Chapter IX: Part 9

If there were no such things as industrial pursuits, a system of education which does nothing for the faculties of observation, which trains neither the eye nor the hand, and is compatible with utter ignorance of the commonest natural truths, might still be reasonably regarded as strangely imperfect. And when we consider that the instruction and training which are lacking are exactly; those which are of most importance for the great mass of our population, the fault becomes almost a crime, the more that there is no practical difficulty in making good these defects. There really is no reason why drawing should not be universally taught, and it is an admirable training for both eye and hand. Artists are born, not made; but everybody may be taught to draw elevations, plans, and sections; and pots and pans are as good, indeed better, models for [221] this purpose than the Apollo Belvedere. The plant is not expensive; and there is this excellent quality about drawing of the kind indicated, that it can be tested almost as easily and severely as arithmetic. Such drawings are either right or wrong, and if they are wrong the pupil can be made to see that they are wrong. From the industrial point of view, drawing has the further merit that there is hardly any trade in which the power of drawing is not of daily and hourly utility. In the next place, no good reason, except the want of capable teachers, can be assigned why elementary notions of science should not be an element in general instruction. In this case, again, no expensive or elaborate apparatus is necessary. The commonest thing--a candle, a boy's squirt, a piece of chalk--in the hands of a teacher who knows his business, may be made the starting-point whence children may be led into the regions of science as far as their capacity permits, with efficient exercise of their observational and reasoning faculties on the road. If object lessons often prove trivial failures, it is not the fault of object lessons, but that of the teacher, who has not found out how much the power of teaching a little depends on knowing a great deal, and that thoroughly; and that he has not made that discovery is not the fault of the teachers, but of the detestable system of training them which is widely prevalent.*

* Training in the use of simple tools is no doubt desirable,
on all grounds. From the point of view of "culture," the
man whose "fingers are all thumbs" is but a stunted
creature. But the practical difficulties in the way of
introducing handiwork of this kind into elementary schools
appear to me to be considerable.

[222] As I have said, I do not regard the proposal to add these to the present subjects of universal instruction as made merely in the interests of industry. Elementary science and drawing are just as needful at Eton (where I am happy to say both are now parts of the regular course) as in the lowest primary school. But their importance in the education of the artisan is enhanced, not merely by the fact that the knowledge and skill thus gained--little as they may amount to--will still be of practical utility to him; but, further, because they constitute an introduction to that special training which is commonly called "technical education."

I conceive that our wants in this last direction may be grouped under three heads: (1) Instruction in the principles of those branches of science and of art which are peculiarly applicable to industrial pursuits, which may be called preliminary scientific education. (2) Instruction in the special branches of such applied science and art, as technical education proper. (3) Instruction of teachers in both these branches. (4) Capacity-catching machinery.

A great deal has already been done in each of these directions, but much remains to be done. If elementary education is amended in the way [223] that has been suggested, I think that the school boards will have quite as much on their hands as they are capable of doing well. The influences under which the members of these bodies are elected do not tend to secure fitness for dealing with scientific or technical education; and it is the less necessary to burden them with an uncongenial task as there are other organizations, not only much better fitted to do the work, but already actually doing it.

In the matter of preliminary scientific education, the chief of these is the Science and Art Department, which has done more during the last quarter of a century for the teaching of elementary science among the masses of the people than any organization which exists either in this or in any other country. It has become veritably a people's university, so far as physical science is concerned. At the foundation of our old universities they were freely open to the poorest, but the poorest must come to them. In the last quarter of a century, the Science and Art Department, by means of its classes spread all over the country and open to all, has conveyed instruction to the poorest. The University Extension movement shows that our older learned corporations have discovered the propriety of following suit.

Technical education, in the strict sense, has become a necessity for two reasons. The old apprenticeship system has broken down, partly by [224] reason of the changed conditions of industrial life, and partly because trades have ceased to be "crafts," the traditional secrets whereof the master handed down to his apprentices. Invention is constantly changing the face of our industries, so that "use and wont," "rule of thumb," and the like, are gradually losing their importance, while that knowledge of principles which alone can deal successfully with changed conditions is becoming more and more valuable. Socially, the "master" of four or five apprentices is disappearing in favour of the "employer" of forty, or four hundred, or four thousand, "hands," and the odds and ends of technical knowledge, formerly picked up in a shop, are not, and cannot be, supplied in the factory. The instruction formerly given by the master must therefore be more than replaced by the systematic teaching of the technical school.

Institutions of this kind on varying scales of magnitude and completeness, from the splendid edifice set up by the City and Guilds Institute to the smallest local technical school, to say nothing of classes, such as those in technology instituted by the Society of Arts (subsequently taken over by the City Guilds), have been established in various parts of the country, and the movement in favour of their increase and multiplication is rapidly growing in breadth and intensity. But there is much difference of opinion as to the best [225] way in which the technical instruction, so generally desired, should be given. Two courses appear to be practicable: the one is the establishment of special technical schools with a systematic and lengthened course of instruction demanding the employment of the whole time of the pupils. The other is the setting afoot of technical classes, especially evening classes, comprising a short series of lessons on some special topic, which may be attended by persons already earning wages in some branch of trade or commerce.

