as a dogmatic and ecclesiastical system, is unintelligible without a very considerable knowledge of the conditions under which it took shape.  But what are the ancient Hebrews, and the Greeks and Romans, to the working-man?  He is simply cut off from the means of reading intelligently any book of the Bible, or of understanding how the institution called the Catholic Church, and its offshoots, came to exist.  As our staple education becomes more ‘modern’ and less literary, the custodians of organised religion will find their difficulties increasing.  But the same is true about patriotism.  Love of country means pride in the past and ambition for the future.  Those who live only in the present are incapable of it.  But our working-man knows next to nothing about the past history of England; he has scarcely heard of our great men, and has read few of our great books.  It is not surprising that the appeal to patriotism leaves him cold.  This is an evil that has its proper remedy.  There is no reason why a sane and elevated love of country should not be stimulated by appropriate teaching in our schools.  In America this is done—­rather hysterically; and in Germany—­rather brutally.  The Jews have always made their national history a large part of their education, and even of their religion.  Nothing has helped them more to retain their self-consciousness as a nation.  Ignorance of the past and indifference to the future usually go together.  Those who most value our historical heritage will be most desirous to transmit it unimpaired.

But the absence of traditional ideas is by no means an unmixed evil.  The working-man sees more clearly than the majority of educated persons the absurdity of international hatred and jealousy.  He is conscious of greater solidarity with his own class in other European countries than with the wealthier class in his own; and as he approaches the whole question without prejudice, he cannot fail to realise how large a part of the product of labour is diverted from useful purposes by modern militarism.  International rivalry is in his eyes one of the most serious obstacles to the abolition of want and misery.  Tolstoy hardly exaggerates when he says:  ’Patriotism to the peoples represents only a frightful future; the fraternity of nations seems an ideal more and more accessible to humanity, and one which humanity desires.’  Military glory has very little attraction for the working-man.  His humanitarian instincts appear to be actually stronger than those of the sheltered classes.  To take life in any circumstances seems to him a shocking thing; and the harsh procedure of martial law and military custom is abhorrent to him.  He sees no advantage and no credit in territorial aggrandisement, which he suspects to be prompted mainly by the desire to make money unjustly.  He is therefore a convinced pacificist; though his doctrine of human brotherhood breaks down ignominiously when he finds his economic position threatened by the competition