ally
governments of the people for the people--and by people I do not mean
merely those of Britain or France, or whichever nation men happen to
belong to, but humanity all over the world. The things which nowadays
only money can buy must be brought within the grasp of the poorest, and
civilisation must be recognised as coming _from the bottom upwards_,
and not only from the _top_--a kind of golden froth which strives to
hide the dirt and misery and suffering beneath. So long as slums
exist, so long as poverty is exploited, so long as the great masses of
men and women are forced to lead sordid, unbeautiful, cramped,
hopeless, and helpless lives, as they are forced to live now--call no
nation civilised. So long as these things exist--call no nation
religious. The one is a mockery of human life; the other is a mockery
of God.

It always strikes me that the greatest lack in all education--and this
applies to the education of princes as well as paupers--is the spirit
of splendid vision. Most things are taught, except the "vision" of
self-respect and responsibility. The poor are not taught to respect
themselves at all, and certainly their lives do not give them what
their education has forgotten. They are never encouraged to learn that
each individual man and woman is not only responsible to him and
herself, but to all men and all women. Certainly the rich never teach
it them. For the last thing which rich people ever realise is that
their wealth carries with it human obligations, human responsibilities,
as well as the gratifications of their own appetites and pleasures.
The only objects of education seem to be to teach men to make money,
nothing is ever done to teach them how best to make life full of
interest, full of human worth, full of those "visions" which will help
to make the future or the human race proud in its achievements. The
failure of education as an intellectual, social, and moral force is
best shown the moment men and women are given the opportunity to do
exactly as they please. Metaphorically speaking, the poor with money
in their pockets immediately go on the "booze," and the rich "jazz."
And men of the poor work merely for the sake of being able to booze,
and the rich merely for the sake of being able to jazz. And the rich
condemn the poor for boozing, and the poor condemn the rich for
jazzing--but this, of course, is one of life's little ironies.

_Responsibility_

Personally, I blam