There is no doubt that technical schools, on the plan indicated under the first head, are extremely costly; and, so far as the teaching of artisans is concerned, it is very commonly objected to them that, as the learners do not work under trade conditions, they are apt to fall into amateurish habits, which prove of more hindrance than service in the actual business of life. When such schools are attached to factories under the direction of an employer who desires to train up a supply of intelligent workmen, of course this objection does not apply; nor can the usefulness of such schools for the training of future employers and for the higher grade of the employed be doubtful; but they are clearly out of the reach of the great mass of the people, who have to earn their bread as soon as possible. We must therefore look to the classes, and especially to evening classes, as the great instrument for the technical [226] education of the artisan. The utility of such classes has now been placed beyond all doubt; the only question which remains is to find the ways and means of extending them.

We are here, as in all other questions of social organization, met by two diametrically opposed views. On the one hand, the methods pursued in foreign countries are held up as our example. The State is exhorted to take the matter in hand and establish a great system of technical education. On the other hand, many economists of the individualist school exhaust the resources of language in condemning and repudiating, not merely the interference of the general government in such matters, but the application of a farthing of the funds raised by local taxation to these purposes. I entertain a strong conviction that, in this country, at any rate, the State had much better leave purely technical and trade instruction alone. But, although my personal leanings are decidedly towards the individualists, I have arrived at that conclusion on merely practical grounds. In fact, my individualism is rather of a sentimental sort, and I sometimes think I should be stronger in the faith if it were less vehemently advocated.* I am unable to see that civil society is anything but a corporation established [227] for a moral object only--namely, the good of its members--and therefore that it may take such measures as seem fitting for the attainment of that which the general voice decides to be the general good. That the suffrage of the majority is by no means a scientific test of social good and evil is unfortunately too true; but, in practice, it is the only test we can apply, and the refusal to abide by it means anarchy. The purest despotism that ever existed is as much based upon that will of the majority (which is usually submission to the will of a small minority) as the freest republic. Law is the expression of the opinion of the majority; and it is law, and not mere opinion, because the many are strong enough to enforce it.

* In what follows I am only repeating and emphasizing
opinions which I expressed seventeen years ago, in an
Address to the members of the Midland Institute
(republished in Critiques and Addresses in 1873, and in Vol.
I. of these Essays ). I have seen no reason to modify them,
notwithstanding high authority on the other side.

I am as strongly convinced as the most pronounced individualist can be, that it is desirable that every man should be free to act in every way which does not limit the corresponding freedom of his fellow-man. But I fail to connect that great induction of political science with the practical corollary which is frequently drawn from it: that the State--that is, the people in their corporate capacity--has no business to meddle with anything but the administration of justice and external defence. It appears to me that the [228] amount of freedom which incorporate society may fitly leave to its members is not a fixed quantity, to be determined a priori by deduction from the fiction called "natural rights"; but that it must be determined by, and vary with, circumstances. I conceive it to be demonstrable that the higher and the more complex the organization of the social body, the more closely is the life of each member bound up with that of the whole; and the larger becomes the category of acts which cease to be merely self-regarding, and which interfere with the freedom of others more or less seriously.

If a squatter, living ten miles away from any neighbour, chooses to burn his house down to get rid of vermin, there may be no necessity (in the absence of insurance offices) that the law should interfere with his freedom of action; his act can hurt nobody but himself. But, if the dweller in a street chooses to do the same thing, the State very properly makes such a proceeding a crime, and punishes it as such. He does meddle with his neighbour's freedom, and that seriously. So it might, perhaps, be a tenable doctrine, that it would be needless, and even tyrannous, to make education compulsory in a sparse agricultural population, living in abundance on the produce of its own soil; but, in a densely populated manufacturing country, struggling for existence with competitors, every ignorant person tends to [229] become a burden upon, and, so far, an infringer of the liberty of, his fellows, and an obstacle to their success. Under such circumstances an education rate is, in fact, a war tax, levied for purposes of defence.

That State action always has been more or less misdirected, and always will be so, is, I believe, perfectly true. But I am not aware that it is more true of the action of men in their corporate capacity than it is of the doings of individuals. The wisest and most dispassionate man in existence, merely wishing to go from one stile in a field to the opposite, will not walk quite straight--he is always going a little wrong, and always correcting himself; and I can only congratulate the individualist who is able to say that his general course of life has been of a less undulatory character. To abolish State action, because its direction is never more than approximately correct, appears to me to be much the same thing as abolishing the man at the wheel altogether, because, do what he will, the ship yaws more or less. "Why should I be robbed of my property to pay for teaching another man's children?" is an individualist question, which is not unfrequently put as if it settled the whole business. Perhaps it does, but I find difficulties in seeing why it should. The parish in which I live makes me pay my share for the paving and lighting of a great many streets that I never pass through; [230] and I might plead that I am robbed to smooth the way and lighten the darkness of other people. But I am afraid the parochial authorities would not let me off on this plea; and I must confess I do not see why they should.

