EDITOR'S TABLE. 



701 



this kind. Undoubtedly more of politi- 

 cal economy in our common-school edu- 

 cation would be useful, but it must be 

 remembered that our swindles are by 

 no means limited to the financial sort, 

 while the public mind is probably more 

 alert in this direction than in any other. 

 To rectify the evil by the application 

 of special knowledge would require 

 scores of new subjects to be introduced 

 into our public-school curriculum. Be- 

 sides, had political economy been taught 

 in the New England schools as other 

 things are there taught, we are not sure 

 that it would have made much differ- 

 ence with the chances of Mrs. Howe's 

 banking adventure. The difficulty was 

 not so much a lack of knowledge on 

 this particular subject as a lack of that 

 mental preparation which would qualify 

 for meeting the whole class of imposi- 

 tions of which the Ladies' Deposit was 

 but a single example. 



The Boston women were undoubt- 

 edly cheated through their credulity, 

 and this state of mind was palpably ex- 

 emplified by a thousand of them. But 

 the same state of mind is exhibited by 

 many other thousands of both men and 

 women all over the country ; and it is 

 this which has to be met by education 

 before any efficient protection can be 

 gained against its mischievous results. 

 Credulity is easy belief, and the correc- 

 tion of it is, of course, hardness of be- 

 lief. The credulous person is careless 

 of evidence, and is, therefore, readily 

 duped; the only remedy for this is 

 doubt, distrust, an appreciation of the 

 importance of evidence, and a trained 

 capacity to judge of it. It is necessary 

 that this state of suspicion and ques- 

 tioning become a habit of the mind, 

 and the sifting of evidence in practical 

 afi'airs a distinct branch of mental cul- 

 tivation. To escape the evil effects of 

 credulity it is needful that disbelief as 

 an attitude of mind be encouraged as 

 a virtue. The resistance to evidence 

 must be active and vigorous until it is 

 proved to be not spurious and illusive, 



but sound and valid. Our current cult- 

 ure is here profoundly at fault. Lit- 

 erary education, as such, does not favor 

 this habit of mind ; scientific education 

 properly pursued leads to it necessarily. 

 Literature flourished in its highest forms 

 in the ages of credulity, while modern 

 science only arose with the growth of 

 the spirit of doubt. Training in the 

 methods of scientific study seems, there- 

 fore, to us, the only adequate remedy 

 for that laxity of thinking and dull cre- 

 dulity of the popular mind in which 

 widespread deceptions and impostures 

 have their origin. 



But science also greatly helps us 

 here in the things it teaches. It famil- 

 iarizes the mind with the conception 

 of an order in human life, the invincible 

 operation of cause and effect in social 

 affairs, and the laws of proportion be- 

 tween actions and consequences to 

 which all persons are subject. That 

 there are natural laws in society which 

 work out their inevitable results is a 

 lesson that requires to be learned as 

 well by the individual as by the state ; 

 and scientific education alone can fa- 

 miliarize the minds of the young with 

 this vital truth. 



Here our literary education fails. 

 It does not reach, and expound, and 

 enforce this class of ideas. It is so 

 thoroughly verbal and critical in form 

 and spirit as actually to arrest the 

 mind on its way to the study of things. 

 In this way absorption in literature be- 

 comes a barrier to science, which, by 

 its nature, must deal directly with 

 facts and principles. Science merely ad- 

 dressed to the apprehension, and lodged 

 in the memory like literary acquisitions, 

 is not true science ; and little would be 

 gained by introducing social science 

 into our schools, to be pursued there in 

 the manner of other studies. Literary 

 culture, as it predominates in our educa- 

 tional institutions, neither prepares the 

 mind to deal intelligently with ques- 

 tions of evidence nor does it imbue it 

 with right conceptions of social order 



