sympathy with the
hardships of the poor in all ages. More shared to the full the keen
sympathy with the hopeless misery of the poor which has been the strong
motive power of nearly all speculative communism. The life of the poor
as he saw it was so wretched that he said, "Even a beast's life seems
enviable!" Besides community of goods and equality of conditions, More
advocated other means of ameliorating the condition of the people.
Although the hours of labour were limited to six a day there was no
scarcity, for in Utopia every one worked; there was no idle class, no
idle individual even. The importance of this from an economic point of
view is insisted on by More in a passage remarkable for the importance
which he attaches to the industrial condition of women. "And this you
will easily apprehend," he says, "if you consider how great a part of
all other nations is quite idle. First, women generally do little, who
are the half of mankind." Translated into modern language his proposals
comprise universal compulsory education, a reduction of the hours of
labour to six a day, the most modern principles of sanitary reform, a
complete revision of criminal legislation, and the most absolute
religious toleration. The romantic form which Sir Thomas More gave to
his dream of a new social order found many imitators. The _Utopia_ may
be regarded as the prototype of Campanella's _City of the Sun_,
Harrington's _Oceana_, Bacon's _Nova Atlantis_, Defoe's _Essay on
Projects_, Fenelon's _Voyage dans l'Ile des Plaisirs_, and other works
of minor importance.

All communists have made a great point of the importance of universal
education. All ideal communes have been provided by their authors with a
perfect machinery for securing the education of every child. One of the
first things done in every attempt to carry communistic theories into
practice has been to establish a good school and guarantee education to
every child. The first impulse to national education in the 19th century
probably sprang from the very marked success of Robert Owen's schools in
connexion with the cotton mills at New Lanark. Compulsory education,
free trade, and law reform, the various movements connected with the
improvement of the condition of women, have found their earliest
advocates among theoretical and practical communists. The communists
denounce the evils of the present state of society; the hopeless poverty
of the poor, side by side with the self-regardi