I cannot speak of my own knowledge, but I have every reason to believe that I came into this world a small reddish person, certainly without a gold spoon in my mouth, and in fact with no discernible abstract or concrete "rights" or property of any description. If a foot was not set upon me, at once, as a squalling nuisance, it was either the natural affection of those about me, which I certainly had done nothing to deserve, or the fear of the law which, ages before my birth, was painfully built up by the society into which I intruded, that prevented that catastrophe. If I was nourished, cared for, taught, saved from the vagabondage of a wastrel, I certainly am not aware that I did anything to deserve those advantages. And, if I possess anything now, it strikes me that, though I may have fairly earned my day's wages for my day's work, and may justly call them my property--yet, without that organization of society, created out of the toil and blood of long generations before my time, I should probably have had nothing but a flint axe and an indifferent hut to call my own; and even those would be mine only so long as no stronger savage came my way.

So that if society, having, quite gratuitously, [231] done all these things for me, asks me in turn to do something towards its preservation--even if that something is to contribute to the teaching of other men's children--I really in spite of all my individualist leanings, feel rather ashamed to say no. And if I were not ashamed, I cannot say that I think that society would be dealing unjustly with me in converting the moral obligation into a legal one. There is a manifest unfairness in letting all the burden be borne by the willing horse.

It does not appear to me, then, that there is any valid objection to taxation for purposes of education; but, in the case of technical schools and classes, I think it is practically expedient that such a taxation should be local. Our industrial population accumulates in particular towns and districts; these districts are those which immediately profit by technical education; and it is only in them that we can find the men practically engaged in industries, among whom some may reasonably be expected to be competent judges of that which is wanted, and of the best means of meeting the want.

In my belief, all methods of technical training are at present tentative, and, to be successful, each must be adapted to the special peculiarities of its locality. This is a case in which we want twenty years, not of "strong government," but of cheerful and hopeful blundering; and we may be [232] thankful if we get things straight in that time.

The principle of the Bill introduced, but dropped, by the Government last session, appears to me to be wise, and some of the objections to it I think are due to a misunderstanding. The bill proposed in substance to allow localities to tax themselves for purposes of technical education--on the condition that any scheme for such purpose should be submitted to the Science and Art Department, and declared by that department to be in accordance with the intention of the Legislature.

A cry was raised that the Bill proposed to throw technical education into the hands of the Science and Art Department. But, in reality, no power of initiation, nor even of meddling with details, was given to that Department--the sole function of which was to decide whether any plan proposed did or did not come within the limits of "technical education." The necessity for such control, somewhere, is obvious. No legislature, certainly not ours, is likely to grant the power of self-taxation without setting limits to that power in some way; and it would neither have been practicable to devise a legal definition of technical education, nor commendable to leave the question to the Auditor-General, to be fought out in the law-courts. The only alternative was to leave the decision to an appropriate State authority. If it is [233] asked what is the need of such control if the people of the localities are the best judges, the obvious reply is that there are localities and localities, and that while Manchester, or Liverpool, or Birmingham, or Glasgow might, perhaps, be safely left to do as they thought fit, smaller towns, in which there is less certainty of full discussion by competent people of different ways of thinking, might easily fall a prey to crocheteers.

Supposing our intermediate science teaching and our technical schools and classes are established, there is yet a third need to be supplied, and that is the want of good teachers. And it is necessary not only to get them, but to keep them when you have got them.

It is impossible to insist too strongly upon the fact that the efficient teachers of science and of technology are not to be made by the processes in vogue at ordinary training colleges. The memory loaded with mere bookwork is not the thing wanted--is, in fact, rather worse than useless--in the teacher of scientific subjects. It is absolutely essential that his mind should be full of knowledge and not of mere learning, and that what he knows should have been learned in the laboratory rather than in the library. There are happily already, both in London and in the provinces, various places in which such training is to be had, and the main thing at present is to make it in the first place accessible, and in the next [234] indispensable, to those who undertake the business of teaching. But when the well-trained men are supplied, it must be recollected that the profession of teacher is not a very lucrative or otherwise tempting one, and that it may be advisable to offer special inducements to good men to remain in it. These, however, are questions of detail into which it is unnecessary to enter further.

Last, but not least, comes the question of providing the machinery for enabling those who are by nature specially qualified to undertake the higher branches of industrial work, to reach the position in which they may render that service to the community. If all our educational expenditure did nothing but pick one man of scientific or inventive genius, each year, from amidst the hewers of wood and drawers of water, and give him the chance of making the best of his inborn faculties, it would be a very good investment. If there is one such child among the hundreds of thousands of our annual increase, it would be worth any money to drag him either from the slough of misery, or from the hotbed of wealth, and teach him to devote himself to the service of his people. Here, again, we have made a beginning with our scholarships and the like, and need only follow in the tracks already worn.

