the People's Messenger to proclaim, day out, day in, the false doctrine that it's the masses, the multitude, the compact majority, that monopolise liberality and morality-and that vice and corruption and all sorts of spiritual uncleanness ooze out of culture. No; it's stupidity, poverty, the ugliness of life, that do the devil's work! In a house that isn't aired and swept every day— in such a house, I say, within two or three years, people lose the power of thinking or acting morally. Lack of oxygen enervates the conscience. And there seems to be precious little oxygen in many and many a house in this town, since the whole compact majority is unscrupulous enough to want to found its future upon a quagmire of lies and fraud." [The meeting breaks up in uproar.]

In the last act, poor Doctor Stockmann, his soul a-blaze and his body a-bleed, finds that his independence has cost him his livelihood; his family is on the brink of starvation, and he cries out: A man should never put on his best trousers when he goes out to battle for truth and freedom." With what a wonderful sense of impartiality does Ibsen hold the scales between the two brothers-the one the utilitarian, the other the idealist! The author sees the weak spot in the great man's armour. He sees also what is worldly-wise in the little man's argument. Great

men have the defects of their qualities. Little men have the qualities of their defects, and they often triumph by their baseness. Their sword is flattery, blackmail is their armour.

From the purely worldly point of view Stockmann had the worst of it-for the time being. But let us hope that in an unwritten last act he got his reward. Of course, it may be said that this hot-headed hero might have gone about his reforming in a more discreet manner. He might have set out to inaugurate a reform movement from the various sections of society that would have profited by his indiscretion. First, he would have set up a rival company, and let in "at par" all those who would support his movement; the contract for putting in the new sanitary machinery would have been given to those who would vote solidly for his cause. would have proclaimed that the pollution was directly traceable to a Conservative or Liberal source, choosing for his attack whichever party happened to be the more unpopular at the moment. He would have called a meeting of workmen and told them that the bloated councillors who ruled the town were endeavouring to keep the bread out of their mouths, that they were despoiling their potential widows and orphans. All these divergent interests he would have mashed together into a party, and he would have

He

called his party the "Party of Purity." No doubt a statue would have been erected to him by his grateful fellow-citizens, and to its fund he himself would have sent the first contribution under the name of "Anonymous Admirer." But he lacked the virtue of tact. He was not one of those politicians whose blood and judgment are so well commingled that they will not allow their sense of right to interfere with their interests. Valour in the weak is always dangerous.

One should never hazard until one has cogged the dice of Fate. The native alcohol of a sanguine temperament is apt to lead one into strange quagmires.

A little mouse strayed into a wine cellar. Happening to step into a small puddle of whisky, he licked his paw. "H'm! rather nice that! So he dipped in another paw; then all four paws; finally he lay down and rolled himself in the spirit, had a good lick all over, and felt most royally elated. Then, staggering to the head of the staircase, leaping up two steps at a time, he yelled out: "Where is that damned cat that chased me yesterday?"

It is only by combination that weak units make themselves strong. One of these days the mice may set up a trade union-and then? Well, I suppose they will have to hire a terrier to espouse their cause!

However, my theme is not mice, but men. Union among men is one of the burning questions of the hour, and here I may allow myself the indiscretion of touching upon the great question of Trade Unionism, a question upon which I can speak with some little experience.

I suppose that every new movement, if successful, brings in its train a certain amount of tyranny. "In righting wrong, we sometimes wrong the right." The great struggle between Capital and Labour which is now going on is but the result of education. Education has placed a weapon in the hands of the democracy. It is a twoedged weapon, and its right use can only be taught by a yet greater, a higher education. Liberty gives birth to new tyrannies, and there can be no doubt that a certain amount of injustice must accompany all great reforms. So it is that the individual may for the time being suffer from the tyranny of Labour. But in the long run the individual will assert himself-the freedom of the individual to fulfil himself is the strength of the State. Each must be free to work out his own economic salvation. The liberty which cripples the efforts of the fittest is but another form of tyranny-the tyranny of the weak over the strong. We have the new liberty, for instance, which dictates compulsory closing on Thursdays,

in order that we may have the vitality to rest from Saturday to Monday.

When I speak of a higher education, I do not mean the useless, outworn education which we wear as the superfluous buttons on our coattails, but an education which shall be largely philosophical, which shall teach the laws of health, of happiness, and of self-esteem of which modesty is the natural outcome-the kind of education that Marcus Aurelius suggested in his "Reflections."

I venture to think that much of the education we inherit from our forefathers is unsuitable to the conditions of the present time. In this higher education we must begin at the beginning; we must begin with the children. If children were taught a doggerel with a tune which should embody the simple laws of health, the rudimentary laws of happiness, they would never forget them all their lives; but these things are taken for granted. When they are young, boys are taught to look down upon other nations. They are taught to be jingoes. Were they taught in their infancy a world-patriotism, there would be fewer wars. I have no doubt that there has been of late years a great advance in this respect, but I remember a little incident that looms out of my first visit to America. It was at Chicago, and I was visiting at the house of