ren from educating
themselves by their own powers if it provides them with teachers,
schools and libraries. It is not true that I hinder anybody from
plowing a field by his own strength if I give him a plow. It is not
true that I hinder anyone from defeating a hostile enemy by his own
strength if I put a weapon into his hand for the purpose.

Although it is true that now and then someone may have climbed a tower
without a rope or a ladder; that individuals have acquired an
education without teachers, schools, or public libraries; that the
peasants in the Vendee in the wars of the Revolution now and then
defeated an enemy even without weapons; yet all these exceptions do
not vitiate the rule--they only prove it; and therefore, although it
is true that under certain special conditions single groups of
workingmen in England have been able to improve their condition, to a
certain limited extent, in certain minor branches of wholesale
production, by an association based chiefly upon their own
exertions, nevertheless the law stands that the real improvement of
the situation of the workingman, which he has a just right to demand,
and to demand for the whole working class as such, can be accomplished
only by this aid of the State. No more should you allow yourselves to
be misled and deceived by the cry of those who talk about Socialism or
Communism and try to oppose this demand of yours by such cheap
phrases; but be firmly convinced regarding such people that they are
only trying to deceive you, or else they themselves do not know what
they are talking about. Nothing is further from so-called Socialism
and Communism than this demand according to which, if realized, the
working classes, just as they do today, would maintain their
individual liberty, individual manner of living, and individual
compensation for work, and would stand in no different relation to the
State, except that the necessary capital, or credit, for their
association would be provided for them by it. But that is exactly the
office and the destiny of the State--to make easy and provide means
for the great cultural progress of humanity. This is its ultimate
purpose. For this it exists. It has always served this purpose and
always must.

I will give you a single example among hundreds--the canals, highways,
postoffices, steamboat lines, telegraph lines, banking institutions,
agricultural improvements, the introduction of new branches of
industry, etc., in all