The programme of industrial development briefly set forth in the preceding pages is not what Kant calls a "Hirngespinnst," a cobweb [235] spun in the brain of a Utopian philosopher. More or less of it has taken bodily shape in many parts of the country, and there are towns of no great size or wealth in the manufacturing districts (Keighley, for example) in which almost the whole of it has, for some time, been carried out, so far as the means at the disposal of the energetic and public-spirited men who have taken the matter in hand permitted. The thing can be done; I have endeavoured to show good grounds for the belief that it must be done, and that speedily, if we wish to hold our own in the war of industry. I doubt not that it will be done, whenever its absolute necessity becomes as apparent to all those who are absorbed in the actual business of industrial life as it is to some of the lookers on.

Perhaps it is necessary for me to add that technical education is not here proposed as a panacea for social diseases, but simply as a medicament which will help the patient to pass through an imminent crisis.

An ophthalmic surgeon may recommend an operation for cataract in a man who is going blind, without being supposed to undertake that it will cure him of gout. And I may pursue the metaphor so far as to remark, that the surgeon is justified in pointing out that a diet of pork-chops and burgundy will probably kill his patient, though he may be quite able to suggest a mode of living [236] which will free him from his constitutional disorder.

Mr. Booth asks me, Why do you not propose some plan of your own? Really, that is no answer to my argument that his treatment will make the patient very much worse. [Note added in Social Diseases and Worse Remedies, January, 1891.]

[237]

LETTERS TO THE "Times"

ON THE

"DARKEST ENGLAND SCHEME."

I.

The "Times," December 1st, 1890

SIR: A short time ago a generous and philanthropic friend wrote to me, placing at my disposal a large sum of money for the furtherance of the vast scheme which the "General" of the Salvation Army has propounded, if I thought it worthy of support. The responsibility of advising my benevolent correspondent has weighed heavily upon me, but I felt that it would be cowardly, as well as ungracious, to refuse to accept it. I have therefore studied Mr. Booth's book with some care, for the purpose of separating the essential from the accessory features of his project, and I have based my judgment--I am sorry to say an unfavourable one--upon the data thus obtained. Before communicating my conclusions to my friend, however, I am desirous to know what there may be to be said in arrest of that judgment; [238] and the matter is of such vast public importance that I trust you will aid me by publishing this letter, notwithstanding its length.

There are one or two points upon which I imagine all thinking men have arrived at the same convictions as those from which Mr. Booth starts. It is certain that there is an immense amount of remediable misery among us, that, in addition to the poverty, disease, and degradation which are the consequences of causes beyond human control, there is a vast, probably a very much larger, quantity of misery which is the result of individual ignorance, or misconduct, and of faulty social arrangements. Further, I think it is not to be doubted that, unless this remediable misery is effectually dealt with, the hordes of vice and pauperism will destroy modern civilization as effectually as uncivilized tribes of another kind destroyed the great social organization which preceded ours. Moreover, I think all will agree that no reforms and improvements will go to the root of the evil unless they attack it in its ultimate source--namely, the motives of the individual man. Honest, industrious, and self-restraining men will make a very bad social organization prosper; while vicious, idle, and reckless citizens will bring to ruin the best that ever was, or ever will be, invented.

The leading propositions which are peculiar to Mr. Booth I take to be these:--

[239] (1) That the only adequate means to such reformation of the individual man is the adoption of that form of somewhat corybantic Christianity of which the soldiers of the Salvation Army are the militant missionaries. This implies the belief that the excitement of the religious emotions (largely by processes described by their employers as "rousing" and "convivial") is a desirable and trustworthy method of permanently amending the conduct of mankind.

I demur to these propositions. I am of opinion that the testimony of history, no less than the cool observation of that which lies within the personal experience of many of us, is wholly adverse to it.

(2) That the appropriate instrument for the propagation and maintenance of this peculiar sacramental enthusiasm is the Salvation Army--a body of devotees, drilled and disciplined as a military organization, and provided with a numerous hierarchy of officers, every one of whom is pledged to blind and unhesitating obedience to the "General," who frankly tells us that the first condition of the service is "implicit, unquestioning obedience." "A telegram from me will send any of them to the uttermost parts of the earth"; every one "has taken service on the express condition that he or she will obey, without questioning, or gainsaying, the orders from headquarters" ("Darkest England," p. 243).

[240] This proposition seems to me to be indisputable. History confirms it. Francis of Assisi and Ignatius Loyola made their great experiments on the same principle. Nothing is more certain than that a body of religious enthusiasts (perhaps we may even say fanatics) pledged to blind obedience to their chief, is one of the most efficient instruments for effecting any purpose that the wit of man has yet succeeded in devising. And I can but admire the insight into human nature which has led Mr. Booth to leave his unquestioning and unhesitating instruments unbound by vows. A volunteer slave is worth ten sworn bondsmen.

(3) That the success of the Salvation Army, with its present force of 9416 officers "wholly engaged in the work," its capital of three quarters of a million, its income of the same amount, its 1375 corps at home, and 1499 in the colonies and foreign countries (Appendix, pp. 3 and 4), is a proof that Divine assistance has been vouchsafed to its efforts.

