IV AND WHERE TO FIND IT 91 



primary education carefully abstain from hinting 

 to the workman that some of his greatest evils 

 are traceable to mere physical agencies, which 

 could be removed by energy, patience, and frugal- 

 ity; but it does worse — it renders him, so far as 

 it can, deaf to those who could help him, and 

 tries to substitute an Oriental submission to what 

 is falsely declared to be the will of God, for 

 his natural tendency to strive after a better con- 

 dition. 



What wonder, then, if very recently an appeal 

 has been made to statistics for the profoundly fool- 

 ish purpose of showing that education is of no 

 good — that it diminishes neither misery nor crime 

 among the masses of mankind? I reply, why 

 should the thing which has been called education 

 do either the one or the other? If I am a knave 

 or a fool, teaching me to read and write won't 

 make me less of either one or the other — unless 

 somebody shows me how to put my reading and 

 writing to wise and good purposes. 



Suppose any one were to argue that medicine 

 is of no use, because it could be proved statistic- 

 ally, that the percentage of deaths was just the 

 same among people who had been taught how to 

 open a medicine chest, and among those who did 

 not so much as know the key by sight. The 

 argument is absurd; but it is not more prepos- 

 terous than that against which I am contending. 

 The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all 



