The first lecture in 1889 was by Edward Carpenter, whose paper, “Civilisation:  Its Cause and Cure,” gives the title to perhaps his best known volume of essays.  Another interesting lecture was by William Morris, entitled “How Shall We Live Then?” and at the Annual Meeting in April Sydney Olivier became the first historian of the Society with an address on “The Origin and Early History of the Fabian Society,” for which he made the pencil notes on the minute book already mentioned.

The seven Essayists were re-elected to the Executive, and in the record of proceedings at the meeting there is no mention of the proposed volume of essays.

It is, however, possible to give some account of the organisation and activities for the year ending in March, 1889, since the first printed Annual Report covers that period.  It is a four-page quarto document, only a few copies of which are preserved.  Of the Society itself but little is recorded—­a list of lectures and the bare statement that the autumn series were to be published:  the fact that 6500 Fabian Tracts had been distributed and a second edition of 5000 “Facts for Socialists” printed:  that 32 members had been elected and 6 had withdrawn—­the total is not given—­and that the deficit in the Society’s funds had been reduced.

A favourite saying of Sidney Webb’s is that the activity of the Fabian Society is the sum of the activities of its members.  His report as Secretary of the work of the “Lecture Committee” states that a lecture list with 33 names had been printed, and returns made by 31 lecturers recorded 721 lectures during the year.  Six courses of lectures on Economics accounted for 52 of these.  The “Essays” series of lectures was redelivered by special request in a room lent by King’s College, Cambridge, and also at Leicester.  Most of the other lectures were given at London Radical Working Men’s Clubs, then and for some years later a much bigger factor in politics than they have been in the twentieth century.

But an almost contemporary account of the life of Bernard Shaw, probably the most active of the leaders, because the least fettered by his occupation, is given in Tract 41 under the heading: 

   “HOW TO TRAIN FOR PUBLIC LIFE.

“We had to study where we could and how we could.  I need not repeat the story of the Hampstead Historic Club, founded by a handful of us to read Marx and Proudhon, and afterwards turned into a systematic history class in which each student took his turn at being professor.  My own experience may be taken as typical.  For some years I attended the Hampstead Historic Club once a fortnight, and spent a night in the alternate weeks at a private circle of economists which has since blossomed into the British Economic Association—­a circle where the social question was left out, and the work kept on abstract scientific lines.  I made all my acquaintances think me madder than usual by the pertinacity with which I attended debating societies