In 1894, Henry Hutchinson, who had provided the funds for much of our country lecturing, died, and to our complete surprise it was found that he had appointed Sidney Webb, whom he hardly knew personally, his executor, and had left the residue of his estate, between L9000 and L10,000, to five trustees—­Sidney Webb, his daughter, myself, William Clarke, and W.S.  De Mattos—­with directions that the whole sum be expended within ten years.  The two last named took but little part in administering the trust, and Miss Hutchinson died only fifteen months later, also leaving to her colleagues the residue of her estate, something under L1000, for similar purposes.  The trustees—­Mrs. Bernard Shaw, Hubert Bland, and Frederick Whelen were appointed at later dates—­resolved that the money in their charge should be used exclusively for special work, as otherwise the effect would be merely to relieve the members of their obligation to pay for the maintenance of their Society.  They decided to devote part of the funds to initiating the London School of Economics and Political Science, because they considered that a thorough knowledge of these sciences was a necessity for people concerned in social reconstruction, if that reconstruction was to be carried out with prudence and wisdom:  and in particular it was essential that all classes of public officials should have the opportunity of learning whatever can be known of economics and politics taught on modern lines.  Our old Universities provided lectures on political science as it was understood by Plato and Aristotle, by Hobbes and Bentham:  they did not then—­and indeed they do not now—­teach how New Zealand deals with strikes, how America legislates about trusts, how municipalities all over the world organise tramways.

The trustees, as I have said, originated the London School of Economics, but from the first they associated others with themselves in its management, and they made no attempt to retain any special share in its control.  Their object was to get taught the best science that could be obtained, confident that if their own political theories were right, science would confirm them, and if they were wrong, it was better that they should be discredited.  The London School of Economics, though thus founded, has never had any direct or organic connection with the Fabian Society, and therefore any further account of its successful career would be out of place in this volume.  But it may be said that it has certainly more than justified the hopes of its founders, or rather, to be accurate, I should say, founder, since the other trustees were wholly guided by the initiative of Sidney Webb.