The expense of children will not fall, as at present, on the parents.They will receive, like adults, their share of necessaries, and their education will be free.[60] There is no longer to be the present competition for scholarships among the abler children: they will not be imbued with the competitive spirit from infancy, or forced to use their brains to an unnatural degree with consequent listlessness and lack of health in later life.Education will be far more diversified than at present; greater care will be taken to adapt it to the needs of different types of young people.There will be more attempt to encourage initiative young pupils, and less desire to fill their minds with a set of beliefs and mental habits regarded as desirable by the State, chiefly because they help to preserve the status quo.For the great majority of children it will probably be found desirable to have much more outdoor education in the country.And for older boys and girls whose interests are not intellectual or artistic, technical education, undertaken in a liberal spirit, is far more useful in promoting mental activity than book-learning which they regard (however falsely) as whollyuseless except for purposes of examination.The really useful educa- tion is that which follows the direction of the child's own instinctive interests, supplying knowledge for which it is seeking, not dry, detailed information wholly out of relation to its spontaneous desires.
[60] Some may fear that the result would be an undue increase of population, but such fears I believe to be groundless.See above, (Chapter IV, on ``Work and Pay.'' Also, Chapter vi of ``Principles of Social Reconstruction'' (George Allen and Unwin, Ltd.).
Government and law will still exist in our community, but both will be reduced to a minimum.There will still be acts which will be forbidden--for example, murder.But very nearly the whole of that part of the criminal law which deals with property will have become obsolete, and many of the motives which now produce murders will be no longer operative.Those who nevertheless still do commit crimes will not be blamed or regarded as wicked; they will be regarded as unfortunate, and kept in some kind of mental hospital until it is thought that they are no longer a danger.By education and freedom and the abolition of private capital the number of crimes can be made exceedingly small.By the method of individual curative treatment it will generally be possible to secure that a man's first offense shall also be his last, except in the case of lunatics and the feeble-minded, for whom of course a more prolonged but not less kindly detention may be necessary.
Government may be regarded as consisting of two parts: the one, the decisions of the community or its recognized organs; the other, the enforcing of those decisions upon all who resist them.The first part is not objected to by Anarchists.The second part, in an ordinary civilized State, may remain entirely in the background: those who have resisted a new law while it was being debated will, as a rule, submit to it when it is passed, because resistance is generally useless in a settled and orderly community.But the possibility of governmental force remains, and indeed is the very reason for the submission which makes force unnecessary.If, as Anarchists desire, there were no use of force by government, the majority could still band themselves together and use force against the minority.The only difference would be that their army or their police force wouldbe ad hoc, instead of being permanent and professional.The result of this would be that everyone would have to learn how to fight, for fear a well- drilled minority should seize power and establish an old-fashioned oligarchic State.Thus the aim of the Anarchists seems hardly likely to be achieved by the methods which they advocate.
The reign of violence in human affairs, whether within a country or in its external relations, can only be prevented, if we have not been mistaken, by an authority able to declare all use of force except by itself illegal, and strong enough to be obviously capable of making all other use of force futile, except when it could secure the support of public opinion as a defense of freedom or a resistance to injustice.Such an authority exists within a country: it is the State.But in international affairs it remains to be created.The difficulties are stupendous, but they must be overcome if the world is to be saved from periodical wars, each more destructive than any of its predecessors.Whether, after this war, a League of Nations will be formed, and will be capable of performing this task, it is as yet impossible to foretell.However that may be, some method of preventing wars will have to be established before our Utopia becomes possible.When once men BELIEVE that the world is safe from war, the whole difficulty will be solved: there will then no longer be any serious resistance to the disbanding of national armies and navies, and the substitution for them of a small international force for protection against uncivilized races.And when that stage has been reached, peace will be virtually secure.
