thought in 18th and 19th centuries.

These notes of charitable movements suggest an altogether new
development of thought. On behalf of the charity school of Queen Anne's
time were preached very formal sermons, which showed but little sympathy
with child life. After the first half of the century a new humanism with
which we connect the name of Rousseau, slowly superseded this formal
beneficence. Rousseau made the world open its eyes and see nature in the
child, the family and the community. He analysed social life, intent on
explaining it and discovering on what its well-being depended; and he
stimulated that desire to meet definite social needs which is apparent
in the charities of the century. Little as it may appear to be so at
first sight, it was a period of charitable reformation. Law revised the
religious conception of charity, though he was himself so strangely
devoid of social instinct that, like some of his successors, he linked
the utmost earnestness in belief to that form of almsgiving which most
effectually fosters beggardom. Howard introduced the era of inspection,
the ardent apostle of a new social sagacity; and Bentham, no less
sagacious, propounded opinions, plans and suggestions which, perhaps it
may be said, in due course moulded the principles and methods of the
poor-law of 1834. In the broader sense the turn of thought is religious,
for while usually stress is laid on the religious scepticism of the
century, the deeper, fervent, conscientious and evangelical charity in
which Nonconformists, and especially "the Friends," took so large a
part, is often forgotten. Sometimes, indeed, as often happens now, the
feeling of charity passed into the merest sentimentality. This is
evident, for instance, from so ill-considered a measure as Pitt's Bill
for the relief of the poor. On the other hand, during the 18th century
the poor-law was the object of constant criticism, though so long as the
labour statutes and the old law of settlement were in force, and the
relief of the labouring population as state "poor" prevailed, it was
impossible to reform it. Indeed, the criticism itself was generally
vitiated by a tacit acceptance of "the poor" as a class, a permanent and
irrevocable charge on the funds of the community; and at the end of the
18th century, when the labour statutes were abrogated, but the
conditions under which poor relief was administered remained the same,
serfdom in its later stage, the serfdom of t