EDITOR'S TABLE. 



269 



%aitov r s %xMz. 



EVOLUTION AND EDUCATION. 



OUR attention has been drawn to 

 a lively discussion that has late- 

 ly taken place in the St. Paul pa- 

 pers over the utterances, on the sub- 

 ject of the doctrine of evolution in its 

 relation to education, of a certain Mr. 

 Smith, who was appointed not long 

 since superintendent of the public 

 schools of that city. What seems 

 clear is that Mr. Smith is a very ig- 

 norant man, whose views in regard 

 to education are of an altogether 

 retrograde character. How he came 

 to be appointed to his present position 

 is a question which is being gravely 

 pondered by many of the citizens; 

 but probably the explanation is not 

 very far to seek. The dispensers of 

 patronage in State and municipal 

 affairs are not always competent to 

 make the best nominations to offices 

 calling for high qualifications; and 

 sometimes they do not even act up 

 to their own indifferent lights. The 

 man that has the pull is very apt to 

 be the man that gets the office, and 

 it is not often that the strongest pull 

 goes with the highest professional 

 fitness. 



However this may be, there Mr. 

 Smith is, and what kind of a man 

 he is may be judged from his utter- 

 ances. It is thus that he refers to 

 Mr. Spencer: "There is an old man 

 in England who for years has spent 

 all his time and devoted all his ener- 

 gies to the attempt to create a system 

 which shall entirely ignore the name 

 of the Deity. He will shortly die, 

 and it shall not be remembered that 

 he ever performed an act or said a 

 word that blessed or comforted or 

 relieved his suffering fellows." To 

 further darken the picture, he con- 

 trasts Spencer with the late Cardinal 



Newman, who wrote the hymn 

 " Lead, kindly light," and who, we 

 are told, if he had done nothing 

 more, would have been "followed 

 by the blessings and the prayers of 

 those whom he had comforted and 

 saved." Again, dealing with the 

 modern scientific view that, in the de- 

 velopment of the human individual 

 all antecedent stages of human devel- 

 opment are, in a manner, passed 

 through, he says: "Let us discard 

 the primitive-man theory. You do 

 not believe it. Rather shall we not 

 hold with Emerson that every child 

 born into the world is a new Messiah 

 given into the arms of fallen human- 

 ity to lead them back to paradise ? " 



It is no part of our purpose to de- 

 fend Mr. Spencer against the attacks 

 of so negligible an assailant as Mr. 

 Smith, of Minnesota. The words that 

 Mr. Spencer has spoken for truth, 

 for justice, for humanity, for peace, 

 are his sufficient commendation and 

 vindication — were vindication need- 

 ed — in the eyes of all who have any 

 competent knowledge of contempo- 

 rary thought. If these words do not 

 help to make the world better we 

 should feel little inclined to put our 

 trust in the most skillfully construct- 

 ed sacred lyric. Men do not always 

 know their benefactors; and it is al- 

 together possible, nay probable, that 

 thousands who perhaps never heard 

 Mr. Spencer's name have benefited 

 through the greater consideration 

 with which they have been treated 

 by others, owing to his teaching. It 

 is quite possible for men, yes, and 

 women too, to sing " Lead, kindly 

 light" with great unction, and yet 

 to be the ardent abettors of warlike 

 sentiments and warlike acts — to revel 

 in a ruthless and immoral jingoism. 



