Moreover, there are many things I could not teach you, as I do not know them myself.'
"I thereupon entreated him to lay before me a very concise summary, as is done in the case of school children.
"Morin, flinging himself back in his arm-chair, began:
"'To ascertain how the present society was constituted, it is necessary to go back far into the past.
"'The crowning achievement of the twentieth century was the extinction of war.
"'The arbitration Congress of The Hague, instituted in the middle of barbarism, did not to any degree contribute towards the maintenance of peace. But another more efficacious institution came into existence at that time. Groups of deputies were formed in the various Parliaments, who entered into communication with one another, and who in course of time came to deliberate in common on international questions. Giving expression as they did to the peaceful aspirations of a growing crowd of electors, their resolutions carried great weight, and supplied food for reflection to the governments, the most absolute of which, if one sets aside Russia, had at that time learnt to reckon with popular sentiment. What surprises us nowadays is that no one discerned in those meetings of deputies come