Here I am not able to agree with the sanguine Commander-in-chief of the new model, whose labours in creating it have probably interfered with his acquisition of information respecting the fate of previous enterprises of like kind.

It does not appear to me that his success is in any degree more remarkable than that of Francis of Assisi or that of Ignatius Loyola, than that [241] of George Fox, or even than that of the Mormons, in our own time. When I observe the discrepancies of the doctrinal foundations from which each of these great movements set out, I find it difficult to suppose that supernatural aid has been given to all of them; still more, that Mr. Booth's smaller measure of success is evidence that it has been granted to him.

But what became of the Franciscan experiment?* If there was one rule rather than another on which the founder laid stress, it was that his army of friars should be absolute mendicants, keeping themselves sternly apart from all worldly entanglements. Yet, even before the death of Francis, in 1226, a strong party, headed by Elias of Cortona, the deputy of his own appointment, began to hanker after these very things; and, within thirty years of that time, the Franciscans had become one of the most powerful, wealthy, and worldly corporations in Christendom, with their fingers in every sink of political and social corruption, if so be profit for the order could be fished out of it; their principal interest being to fight their rivals, the Dominicans, and to persecute such of their own brethren as were honest enough to try to carry out their founder's plainest injunctions. We also know what has become of Loyola's experiment. For two centuries the Jesuits have been the hope of the enemies of the Papacy; whenever it becomes too prosperous, they are sure to bring about a catastrophe by their corrupt use of the political and social influence which their organization and their wealth secure.

* See note pp. 245-247]

[242] With these examples of that which may happen to institutions founded by noble men, with high aims, in the hands of successors of a different stamp, armed with despotic authority, before me, common prudence surely requires that, before advising the handing over of a large sum of money to the general of a new order of mendicants, I should ask what guarantee there is that, thirty years hence, the "General" who then autocratically controls the action, say, of 100,000 officers pledged to blind obedience, distributed through the whole length and breadth of the poorer classes, and each with his finger on the trigger of a mine charged with discontent and religious fanaticism; with the absolute control, say, of eight or ten millions sterling of capital and as many of income; with barracks in every town, with estates scattered over the country, and with settlements in the colonies--will exercise his enormous powers, not merely honestly, but wisely? What shadow of security is there that the person who wields this uncontrolled authority over many thousands of men shall use it solely for those philanthropic and religious objects which, I do not doubt, are alone in the mind of Mr. Booth? Who is to say that the Salvation Army, in the year [243] 1920, shall not be a replica of what the Franciscan order had become in the year 1260?

The personal character and the intentions of the founders of such organizations as we are considering count for very little in the formation of a forecast of their future; and if they did, it is no disrespect to Mr. Booth to say that he is not the peer of Francis of Assisi. But if Francis's judgment of men was so imperfect as to permit him to appoint an ambitious intriguer of the stamp of Brother Elias his deputy, we have no right to be sanguine about the perspicacity of Mr. Booth in a like matter.

Adding to all these considerations the fact that Mr. Llewelyn Davies, the warmth of whose philanthropy is beyond question, and in whose competency and fairness I, for one, place implicit reliance, flatly denies the boasted success of the Salvation Army in its professed mission, I have arrived at the conclusion that, as at present advised, I cannot be the instrument of carrying out my friend's proposal.

Mr. Booth has pithily characterized certain benevolent schemes as doing sixpennyworth of good and a shilling's worth of harm. I grieve to say that, in my opinion, the definition exactly fits his own project. Few social evils are of greater magnitude than uninstructed and unchastened religious fanaticism; no personal habit more surely degrades the conscience and the intellect than [244] blind and unhesitating obedience to unlimited authority. Undoubtedly, harlotry and intemperance are sore evils, and starvation is hard to bear, or even to know of; but the prostitution of the mind, the soddening of the conscience, the dwarfing of manhood are worse calamities. It is a greater evil to have the intellect of a nation put down by organized fanaticism; to see its political and industrial affairs at the mercy of a despot whose chief thought is to make that fanaticism prevail; to watch the degradation of men, who should feel themselves individually responsible for their own and their country's fates, to mere brute instruments, ready to the hand of a master for any use to which he may put them.

But that is the end to which, in my opinion, all such organizations as that to which kindly people, who do not look to the consequences of their acts, are now giving their thousands, inevitably tend. Unless clear proof that I am wrong is furnished, another thousand shall not be added by my instrumentality.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. H. Huxley.

[245]

NOTE.

