thing to examiners to find the same absurd error, often stated in the very same words, running through a whole school, except, perhaps, in the case of one or two exceptionally clever lads who have, by reading or experiment, educated themselves upon the point in question. Now the absurdity of the system is, that the ignorant teacher never has his ignorance pointed out to him, and imputes the failure of a number of his pupils to their stupidity or carelessness, whereas it is really all due to his own ignorance.

Another evil result of these examinations under a Government department is, that in order to justify their existence, it is necessary to show a certain considerable amount of success. Hence the " passes are brought up to good general average, however bad the bulk of the papers may be; and people are deluded by the idea that because a person has passed in Physiography he has a good general knowledge of the whole subject, whereas many pass who are quite unfit to teach any portion of it to the smallest child. My own conclusion is that all these examinations are an enormous waste of public money, with no useful result whatever. Nature-knowledge of the kind referred to is the most important, the most interesting, and therefore the most useful of all knowledge. But to be thus useful it must be taught properly throughout the whole period of instruction from the kinder-garten onwards, always by means of facts, experiments, and outdoor observation, supplemented, where necessary, by fuller exposition of difficult points in the class-room.

The whole status of the teacher is degraded by the present system, which assumes that any fairly educated person can, by means of a few courses of lectures and a short period of cramming, be qualified to teach these subjects to the young. The real fact is that none can teach them properly who have not a natural taste for them, and have largely taught themselves by personal observation and study. They alone know the difficulties felt by beginners; they alone are able to go to the fundamental principles that underlie the most familiar phenomena, and are thus able to make everything clear to their pupils. Such men are comparatively rare, but they should be

carefully sought for and given the highest rank in the teacher's profession. When that is done, no examinations will be advisable or necessary.

Before quitting the examination question, I wish to say a word in favour of the late Professor Ansted as an Examiner in Physical Geography. On looking over many of the papers set by him from 1871 to 1877, I am greatly impressed by his broad grasp of the whole subject, and the admirable manner in which he dealt in turn with all the natural phenomena embraced in it, from the simplest to the most complex. He usually set fifteen to sixteen questions, in both the Elementary and Advanced stages, only eight of which were to be answered; and they always comprised a considerable portion of the whole field embraced in the study. I feel sure that the questions set by him during any four or five years of the period named, would serve as an admirable guide to a student who wished to make himself master of the fascinating study of earth-knowledge or "physiography."

CHAPTER XXXV

LAND NATIONALIZATION TO SOCIALISM, AND THE FRIENDS

THEY BROUGHT ME

SOON after I returned from the Amazon (about 1853), I read Herbert Spencer's "Social Statics," a work for which I had a great admiration, and which seemed to me so important in relation to political and social reform, that I thought of inviting a few friends to read and discuss it at weekly meetings. This fell through for want of support, but the whole work, and more especially the chapter on "The Right to the Use of the Earth," made a permanent impression on me, and ultimately led to my becoming, almost against my will, President of the Land Nationalization Society, which has now been just a quarter of a century in existence. In connection with this movement, I have made the acquaintance of a considerable number of persons of more or less eminence, and my relations with some of these will form the subject of the present chapter.

The publication of my "Malay Archipelago" in 1869, procured me the acquaintance of John Stuart Mill, who on reading the concluding pages, in which I condemn our "civilization" as but a form of "barbarism," and refer, among other examples, to our permitting private property in land, wrote to me from Avignon on May 19, 1870, enclosing the programme of his proposed Land Tenure Reform Association, and asking me to become a member of the General Committee. Its object was to claim the future "unearned increment" of land values for the State, to which purpose it was to be strictly limited. I accepted the offer, but proposed a new clause, giving the State power of resuming possession of any land on payment of its net value at the time, because, as I pointed out, the greatest evil was the

monopoly of land, not the money lost by the community. This he himself supported, but suggested giving not the current value only, but something additional as compensation; and I think this was done. Later I proposed another addition to the programme, which he also agreed to, as shown by the following extract from a letter I received from him in July, referring to a general meeting of the Association at the Freemason's Tavern.

"I hope that you will be able to attend, and that you will propose, as an addition to the programme, the important point which you suggested in your letter to me, viz., the right of the State to take possession (with a view to their preservation) of all natural objects or artificial constructions which are of historical or artistic interest. If you will propose this I will support it, and I think there will be no difficulty in getting it put into the programme, where undoubtedly I think it ought to be."

He then asked me to dine with him at Blackheath Park on the following Sunday at five o'clock, which I of course accepted. The only other persons present were his stepdaughter Miss Helen Taylor, Mr. George Grote the historian, and the Hon. Auberon Herbert. We had a very pleasant dinner and some very interesting and instructive conversation afterwards, only one portion of which I recollect, as it referred to a subject on which I differed from Mill, and thought his views, for such an undoubtedly great and clear thinker, somewhat hasty and ill-considered. The conversation turned somehow upon the existence and nature of God. Mr. Grote seemed inclined to accept the ordinary idea of an eternal, omniscient, and benevolent existence, because anything else was almost unthinkable. To which Mill replied, that whoever considered the folly, misery, and badness of the bulk of mankind, such a belief was unthinkable, because it would imply that God could have made man good and happy, have abolished evil, and has not done so. I ventured to suggest that what we call evil may be essential to the ultimate development of the highest good for all; but he would not listen to it or argue the question at all, but repeated, dogmatically,

that an omnipotent God might have made man wise, good, and happy, and as He had not chosen to do so it was absurd for us to believe in such a being and call Him almighty and good. He then turned the conversation as if he did not wish to discuss the matter further.

There is one point in connection with this problem which I do not think has ever been much considered or discussed. It is, the undoubted benefit to all the members of a society of the greatest possible diversity of character, as a means both towards the greatest enjoyment and interest of association, and to the highest ultimate development of the race. If we are to suppose that man might have been created or developed with none of those extremes of character which now often result in what we call wickedness, vice, or crime, there would certainly have been a greater monotony in human nature which would, perhaps, have led to less beneficial results than the variety which actually exists may lead to. We are more and more getting to see that very much, perhaps all, the vice, crime, and misery that exists in the world is the result, not of the wickedness of individuals, but of the entire absence of sympathetic training from infancy onwards. So far as I have heard, the only example of the effects of such a training on a large scale, was that initiated by Robert Owen at New Lanark, which, with most unpromising materials, produced such marvellous results on the character and conduct of the children, as to seem almost incredible to the numerous persons who came to see and often critically to examine them. There must have been all kinds of characters in his schools, yet none were found to be incorrigible, none beyond control, none who did not respond to the love and sympathetic instruction of their teachers. It is therefore quite possible that all the evil in the world is directly due to man, not to God, and that when we once realize this to its full extent we shall be able, not only to eliminate almost completely what we now term evil, but shall then clearly perceive that all those propensities and passions that under bad conditions of society inevitably led to it, will under good conditions add to the variety and the