Lectures on the inndustrial revolution in England : popular addresses, notes and other fragments.

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Prefatory Note

Tub cheaper edition of the Industrial Revolution now issued has been called for by the increasing use of the book as an authority on the period indicated by its title and by the appreciation of the whole of its contents on the part of educated working men.

A few words of explanation are necessary as to the form in which these Lectures and Addresses appear. It was after considerable hesitation that I consented to print them. Of all that is contained in the volume, nothing was left by my husband in a form intended for publication; and, possessed of a rare love of perfection, he would have been the first himself to deprecate giving permanency to imperfect work. Speech rather than writing was his natural mode of expression; in conversation even, he would freely and ungrudgingly give forth his best thoughts and the result of researches which had cost him the most labour; and he neither wrote his lectures and addresses before deliveriug them, nor used any notes in speaking. Hence though he had industriously collected in note-books a mass of materials, at the time of his death he left nothing ready for publication; a fact which will account for the fragmentary character and unequal merit of the contents of the present volume. The unfinished Essay on Ricardo, the chapter on the Disappearance of the Yeomanry in tiie ri PREFATORY NOTE

Lectures on the Industrial Revolution, and the short paper entitled the Education of Co-operators, alone are of his own writing, except, of course, also the short fragments and jottings printed at the end of the book.

It will be observed that repetitions occur in the different parts of the volume ; this arises from my husband having himself had no idea of giving a permanent form to these Lectures and Addresses, and therefore naturally sometimes using the same matter on various occasions. It was found that to remove all these repetitions before publication would have broken up the context of many passages to an extent which made their retention appear the lesser disadvantage.

The Essay on Ricardo was begun early in 1879, but thrown aside unfinished, because he was dissatisfied with it and perhaps also because Bagehot's Economic Studies, which were published after the greater part of the essay had been written, appeared to him somewhat to cover the same ground.

During the last year or two of my husband's life he was collecting materials for a detailed history of the revolution in English industry at the end of the last century. While engaged in these studies he delivered, between October 1881 and May 1882, a course of lectures on the economic history of England from 1760 to 1840 for the Honour History Schools at Oxford. In the earlier part of this course he made use of some of the material which he was gathering for his intended book, and notes of the course are now printed under the general name of ' The Industrial Revolution.' In Chapter V. a fragment of a separate article on the disappearance of the yeomanry at the end of tlie 18th century is incorporated. In the later lectures of the

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course he aimed at giving his hearers a general idea of the development of industry, and of economic speculation, in the period with which he was dealing. The time at his disposal only allowed of this being done in outline, hence the sketchiness of these later lectures. A strong wish was, however, expressed by friends and former pupils that the course as a whole should be recovered as far as possible. The lectures as they now appear have been prepared for publication by Mr. W. J. Ashley, B.A.,^ and Mr. Bolton King, B.A, of BaUiol College, from their own excellent notes compared with those of others among his hearers, and with such of his own as belonged to the course. They remain not€S and notes only, those of the later lectures being also much less full than those of the earlier ones ; but my warmest thanks are due to both Mr. Ashley and Mr. Bling for the large expenditure of time and trouble and the great care which they have bestowed upon the work.

The Popular Addresses have been put together from my husband's own notes, and from newspaper reports. They were delivered during the Christmas and Easter vacations of 1880, 1881, and 1882, to audiences of working men and employers, at Bradford, Bolton, Leicester, and Newcastle, in pursuance of an idea he had much at heart, namely, the advantage of an impartial discussion of questions affecting the relation of capitalists and working men before audiences composed of members of both classes.

The Fragments at the end of the book are jottings from his note-books — thoughts and images which struck him at different times and in different places. To his friends, if not to the general public, these will perhaps be of more

^ Now Profeasror Asliley of Birmiogbam University.

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interest than anything else in the book, as being most truly representative of himself.

The only omission in this present edition is that of an Appendix which consisted of two Lectures on Mr. Henry George's Progress and Poverty : these did not appear in the original edition but were appended to later reprints.

By the kind permission of Lord Milner, my husband's closest friend, v.'ho shared his entire intellectual life, a lecture given by him at Toynbee Hall is prefixed as a Memoir.*

0. M. TOYNBEE.

Oxford, July 1908.

^ Published in a separate volume by Mr. Edward Arnold, under the title of Arnold Toynh'-e. a Reminiscence. The text is re^jrintcd from the Second Impression, 1901.

