richest man has now license to injure the commonwealth to the full extent of his riches.

One of the most learned English churchmen, Dr. Westcott, now Bishop of Durham, writes on art in the same spirit in his work on the Epistles of St. John. He says of Christian art that:

"It aims not at a solitary, but a common enjoyment; it seeks to make it clear that all to which it is directed has a spiritual value, able to command completest service. . . . If this view of art which has been given is correct, its primary destination is public, not private, and it culminates in worship. Neither a great picture nor a great poem can be for a single possessor; and so it has been at all times, when art has risen to its highest triumphs. ... When Greek art was greatest, it was consecrated to public use, and one chief danger of modern society is lest the growth of private wealth should lead to the diversion of the highest artistic power from the common service."

One of the best presentations of art, from the socialistic standpoint, is given in an article in the Christian Union (now The Outlook) for December 17, 1893, and is entitled "Ideal Art for the People."

The following quotation gives the gist of the socialistic thought: 1

"The art of the city, in the day when painters, sculptors, and master-singers were in full tide of work and song, did not rest in the genius of the few, but in the mood of the many. The instinct for beauty, and the training which recognized it under all forms, were universal; for art grows out of a deep, rich soil, and grows

1 Mr. Wm. Morris gives an extremely interesting presentation of his views concerning art, in an address entitled "Art and Socialism," published by W. Reeves, London, 1884. A Boston architect, Mr. J. Pickering Putnam, treats the subject of architecture in its relations to socialism, under the title of "Architecture under Nationalism," a monograph published by the Nationalist Educational Association, Boston, 1890.

only when such soil is provided for it. It may produce sporadically in an alien atmosphere, but it is never productive of great works, on a great scale, unless it is representative of a wide popular impulse and sympathy, unless it is national or racial. In this country, as in England, art does not really touch our life; it is not yet one of our natural forms of expression: we do not understand its immense importance in a rich and rounded civilization; nor do we realize how much we are losing a homely, every-day content and rest. A real, living art means beauty in dress and habit, joy in the manual industries in the production of things sound and harmonious; it means striving for the ideal in common occupations, and spiritual and intellectual rest and delight in common work.

"We think of art as a luxury, an embellishment, the delicate growth of a fortunate age, and the choice work of a favored few. It is to-day, and in this country, largely the possession of the rich. Nothing could be farther from a true idea of art or a true use of it. Great art is a sturdy, vigorous plant, demanding a rich soil, a broad sky, and free winds; it is never an exotic, to be nourished delicately by a few, and kept from contact with the vulgar world. It is great only when it is so much a part of the world that it is its most inevitable and unforced expression. The Greek tragedies and Shakespeare's plays were part of the intensest popular life of their time."

CHAPTER VI.

SOCIALISM AND PRESENT PROBLEMS.

ONE of the problems of to-day is a simplification of government, and the socialist claims that socialism will solve this problem. A certain force cannot be denied to this argument. Laws are multiplied now without end, and it is extremely difficult to know what is and what is not legal under the complex conditions of modern life. It is also very hard to avoid pernicious legislation, because it requires such incessant watching on the part of well-meaning, intelligent citizens.

Socialism puts forward the claim that it would reduce law-making to a minimum, and would almost abolish courts. If one examines our statute books, one will find that by far the greater portion of legislation concerns private property in the instruments of production, and that litigation also finds its basis in the same institution. Naturally this legislation and this litigation would be abolished with the abolition of the institution upon which it all rests. A comparison of the post-office with our American railways would illustrate this point. The law in regard to the post-office is comparatively concise and simple, and the post-office seldom figures in lawsuits. On the other hand, how endless is the legislation concerning privately owned railways! How complex and complicated is it! How continuously does the private railway figure in lawsuits! The administrative problem under socialism might become more difficult than pres

ent public administration, but law would be greatly simplified, and the basis of most litigation before the courts would disappear.

But this is not all; how difficult a problem is taxation! The national Congress and the legislatures of forty-four States and the municipal authorities of hundreds of cities are all struggling with this problem, and the amount of progress which has been accomplished during the past generation is discouragingly small. Unquestionably, our methods of taxation could be vastly improved; but taxation must ever remain a difficult problem. The whole problem, however, practically disappears under socialism. With production socialized it would only be necessary for society to take out of the total product in advance what was needed for public purposes before the distribution among the citizens should be effected.

Still another problem: What of the eight-hour day? The eight-hour day is plainly an ideal, but yet an extremely difficult one to realize under present conditions, look at it as we will. Each man cannot settle it for himself, because in modern production those engaged in the same industrial establishment must, as a rule, work the same length of time; but even those in one industrial establishment cannot decide the problem for themselves, because they are under compulsion which springs from the competition of other industrial establishments in the same country and even in other countries.

The eight-hour day has involved in many a conflict employer and employee; and yet, unfortunately, the employer is well nigh as powerless to effect a change as the empla yee. Socialism, harmonizing industrial interests, would make the problem a comparatively simple one. The noore men produced, the more they would have to

enjoy; and it would remain for society to determine on the one hand, how much greater would be the production of wealth resulting from a ten-hour day than from an eight-hour day; and second, whether the additional production was more or less valuable than the additional time.

Compulsory education is another problem which, at best, must occasion difficulties so long as the present competitive system endures. It is a cruel hardship to children not to give them educational advantages; but to do so sometimes deprives a dependent parent, for example, a widowed mother, of what she needs for her support. Doubtless it is better to do this than to allow a child to grow up in ignorance; or, at any rate, it is better to provide in some other way for the mother; but this does not render the problem an easy one. Yet this is only one of the difficulties which an attempt to secure a universal education encounters in actual practice. It is frequently found that the children in the schools in the poorer quarters of the cities have no decent clothing, and that they are often unable to study, because actually hungry. Compulsory education, then, to be really effective, involves in numerous cases the problem of furnishing food and clothing to children as well as schools. Manifestly, if socialism can be made to work at all well, the difficulties of compulsory education simply disappear.

Insurance against the economic contingencies which beset the ordinary man is one of the pressing problems of the day. Germany has elaborated a system under the operation of which some twenty millions of hurand beings are more or less adequately insured; andrivate problem is actively discussed in every European coroblem It is only a matter of time when insurance will bn pres