CONCLUSION 403 



ditions of living, and in one or two generations the 

 ground that has been lost will be recovered."^ 



In an eloquent appeal for funds to form a " National 

 League for Physical Education and Improvement" 

 Sir Lauder Brunton refers to the causes of physical 

 deterioration and states: "Amongst the first may be 

 placed the gradual withdrawal of the peasantry from 

 the country and their aggregation in towns." 



At the inaugural meeting of this Association, held 

 in June of the present year (1905) important speeches 

 were delivered by the Bishop of Ripon, the Lord 

 Chief Justice, Sir William Broadbent, Mr. Haldane, 

 Sir James Crichton-Browne, and others. These 

 speeches, which should be read by every one interested 

 in the subject, reveal the grave state of things that 

 exists, and show also that the self-denying efforts made 

 by so many earnest men and women to mitigate the 

 evils "have only touched the fringe of the question."^ 



The next subject to be considered is that which is 

 the root cause of most of the social evils that exist. 

 Poverty is not the right word for it ; that is a relative 

 term, and what is poverty for one would be plenty for 

 another. It is indigence — a hopeless destitution — 

 which exists in England to an extent that can be found 

 in few other countries in Europe. 



' Dr. D. J. Cunningham, F.R.S., Professor of Anatomy of the Univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh. Dr. Cunningham states (Q. 3307) : *' I do not think 

 it would be possible, even under the very best forms of town life, to pro- 

 duce conditions which the poor could live in which would equal those of 

 the country." 



' Froude speaks of the effect on the children of our overcrowded 

 towns, " where the whole of the life of the vast majority of the inhabitants 

 from infancy to the grave would be a dreary routine of soulless mechanical 

 labour. Such an England as this," he says, "would not be described by 

 any future poet as 'a precious gem set in the silver sea'; still less would 



