THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



185 



some and enobling employment of drawing 

 sustenance from her bosom? This is what 

 the Russian prophet sees, and he urges 

 the farmer to stay on his farm, the truest 

 and best mode of life. 



We hear much of political or state socia- 

 lism in these days and we must be care- 

 ful to say state socialism, when we mean 

 this order, for many of the best people in 

 the world favor great social changes who 

 utterly abhor the idea of state socialism. 

 Tolstoy evidently is one of these, for when 

 Mr. Steiner asked him, "Isn't socialism a 

 preparation for an ideal state? Tolstoy 

 replied with much spirit: 



"No, indeed not; it is just the contrary. 

 It will regulate everything put every- 

 thing under law. It will destroy the indi- 



vidual; it will enslave him. Socialism be- 

 gins at the wrong end. You cannot orga- 

 nize anything until you have individuals. 

 , You are making chaos instead of cosmos. 

 You will breed terrorism and confusion 

 which only brute force will be able to 

 quell. Socialism begins to regulate the 

 world away from itself. You must make 

 yourself right before the world around 

 you can be made right. No matter how 

 wrongly the world deals with you, if you 

 are right the world will not harm you, and 

 you may bring it to your way of thinking. 

 The modern labor leader wishes to liberate 

 the masses while he himself is a slave." 



Mr. Steiner concludes his interesting 

 and valuable account by saying: "I could 

 gather no points on 'how to farm' on Count 

 Tolstoy's estate we far surpass him in 

 that; but he might teach us, as he has 

 taught me, 'how to live. ' ' 



