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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a given time. Does that settle the ques- 

 tion? Does the quality of education, 

 do the moral influences accompanying 

 it, count for nothing ? Whether would 

 it be better to give five hundred an 

 education destitute of moralizing and 

 idealizing influences, or three hundred 

 an education penetrated by those influ- 

 ences, trusting to the action of the 

 smaller number to promote social order 

 and harmony ? We ask these questions 

 not as advancing assumptions, but mere- 

 ly to show that all is not said when it 

 is alleged that the state can educate 

 more rapidly than private enterprise. 

 If private enterprise and family effort 

 can educate tetter than the state bet- 

 ter on the whole, taking both intellect- 

 ual and moral development into account, 

 and also the reaction on the elder gen- 

 eration the higher value of the work 

 may more than atone for its narrower 

 range. 



It is a singular thing that, in spite of 

 his strong faith in state education, our 

 correspondent does not seem to believe 

 that any extension or continuance of it 

 would have the effect of making the 

 people at large so intelligent and self- 

 helpful that, in the future, they would 

 he willing and able to look after the 

 business of education for themselves. 

 He seems to look forward to the per- 

 petuity of the system under which the 

 " wealthy tax -payers" provide funds for 

 the education of the children of the 

 poor ; at least he drops no hint that the 

 system is ever to cease. Now, suppos- 

 ing we were to address " the poor " in 

 these words : " Well, good people, we 

 are educating your children for you 

 gratis or nearly so, because we don't 

 imagine you have either the ability or 

 the inclination to educate them without 

 our help. At the same time, please to 

 understand that we don't expect, by any 

 education we may give your children, 

 to make them self-helping when they 

 come to have children of their own. A 

 few of them, of course, may rise, while 

 others, more advantageously situated at 

 present than they, and getting the same 



education, will fall ; but the bulk of 

 them will remain as you are to day, un- 

 able to educate their children without 

 the benevolent help of the rich. But 

 don't be afraid for your posterity ; the 

 rich will help, as usual. There are no 

 classes in this country." How would 

 all that fall on the ears of the poor? 

 Would it be extraordinary if some one 

 on their hehalf were to reply : " If we 

 or our children are not to be educated 

 out of our poverty a poverty so deep as 

 to draw down upon us your insulting 

 patronage we see but little good in it. 

 Better not to sharpen by knowledge the 

 edge of our misery ! " 



Let us ask a question. As educa- 

 tion spreads in this country, are social 

 distinctions becoming less marked ? Are 

 inequalities of fortune becoming less 

 striking, not to say portentous? Our 

 correspondent dreads the spirit of so- 

 cialism and anarchism, and thinks it 

 may grow if the state does not push 

 popular education vigorously. But the 

 state has been pushing popular educa- 

 tion as vigorously as it knew how; and, 

 precisely when our educational status, 

 so far as figures can show, is at its best, 

 do socialism and anarchism, in forms 

 unknown to an earlier generation, raise 

 their misshapen and scowling heads. 

 Might not this have something to do 

 with the quality of the education im- 

 parted? Might it not have something 

 to do with the withdrawal from the 

 poor of one of the best of all moral 

 influences, that which comes from a 

 direct interest in the education of their 

 own children ? Our correspondent 

 wants to have political eonomy taught 

 in the schools so kindly provided by 

 the rich for the poor. Whose political 

 economy Marx's or Mill's ? Henry 

 George's or President Walker's ? It is 

 precisely because they know that the 

 rich not only provide, but in a large 

 measure control, public education, that 

 the poor have such an aversion to all 

 the more orthodox forms of political 

 economy. They want no official doc- 

 trines on that subject. 



