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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



calls ''the intellectual proletariat" 

 in France. The facts and figures he 

 furnishes in regard to the moral and 

 economic condition of a large pro- 

 portion of the educated class are not 

 at all encouraging. " Our poverty- 

 stricken mandarins,"' he says, " are 

 starving in their tracks." He re- 

 marks that the evil of an intellectual 

 proletariat has not yet manifested it- 

 self in Ameiica ; hut some of us who 

 have a closer view of the facts would 

 not be quite pre^jared to indorse the 

 statement. 



The moral and intellectual prog- 

 ress of a people, it can not be too 

 often repeated, depends largely upon 

 its ideals ; and there is reason to fear 

 that universal education, or rather 

 the attempt at universal education 

 made by modern states, tends to 

 lower rather than elevate popular 

 ideals. The one great false thing 

 the system teaches — not advisedly 

 and intentionally, no doubt, but all 

 the same most effectually — is that 

 education is mainly to be desired as 

 a qualification for money-making. 

 That idea alone is enough to poison 

 the popular consciousness. Educa- 

 tion means nothing if it does not 

 mean the improvement of the intel- 

 lectual and moral nature of the per- 

 son educated ; but to what extent 

 can it be shown that the state agen- 

 cies in operation are really working 

 toward such a result ? We do not, 

 therefore, regard Pi'ofessor Peck, in 

 spite of his audacious and seemingly 

 paradoxical expressions, as an enemy 

 of the people. We believe, on the 

 contrary, that he means right and 

 has at heart, as fully as the intensest 

 democrat of us all, the greatest hap- 

 piness of tlie greatest number. 



EEALIZATION OF A PROPHECY OF 

 MR. SPENCER. 



" Are we to become the China of 

 the West ? " shouted a United States 

 Senator, indignant because the Amer- 



ican people would not fly to arms at 

 his bidding and put an end to the 

 savage struggle between the Span- 

 iards and the Cuban insurgents. The 

 implication was that, unless they did 

 so, they would fall a prey, just as is 

 threatened in the case of China, to 

 the attack of some militant power. 

 Only by cultivating the war spirit, 

 which the Chinese hold in such de- 

 testation, could they maintain, to use 

 the glowing language of Mr. Theo- 

 dore Roosevelt, " our proper position 

 among the nations of the earth, and 

 ... do the work to which our des- 

 tiny points." 



Since the opinion appears to be 

 general that the sudden assault of 

 the European powers upon China 

 and her apparent impotency to re- 

 sist them are due to her devotion to 

 pacific pursuits, and that the aggres- 

 sive policy of her assailants is some- 

 thing that the American people ought 

 to imitate in order to save them from 

 the same fate, it seems needful to 

 call attention to a prophecy that Mr. 

 Spencer makes in the last volume of 

 his Principles of Sociology. It has 

 a very instructive bearing upon the 

 astonishing political phenomena now 

 witnessed in the far East. It makes 

 perfectly clear the absurdity of the 

 interpretation that the Senator in 

 question put upon thein. It shows 

 that China is not a victim of her de- 

 votion to pacific pursuits, but to mili- 

 tant pursuits, and that her assailants 

 are following in pi'ecisely the foot- 

 steps that have brought her to her 

 present position of impotency. The 

 conclusion to be reached is that only 

 in imitating them is there the slight- 

 est danger of the United States be- 

 coming '' the China of the West." 



In forecasting the future of the 

 peoples that seek social regeneration 

 through the adoption of certain in- 

 stitutions, which are simply the in- 

 stitutions of aggression, Mr. Spencer 

 says that they may hold their place 



