TEE SCHOOL AND THE FAMILY 95 



be experts in some one line; they would do this special work as well 

 as it could be done and be alert to improve the methods. Prentices 

 would be trained who could carry expert skill to other neighborhoods. 



The master and the mistress would have ample time. Four hours 

 a day might be devoted to tlie children of the school, in work only partly 

 sedentary. The wife could be spared when higher duties demanded, 

 and the man could devote himself for a time to the completion of some 

 pressing work. Both could have some trade or profession in addition 

 to the teaching. It might be only the care of the school and garden — 

 the postoffice would naturally be there — or the village shop might be 

 added, or one of them might be skilled in carpentry, plumbing or sur- 

 veying. They might edit and print the country newspaper, or a special 

 journal whose edition of four hundred would go to all quarters of the 

 world. One or both of them might be physicians, promoting hygiene 

 and public health, knowing their own limitations and the limitations 

 of the profession, able to refer patients to the best specialists within 

 reach. Or one might be himself a specialist, spending part of the year 

 at the university and city hospital, carrying forward researches in 

 experimental medicine. The teacher might — could the Jangling of the 

 creeds be hushed — be the village clergyman ; or he might be the lawyer, 

 drawing up deeds and wills, suppressing lawsuits, showing the ways 

 of justice and mercy. The teachers might be devoted to science, letters 

 or art, perhaps applying the better methods to agriculture or industry, 

 writing verses for the country papers, or training the choir; but here 

 and there would be one able to move forward the boundaries of science, 

 to write what would be read far off and long after, to create art in 

 touch with the emotions of the people. 



Five hundred thousand families, continually increasing in numbers, 

 engaged in learning and in teaching, would give to this country a true 

 democratic aristocracy. Into it would be taken the best elements of 

 all the people, and from it would be chosen leaders in every department 

 of human activity. Sons and daughters would return to carry forward 

 the work of their parents; family sanctions and traditions would be 

 maintained from generation to generation. Children would always be 

 the chief concern in a home and in a school such as this. There would 

 be no pathological, no economic, no psychological conditions at work 

 for their extermination. Mothers fit to bear and nurse their young 

 would be selected and trained. Children would not only be the chief 

 treasure sought; they would also add to the material wealth of the 

 family. Those who did not want children would be cast aside as little 

 better than the abortionist and the infanticide. In all the world there 

 is nothing more ultimate than the primitive voices of the two Eachels ; 

 Eachel weeping for her children, not to be comforted, because they are 

 not; Eachel who said: Give me children, or else I die. 



