Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/283

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ordinary level of contentment, which has neither best nor worst, but which denotes merely the humdrum desire to live as easily as possible. The historical social crisis France has gone through has done this good, that a freer current was established between the intellectual and the manual workers of France, the guiding soul and hand of the race; and though for the moment the great emotions which served as intermediary between them are forgotten, something of their union will remain. Neither the Church nor militarism, neither the worst influences of caste nor of the clerical party, can undo the good done by this late union. Let us hope the Université Populaire will pull up in the coming crisis of the Liberal Government, against which every base engine and infamy will be used, and that such an excellent institution as one which provides the teaching of the best intellects of France for the working-classes, libraries (from which are excluded any novels that respectable women and girls could not read), concerts, public reading-rooms well lighted and heated in winter, free consultations of brilliant lawyers and doctors on stated days, for the modest subscription of seven-*pence halfpenny a month for an entire family, will not perish for want of general encouragement.

The French Liberals are making giant efforts to spread enlightenment, comfort, and fraternity