An authoritative contemporary historian, Matthew Paris, writes thus of the Minorite, or Franciscan, Friars in England in 1235, just nine years after the death of Francis of Assisi:--

"At this time some of the Minorite brethren, as well as some of the Order of Preachers, unmindful of their profession and the restrictions of their order, impudently entered the territories of some noble monasteries, under pretense of fulfilling their duties of preaching, as if intending to depart after preaching the next day. Under pretence of sickness, or on some other pretext, however, they remained, and, constructing an altar of wood, they placed on it a consecrated stone altar, which they had brought with them, and clandestinely and in a low voice performed mass, and even received the confessions of many of the parishioners, to the prejudice of the priests. And if by chance they were not satisfied with this, they broke forth in insults and threats, reviling every other order except their own, and asserting that all the rest were doomed to damnation, and that they would not spare the soles of their feet till they had exhausted the wealth of their opposers, however great it might be. The religious men, therefore, gave way to them in many points, yielding to avoid scandal, and offending those in power. For they were the councillors and messengers of the nobles, and even secretaries of the Pope, and therefore obtained much [246] secular favour. Some, however, finding themselves opposed by the Court of Rome, were restrained by obvious reasons, and went away in confusion; for the Supreme Pontiff, with a scowling look, said to them, 'What means this, my brethren? To what lengths are you going? Have you not professed voluntary poverty, and that you would traverse towns and castles and distant places, as the case required, barefooted and unostentatiously, in order to preach the word of God in all humility? And do you now presume to usurp these estates to yourselves against the will of the lords of these fees? Your religion appears to be in a great measure dying away, and your doctrines to be confuted."

Under date of 1243, Matthew writes:--

"For three or four hundred years or more the monastic order did not hasten to destruction so quickly as their order [Minorites and Preachers] of whom now the brothers, twenty-four years having scarcely elapsed, had first built in England dwellings which rivalled regal palaces in height. These are they who daily expose to view their inestimable treasures, in enlarging their sumptuous edifices, and erecting lofty walls, thereby impudently transgressing the limits of their original poverty and violating the basis of their religion, according to the prophecy of German Hildegarde. When noblemen and rich men are at the point of death, whom they know to be possessed of great riches, they, in their love of gain, diligently urge them, to the injury and loss of the ordinary pastors, and extort confessions and hidden wills, lauding themselves and their own order only, [247] and placing themselves before all others. So no faithful man now believes he can be saved, except he is directed by the counsels of the Preachers and Minorites."--Matthew Paris's English History. Translated by the Rev. J. A. Giles, 1889, Vol. I.

II

The "Times," December 9th, 1890

Sir,--The purpose of my previous letter about Mr. Booth's scheme was to arouse the contributors to the military chest of the Salvation Army to a clear sense of what they are doing. I thought it desirable that they should be distinctly aware that they are setting up and endowing a sect, in many ways analogous to the "Ranters" and "Revivalists" of undesirable notoriety in former times; but with this immensely important difference, that it possesses a strong, far-reaching, centralized organization, the disposal of the physical, moral, and financial strength of which rests with an irresponsible chief, who, according to his own account, is assured of the blind obedience of nearly 10,000 subordinates. I wish them to ask themselves, Ought prudent men and good citizens to aid in the establishment of an organization which, under sundry, by no means improbable, contingencies, may easily become a worse and more [248] dangerous nuisance than the mendicant friars of the middle ages? If this is an academic question, I really do not know what questions deserve to be called practical. As you divined, I purposely omitted any consideration of the details of the Salvationist scheme, and of the principles which animate those who work it, because I desired that the public appreciation of the evils, necessarily inherent in all such plans of despotic social and religious regimentation should not be obscured by the raising of points of less comparative, however great absolute, importance.

But it is now time to undertake a more particular criticism of "Darkest England." At the outset of my examination of that work, I was startled to find that Mr. Booth had put forward his scheme with an almost incredibly imperfect knowledge of what had been done and is doing in the same direction. A simple reader might well imagine that the author of "Darkest England" posed as the Columbus, or at any rate the Cortez, of that region. "Go to Mudie's," he tells us, and you will be surprised to see how few books there are upon the social problem. That may or may not be correct; but if Mr. Booth had gone to a certain reading-room not far from Mudie's, I undertake to say that the well-informed and obliging staff of the national library in Bloomsbury would have provided him with more books on this topic, in almost all European languages, than he would [249] read in three months. Has socialism no literature? And what is socialism but an incarnation of the social question? Moreover, I am persuaded that even "Mudie's" resources could have furnished Mr. Booth with the "Life of Lord Shaftesbury" and Carlyle's works. Mr. Booth seems to have undertaken to instruct the world without having heard of "Past and Present" or of "Latter-Day Pamphlets"; though, somewhat late in the day, a judicious friend calls his attention to them. To those of my contemporaries on whom, as on myself, Carlyle's writings on this topic made an ineffaceable impression forty years ago, who know that, for all that time, hundreds of able and devoted men, both clerical and lay, have worked heart and soul for the permanent amendment of the condition of the poor, Mr. Booth's "Go to Mudie's" affords an apt measure of the depth of his preliminary studies. However, I am bound to admit that these earlier labourers in the field laboured in such a different fashion, that the originality of the plan started by Mr. Booth remains largely unaffected. For them no drums have beat, no trombones brayed; no sanctified buffoonery, after the model of the oration of the Friar in Wallenstein's camp dear to the readers of Schiller, has tickled the ears of the groundlings on their behalf. Sadly behind the great age of rowdy self-advertisement in which their lot has fallen, they seem not to have advanced one whit [250] beyond John the Baptist and the Apostles, 1800 years ago, in their notions of the way in which the metanoia, the change of mind of the ill-doer, is to be brought about. Yet the new model was there, ready for the imitation of those ancient savers of souls. The ranting and roaring mystagogues of some of the most venerable of Greek and Syrian cults also had their processions and banners, their fifes and cymbals and holy chants, their hierarchy of officers to whom the art of making collections was not wholly unknown; and who, as freely as their modern imitators, promised an Elysian future to contributory converts. The success of these antique Salvation armies was enormous. Simon Magus was quite as notorious a personage, and probably had as strong a following as Mr. Booth. Yet the Apostles, with their old-fashioned ways, would not accept such a success as a satisfactory sign of the Divine sanction, nor depart from their own methods of leading the way to the higher life.

