Society for the Education of Democracy

The Society for the Education of Democracy is a newly formed political and educational organization whose ambitions reshape Mary Datchet’s working life. It proposes to educate labor, unite the middle and working classes, and mount a joint challenge to Capital; when it offers Mary a paid secretaryship, the society turns those principles into a concrete job and a new point of attachment for her reforming energy.

Aims and Formation

The society grows out of a group of young men, including Horace Basnett, who have drafted a scheme for the education of labor and the amalgamation of the middle and working classes. Their plan describes these groups acting together against Capital. By the time Basnett approaches Mary, the proposal has advanced beyond discussion: the group is ready to hire an office and appoint a secretary, with a small salary attached to the position.

The work of recruitment is itself a long exercise in exposition and debate. Basnett reads the reformers’ statement of their principles aloud to Mary, but their discussion and confidential asides about the motives of other people and organizations repeatedly interrupt him. After three hours, they have made their way only halfway through the manuscript. Both preserve a formal tone: Mary’s questions often ask her to understand a point precisely, while Basnett answers on behalf of a collective “we.” The procedure helps draw her into the group’s language before she has accepted the role.

Public Strategy and Organization

The society’s organizers see public reach as a condition of survival. Basnett argues that reform associations fail when they appeal only to cranks or become mutual-admiration circles; this new society, he says, must win the attention of the Press and appeal to the public. The goal is not merely to consolidate agreement among reformers but to carry their case beyond their own circle.

Mary is valuable to the plan because, in Basnett’s account, she is the only member who is a capitalist and can make the work a full-time job. He is tied to an office and can contribute only his spare time. His offer of the secretaryship therefore brings together the organization’s need for sustained labor and Mary’s capacity to take paid employment. The society has also considered the question of sex and assigned it an honorable place in its scheme of life, a fact that helps explain why its members regard Mary’s prospective participation as compatible with their political program.

Mary’s Appointment and New Work

Mary accepts the secretaryship, and the transition marks a change of institutional setting: she is no longer at the suffrage office in Russell Square. When Ralph Denham arrives expecting to find her alone, he discovers her with Basnett, going through papers connected with the new society. Mary explains her position in a constrained voice, while Ralph immediately asks what the organization aims to do. Basnett sets out its projects, and Mary’s new work becomes the subject of a direct conversation between the men and her.

Mary’s involvement is intellectual as well as administrative. She has spent an evening examining the society’s document, questioning Basnett, and weighing the proposals; afterward she is almost persuaded that she, too, belongs within the collective “we.” The group’s outlook appears to her as something distinctly set apart from the wider society, with its members imagining themselves inside a circle of superior illumination. That sense of shared purpose gives the organization an inviting clarity, but it also suggests the distance between its own conviction and the larger public it hopes to persuade.

In a later conversation with Ralph, Mary describes the work as interesting and says that the society has done well, while also agreeing that its approach should become more conciliatory. She recognizes the difficulty of seeing sense in opponents’ arguments and regards Basnett as too uncompromising. She intends to ensure that he writes a letter to Judson, and mentions that the executive meets weekly, though some members attend only monthly. Members of Parliament, she thinks, were a mistake to invite. These details show a working organization whose ideals already have to contend with questions of tone, internal discipline, and the reliability of its participants.

Place in Mary’s Reforming Life

Mary’s appointment follows a period of intensive work for women’s suffrage. At the Russell Square office she had tried to build the cause through practical organization, including plans for a series of entertainments to raise money for a society short of funds. The Society for the Education of Democracy offers a distinct reforming project, one with a salaried position and an explicitly broad program centered on workers, class cooperation, and social reform. Her move therefore changes not simply her duties but the organization through which she pursues public work.

The society also contrasts with the older suffrage office in its appeal to Mary’s sense of professional purpose. Her earlier suffrage work was unpaid, and the public had shown little appetite for the benefits her society offered. The new post makes sustained work financially possible, while requiring Mary to negotiate a collective program and the uncompromising habits she identifies in Basnett. Through that contrast, the organization represents both a real opening in her working life and the ongoing tension between reforming ambition, practical resources, and the difficulty of winning people beyond a committed circle.