120 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cause ? We do not hesitate to say that 

 the chief cause is one which no Gov- 

 ernment action, State or Federal, can 

 ever reach viz., defect of home disci- 

 pline. The hoy who will not attend 

 school, or who, attending school, learns 

 nothing, is the hoy accustomed to re- 

 bellion at home, or the boy whose par- 

 ents are themselves too negligent and 

 vicious to care whether he learns any- 

 thing or not. It is no doubt the case 

 that a certain portion of the population 

 of these States is being brought up in 

 partial or total savagery. Not for want 

 of schools, however, for schools abound. 

 The evil is deep-seated, and can only be 

 reached by the vigorous action of pub- 

 lic opinion, and by wise measures of 

 reform in connection with the admin- 

 istration of justice. When we explain 

 why it is that our educational systems 

 fail altogether to reach a certain ele- 

 ment in the population, we explain, 

 also, why the work of education is in 

 many cases so shallow, and why it 

 even seems at times to do more harm 

 than good. Everything depends on the 

 spirit with which it is approached. A 

 well-known figure in contemporary fic- 

 tion Maud Matchin well illustrates 

 the work of the high school or acad- 

 emy on the mind of a vain and vulgar 

 girl, who sets no value upon education, 

 save as it may help her to a position in 

 the world, and the vices of whose char- 

 acter are therefore brought only into 

 stronger relief by her wretched varnish 

 of accomplishments. And here we see 

 the folly of all schemes that would set 

 the Federal Government at work to 

 repair the weak places of education 

 throughout the States and Territories. 

 All that is proposed is that reading and 

 writing should be made universal ac- 

 complishments, so as to remove the re- 

 proach and danger of technical "illit- 

 eracy." But there is absolutely no 

 guarantee that the voter newly in- 

 structed to read and write would be 

 any better man than he was before. 

 If our high-schools are turning out 

 Maud Matchins by the score and hun- 



dred, and if youths by the thousand 

 leave school to pursue a career of 

 "smartness," without one thought of 

 social responsibility, it is evident that 

 the mere extension of educational facil- 

 ities is a much less pressing need than 

 the moralizing of the whole business of 

 education. Philosophers have told us 

 that it is perfectly possible to educate 

 in an intellectual sense without touch- 

 ing one single moral chord ; and daily 

 experience confirms the truth of the 

 statement. Instead, therefore, of en- 

 gaging the Federal Government to es- 

 tablish more schools, we would engage 

 the whole community to place the 

 schools that now exist upon a higher 

 moral plane, and to render them more 

 effectual in their working by a higher 

 quality of home influence. It is in the 

 home above all that reform is needed ; 

 but, unhappily, the school has of late 

 years so dwarfed the home, so inter- 

 posed between the parent and his natu- 

 ral and proper responsibility toward his 

 child, that to preach " home influence " 

 to-day is almost like raising one's voice 

 in the wilderness. Things are badly 

 complicated ; one thing only is certain, 

 and that is, that more State interfer- 

 ence will not help to clear up the com- 

 plications, or to put things on a sound 

 basis. 



It is needless, we trust, in conclud- 

 ing these remarks, to say that we yield 

 to none in the importance we attach to 

 education rightly understood. By edu- 

 cation, however, we do not understand 

 merely the ability to read and write, 

 and we are not fully persuaded that 

 our institutions would be any safer than 

 they are to-day if every child in the 

 country over twelve years old could 

 both read and write. What we know 

 for certain is, that an individual able to 

 do both may be in a condition of very 

 unstable intellectual equilibrium, and 

 so, we believe, might a whole commu- 

 nity of such individuals. What we need 

 to improve our intellectual state is not 

 an increase of activity on the part of 

 the Government, but deeper convictions 