KEMINISCENCE* Bt lord milner

It is no mere rhetorical prelude when I say that I have a diflBcult task to perform to-night — a task, in approaching which I need aU your kind consideration and patience. For what is it I am trying to do ? I am trying to recall to those of my hearers who knew him, to present for the first time to many others who did not know him, the image of a man who has been dead for nearly twelve years, whoso life was short and uneventful, who never occupied any conspicuous public position, or was Msociated with any great achievement, and whose remaining writings — not without merit certainly, but inconsiderable in amount, and fragmentary in form — convey a most inadequate idea of the personality of their author.

His name, indeed, is commemorated in this Institution, nor could he have a worthier or more characteristic memorial. But even here there can hardly, from the circumstances of the case, be a strong living tradition about him. I should be happy indeed, if I were able to give to such tradition as there is greater fulness and vitality. I am impelled to attempt this, because I knew him so well, esteemed him so highly, because, in spite of the lapse of years, his thought, his aspirations, his manner of speech, yea, the very expression of his countenance and the tone of his voice, are ao

* This Reminiscence of Arnold Toynbeo was written u an address to the meTTibcrs of Toynbee Hall, and deliTcred at that place on 27th November 1894.

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vividly present to me, and seem to me still, though I am long past the age of illusions, no less noble and inspiring than they did in the radiant days of youthful idealism, when we first were friends. I feel I should confer a great boon on any man whom I could help to realise Arnold Toynbee. But, at the same time, I am painfully conscious that all I say may seem a mere string of words, and that I may not at all be able to call up the picture of a living man.

Yet the attempt must be made, and the best thing I can do is to speak of him as I knew him myself. But first of all, to clear the ground, let me give you — it will not take five minutes — the chief landmarks of his life, as you might find them in a biographical dictionary.

He was born in August 1852, and died in March 1883. He had a strange, solitary, introspective youth, for he was never long at school, nor had he — despite his courage and high, if somewhat fitful, spirits — the love of games, the careless mind, or the easy sociability which make school life happy. His real education he got from his father — a man of great gifts and original character, who died when Arnold Toynbee was still very young — from a few older friends, and from his own study and reflection. When little more than eighteen, he went away by himself, and spent nearly a year alone at a quiet seaside retreat, reading and thinking, his whole mind possessed, even thus early, with a passionate interest in religion and metaphysics and in the philosophy of history. A year or two later, having by his father's will a small sum of money at his command, he resolved to devote it fearlessly to the completion of his education, and after much pondering over the how and the where, finally turned to Oxford.

Toynbee went to that University in the spring of 1873 and practically never left it. Of his ten Oxford years, he spent the first half, down to June 1878, as an undergraduate at Pemoroke and afterwards at Balliol, the second half,

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from October 1878, as a lecturer and tutor at Balliol. There was a great contrast in the character of his life during these two periods. His career as an undergraduate was retiring and unambitious^ Profound as was his influence even then upon the small circle of his friends, he took no active part in the traditional contests of the place — whether physical or intellectual Delicate health, and the necessity of avoiding the fatigue and excitement of competitive examinations, made him eschew the race for honours. He took an ordinary pass degree, though the quality of hia papers was such as even examiners in the Honours School but rarely encounter. But when, contrary to all precedent, the modest passman found himself, almost immediately after taking his degree, appointed lecturer and tutor at the foremost Oxford college, and entrusted with some of its most important work, the life of secluded study and meditation and intimate converse with a few chosen friends — that life which in his inmost soul he ever preferred — was converted, in obedience to an inner as well as an outer call, into a career of intense educational and social activity.

A student, indeed, he always remained, a most laborious and careful student as well as an untiring thinker. But he was now also a lecturer and teacher, putting his whole soul iuto the instruction of his pupils, not only in the class-room but on all the occasions aflbrded by the easy intercourse of college life. At the same time he threw himself, with true civic enthusiasm, into the cause of social and religious reform. He was a Poor Law Guardian, a Co-operator, a Church Reformer. He followed with intense interest and practical sympathy the development of Friendly Societies and Trades-Unions. He was in the thick of every movement to improve the external conditions of the life of the poople — better houses, open spaces, free libraries, all the now familiar objects of municipal Socialism, which were then still in their firsL struggle for public recognition.

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Stirred to the very depths of his soul by the ideal of a nobler civic life, he lectured to great popular audiences, first in the northern cities, then in London, on the social and economic questions, of which the air was fulL I own that I was often aghast in those days at the multiplicity of his efforts (which were never superficial), at the intense strain of his life, combining as it did a constant inward wrestle with the deepest problems of existence and an outward activity, as teacher and citizen, which would have exhausted the capacities of a dozen ordinary men. And the strain killed him. If ever a man wore himself out in the service of mankind, it was Toynbee. More of that presently. For the moment, I only ask you to notice the bare facts. The kind of life I have been describing occupied the years 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1882, till his final break-down and death in the spring of 1883.

