446 TECHNICAL EDUCATION xvii 



as rubbing could make them; they were very well 

 sharpened; they looked lovely. But when they 

 were applied to the test of the work of war they 

 broke and were bent, and proved more likely to 

 hurt the hand of him that used them than to do 

 any harm to the enemy. Let me apply that 

 analogy to the effect of education, which is a 

 sharpening and polishing of the mind. You may 

 develop the intellectual side of people as far as 

 you like, and you may confer upon them all the 

 skill that training and instruction can give; but, 

 if there is not, underneath all that outside form 

 and superficial polish, the firm fibre of healthy 

 manhood and earnest desire to do well, your la- 

 bour is absolutely in vain. 



Let me further call your attention to the fact 

 that the terrible battle of competition between the 

 different nations of the world is no transitory 

 phenomenon, and does not depend upon this or 

 that fluctuation of the market, or upon any condi- 

 tion that is likely to pass away. It is the inevitable 

 result of that which takes place throughout nature 

 and affects man's part of nature as much as any 

 other — namely, the struggle for existence, arising 

 out of the constant tendency of all creatures in the 

 animated world to multiply indefinitely. It is that, 

 if you look at it, which is at the bottom of all the 

 great movements of history. It is that inherent 

 tendency of the social organism to generate the 

 causes of its own destruction, never yet counter- 



