more critically about this latest educational innovation.
And thus it is with the whole galaxy of reforms. I listened to the first heralds in Massachusetts of the Australian Ballot. They seemed at the time to offer a fundamental cure for our political ills. The reform has corrected some evils. It has brought some bettering. More than this cannot be said.
If we pass directly to the "Social Question," the story does not change. For more than a century, we have had in the United States above two hundred costly colonizing experiments in which some thousands of men and women staked their all to prove the new and better ways in genuine brotherhood. Unless held by religious faiths, these brave ventures have had an average life of less than three years. With perhaps two exceptions, that prove little, even the religious ones have almost vanished.
Long since the socialists learned to deride and disclaim them, but not until two generations had made it obvious that success did not lie that way. When experience had well proved their failure, we were told: "Of course scattered colonies in a continent of capitalism can not endure. We must work through the social whole. We must first capture and reform the continent." This history of frustrated hopes has the more significance because these "Apart Colonies" have had every variety of form in the whole gamut of social scheming; Anarchist, Socialist, Communist and now Single Tax. Their constitutions, programs, and practical policies show much diversity, and yet the shades of defeat are over them all, as colonies.
