es they have carried as best they might the burdens of
the state; and the history of law and government shows them as changing
slowly but irresistably in the direction of social improvement.

The ancient kings were the joyous apotheosis of masculinity. Power
and Pride were theirs; Limitless Display; Boundless Self-indulgence;
Irresistable Authority. Slaves and courtiers bowed before them, subjects
obeyed them, captive women filled their harems. But the day of the
masculine monarchy is passing, and the day of the human democracy is
coming in. In a Democracy Law and Government both change. Laws are no
longer imposed on the people by one above them, but are evolved from the
people themselves. How absurd that the people should not be educated
in the laws they make; that the trailing remnants of blind submission
should still becloud their minds and make them bow down patiently under
the absurd pressure of outgrown tradition!

Democratic government is no longer an exercise of arbitrary authority
from one above, but is an organization for public service of the people
themselves--or will be when it is really attained.

In this change government ceases to be compulsion, and becomes
agreement; law ceases to be authority and becomes co-ordination. When we
learn the rules of whist or chess we do not obey them because we fear to
be punished if we don't, but because we want to play the game. The rules
of human conduct are for our own happiness and service--any child can
see that. Every child will see it when laws are simplified, based on
sociology, and taught in schools. A child of ten should be considered
grossly uneducated who could not rewrite the main features of the laws
of his country, state, and city; and those laws should be so simple in
their principles that a child of ten could understand them.

Teacher: "What is a tax?"

Child: "A tax is the money we agree to pay to keep up our common
advantages."

Teacher: "Why do we all pay taxes?"

Child: "Because the country belongs to all of us, and we must all pay
our share to keep it up."

Teacher: "In what proportion do we pay taxes?"

Child: "In proportion to how much money we have." (_Sotto voce_: "Of
course!")

Teacher: "What is it to evade taxes?"

Child: "It is treason." (_Sotto voce_: "And a dirty mean trick.")

In masculine administration of the laws we may follow the instinctive
love of battle down through the custom of "trial by combat"--only
recently outgro