rating a public system of education and of hygiene. The
first two movements are sufficiently typical cases of the
interdependence of liberty and equality. The third is more often
conceived as a Socialistic than a Liberal tendency, and, in point of
fact, the State control of education gives rise to some searching
questions of principle, which have not yet been fully solved. If, in
general, education is a duty which the State has a right to enforce,
there is a countervailing right of choice as to the lines of education
which it would be ill to ignore, and the mode of adjustment has not yet
been adequately determined either in theory or in practice. I would,
however, strongly maintain that the general conception of the State as
Over-parent is quite as truly Liberal as Socialistic. It is the basis of
the rights of the child, of his protection against parental neglect, of
the equality of opportunity which he may claim as a future citizen, of
his training to fill his place as a grown-up person in the social
system. Liberty once more involves control and restraint.

7. _Local, Racial, and National Liberty._

From the smallest social unit we pass to the largest. A great part of
the liberating movement is occupied with the struggle of entire nations
against alien rule, with the revolt of Europe against Napoleon, with the
struggle of Italy for freedom, with the fate of the Christian subjects
of Turkey, with the emancipation of the negro, with the national
movement in Ireland and in India. Many of these struggles present the
problem of liberty in its simplest form. It has been and is too often a
question of securing the most elementary rights for the weaker party;
and those who are not touched by the appeal are deficient rather in
imagination than in logic or ethics. But at the back of national
movements very difficult questions do arise. What is a nation as
distinct from a state? What sort of unity does it constitute, and what
are its rights? If Ireland is a nation, is Ulster one? and if Ulster is
a British and Protestant nation, what of the Catholic half of Ulster?
History has in some cases given us a practical answer. Thus, it has
shown that, enjoying the gift of responsible government, French and
British, despite all historical quarrels and all differences of
religious belief, language, and social structure, have fused into the
nation of Canada. History has justified the conviction that Germany was
a nation, and thrown ridi