The education which is the progressive adaptation of humanity to the conditions of social life has been, in a general way, so greatly developed by our modern civilisation, that it has, if not created the complete equalisation of the classes, at least brought the aristocracy, the middle classes, and the people together in a common effort towards individual action.

It cannot be denied that a very curious phenomenon exists in the equalisation so far effected, the causes of which are manifold, and amongst which the most noticeable and obvious are the partition of large fortunes, the importance assumed by Labour Syndicalism, and the competition established in all trades and professions.

Scarcely anything remains now of the ancient conditions of nations; the abolition of slavery has transformed the idea of servitude; compulsory education has raised the level of the lower classes, and by this means the first stone of the Socialistic edifice has been laid. But humanity, in attaining to a higher degree of self-consciousness, to a new ideal, has developed a spirit on new lines, and created for itself needs with which the old instincts have nothing to do. Capitalists, manufacturers, merchants, labour leaders, workpeople of all kinds, find themselves arrayed against one another in a new perception of their rights (if not always of their duties), and all, in the light of newly discovered needs, are jostling one another in life in this all-pervading struggle.

The mass of the people, whose one instinct in former times was the bare preservation of life, is on the way to emancipation; the pressure from beneath is mounting like a wave, leaping upward to the social strata where hitherto the monopoly of lucre and jobbery has been jealously held; the workmen’s associations, in their war against capital, want themselves to capitalise; members of the working class, with growing improvement in education, are entering the professional field; the middle classes are struggling for the attainment of public offices, and, by an inevitable reaction, the aristocracy, mulcted of some of its ancestral rights and privileges, is turning its eyes towards manufacture and commerce.

This does not mean that the balance has become even, for I am of Jean Lahor’s opinion: “The plutocrats may be preparing for the masses of the future a still more crushing yoke, with more falsity and more deadening effect—by the suggestions of the Press, which they have completely in their power—than has ever been the case with aristocracies or autocracies, whose authority had its origin at least in the finer human energies, in a noble desire for power.”

It must nevertheless be recognised that, in order that the relations between man and man should no longer be in the hands of those devoid of conscience and feeling, a certain equality, a meeting on common ground for action, has been already established in modern society; if the lower classes have climbed the ladder far enough to attain to that domain which seemed bound to remain in the hands of the higher, the latter, on the other hand, have not hesitated to leave the heights to which class prejudice might have held them, and invade the territory of trade and commerce.

A man of high position will no longer lose caste by becoming the head of a motor factory; a nobleman may take part in commercial enterprise, a prince of the blood sell, in his own name, the products of his vineyards and lands.

It is the same from the point of view of women. As they think more, as they become carried away by the desire to prove their value and the need for individual effort, the middle-class woman is reaching towards higher and higher branches of education. Great ladies, even princesses, do not disdain to draw profit from the industrial arts, from painting and literature.

These new social conditions could not continue but by the spread and improvement of education and the growing sense of justice as understood by Herbert Spencer; that is to say, the responsibility of the individual taken in connection with the need for social co-operation.

Complete equality will never exist; comparative equality must be based on such liberty as, by its exercise, cannot infringe upon the liberties of others.

It must not be forgotten that social harmony is the result of the adjustment of conflicting rights and duties. One has to-day to take into consideration the fact that the humblest artisan is working for the good of society just as is the most famous engineer, the greatest inventor, the noblest writer, or the most celebrated statesman. Therefore, being “morally equal in duty, they are morally equal in rights.”

Education, that leveller of castes, dispenser of good, justice, and harmony, is the outcome of the experience of each utilised for the good of all. It should come from ourselves as well as from others, and pass through the way of reason.

“It is through the combined working of all systems of education and hygiene,” says the author of Pessimisme HeroÏque, “it is through the combined energy of all educators and hygienists, that we shall with certainty obtain some day fundamental reforms, and immense progress in the physical, intellectual, and moral life of humanity.”