ady
high treason for a soldier to attend a radical meeting. No doubt
they will also stamp it high treason for a soldier to read a radical
pamphlet. But then, has not authority from time immemorial stamped
every step of progress as treasonable? Those, however, who earnestly
strive for social reconstruction can well afford to face all that;
for it is probably even more important to carry the truth into the
barracks than into the factory. When we have undermined the
patriotic lie, we shall have cleared the path for that great
structure wherein all nationalities shall be united into a universal
brotherhood,--a truly FREE SOCIETY.

FRANCISCO FERRER AND THE MODERN SCHOOL

Experience has come to be considered the best school of life. The
man or woman who does not learn some vital lesson in that school is
looked upon as a dunce indeed. Yet strange to say, that though
organized institutions continue perpetrating errors, though they
learn nothing from experience, we acquiesce, as a matter of course.

There lived and worked in Barcelona a man by the name of Francisco
Ferrer. A teacher of children he was, known and loved by his people.
Outside of Spain only the cultured few knew of Francisco Ferrer's
work. To the world at large this teacher was non-existent.

On the first of September, 1909, the Spanish government--at the
behest of the Catholic Church--arrested Francisco Ferrer. On the
thirteenth of October, after a mock trial, he was placed in the ditch
at Montjuich prison, against the hideous wall of many sighs, and shot
dead. Instantly Ferrer, the obscure teacher, became a universal
figure, blazing forth the indignation and wrath of the whole
civilized world against the wanton murder.

The killing of Francisco Ferrer was not the first crime committed by
the Spanish government and the Catholic Church. The history of these
institutions is one long stream of fire and blood. Still they have
not learned through experience, nor yet come to realize that every
frail being slain by Church and State grows and grows into a mighty
giant, who will some day free humanity from their perilous hold.

Francisco Ferrer was born in 1859, of humble parents. They were
Catholics, and therefore hoped to raise their son in the same faith.
They did not know that the boy was to become the harbinger of a great
truth, that his mind would refuse to travel in the old path. At an
early age Ferrer began to question the faith of his