'I hope it is something very practicable,' Annabel resumed, looking
with expectancy at Egremont.

'I will have your opinion on that. I believe it to be practical
enough; at all events, it is a scheme of very modest dimensions.
That story of the child and her paper fixed certain thoughts that
had been floating about in my mind. You know that I have long enough
tried to find work, but I have been misled by the common tendency of
the time. Those who want to be of social usefulness for the most
part attack the lowest stratum. It seems like going to the heart of
the problem, of course, and any one who has means finds there the
hope of readiest result--material result. But I think that the
really practical task is the most neglected, just because it does
not appear so pressing. With the mud at the bottom of society we can
practically do nothing; only the vast changes to be wrought by time
will cleanse that foulness, by destroying the monstrous wrong which
produces it. What I should like to attempt would be the spiritual
education of the upper artisan and mechanic class. At present they
are all but wholly in the hands of men who can do them nothing but
harm--journalists, socialists, vulgar propagators of what is called
freethought. These all work against culture, yet here is the field
really waiting for the right tillage. I often have in mind one or
two of the men at our factory in Lambeth. They are well-conducted
and intelligent fellows, but, save for a vague curiosity, I should
say they live without conscious aim beyond that of keeping their
families in comfort. They have no religion, a matter of course; they
talk incessantly of politics, knowing nothing better; but they are
very far above the gross multitude. I believe such men as these have
a great part to play in social development--that, in fact, _they_
may become the great social reformers, working on those above them--