844 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



produce a proper attitude of mind 

 according to the evidence proffered 

 toward every pi'oposition or doctrine 

 presented for acceptance. 



We can not follow Prof. Ladd 

 into the third division of his subject, 

 namely, the claims of a scientific 

 psychology to be regai'ded as a neces- 

 sary part of a liberal education ; we 

 can only say that here too he seems 

 to us to be on solid ground. We 

 agree with him also when he says 

 that ''the condition of public educa- 

 tion in the United States is far from 

 satisfactory at the present time." 

 There are many useful thoughts in 

 his article on which we have not 

 touched; and if we leave it for to- 

 day it is " without prejudice " in case 

 we should wish to return to it on 

 some other occasion. 



NECESSITY. 



Among the ancient Greeks the 

 idea of necessity, or as they called it 

 ananJce, assumed a certain religious 

 character. It might bring evil and 

 pain, but, in so far as it was an in- 

 tegral part of the order of things, 

 it claimed a pious submission. We 

 sometimes think tliat there is room 

 for a similar conception in modem 

 times. It is not uncommon to find 

 people I'ailing at the world as evil, 

 because this or that is not arranged 

 according to ideas of what is right, 

 because necessity sets limits to human 

 action and happiness. What the 

 Greeks felt was that ananJce could 

 not be got rid of, and that the best 

 thing we could do was to agree with 

 it, and in a manner reverence it. 

 The Greek was right : get rid of ne- 

 cessity in one form, and it imme- 

 diately reappeai'S in another ; in 

 some form man must face it and 

 submit to it. 



Socialist writers do not appear to 

 be at all of this way of thinking. 

 They have a noble zeal for remedy- 

 ing evils, but they do not seem to 



allow anything for the conditions 

 which Nature itself imposes. Thus 

 Prof. Albion Small, of Chicago, finds 

 much to object to in the fact that 

 " if a weaver or switchnan loses his 

 job, no law compels another employer 

 to hire him." He adds that ''few 

 men outside the wage earning class 

 have fairly taken in the meaning of 

 this familiar situation." What we 

 should like Prof. Small or some one 

 else to do is to figure out a situation 

 in which, a weaver or a switchman 

 having lost his job, somebody else 

 would be obliged to hire him. It 

 would really be interesting to have 

 this worked out ; our impression is 

 that Prof. Small, or whoever under- 

 took the task, would find himself 

 bumping up against old " ananke " in 

 an altered phase. Everybody in that 

 case would want to be the man who 

 could get a situation of course, a 

 satisfactory one for the asking ; 

 nobody certainly would care to be 

 the provider of situations to his fel- 

 low-citizens. We are far from say- 

 ing that there is not a vast amount 

 of hardship in the world, and much 

 of it of a kind which in no way bene- 

 fits those who have to endure it, as of 

 course some hardship undoubtedly 

 does. But we want to see a way out 

 that will not cut the nerves of indus- 

 try and make self-reliance a forgot- 

 ten virtue. We want to see a way 

 out that will not lessen the sense of 

 individual responsibility or make a 

 man less a man. Show us such a 

 way, and we shall gladly lend every 

 effort in our power toward its reali- 

 zation. 



Prof. Small seems to think that 

 the occupation of the land under 

 private tenure is largely responsible 

 for the helpless condition of a por- 

 tion of society ; but has he or has 

 any one else ever worked out in all 

 its details a different scheme ? Would 

 poverty always be alleviated by a 

 gift of land, especially if the land 



