of months and years, suitable not only for agriculture, but also for navigation."

"It is rather difficult to persuade the multitude that by these branches of study some organ of the soul in each individual is purified and rekindled like fire."

Plato even imagines the possibility of every member of the community being taught jurisprudence, and thus be made fit to become a lawyer and even a judge. This idea entirely coincides with the views of the author of this work, who, in "The Democratic Charter of the Future," places the criminal and civil jurisdiction into the hands of the people, by which the judgeship is altogether suppressed.*

Plato says on this subject:-" Does it not seem base and a great proof of defective education to be obliged to see justice pronounced as by others, as our masters and judges, and yet to have no sense of it in ourselves? How much better or more noble it is so to regulate life as not to need a sleepy judge."

Sir Thomas More endorses Plato, saying:-"The Utopians have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws; and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause. Every one of them is skilled in their law. In Utopia all laws are promulgated for this end, that every man may know his duty."

Of the subjects taught in the schools of Icaria, Cabet says: "All Icarians, without distinction, receive the same general and elementary education, including instruction in all the elements of science and human knowledge."

"In this elementary education, which lasts up to the age of eighteen, all pupils acquire also a knowledge of drawing and mathematics. The Icarian schools also give them a general idea of all arts and handicrafts, of raw materials, tools, and machines. The Icarian education joins, however, practice to theory, and teaches children the handling of the various tools, of the plane, the saw, the file, the chisel, etc.; and in this way the youths are imperceptibly introduced to and become expert in all the various occupations to which they will be called when leaving the educational establishments of the state."

* The popular assembly which gave a verdict in favour of Demosthenes, after his celebrated oration on the Crown, was judge and jury in one.

"In all the schools of Icaria the children learn freehand drawing as an elementary subject of instruction. Therefore you will not find a single man or woman amongst the Icarians who cannot draw from nature any object put before them, and there is not a workman to be seen who has not always his pencil and a sketchbook by his side, to be always ready to put an idea down that may present itself to him."

That geography was even successfully taught at New Lanark to very young children, is known from the testimony of an admiral, who having visited the schools, said "that though he had sailed round the world, he could not answer many of the questions he had heard, and to which children not six years of age easily replied."

Babeuf endeavoured to put a certain restriction on subjects taught, excluding all those the results of which are not communicable to all. But since there is scarcely any art, science, or profession imaginable, which would not permit that its works and productions should be enjoyed by everyone, we must think that Babeuf had in view the restriction of the learning handicrafts and occupations administering unto luxury. He says: "In the houses of education the works of art and handicrafts should be restricted to those objects which are easily communicable to all."

On gymnastical training, Voyage en Icarie contains the following valuable remarks:-"Gymnastic games may begin with all children at an early age, by being shown the best manner of walking, running, jumping, balancing, walking on stilts, climbing, swimming, boating, skating, fencing, drilling, etc. All these exercises develop and fortify the body. Some of the most simple agricultural and industrial manipulations may also be enjoined for gymnastic purposes."

Equality of education for both sexes is demanded by Plato, who says "In order, therefore, that a woman may become a suitable guardian, there will not be one mode of education for making men (guardians) and another for women, especially as the latter have received the same natural genius."

The separation of the sexes in schools, and the difference of training them, are ably stated by Babeuf, who says:-" From the natural division of our species arise two branches of education, one for males, the other for females. The differences made

by nature between the sexes apprises us that we cannot indiscriminately employ the same process of training for each."

"It is important to the vigour and conservation of individuals, that the development of the passion of love, and of the sexual desire, which are accelerated by early intercourse and contact of the sexes, should be retarded by their separation at school."

CHAPTER XXXI.-FORMATION OF CHARACTER.

