them the hours which everyone willingly devotes to work in the open air, after having spent most of his day in the factory, the mine, or the study. Provided, of course, that the production of food-stuffs should not be the work of the isolated individual, but the planned-out and combined action of human groups.
It has also been proved — and those who care to verify it by themselves may easily do so by calculating the real expenditure for labour which was lately made in the building of workmen’s houses by both private persons and municipalities 198 — that under a proper combination of labour, twenty to twenty-four months of one man’s work would be sufficient to secure for ever, for a family of five, an apartment or a house provided with all the comforts which modern hygiene and taste could require.
And it has been demonstrated by actual experiment that, by adopting methods of education, advocated long since and partially applied here and there, it is most easy to convey to children of an average intelligence, before they have reached the age of fourteen or fifteen, a broad general comprehension of Nature, as well as of human societies; to familiarise their minds with sound methods of both scientific research and technical work, and inspire their hearts with a deep feeling of human solidarity and justice; and that it is extremely easy to convey during the next four or five years a reasoned, scientific knowledge of Nature’s laws, as well as a knowledge, at once reasoned and practical, of the technical methods of satisfying man’s material needs. Far from being inferior to the “specialised” young persons manufactured by our universities, the completehuman being, trained to use his brain and his hands, excels them, on the contrary, in all respects, especially as an initiator and an inventor in both science and technics.
All this has been proved. It is an acquisition of the times we live in — an acquisition which has been won despite the innumerable obstacles always thrown in the way of every initiative mind. It has been won by the