EDITOR'S TABLE. 



699 



merely political liberty in the lib- 

 erty of men masters of themselves 

 and already the partakers of a far 

 higher life than that of the self-pam- 

 pering sons and daughters of luxury. 

 The more we reflect upon it, the more 

 we are impressed with the amount 

 of good which might be done in the 

 world, independently of any and all 

 legislation, simply by the substitu- 

 tion of higher aims for the lower 

 ones which now rule so largely all 

 classes of society. How many pass 

 their lives in a miserable attempt to 

 imitate the bad taste and generally 

 foolish proceedings of the class next 

 above them in point of means! If 

 to-day Shoddy is king, it is simply 

 because men and women are silly 

 enough to make him so; not because 

 there is anything in our laws to au- 

 thorize or constitute his royalty. We 

 can dethrone him whenever we like, 

 without passing even the smallest 

 municipal by-law, by simply resolv- 

 ing to throw off the yoke of false 

 pretense, and live our lives in a sim- 

 ple, honest, and reasonable manner, 

 studying what is excellent and not 

 what is fashionable, the things that 

 make for in ward peace and outward 

 dignity, rather than those which 

 make for outward show and inward 

 unrest. 



It is truly the folly of mankind 

 that is chiefly responsible for the 

 evils which have called socialist agi- 

 tation into existence; and it is doubt- 

 less a deep-lying instinct that such is 

 the case which causes society as a 

 whole to look coldly upon proposed 

 socialistic remedies. It is desirable 

 that discussion of this subject should 

 be as free as possible, and our belief 

 is that the more the subject is dis- 

 cussed the more clearly it will ap- 

 pear that a higher individualism is 

 the key to the solution of our social 

 problems. What the world wants is 

 an extension of those liberties which 

 a man can create for himself, rather 



than of the privileges and protec- 

 tions which are created by statute. 

 The highest service, therefore, which 

 any one can render to society is to 

 awaken men in general to those pos- 

 sibilities of life which simple individ- 

 ual initiative and determination can 

 realize ; for thus, more than in any 

 other way, would the unjust power 

 of capital be broken, and the way be 

 opened for the healthiest and hap- 

 piest development of the social or- 

 ganism. 



SHAM EDUCATION. 



One of the leading writers of fic- 

 tion of the present day has, in a quite 

 recent work, attempted to set forth 

 the miserable results of the preten- 

 tious modes of life and, above all, 

 the pretentious systems of education 

 which, according to his view, are 

 characteristic of the time. The scene 

 of his story is laid in England in the 

 year of the Queen's Jubilee (1887), 

 and the local color, as the expression 

 is, is strongly English ; nevertheless, 

 there is much in the descriptions 

 given and the lessons drawn which 

 is capable of application far beyond 

 the limits of the society the novelist 

 had in view. He introduces us to a 

 young woman who is overstraining 

 all the resources of a very indifferent 

 constitution in a desperate struggle 

 to prepare for the matriculation ex- 

 amination of the London University, 

 but whose mind is meantime in even 

 a more feeble condition than her 

 body, her judgment in practical mat- 

 ters wholly unexercised, her temper 

 and disposition a compound of van- 

 ity, jealousy, and spite. We read of 

 another who, having passed through 

 an expensive course at schools re- 

 puted to be of a very superior grade, 

 had emerged with an equipment of 

 undigested knowledge which simply 

 developed in her a morbid self-con- 

 sciousness and a futile ambition to 

 shine in some higher sphere than 