ALTHOUGH the principal foundation to the conception of

the true nature of man's character was laid as long ago as 1690 by John Locke's "Essay concerning the Human Understanding," and in which he fully proved that there are no innate ideas formed by the human mind, yet it is to Robert Owen that we chiefly owe the practical application of this philosophic discovery. What the deep-thinking Locke elaborated theoretically, Robert Owen applied practically. Introducing his doctrine of the formation of character, he says:"No difference of latitude, nor climate, nor generation, has produced a stranger discrepancy between man and man than may be found existing together in the same country and at the same time; and this difference is caused by the institutions of society; it consists in the graduations of rank, wealth, education, and morality. One man is naturally as good as another; all should have an equal chance of avoiding ignorance, vice, and poverty; yet such is so little the case that these misfortunes have actually become hereditary."

And again :"Two causes determine the character of man; first, the disposition received at birth; second, the circumstances which from childhood upwards are brought to bear upon that disposition. Surrounded by conditions favourable to the growth of virtue, man will nearly universally become virtuous; if, on the contrary, he is exposed to the impure influence of vice, he will with no less certainty become vicious." Then he concludes thus:-" Withdraw the circumstances which tend to create crime in the human character, and crime will not be created. Replace them with such as are calculated to form habits of order, regularity, temperance, industry, and

other qualities will be produced." And finally he charges the formation of bad characters to society," whose institutions are the work of our hands."

That there is great truth in these views of Robert Owen no one will deny; but it is not the whole truth. Robert Owen himself admits that disposition, temperament, physical organization, and the influence of the passions may form another factor in the influences which create man's ideas and prompt his actions; but he took little or no account of the mind's inherent power of reasoning, which we know produces so-called strong and weak minds and intellects, ranging in innumerable gradations between the genius and the idiot. He was forced to admit that a man's reasoning faculties and power of will are the results of the action of the brains; and the brains being part of man's organization, that this organization plays an important part in the formation of character. Having admitted the existence of this second factor in the formation of character, he was asked which of the two was the stronger. This question remaining unanswered, deprives Robert Owen's assertion "that circumstances alone form the character of man," of half of its important truth. And as it will probably for ever remain unanswerable, we can only take for granted that man's ideas, actions, and character are influenced (1) by the education he receives when a child; (2) by the surrounding circumstances in after-life; (3) by his organization, including disposition, temperament, power of the mind, and promptings of the passions.

From this we draw the practical conclusion that, though man's character is greatly influenced by extraneous circumstances not forming part of his organization, it is also more or less determined by the will of each person, and by the inherent power of reasoning.

But having pointed out the great importance of the influence of circumstances on the formation of character, Robert Owen has, through his discovery, become one of the greatest benefactors of mankind, and more so as he has shown, by practical experiments, that the character of both children and adults can be favourably directed to morality and abstention from crime, when acted upon by morally good influences. Of the benefits already derived from Owen's tenet, that "man is

the creature of circumstances," Mr. Sargant enumerates:-1. "The mildness of our recent criminal laws; 2. The institution of reformatories; 3. The anxiety of our day to promote education; 4. The fitting out of training ships for bad boys; 5. A general desire to prevent crime rather than to punish it. These are the fruits of the doctrines so early and so laboriously advocated by R. Owen." That the work of reforming the character of adults must always offer great difficulties, was already perceived by Plato, who says:-" When they (the guardians) have got for their ground work the state and manners of mankind, they would first make them pure, which is not altogether an easy matter; for you know that in this they differ from others,-in being unwilling to meddle either with a private man or state, or to prescribe laws, till they have either received them as pure, or themselves have made them So. As they proceed in the work of drawing a sketch of their form of Government, they will frequently look in two directions, not only to what is naturally just and beautiful and temperate and the like, but also, again, to that which they can establish among mankind, blending and compounding their human form out of different human characters and pursuits, drawing from what Homer calls the divine likeness and the divine resemblance subsisting among men."

CHAPTER XXXII.-PUNISHMENT OF CRIMES.

"Force, refused admission into the dominion of Labour, passes into the camp of Crime; . . . while we hesitate to organize an association of labourers, we behold an organized association of assassins."-LOUIS BLANC.

THIS

motto of the celebrated French socialist introduces at once the prospect that the future communistic state of society, founded on the organization of labour, will be an effective barrier against crime. The same opinion was held by Sir Thomas More, who, witnessing the dreadful punishments which at his own time were inflicted on thieves, said that “it would be much better to make such good provisions by which