasperating to the offspring. The middle-class -son gets away in spirit and in fact to school, to college, to -business—his sister does all she can to follow his excellent example. In -a world with vast moral and intellectual changes in progress the -intelligent young find the personal struggle for independence -intensified by a conflict of ideas. The modern tendency to cherish and -preserve youthfulness; the keener desire for living that prevents women -getting fat and ugly, and men bald and incompetent by forty-five, is -another dissolvent factor among these stresses. The daughter is not only -restrained by her mother’s precepts, but inflamed by her example. The -son finds his father’s coevals treating him as a contemporary. - -Well, into these conflicts and disorders comes Socialism, and Socialism -alone, to explain, to justify, to propose new conventions and new -interpretations of relationship, to champion the reasonable claims of -the young, to mitigate the thwarted ownership of the old. Socialism -comes, constructive amid the wreckage. - -Let me at this point, and before I conclude, put one thing with the -utmost possible clearness. The Socialist does not propose to destroy -something that conceivably would otherwise last for ever, when he -proposes a new set of institutions, and a new system of conduct to -replace the old proprietary family. He no more regards the institution -of marriage as a permanent thing than he regards a state of competitive -industrialism as a permanent thing. In the economic sphere, quite apart -from any Socialist ideas or Socialist activities, it is manifest that -competitive individualism destroys itself. This was reasoned out long -ago in the _Capital_ of Marx; it is receiving its first gigantic -practical demonstration in the United States of America. Whatever -happens, we believe that competitive industrialism will change and -end—and we Socialists at least believe that the alternative to some form -of Socialism is tyranny and social ruin. So, too, in the social sphere, -whether Socialists succeed altogether or fail altogether, or in whatever -measure they succeed or fail, it does not alter the fact that the family -is weakening, dwindling, breaking up, disintegrating. The alternative to -a planned and organized Socialism is not the maintenance of the present -system, but its logical development, and that is all too plainly a -growing complication of pretences as the old imperatives weaken and -fade. We already live in a world of stupendous hypocrisies, a world -wherein rakes and rascals champion the sacred institution of the family, -and a network of sexual secrets, vaguely suspected, disagreeably -present, and only half-concealed, pervades every social group one -enters. Cynicism, a dismal swamp of base intrigues, cruel restrictions -and habitual insincerities, is the manifest destiny of the present -_régime_ unless we make some revolutionary turn. It cannot work out its -own salvation without the profoundest change in its determining ideas. -And what change in those ideas is offered except by the Socialist? - -In relation to all these most intimate aspects of life, Socialism, and -Socialism alone, supplies the hope and suggestions of clean and -practicable solutions. So far, Socialists have either been silent or -vague, or—let us say—tactful, in relation to this central tangle of -life. To begin to speak plainly among the silences and suppressions, the -“find out for yourself” of the current time, would be, I think, to grip -the middle-class woman and the middle-class youth of both sexes with an -extraordinary new interest, to irradiate the dissensions of every bored -couple and every squabbling family with broad conceptions, and -enormously to enlarge and stimulate the Socialist movement at the -present time. - - _Here ends the paper read by Mr. Wells to the Fabian Society, but in - this that follows he sets out the Socialist conception of the new - relations that must follow the old much more clearly._ - - - - - II - - -I do not think that the general reader at all appreciates the steady -development of Socialist thought during the past two decades. Directly -one comes into close contact with contemporary Socialists one discovers -in all sorts of ways the evidence of the synthetic work that has been -and still is in process, the clearing and growth of guiding ideas, the -qualification of primitive statements, the consideration, the adaptation -to meet this or that adequate criticism. A quarter of a century ago -Socialism was still to a very large extent a doctrine of negative, a -passionate criticism and denial of the theories that sustained and -excused the injustices of contemporary life, a repudiation of social and -economic methods then held to be indispensable and in the very nature of -things. Its positive proposals were as sketchy as they were -enthusiastic, sketchy and, it must be confessed, fluctuating. One needs -to turn back to the files of its every-day publications to realize the -progress that has been made, the secular emergence of a consistent and -continually more nearly complete and directive scheme of social -reconstruction from the chaotic propositions and hopes and denials of -the earlier time. In no direction is this more evident than in the -steady clearing of the Socialistic attitude towards marriage and the -family; in the disentanglement of Socialism from much idealist and -irrelevant matter with which it was once closely associated and -encumbered, in the orderly incorporation of conceptions that at one time -seemed not only outside of, but hostile to, Socialist ways of -thinking.... - -Nothing could have brought out this more clearly than the comical -attempt made recently by the _Daily Express_ to suggest that Mr. Keir -Hardie and the party he leads was mysteriously involved with my -unfortunate self in teaching Free Love to respectable working men. When -my heat and indignation had presently a little subsided, I found myself -asking how it came about, that any one could bring together such -discrepant things as the orderly proposals of Socialism as they shape -themselves in the projects of Mr. Keir Hardie, let us say, and the -doctrine of sexual go-as-you-please. And so inquiring, my mind drifted -back to the days—it is a hazy period to me—when Godwin and Mary -Wollstonecraft were alive, when Shelley explained his views to Harriet. -These people were in a sort of way Socialists; Palaeo-Socialists. They -professed also very distinctly that uncovenanted freedom of action in -sexual matters which is, I suppose, Free Love. Indeed, so near are we to -these old confusions that there is still, I find, one Palaeo-Socialist -surviving—Mr. Belfort Bax. In that large undifferentiated past, all -sorts of ideas, as yet too ill defined to eliminate one another, -socialist ideas, communist ideas, anarchist ideas, Rousseauism, seethed -together and seemed akin. In a sense they were akin in that they were -the condemnation of the existing order, the outcome of the destructive -criticism of this of its aspects or that. They were all _breccia_. But -in all else, directly they began to find definite statement, they were -flatly contradictory one with another. Or at least they stood upon -different levels of assumption and application. - -The formulæ of Anarchism and Socialism are, no doubt, almost -diametrically opposed; Anarchism denies government, Socialism would -concentrate all controls in the State, yet it is after all possible in -different relations and different aspects to entertain the two. When one -comes to dreams, when one tries to imagine one’s finest sort of people, -one must surely imagine them too fine for control and prohibitions, -doing right by a sort of inner impulse, “above the Law.” One’s dreamland -perfection is Anarchy—just as no one would imagine a policeman (or for -the matter of that a drain-pipe) in Heaven. But come down to earth, to -men the descendants of apes, to men competing to live, and passionately -jealous and energetic, and for the highways and market-places of life at -any rate, one asks for law and convention. In Heaven or any Perfection -there will be no Socialism, just as there will be no Bimetallism; there -is the sphere of communism, anarchism, universal love and universal -service. It is in the workaday world of limited and egotistical souls -that Socialism has its place. All men who dream at all of noble things -are Anarchists in their dreams, and half at least of the people who are -much in love, I suppose, want to be this much Anarchistic that they do -not want to feel under a law or compulsion one with another. They may -want to possess, they may want to be wholly possessed, but they do not -want a law court or public opinion to protect that possession as a -“right.” - -But it’s still not clearly recognized how distinct are the spheres of -Anarchism and Socialism. The last instance of this confusion that has -seriously affected the common idea of the Socialist was as recent as the -late Mr. Grant Allen. He was not, I think, even in his time a very -representative Socialist, but certainly he did present, as if it were a -counsel of perfection for this harsh and grimy world, something very -like reckless abandonment to the passion or mood of the moment. I doubt -if he would have found a dozen supporters in the Fabian Society in his -own time. I should think his teaching would have appealed far more -powerfully to extreme individualists of the type of Mr. Auberon Herbert. -However that may be, I do not think there is at present among English -and American Socialists any representative figure at all counselling -Free Love. The modern tendency is all towards an amount of control over -the function of reproduction, if anything, in excess of that exercised -by the State and public usage to-day. Let me make a brief comparison of -existing conditions with what I believe to be the ideals of most of my -fellow Socialists in this matter, and the reader can then judge for -himself between the two systems of intervention. - -And first let me run over the outline of the thing we are most likely to -forget and have wrong in such a discussion, the thing directly under our -noses, the thing that is. People have an odd way of assuming in such a -comparison that we are living under an obligation to conform to the -moral code of the Christian church at the present time. As a matter of -fact we are living in an epoch of extraordinary freedom in sexual -matters, mitigated only by certain economic imperatives. Anti-socialist -writers have a way of pretending that Socialists want to make Free Love -possible, while in reality Free Love is open to any solvent person -to-day. People who do not want to marry are as free as air to come -together and part again as they choose, there is no law to prevent them, -the State takes it out of their children with a certain mild -malignancy—that is all. Married people are equally free, saving certain -limited proprietary claims upon one another, claims that can always be -met by the payment of damages. The restraints are purely restraints of -opinion, that would be as powerful tomorrow if legal marriage was -altogether abolished. There was a time, no doubt, when there were actual -legal punishments for unchastity in women, but that time has gone, it -might seem, for ever. Our State retains only, from an age that held -mercantile methods in less honour, a certain habit of persecuting women -who sell themselves by retail for money, but this is done in the name of -public order and not on account of the act. Such a woman must exact cash -payments, she cannot recover debts, she is placed at a ridiculous -disadvantage towards her landlord (which makes accommodating her -peculiarly lucrative), and she is exposed to various inconveniences of -street regulation and status that must ultimately corrupt any police -force in the world—for all that she seems to continue in the land with a -certain air of prosperity. Beyond that our control between man and woman -is nil. Our society to-day has in fact no complete system of sexual -morals at all. It has the remains of a system. - -It has the remains of a monogamic patriarchal system, in which a -responsible man owned nearly absolutely wife and offspring. All its laws -and sentiments alike are derived from the reduction and qualification of -that. - -These are not the pretensions indeed of the present system such as it -is, but they are the facts. And even the present disorder, one gathers, -is unstable. One hears on every hand of its further decadence. From -Father Vaughan to President Roosevelt, and volleying from the whole -bench of bishops, comes the witness to that. Not only the old breaches -grow wider and more frequent, but in the very penetralia of the family -the decay goes on. The birth-rate falls—and falls. The family fails more -and more in its essential object. This is a process absolutely -independent of any Socialist propaganda; it is part of the normal -development of the existing social and economic system. It makes for -sterilization, for furtive wantonness and dishonour. The existing system -produces no remedies at all. Prominent people break out ever and again -into vehement scoldings of this phenomenon; the newspapers and magazines -re-echo “Race Suicide,” but there is no sign whatever in the statistical -curves of the smallest decimal per cent. of response to these -exhortations. - -Our existing sexual order is a system in decay. What are the -alternatives to its steady process of collapse? That is the question we -have to ask ourselves. To heap foul abuse, as many quite honest but -terror-stricken people seem disposed to do, on any one who attempts to -discuss any alternative, is simply to accelerate this process. To me it -seems there are three main directions along which things may go in the -future, and between which rational men have to choose. - -The first is to regard the present process as inevitable and moving -towards the elimination of weak and gentle types, to clear one’s mind of -the prejudices of one’s time, and to contemplate a disintegration of all -the realities of the family into an epoch of Free Love, mitigated by -mercantile necessities and a few transparent hypocrisies. Rich men will -be free to live lives of irresponsible polygamy; poor men will do what -they can; women’s life will be adventurous, the population will decline -in numbers and perhaps in quality. (To guard against that mischievous -quoter who lies in wait for all Socialist writers, let me say at once -that this state of affairs is anti-socialist, is, I believe, socially -destructive, and does not commend itself to me at all.) - -The second direction is towards reaction, an attempt to return to the -simple old conceptions of our past, to the patriarchal family, that is -to say, of the middle ages. This I take to be the conception of such a -Liberal as Mr. G. K. Chesterton, or such a Conservative as Lord Hugh -Cecil, and to be also as much idea as one can find underlying most -tirades against modern morals. The rights of the parent will be insisted -on and restored, and the parent means pretty distinctly the father. -Subject to the influence of a powerful and well-organized Church, a -rejuvenescent Church, he is to resume that control over wife and -children of which the modern State has partially deprived him. The -development of secular education is to be arrested, particular stress is -to be laid upon the wickedness of any intervention with natural -reproductive processes, the spread of knowledge in certain directions is -to be made criminal, and early marriages are to be encouraged.... I do -not by any means regard this as an impossible programme; I believe that -in many directions it is quite a practicable one; it is in harmony with -great masses of feeling in the country, and with many natural instincts. -It would not of course affect the educated wealthy and leisurely upper -class in the community, who would be able and intelligent enough to -impose their own private glosses upon its teaching, but it would -“moralize” the general population, and reduce them to a state of -prolific squalor. Its realization would be, I believe, almost inevitably -accompanied by a decline in sanitation, and a correlated rise in -birth-rate and death-rate, for life would be cheap, and drainpipes and -antiseptics dear, and it is quite conceivable that after some stresses, -a very nearly stable social equilibrium would be attained. After all it -is this simple sort of life, without drains and without education, with -child labour (in the open air for the most part until the eighteenth -century—though that is a detail) and a consequent straightforward desire -for remunerative children that has been the normal life of humanity for -many thousands of years. We might not succeed in getting back to a -landed peasantry, we might find large masses of the population would -hang up obstinately in industrial towns—towns that in their simple -naturalness of congestion might come to resemble the Chinese pattern -pretty closely; but I have no doubt we could move far in that direction -with very little difficulty indeed. - -The third direction is towards the developing conceptions of Socialism. -And it must be confessed at once that these, as they emerge steadily and -methodically from mere generalities and confusions, do present -themselves as being in many aspects, novel and untried. They are as -untested, and in many respects as alarming, as steam traction or iron -shipping were in 1830. They display, clearly and unambiguously, -principles already timidly admitted in practice and sentiment to-day, -but as yet admitted only confusedly and amidst a cloud of -contradictions. Essentially the Socialist position is a denial of -property in human beings; not only must land and the means of production -be liberated from the multitude of little monarchs among whom they are -distributed, to the general injury and inconvenience, but women and -children, just as much as men and things, must cease to be owned. -Socialism indeed proposes to abolish altogether the patriarchal family -amidst whose disintegrating ruins we live, and to raise women to an -equal citizenship with men. It proposes to give a man no more property -in a woman than a woman has in a man. To stupid people who cannot see -the difference between a woman and a thing, the abolition of the private -ownership of women takes the form of having “wives in common,” and -suggests the Corroboree. It is obviously nothing of the sort. It is the -recognition in theory of what in many classes is already the fact,—the -practical equality of men and women in a civilized state. It is quite -compatible with a marriage contract of far greater stringency than that -recognized throughout Christendom to-day. - -Now what sort of contract will the Socialist state require for marriage? -Here again there are perfectly clear and simple principles. Socialism -states definitely what almost everybody recognizes nowadays with greater -or less clearness, and that is the concern of the State for children. -The children people bring into the world can be no more their private -concern entirely, than the disease germs they disseminate or the noises -a man makes in a thin-floored flat. Socialism says boldly the State is -the Over-Parent, the Outer-Parent. People rear children for the State -and the future; if they do that well, they do the whole world a service, -and deserve payment just as much as if they built a bridge or raised a -crop of wheat; if they do it unpropitiously and ill, they have done the -world an injury. Socialism denies altogether the right of any one to -beget children carelessly and promiscuously, and for the prevention of -disease and evil births alike the Socialist is prepared for an -insistence upon intelligence and self-restraint quite beyond the current -practice. At present we deal with all that sort of thing as an -infringement of private proprietary rights; the Socialist holds it is -the world that is injured. - -It follows that motherhood, which we still in a muddle-headed way seem -to regard as partly self-indulgence and partly a service paid to a man -by a woman, is regarded by the Socialists as a benefit to society, a -public duty done. It may be in many cases a duty full of pride and -happiness—that is beside the mark. The State will pay for children born -legitimately in the marriage it will sanction. A woman with healthy and -successful offspring will draw a wage for each one of them from the -State, so long as they go on well. It will be her wage. Under the State -she will control her child’s upbringing. How far her husband will share -in the power of direction is a matter of detail upon which opinion may -vary—and does vary widely among Socialists. I suppose for the most part -they incline to the conception of a joint control. So the monstrous -injustice of the present time which makes a mother dependent upon the -economic accidents of her man, which plunges the best of wives and the -most admirable of children into abject poverty if he happens to die, -which visits his sins of waste and carelessness upon them far more than -upon himself, will disappear. So too the still more monstrous absurdity -of women discharging their supreme social function, bearing and rearing -children in their spare time, as it were, while they “earn their living” -by contributing some half mechanical element to some trivial industrial -product, will disappear. - -That is the gist of the Socialist attitude towards marriage; the -repudiation of private ownership of women and children, and the payment -of mothers. Partially but already very extensively, socialistic ideas -have spread through the whole body of our community; they are the saving -element in what would otherwise be a moral catastrophe now, and the -Socialist simply puts with precise definition the conclusions to which -all but foolish, ignorant, base or careless people are moving—albeit -some are moving thither with averted faces. Already we have the large, -still incomplete edifice of free education, and a great mass of -legislation against child labour; we have free baths, free