THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANUAL TRAINING. 149 



of education comes to an end. And these ideas are not only vague, 

 but frequently they are contradictory as well, and so the long 

 journey turns out to be aimless. 



To attempt to formulate, and particularly to formulate for others, 

 what would be a reasonable ideal of life, is to put one's philosophy to 

 the supreme test. When I look about me on the drama of life — 

 when I look within, upon the drama of my own life — what is it that 

 stands out above the rest as the very necessary and essential thing? 

 What constitutes the most evolved conduct and animates the most 

 evolved people? In putting such basal inquiries as these it may be 

 thought that, like the Hegelian I mentioned, I am going back almost 

 as far as Adam and Eve. But unless one is willing to ask such ques- 

 tions one's speculations will continue to play forever about the sur- 

 face of all educational problems, and will never strike into the heart 

 of the matter. 



In the first place, then, how much of conduct does education 

 cover? The answer is not far to seek. If education be a process for 

 the realization of an ethical ideal, it must have to do with all that 

 part of human action which is touched with morality — that is, with 

 conduct as a whole. And what constitutes conduct? Arnold says 

 that conduct is three fourths of life. Spencer says that it includes all 

 action which involves a purpose. But the ethical teaching of these 

 undoubted masters of ethics may, I think, be profitably extended. 

 A keener scrutiny of cause and effect throws out the fractions and 

 dispenses with the qualifications. Conduct has to do with the whole 

 of life, and education, which has to do with conduct, must have to 

 do with the whole of life. There is no action which is ethically 

 indifl:'erent. Even the bodily functions, the act of breathing, the 

 beating of the heart, the process of digestion, which in health are so 

 automatic that we are quite unconscious of them, are nevertheless 

 the product of knowable conditions, and as such are under the indi- 

 rect control of the informed spirit. 



Whether the breathing be long and deep, "bringing with it the 

 power of wholesome, manly action, is a moral question. Whether 

 the pulse beat be strong and steady, sending the blood coursing 

 through the veins and making one the center of a radiant helpful 

 life, is a moral question. Whether the digestive apparatus is do- 

 ing good work, renewing and refreshing the tissues, is a moral 

 question. Since all these functions are open to modification, they 

 are open to improvement, and the quality of the life dependent 

 on them may be made better or worse. In the last analysis, every 

 act of life, be it bodily or intellectual, is morally significant. 

 Modern man has tasted too deep of the tree of the knowledge of 

 good and evil to plead ignorance and hide when the lord Con- 



