Page:An Appeal to the Young by Kropotkin.djvu/8

 the sewing machine; that the labourer in the St. Gothard tunnel dies of ankylostoma, notwithstanding diamond drills; that the mason and the day labourer are out of work just as before at the foot of the Giffard lifts. If you discuss social problems with the same independence of spirit which has guided you in your mechanical investigations, you necessarily come to the conclusion that under the domination of private property and wage-slavery, every new invention, far from increasing the well-being of the worker, only makes his slavery heavier, his labour more degrading, the periods of slack work more frequent, the crisis sharper, and that the man who already has every conceivable pleasure for himself is the only one who profits by it.

What will you do when you have once come to this conclusion? Either you will begin by silencing your conscience by sophisms; then one fine day you will bid farewell to the honest dreams of your youth and you will try to obtain, for yourself, what commands pleasure and enjoyment—you will then go over to the camp of the exploiters. Or, if you have a tender heart, you will say to yourself:—"No, this is not the time for inventions. Let us work first to transform the domain of production. When private property is put an end to, then each new advance in industry will be made for the benefit of all mankind, and this mass of workers, mere machines as they are to-day, will then become thinking beings who apply to industry their intelligence, strengthened by study and skilled in manual labour, and thus mechanical progress will take a bound forward which will carry out in fifty years what now-a-days we cannot even dream of."

And what shall I say to the schoolmaster—not to the man who looks upon his profession as a wearisome business, but to him who, when surrounded by a joyous band of young pickles, feels exhilarated by their cheery looks and in the midst of their happy laughter, to him, who tries to plant in their little heads those ideas of humanity which he cherished himself when he was young.

Often I see that you are sad, and I know what it is that makes you knit your brows. This very day, your favourite pupil, who is not very well up in Latin, it is true, but who has none the less an excellent heart, recited the story of William Tell with so much vigour! His eyes sparkled; he seemed to wish to stab all tyrants there and then; he gave with such fire the passionate lines of Schiller:—

Before the slave when he breaks his chain,

Before the free man tremble not.

But when he returned home, his mother, his father, his uncle, sharply rebuked him for want of respect to the minister or the rural policeman; they held forth to him by the hour on "prudence, respect for authority, submission to his betters," till he put Schiller aside in order to read "Self-Help."

And then only yesterday you were told that your best pupils have all turned out badly. One does nothing but dream of becoming an officer; another in league with his master robs the workers of their slender wages; and you, who had such hopes of these young people, you now brood over the sad contrast between your ideal and life as it is.

You still brood over it. Then I foresee that in two years at the out-