playgrounds, -free libraries,—more and more people are coming to admit the social -necessity of saving our children from the private enterprise of the -milkman who does not sterilize his cans, from the private enterprise of -the schoolmaster who cannot teach, from the private enterprise of the -employer who takes them on at small wages at thirteen or fourteen to -turn them back on our hands as ignorant hooligans and social wastrels at -eighteen or twenty.... But the straightforward payment to the mother -still remains to be brought within the sphere of practical application. -To that we shall come. - - - Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -_A. C. FIFIELD’S NEW LIST._ - - - THE BISHOPS AS LEGISLATORS: - - A Record of the Speeches and Votes of the Bishops in the House of Lords - during the last 100 years. - - BY JOSEPH CLAYTON - - Author of “Father Dolling”; “Bishop Westcott.” - -2nd Edition, _1s. nett, Postage 2d. Cloth gilt, 2s. nett_. - -“It will be difficult for the hardiest episcopater to make anything good -out of this book. It is a bad record, whether we regard it as citizens -or as churchmen.”—_Pall Mall Gazette._ - -“This is a tremendous and terrible indictment, which can only be -supported by an appeal to facts. Unfortunately for the bishops, the -record is black. It could not be much worse.”—_Daily News._ - -“The importance of Mr. Clayton’s investigations lies in their cumulative -effect. In view of their calling, nearly every intervention and every -abstention of the bishops in political affairs has been melancholy. -Taken together, the record is overwhelming. What we have here is a -history of the absolute uniformity with which popular causes, involving -no menace to the church, have found the bishops against them.... It is a -record of hopeless, unredeemed failure. It has been sectarian. It has -been selfish. It has never once been national. It has never once been -right, never even magnificently wrong. Its mistakes have all been -mean.”—_Morning Leader._ - - - THE WOMAN’S CALENDAR - - A QUOTATION FOR EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR. - - SELECTED BY DORA B. MONTEFIORE. - - _Artistic wrapper in 2 colours, 1s. nett. Quarter cloth, gilt top, 2s. - nett._ - - - PATRIOTISM & ETHICS - - BY J. G. GODARD. - - _New and Cheaper Issue. 374 pages. Cloth, 2s. nett. Postage, 4d._ - -“A powerful picture of the excesses committed in the name of -Patriotism.... A particularly valuable piece of work.”—_Daily News._ “A -serious and painstaking contribution to the discussion of a profound -ethical problem.”—_Daily Chronicle._ - - - CAMDEN’S SURVEY OF SURREY AND SUSSEX - - _Quarter cloth, 7s. 6d. nett. Half leather, 10s. 6d. nett. Postage, 4d._ - -A book for book collectors and craftsmen. Hand set type, hand made -paper, hand printed and hand bound. One hundred and fifty copies only -offered to the public. Reigate Press work. - - - THE CONSOLATIONS OF A FADDIST - - VERSES REPRINTED FROM “THE HUMANITARIAN.” - - BY HENRY S. SALT. - - _Crown 8vo. Wrappers, 6d. nett. Postage, 1d._ - - - WALT WHITMAN - - BY WILLIAM CLARKE, M.A. - - _A new and cheaper edition, with Portrait._ - - _Foolscap 8vo, cloth, 1s. 6d. nett. Postage 3d._ - -“Still perhaps the best life of Whitman.”—_A. E. Fletcher._ - -“A fine appreciation.... More wisdom and sound thinking are compressed -in this little volume than you will find in tons of other books.”—_The -Clarion._ - -“An able study of a remarkable personality, which should be widely -read.”—_Scotsman._ - -“An appreciative and luminous criticism, which our readers will do well -to get.”—_New Age._ - - - GARRISON THE NON-RESISTANT - - BY ERNEST CROSBY. - - _Foolscap 8vo, cloth, 1s. 6d. nett. Postage 3d._ - -“We recommend Mr. Crosby’s book to those who like a good morsel of -morally inspiring and intellectually stimulating reading. He first -tells, and tells well, the life-story of a man who lived, and would have -died, for a noble idea—the abolition of slavery. He then discusses very -fruitfully both that idea, and another, the idea of Non-Resistance, -which still remains only an idea, and some will say a dream.... His view -on the subject will surprise, but in the end will impress, the -reader, ... and he is none the less effective because his temper is -philosophic and his words are measured.”—_Sunday School Chronicle._ - - - MY FARM OF TWO ACRES - - BY HARRIET MARTINEAU. - - _The Cottage Farm Series No. 1._ - - _6d. net. Cloth, 1s. net. Postage, 1d. and 2d._ - -A reprint of Miss Martineau’s famous story of her cottage farm which she -ran for over twelve years in the middle of the nineteenth century. - - - FORK AND SPADE HUSBANDRY: or £51 a year from 2 acres - - BY JOHN SILLETT, the Suffolk Draper. - - _Cottage Farm Series, No. 2._ - - _6d. net. Cloth, 1s. net. Postage, 1d. and 2d._ - -Sillett was one of the pioneers of the small holdings, and his booklet -ran into a dozen editions fifty years ago. His accounts show a net -profit of £51 in at least one year, by fork and spade work. - - - HUMANE EDUCATION - - BY REV. A. M. MITCHELL, M.A. - Vicar of Burton Wood. - - _Small Crown 8vo. 32 pages. 3d. net. Post free 3½d._ - -A plea for a more humane and rational system of child-training in the -elementary schools. - - - _LONDON: A. C. FIFIELD, 44, FLEET ST., E.C._ - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. - 2. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as - printed. - 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Socialism and the family, by -H. G. 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