Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/220

 into fresh fields. Having first undertaken the education of the people the State was not long in carrying that system to its natural limit by relieving parents of school fees. Now, free meals for poor children, or meals sold below cost, are gradually becoming the fashion; what is the use of reading out lessons to children who are too hungry to listen? So the State must feed as well as educate. From this to the free clothing of school children is a very short step. But once the unavoidable sequence of such things is recognised, public opinion begins to revolt, asking where, if we go on at this rate, we are likely to stop, so long as there is any parental duty that the State has omitted to assume. We perceive that, unless the process is arrested, the begetter of children will have no obligations left, and the awful effects of relieving every member of the public of all responsibility being at length recognised, there is sure to be a reaction. It is certainly not beyond the wit of man to contrive that it shall be impossible for parents to leave their children untaught, without Government taking upon itself the function of schoolmaster. A hundred years hence I hope that it will long have been unnecessary to use force at all to compel parents to educate their children: and by that time the folly of our (perhaps temporarily unavoidable) expedients will be laughed at, and the fatuity