PREFACE
The death of Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse in the summer of 1928 not only brought sorrow to a wide circle of personal friends, but inflicted a heavy loss on learning and on many causes of practical reform. At the request of his relations I undertook to prepare this volume, whose title indicates its contents. Mr. C. P. Scott, the veteran editor of the Manchester Guardian during the thirty years of Hobhouse’s association with that paper, writes an Introductory Note. In preparing the Memoir which follows, I am deeply indebted both to Mr. Scott and to various other named or unnamed friends who were associated with Hobhouse as colleagues and friends in various periods of his career as thinker, teacher, writer, and practical reformer.
The most substantial part of the book consists of the account and interpretation of his philosophical and sociological teaching by his pupil, friend, and successor, Professor Morris Ginsberg. The last part comprises a selection from his otherwise inaccessible writings, mostly essays in journalism, illustrative of the wide range of his interests and literary attainments.
J. A. HOBSON
January 1931