We love our Mother, Father, Wife and children so much. Some like our own country, and our way of government, and the people of our country. We know it isn’t perfect. In fact, there never has been a place on earth where everyone who lived there felt it to be perfect.

But many people have often dreamed of living in a perfect place. What would it be like? No one would be poor. But nobody would be rich either. There would be no need to be rich—since everyone would have all their needs. Everyone would be happy all the time. There would be very little need for a government, because the people would be considerate of everyone else.

But no one ever really expects to find such a place. We know it’s “too good to be true.” Such a place therefore is “nowhere”—and that’s exactly what the word “utopia” means. It’s made up of two Greek words meaning “not a place”—or nowhere! But the way we use the word “utopia,” we mean a perfect place to live.

The word “utopia” was first used by Sir Thomas More, an English writer who lived in the sixteenth century. He published a book in 1516 called Utopia in which he described a perfect island. His book became very popular.

The idea of utopia, goes back long before this book. In fact, More got the idea for his book from the famous ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who wrote a book called “The Republic,” in which he described what would be a perfect state.

There were also many legends among such people as the Norse, the Celts, and the Arabs, about a perfect place that was supposed to exist somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. When the exploration of the Western world actually began, most of these legends were no longer believed. But’with More’s book, “Utopia,” it became common for writers to tell of an imaginary place that was perfect. It existed only in their fantasy.

Today, when people describe certain changes they want to make in government or society, these ideas are sometimes called “utopian.” This means they fail to recognise defects in human nature that make a perfect place to live practically impossible.