There is only one other circumstance I need mention in this outline of his history. Early in his life, as a teacher at Balliol, Toynbee married. The intense activity of his later years would probably not have lasted even as long as it did if he had not had the support of a happy home life — a life of the greatest simplicity, but of perfect refinement, in the companionship of a wife who sympathised deeply, though calmly, with all his ideals, and who was as devoid as he was himself of mean ambitions or petty cares. That is a subject too delicate to be dwelt upon, but it had just to be mentioned, if this brief chronicle was not to be incomplete in an essential point.

I have said that I was about to speak of Toynbee as I knew him myself. What follows may strike you as egotistical, but the apparent egotism is inevitable if my account of him is to be life-like. Toynbee's strength lay in the extraordinary impression which his personality made upon those with whom he came into contact. That kind of power is not to be described by general phrases. It can

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only be realised from the personal testimony of those who have felt it If I tell you what my feelings were in hia company, it is not because I attach importance to them as being mine, but because they are representative of similar experiences on the part of many others. I must take a typical case, and I naturally take the case with which I am best acquainted.

My friendship with Toynbee must have begun in February or March 1873, during my first term at Oxford, which was also his first. Though we were both only freshmen, I knew him well by reputation before we ever met It is strange how rapidly any individuality, or even the semblance of one, makes itself felt among those impressionable lads, who are sensitive to the exciting atmosphere, caught up at once into the stirring life, of an intellectual centre like Oxford. The world to them is simply brimming over with interest, and above everything else they are intensely interested in one another. Before a few weeks have passed, A's prowess, B's scholarship, Cs wit, D's bumptiousness are in everybody's mouth — the common property of their young contemporaries. New Toynbee, although, as I have said, he had not at first a large circle of friends, enjoyed from the outset, and always retained, a reputation of a perfectly unique kind. Youth, as we all know, is the age of hero-worship. No man, in after life, is ever so much admired as the schoolboy or the undergraduate who excels in any of the qualities which young men are agreed to canonise. But it was not so much admiration which Toynbee's personality inspired as veneration. His friends spoke of him with affection, certainly but also with a kind of awe, which had its comic aspect no doubt, like aU our youthful intensities, but which was not without real significance. When, therefore, at the mature age of nineteen, I first came across him — my senior by about eighteen months — I was fully prepared to meet a xiy REMINISCENCE

personage. My attitude, as I well remember, was one of intense interest, not without a touch of defiance.

But in his actual presence any such antagonism was soon swallowed up in love and respect. I fell at once under his spell, and have always remained under it. No man has ever had for me the same fascination, or made me realise as he did the secret of prophetic power — the kind of influence exercised in all ages by the men of religious and moral inspiration. Not that my attitude towards him was an unquestioning or purely receptive attitude. I could never bring my thoroughly lay mind quite into step with his religious idealism, and in politics I was certainly far more conservative and far less optimistic than he. We differed on many things ; we disputed ; with all my regard for him I did not always feel that I had the worst of the argument. But I looked up to him no less on that account. Alike in difference and in argument, in seasons of physical weakness, when ' his light was low ' and his speech ineffectual, no less than in the glowing hours when he was most eloquent and most convincing, he always seemed to me of nobler mould than other men. His intellectual gifts were great, rare and striking, but they were not, by themselves, commanding. What was commanding was the whole nature of the man — his purity, his truthfulness, his unrivalled loftiness of souL

And here, while I am speaking of first impressions, I cannot but refer to the remarkable harmony between his physical, his mental, and his moral gifts. He had a noble and striking countenance, combining the charm of boyish freshness with the serene dignity of a thoughtful manhood — a face of almost Greek regularity of feature, but with a height of brow and a certain touch of aggressive force about the mouth, which distinguished it from tlie conventional Greek type. When he spoke, and especially when he spoke with fire, the directness of his glance, the fine carriage of his head, fettered attention. His language, when thus moved,

