Page:Aristopia (1895).pdf/95

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living on their stealthy robberies of the workers, as in England—the hours of labor could he shortened to nine, which would have seemed short indeed to the English laborer of that age. The hours thus saved from manual labor were devoted to the cultivation of the mind. To this end a thorough system of public education was maintained. In England few laborers could read. In Utopia every child was well educated. The physical side of life in Utopia was as attractive as the mental. While in England in More's day the common people dwelt in "low and homely cottages and poor shepherd huts made at all adventure of every rude piece of timber that came first to hand, with mud walls and ridged roofs thatched over with straw," nests of squalor, filth, and pestilence, in Utopia the houses were spacious, well lighted, airy, comfortable, and clean. "The streets were twenty feet broad"—in English towns of that day they were not half that—"the houses backed by spacious gardens and curiously budded after a gorgeous and gallant sort, with their stories one after another. They keep the wind out of their windows with glass, for it is there much used, and sometimes also with fine linen cloth dipped