Their ruling idea is that the "State" should become the sole owner of property, and that this radical change should be effected by a series of legislative measures.

With their social ideal, regarded as an ideal, one has of course the deepest sympathy.

Their motto is, I believe, "Each for all, and all for each"; and if this ideal could be realised, the social millennium would indeed have begun.

But in trying to compass their ends by legislation, _before the standard of reality has been changed_, they are making a disastrous mistake.

For, to go no further, our schools are hotbeds of individualism, the spirit of "competitive selfishness" being actively and systematically fostered in all of them, with a few exceptions; and so long as this is so, so long as our highly individualised society is recruited, year by year, by a large contingent of individualists of all ranks, drawn from schools of all grades, for so long will the Socialistic ideal remain an impracticable dream.