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was of extraordinary eloquence — indeed he waa the most eloquent man, in conversation, that I have ever met. Even on the ordinary topics of every day he always spoke, with perfect simplicity, it is true, but with a singular purit}' and refinement of expression. His avoidance of every ugly and vulgar turn of phrase was effortless and instinctiva He owed this, no doubt, in some measure to the nature of his studies. His reading had not been very extensive, but the great masters of English style, and especially of stately English, had been his constant companions from childhood. The Bible, the Elizabethan poets, MUton, Gibbon, Burke, Keats, Shelley, and, among novelists, especially Scott and Thackeray — these were the writera with whom he lived on terms of no ordinary intimacy, and such converse unconsciously affected his own utterance. But, after all, the chief cause of this purity of diction, which yet was never pedantic, lay in the purity of his mind, in his constant preoccupation with great themes, his absolute aloofness from all that waa mean and paltry, his invariable innate elevation of thought and aim. It has been said of a great writer that he touched nothing which he did not adorn. It might be said of Toynbee that he touched nothing which he did not elevate. Truly astonishing was his power of raising the tone of any discussion in which h3 engaged. Thus everything about him, his personal appearance, his bearing, his language, his moral attitude, combined to invest him with an air of indescribable distinction.

Need I say more to explain the extraordinary influence, not wide at first but deep, which Toynbee exercised upon the thoughts, ay, and upon the lives of those of his feUowundergraduates who came to know him intimately? He became naturally, inevitably, the centre, the idol, the model of his little world, and certainly no leader of ardent youth was ever more devotedly worshipped by his immediate followers. Undergraduate society tends to divide itself into x*i REMINISCENCE

sets — each circling more or less round some central luminary. Of the sets of my Oxford days there was one, the members of which — and the present Home Secretary ^ was perhaps its most prominent figure — were, intellectually at least, quite on a level with the disciples of Toynbee. But I doubt whether there was any set that could for a moment compare with the latter in moral fervour, and certainly there was none in which the central personage was so inspiring or 80 dominant. It was this unique position of Toynbee among his own friends, which led one of the most brilliant and independent of his and my contemporaries to dub him, half in admiration and half in antagonism, 'the Apostle Arnold.'

No doubt the Toynbee group had, like all young transcendentalists, their eccentricities — let me say their absurdities. There was the Ruskin road-making craze, for instance, and there was another very funny incident, which dwells in my recollection — a crusade against the system of perquisites, which was regarded as very demoralising to the college servants. The only result of this was that the crusaders lived for some time largely on dry bread and rather stale cold meat, to the great but, let ua hope, not permanent injury of their digestions. But if there were some fads, there were, on the other hand, many novel enterprises of a serious and useful kind, destined to be fruitful, especially in their later developments, some of which I see around me. Of this nature was the work undertaken in visiting the workhouses and in charity organisation, or in the instruction of pupil-teachers in various branches of higher education. For it was a distinguishing mark of those who came under Toynbee's influence, that they were deeply impressed with their individual duty as citizens, and filled with an enthusiasm for social equality, which led them to aim at bridging the gulf

» H. H. Asquith, now ri908) Priire Minister.

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between the educated and the wage-earning class. In this respect he and they were pioneers — apt to be forgotten afterwards, like all pioneers — in a movement which is one of the most important and characteristic of the present time.

What I have just been saying applies especially to the earlier years of Arnold Toynbee's undergraduate career. As time went on he lived less exclusively in the small circle which was entirely in sympathy with his own ideals, and made friends more widely, and with men of the most various types. It was somewhat remarkable that, with all his absorption in a strongly-marked line of thought and conduct, he yet got on so well with companions of totally different characters and interests. There was certainly no undergraduate of my generation who commanded more general respect among his fellows. At the same time he had begun to form some very strong friendships with older men. Conspicuous among these was the late Master of BallioL With his unfailing eye for every kind of excellence, Jowett had taken note of Toynbee almost from the moment of his arrival in Oxford, and had been at considerable pains to get him transferred from Pembroke to Balliol — not without a severe brush with the authorities of the latter college. And having once brought him to Balliol, he never lost sight of hiuL The interest which he had felt from the first gradually ripened into cordial friendship. It was charming to see them together. Toynbee never suffered from the shyness which in a greater or less degree overcame nearly all Jowett's pupils in the presence of * the Master,' and reduced many of them, who were not usually bashful, to almost absolute silence. On the contrary, he was always himself, full of a graceful deference to the older man, yet giving free vent to the rush of his ideas, his deepest convictions in philosophy and religion, his glowing visions of a better future for mankind. And Jow-jlt would always xviii REMINISCENCE

listen kindly, not uncritically indeed — for when was he ever uncritical ? — but without the least inclination to repress or discourage these outpourings of youthful enthusiasm. Perhaps in his heart he had even more sympathy with them than he ever allowed himself to show. Hostile as he was to all exuberance, intellectual and moral, he had too fine a knowledge of human nature not to feel the difference between Toynbee's idealism, so genuine, so ineradicable and so fertile, and the highflown sentiments of the commonplace emotional young man. In dealing with Toynbee, no unkindly or sarcastic word ever fell from his lips. Indeed, as time went on, he leant on him in many respects, and rested his hopes on him in forecasting the future of the college, to which he was so absolutely devoted.

