io8 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 



every reason to believe that I came into this world a 

 small reddish person, certainly without a gold spoon in 

 my mouth, and in fact with no discernible abstract or 

 concrete "rights" or property of any description. If 

 a foot was not set upon me, at once, as a squalling nui- 

 sance, it was either the natural affection of those about 

 me, which I certainly had done nothing to deserve, or 

 the fear of the law which, ages before my birth, was 

 painfully built up by the society into which. I intruded, 

 that prevented that catastrophe. If I was nourished, 

 cared for, taught, saved from the vagabondage of a 

 wastrel, I certainly am not aware that I did anything to 

 deserve those advantages. And, if I possess anything 

 now, it strikes me that, though I may have fairly earned 

 my day's wages for my day's work, and may justly call 

 them my property yet, without that organization of 

 society, created out of the toil and blood of long gen- 

 erations before my time, I should probably have had 

 nothing but a flint axe and an indifferent hut to call 

 my own; and even those would be mine only so long 

 as no stronger savage came my way. 



So that if society, having, quite gratuitously, done all 

 these things for me, asks me in turn to do something 

 towards its preservation even if that something is to 

 contribute to the teaching of other men's children I 

 really, in spite of all my individualist leanings, feel 

 rather ashamed to say no. And if I were not ashamed, 

 I cannot say that I think that society would be dealing 

 unjustly with me in converting the moral obligation into 

 a legal one. There is a manifest unfairness in letting 

 all the burden be borne by the willing horse. 



It does not appear to me, then, that there is any 

 valid objection to taxation for purposes of education; 

 but, in the case of technical schools and classes, I think 

 it is practically expedient that such a taxation should 