I deem it unessential to verify Mr. Booth's statistics. The exact strength of the population of the realm of misery, be it one, two, or three millions, has nothing to do with the efficacy of any means proposed for the highly desirable end of reducing it to a minimum. The sole question for consideration at present is whether the scheme, keeping specially in view the spirit in which it is to be worked, is likely to do more good than harm.

[251] Mr. Booth tells us, with commendable frankness, that "it is primarily and mainly for the sake of saving the soul that I seek the salvation of the body" (p. 45), which language, being interpreted, means that the propagation of the special Salvationist creed comes first, and the promotion of the physical, intellectual, and purely moral welfare of mankind second in his estimation. Men are to be made sober and industrious, mainly, that, as washed, shorn, and docile sheep, they may be driven into the narrow theological fold which Mr. Booth patronizes. If they refuse to enter, for all their moral cleanliness, they will have to take their place among the goats as sinners, only less dirty than the rest.

I have been in the habit of thinking (and I believe the opinion is largely shared by reasonable men) that self-respect and thrift are the rungs of the ladder by which men may most surely climb out of the slough of despond of want; and I have regarded them as perhaps the most eminent of the practical virtues. That is not Mr. Booth's opinion. For him they are mere varnished sins--nothing better than "Pride re-baptised" (p. 46). Shutting his eyes to the necessary consequences of the struggle for life, the existence of which he accepts as fully as any Darwinian,* Mr. Booth tells men, whose evil case is one of those consequences, that envy is a corner-stone of our [252] competitive system. With thrift and self-respect denounced as sin, with the suffering of starving men referred to the sins of the capitalist, the gospel according to Mr. Booth may save souls, but it will hardly save society.

* See p. 100

In estimating the social and political influence which the Salvation Army is likely to exert, it is important to reflect that the officers (pledged to blind obedience to their "General") are not to confine themselves to the functions of mere deacons and catechists (though, under a "General" like Cyril, Alexandria knew to her cost what even they could effect); they are to be "tribunes of the people," who are to act as their gratuitous legal advisers; and, when law is not sufficiently effective, the whole force of the army is to obtain what the said tribunes may conceive to be justice, by the practice of ruthless intimidation. Society, says Mr. Booth, needs "mothering"; and he sets forth, with much complacency, a variety of "cases," by which we may estimate the sort of "mothering" to be expected at his parental hands. Those who study the materials thus set before them will, I think, be driven to the conclusion that the "mother" has already proved herself a most unscrupulous meddler, even if she has not fallen within reach of the arm of the law.

Consider this "case." A, asserting herself to have been seduced twice, "applied to our people. We hunted up the man, followed him to the country, [253] threatened him with public exposure, and forced from him the payment to his victim of [Pounds] 60 down, an allowance of [Pounds] 1 a week, and an insurance policy on his life for [Pounds] 450 in her favour" (p. 222) .

Jedburgh justice this. We "constitute ourselves prosecutor, judge, jury, sheriff's officer, all in one;" we "practice intimidation as deftly as if we were a branch of another League; and, under threat of exposure," we "extort a tolerably heavy hush-money in payment of our silence. "

Well, really, my poor moral sense is unable to distinguish these remarkable proceedings of the new popular tribunate from what, in French, is called chantage and, in plain English, blackmailing. And when we consider that anybody, for any reason of jealousy, or personal spite, or party hatred, might be thus "hunted," "followed," "threatened," and financially squeezed or ruined, without a particle of legal investigation, at the will of a man whom the familiar charged with the inquisitorial business dare not hesitate to obey, surely it is not unreasonable to ask how far does the Salvation Army, in its "tribune of the people" aspect, differ from a Sicilian Mafia? I am no apologist of men guilty of the acts charged against the person who yet, I think, might be as fairly called a "victim," in this case, as his partner in wrong-doing. It is possible that, in so peculiar a case, Solomon himself might have been puzzled [254] to apportion the relative moral delinquency of the parties. However that may be, the man was morally and legally bound to support his child, and any one would have been justified in helping the woman to her legal rights, and the man to the legal consequences (in which exposure is included) of his fault.

The action of the "General" of the Salvation Army in extorting the heavy fine he chose to impose as the price of his silence, however excellent his motives, appears to me to be as immoral as, I hope, it is illegal.