Time will not allow me to dwell on all Toynbee's acquaintances with older men, though many of these would afford matter of some interest. But there are two names which I cannot but mention, and which possess for all old Balliol men, especially in their conjunction with Jowett and Toynbee, a peculiarly mournful interest. I refer to Thomas Hill Green ^ and Eichard Lewis Nettleship.' If the intimacy between Jowett and Toynbee might at first excite some surprise, that of Green and Toynbee was the most natural thing in the world. For between these two men there existed a strong spiritual affinity. They had arrived, by very different roads, at^an almost identical position in religion, philosophy, and social questions, and if there was any one among his older acquaintances to whom Toynbee especially looked up as a guide and master, it was Green. With Nettleship, on the other hand, who, though his senior, was nearer his own age, his relations were more those of ordinary comradeship. The bond of union in this case was not similarity but rather dissimilarity. Each found in the

* Professor of Moral Philosophy.

* Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College.

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other qualities that were a supplement to his own. Toynbee adruired Nettleship's scholarship, the subtlety of his intellect, his fine faculty of speculation. Nettleship felt the need of a stimulus such as Toynbee's intensity of conviction and missionary zeal supplied.

"With the men I have named, and with others of similar position, if not of equal stature, Toynbee, while still an undergraduate, conversed on terms of easy friendship. Not a few of his ideas must have seemed to them crude and immature. His want of experience in many directions was obvious. Yet I doubt whether there was one of these older friends who did not feel that Toynbee gave him more than he could return. There was a freshness, a glow, an impetus, about his thought, which more than made up for any want of critical judgment or of knowledge of the world — defects natural to his age and temperament, which he himself acknowledged with a ready modesty.

The relations in which he thus stood to leading men in the University explain the fact, which to outsiders seemed at the time extraordinary, that he had no sooner taken a pass degree than he was made a lecturer at BallioL This again was Jowett's doing. I well remember 'the Master' ttflliug me, soon after I had left Oxford, how anxious he was to ensure Toynbee's permanent presence at Balliol, and how highly he rated the influence which his personality was bound to exercise upon his pupils, and upon the college. The work, with which he was immediately intrusted, was that of superintending the studies of the men who, having passed the Indian Civil Service Examination, came up to Oxford for a year or two before being sent to the East. The idea was a happy one, for Toynbee's knowledge of history and economics, and his high conception of the greatness of our Eastern Empire, and of the responsibilities which it involved, were precisely the qualities best calculated to inspire his pupils with the right

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attitude towards the noble, but arduous career which lay before them.

His tutorial supervision extended to all the work of the Indian students, but the subject on which he lectured to them, and to others, was Political Economy.

This may seem a strange choice of a profession for a man of his temperament and interests. When Toynbee came to Oxford, his mind was absorbed in thoughts of religion, but the later years of his life were devoted to the study and teaching of economics. It is very significant of the change which had come over both religion and economics, since the days when Newman and Eicardo seemed to represent the opposite poles of human thought, that this transition was, in Toynbee's case, no violent mental conversion, but a natural and almost inevitable development. Profoundly religious, indeed, he always remained. Incredulous of miracle and indifferent to dogma, he was yet intensely conscious of the allpervading presence of the Divine — ' the Eternal not ov/rselves that makes for righteousness.' That * here have we no continuing city,' that * the things which are seen are temporal, the things which are not seen are eternal ' — such utterances of devotional faith were to him expressions of the deepest truths of existence. The world of sense was but a dream fabric. The only true reality lay in the world of ideas. Conscience and the sense of duty, man's conception of an ideal goodness, his aspirations after an unattainable perfection— these were fundamental facts which materialistic philosophy could neither account for nor explain away. But the more transcendental his faith, the greater seemed to him the necessity of a life of active usefulness. Idealism such as his, he always felt, could only justify its existence by energetic devotion to the good of mankind. ' By their fruits ye shall know them.' Nothing was more abhorrent to him than an apathetic mysticism. He would have repudiated the name of mystic. His faith, however tran-