EDITOR'S TABLE. 



267 



old university ideals of culture. The 

 whole pinch is here, for, whenever sci- 

 ence is recognized as the foundation of 

 a valuable and desirable mental culture, 

 the progress of thought will soon give 

 it the supreme place as a means of the 

 higher education. 



CURIOUS EDUCATIONAL LOGIC. 



The rapid development in this coun- 

 try of a vast system of state education, 

 under the control of politicians, gives 

 interest to the views of those men on 

 the subject of educational philosophy. 

 President Hayes in his speech, which 

 we referred to last month, is reported 

 to have made the following remarkable 

 statement : " The unvarying testimony 

 of history is that the nations which win 

 the most renowned victories in peace 

 and war are those which provide ample 

 means of popular education." That is, 

 according to the President of the Uni- 

 ted States, popular education is equal- 

 ly a preparation for victories in peace 

 and victories in war the destructive 

 practice of savages and the constructive 

 vocations of civilized life. It has been 

 the inspiring hope of multitudes through 

 many ages that the world would yet 

 outgrow the brutal pursuit of war, and 

 they have had faith that this great re- 

 sult would be ultimately achieved by 

 the progress of general enlightenment 

 and the development of the arts of 

 peace which communities would find it 

 for their highest interest to promote. 

 It has been believed that the victories 

 of peace would put an end to the curses 

 of war, because the state of mind they 

 would engender in society must be in- 

 compatible with mihtary barbarism. 

 Certainly, if there is deadly antagonism 

 anywhere it is between the interests of 

 war and the interests of peace ; but 

 President Hayes seems to think popular 

 education has the marvelous capacity 

 of leading both ways, to triumphant 

 war and victorious peace. 



We need not go far for illustrations 



of inveterate hostility between the in- 

 terests of peace and war, and for the 

 influence of this conflict in shaping the 

 permanent policy of government. The 

 antagonism casts its malign shadow over 

 all the periods of peace. The commerce 

 and industry of the country are " regu- 

 lated," not by the intrinsic laws of 

 commercial and industrial prosperity, 

 but with reference to the alleged con- 

 tingencies of future war. Why should 

 the intercourse of nations be impeded 

 by shackles upon trade ? Why should 

 private enterprise be thwarted, and the 

 intelligence of citizens discredited in 

 regard to the course of industrial occu- 

 pation? Because at some future time 

 we may want to fight the world, and 

 so must keep ourselves independent of 

 it. We are cursed with a war-tariif 

 because we had a domestic war, and 

 must continue it because we may have 

 foreign wars ; and thus citizens are 

 coerced this way and that in all their 

 most vital private interests by the pre- 

 dominance of the military spirit. 



A more specific illustration is fresh 

 in the minds of all. The opening of a 

 canal at the Isthmus of Darien would 

 be one of the greatest victories of peace 

 in the interest of the world that has 

 ever been accomplished. It would bind 

 the nations in pacific restraints more 

 powerfully than any other international 

 measure ever proposed. But it was re- 

 sisted in this country in the interests 

 of future war ; and President Hayes 

 and the politicians of Congress did all 

 they could to prevent the execution of 

 the work by a disgraceful demagogical 

 perversion of the Monroe doctrine. The 

 popular education of the politicians 

 did not here lead them both ways, ac- 

 cording to Hayes's formula ; they sacri- 

 ficed the victories of peace on the pre- 

 text of the adverse interests of future 

 war. 



President Hayes invokes " the un- 

 var}'ing testimony of history" to es- 

 tablish his proposition, but the problem 

 of the influence and effects of "popular 