So much for the Salvation Army as a teacher of questionable ethics and of eccentric economics, as the legal adviser who recommends and practices the extraction of money by intimidation, as the fairy godmother who proposes to "mother" society, in a fashion which is not to my taste, however much it may commend itself to some of Mr. Booth's supporters.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. H. Huxley.

[255]

III

The "Times," December 11th, 1890

Sir,--When I first addressed you on the subject of the projected operations of the Salvation Army, all that I knew about that body was derived from the study of Mr. Booth's book, from common repute, and from occasional attention to the sayings and doings of his noisy squadrons, with which my walks about London, in past years, have made me familiar. I was quite unaware of the existence of evidence respecting the present administration of the Salvation forces, which would have enabled me to act upon the sagacious maxim of the American humourist, "Don't prophesy unless you know." The letter you were good enough to publish has brought upon me a swarm of letters and pamphlets. Some favour me with abuse; some thoughtful correspondents warmly agree with me, and then proceed to point out how much worthier certain schemes of their own are of my friend's support; some send valuable encouragement, for which I offer my hearty thanks, and ask them to excuse any more special acknowledgment. But that which I find most to the purpose, just now, is the revelation made by some of the documents which have reached me, of a fact of which I was wholly ignorant--namely, that [256] persons who have faithfully and zealously served in the Salvation Army, who express unchanged attachment to its original principles and practice, and who have been in close official relations with the "General" have publicly declared that the process of degradation of the organization into a mere engine of fanatical intolerance and personal ambition, which I declared was inevitable, has already set in and is making rapid progress.

It is out of the question, Sir, that I should occupy the columns of the "Times" with a detailed exposition and criticism of these pieces justificatives of my forecast. I say criticism, because the assertions of persons who have quitted any society must, in fairness, be taken with the caution that is required in the case of all ex parte statements of hostile witnesses. But it is, at any rate, a notable fact that there are parts of my first letter, indicating the inherent and necessary evil consequences of any such organization, which might serve for abstracts of portions of this evidence, long since printed and published under the public responsibility of the witnesses.

Let us ask the attention of your readers, in the first place, to "An ex-Captain's Experience of the Salvation Army," by J. J. R. Redstone, the genuineness of which is guaranteed by the preface (dated April 5th, 1888) which the Rev. Dr. Cunningham Geikie has supplied. Mr. Redstone's story is well worth reading on its own account.

[257] Told in simple, direct language such as John Bunyan might have used, it permits no doubt of the single-minded sincerity of the man, who gave up everything to become an officer of the Salvation Army, but, exhibiting a sad want of that capacity for unhesitating and blind obedience on which Mr. Booth lays so much stress, was thrown aside, penniless--no, I am wrong, with 2s. 4d. for his last week's salary--to shift, with his equally devoted wife, as he best might. I wish I could induce intending contributors to Mr. Booth's army chest to read Mr. Redstone's story. I would particularly ask them to contrast the pure simplicity of his plain tale with the artificial pietism and slobbering unction of the letters which Mr. Ballington Booth addresses to his "dear boy" (a married man apparently older than himself), so long as the said "dear boy" is facing brickbats and starvation, as per order.

I confess that my opinion of the chiefs of the Salvation Army has been so distinctly modified by the perusal of this pamphlet that I am glad to be relieved from the necessity of expressing it. It will be much better that I should cite a few sentences from the preface written by Dr. Cunningham Geikie, who expresses warm admiration for the early and uncorrupted work of the Salvation Army, and cannot possibly be accused of prejudice against it on religious grounds:--

(1) "The Salvation Army is emphatically a [258] family concern. Mr. Booth, senior, is General; one son is chief of the staff, and the remaining sons and daughters engross the other chief positions. It is Booth all over; indeed, like the sun in your eyes, you can see nothing else wherever you turn. And, as Dr. Geikie shrewdly remarks, 'to be the head of a widely spread sect carries with it many advantages--not all exclusively spiritual.'"

(2) "Whoever becomes a Salvation officer is henceforth a slave,
helplessly exposed to the caprice of his superiors."

"Mr. Redstone bore an excellent character both before he entered the army and when he left it. To join it, though a married man, he gave up a situation which he had held for five years, and he served Mr. Booth two years, working hard in most difficult posts. His one fault, Major Lawley tells us, was, that he was 'too straight'--that is, too honest, truthful, and manly--or, in other words, too real a Christian. Yet without trial, without formulated charges, on the strength of secret complaints which were never, apparently, tested, he was dismissed with less courtesy than most people would show a beggar--with 2s. 4d. for his last week's salary. If there be any mistake in this matter, I shall be glad to learn it."

(3) Dr. Geikie confirms, on the ground of information given confidentially by other officers, [259] Mr. Redstone's assertion that they are watched and reported by spies from headquarters.

(4) Mr. Booth refuses to guarantee his officers any fixed amount of salary. While he and his family of high officials live in comfort, if not in luxury, the pledged slaves whose devotion is the foundation of any true success the Army has met with often have "hardly food enough to sustain life. One good fellow frankly told me that when he had nothing he just went and begged."