but that will
come very shortly. In fact, the condition of the rich is already
exciting the gravest apprehensions among their poorer brethren. We can
trace, easily enough, the progress and growth of charity. It begins at
home, with anxiety for one's own soul first, and the souls of one's
children next. Charities give way to doles; doles are succeeded by
almshouses; these again by charity schools. The present generation has
begun to understand that the truest charity consists in throwing open
the doors to honest effort, and in helping those who help themselves.
Else what is the meaning of technical schools? What else mean the
classes at the People's Palace, the Polytechnic, the Evening
Recreation Schools, and the City of London Guilds Institute?

I believe that a conviction of the new truer charity, and of the
futility of the old modes, is destined to sink deeper and deeper into
men's hearts, until our working classes will perhaps fall into the
extreme in unforgiving hardness towards those whom unthrift,
profligacy, idleness, have brought to want. But with this conviction
is growing up the absolute necessity of more technical schools and
better industrial training. We want to make our handicraftsmen better
than any foreigners. More than that, there are some who say that the
very existence of the United Kingdom as a Power depends upon our doing
this. Can we afford any longer to keep up, at a yearly loss of all the
power represented by ten thousand pounds a year, that house of Shams
and Shadows which we call by the name of the ancient and venerable
Hospital of St. Katherine's by the Tower?

THE UPWARD PRESSURE:

A PROPHETIC CHAPTER FROM THE 'HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY'

The most striking part of the great Social Revolution which was
witnessed by the earlier years of the twentieth century was the event
which preceded that Revolution, made it possible, and moulded it;
namely, the Conquest of the Professions by the people. Happily it was
a Conquest achieved without exciting any active opposition; it
advanced unnoticed, step by step, and it was unsuspected, as regards
its real significance, until the end was inevitable and visible to
all. It is my purpose in this Chapter, first to show what was the
position of the mass of the nation before this event, as regards the
Professions; and next to relate briefly the successive events which
led to the Conquest, and so prepared the way for the abolition of all