JOZ 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and warmth, but with far less regard 

 to any advantage to be reaped for the 

 canse of truth and of humanity than to 

 the satisfaction of rival vanities. 



In this country we are laboring with 

 great zeal and vast pecuniary resources 

 to promote the cause of culture. We 

 educate, educate, educate, as somebody 

 once said we ought to do ; but whether 

 the result is to produce much that can 

 be called culture in any high sense is 

 an open question. A criterion may, 

 perhaps, be found in a comparison of 

 the rising with the now adult genera- 

 tion. Are our young people show- 

 ing graces of mind and character in 

 more abundant measure than their pa- 

 rents ? Are their aims higher ? Is 

 their language better ? Are their intel- 

 lectual occupations more serious? Are 

 their manners gentler and more refined ? 

 We do not propose to answer these 

 questions dogmatically; but this we say, 

 that, unless there has been an improve- 

 ment in these several respects, a vast 

 amount of educational effort has not met 

 its full reward. Speaking broadly, it 

 seems to us that the culture of our edu- 

 cated classes, or of the classes supposed 

 to be educated, leaves much to be de- 

 sired, and we are disposed to think 

 that one reason of this is that we have 

 conceived of education in too purely 

 an intellectual sense. We have thought 

 more of sharpening the thinking facul- 

 ties than of liberalizing the sentiments 

 or softening the manners. We have in- 

 troduced too much of rivalry into edu- 

 cation, and represented education too 

 much as a preparation for further ri- 

 valry in after-life. We have imparted 

 knowledge, but have only to a very 

 moderate extent succeeded in inculcat- 

 ing wisdom; and knowledge without 

 wisdom seems poor, thin, and some- 

 times even meaningless. We need, as 

 it seems to us, to devote more consid- 

 eration than we have hitherto done to 

 the question, What is the true ideal 

 of human life ? If we can fix upon the 

 true ideal, wo can proceed to educate 



toward that, and our work will then bo 

 directed toward something that is an 

 end in itself. The knowledge we im- 

 part will be held by a different tenure, 

 and applied in a different spirit. What 

 each one knows will be his or her equip- 

 ment toward a worthier fulfillment of 

 social duties, a worthier realization of 

 what is best in himself or herself, and 

 not a mere stock-in-trade for the pro- 

 curing of personal gratifications. What 

 we would chiefly insist upon at present, 

 however, is that, were knowledge pur- 

 sued in a right spirit, the intellectual 

 gain would be very great. Minds would 

 become more receptive, owing both to 

 the superiority of the motive set before 

 them, and the higher degree of ration- 

 ality that the whole system of human 

 life and thought would assume. Civ- 

 ilized speech would not show a con- 

 stant tendency to degenerate into a jar- 

 gon of slang, if people recognized in 

 speech a social function, not merely a 

 mode and means of self-assertion. It is 

 impossible to find one's self in any for- 

 tuitous assemblage of average human 

 beings without being led to reflect how 

 much human intercourse might be im- 

 proved and beautified if, by some means, 

 we could implant in the mind of each 

 individual a true respect for the rights 

 and feelings of others, and a general 

 sense of what is due to society, consid- 

 ered as the source of unnumbered ad- 

 vantages to all its members. At pres- 

 ent it often seems to be a distinct aim 

 with many persons and these not in 

 any sense social outlaws, but, on the 

 contrary, what would be called "re- 

 spectable people " to show how little 

 they care for anything beyond their 

 own pleasure and convenience. The 

 popular idea of " independence," in- 

 deed, is largely made up of swagger 

 and aggressiveness; whereas the most 

 primary notion of independence should 

 embrace the making of an honest return 

 for all good received. Thus viewed, 

 the man who wished to be " independ- 

 ent " would see that society got back 



