SCIENCE STUDY AND NATIONAL CHARACTER. 9 i 



enlightenment and education make for peace and not for war, then 

 our law of direct and inverse proportion has lately been scandal- 

 ously dishonored. 



If we have expended so much for education and at the same 

 time have lowered our ideal of national greatness, something must 

 be wrong with that education. If the sharpening and quickening 

 of the intellect are accompanied by a blunting and atrophy of the 

 moral sense, the best and the worst thing that can be said of our 

 school system is that it gives daily rations to hundreds of thousands 

 of teachers. Evidence of disease of the national conscience must 

 raise in the minds of thoughtful men grave doubts as to the suffi- 

 ciency of our education to " insure national progress, prosperity, 

 and honor," whether because of inherent weakness of the system 

 or because of the strength of the forces opposed to it. 



Has our system of education, then, failed to elevate our na- 

 tional character? He who would answer this question in the affirm- 

 ative would be a pessimist indeed: Incalculable " general good " 

 has come to us, we think, by the agency of our schools. Without 

 them our civilization could not be so far advanced as it is; our 

 national life might have ended long since. In every crisis, how- 

 ever black has been the storm, however fierce and ominous the 

 lightning flash, there has followed in good time the gentle rain, 

 soothing and allaying our fear, and giving renewed promise of pros- 

 perity and peace. It is the sober second thought, we are in the 

 habit of saying, which saves us, which takes the helm and sheers 

 us away from the half-hidden reefs in our first mad course. It is 

 not. It is the sober first thought which has redeemed us from 

 destruction time after time — the sober first thought of the few 

 who are truly educated, who have looked below the surface of 

 things and considered the hidden and obscure results, who have 

 weighed the right and wrong and stood immovable for the right. 

 It is the counsel of such men which has fallen like the rain that 

 follows the first bursting of the storm, and has given us courage 

 and power to restrain ourselves and to face our hardest duty. For 

 such men in our national affairs we may reverently offer thanks, 

 and for an educational system which is partly, at least, responsible 

 for them we may have sincere praise. But our safety must always 

 depend upon the presence of such men, strong enough in numbers 

 and in influence to control each difficult and dangerous situation 

 which may threaten us. Our work as teachers is not faithful if 

 we do not increase this number and strengthen this influence. 

 And if such men have been overpowered in the important events 

 of the past two years, if they have been entirely ignored, or if 

 they have been taunted and ridiculed, we have reached a danger- 



