EDITORIAL 



57 



utal select,ion — stated shortly before 

 he died that he did not believe in pro- 

 gress. As a matter of fact, it is ex- 

 tremely difficult to point out definitely 

 where progress in humanity may be 

 observed. There is certainly no pro- 

 gress in man's highest expressions of 

 his intelligence. Viscount James 

 Bryce has observed that the poetry of 

 the early Hebrews and of the early 

 Greeks has never been surpassed and 

 hardly ever equalled. Neither has the 

 philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, nor 

 the speeches of Demosthenes and 

 Cicero. No one pretends that there is 

 any progress in art. The masterpieces 

 of architecture, sculpture, and paint- 

 ing date as a rule from long before our 

 time, some of them nearly twenty-five 

 hundred years back. Yet in spite of 

 this, many mortals cherish the belief 

 that there has been an advance beyond 

 our forebears in many things, and es- 

 pecially in education. Why are we so 

 sure that there has been decided pro- 

 gress in education? At the present 

 time we are admittedly far below many 

 preceding generations in art, literature, 

 architecture, arts and crafts, and many 

 developments of taste. Why then 

 should we think that in education, one 

 of the highest of the arts, the moulding 

 of the human mind into beautiful 

 shapes instead of the moulding of more 

 plastic material, we should be far ahead 

 of the past, and, therefore, in a position 

 to find no lessons in it? The fact is 

 that much of the educational work of 

 the past is superior to that of the pre- 

 sent. Today in this country the ten- 

 dency in education is toward an accu- 

 mulation of superficial information 

 rather than a training of the intellect 

 for hard thinking." 



The philosophy is based on the teach- 

 ing of a book issued 2900 B. C. "The 

 Instruction of Ptah-Hotep," of which 

 a translation has recently been pub- 

 lished by E. P. Dutton & Company, 

 New York City. In this schoolbook of 

 Ptah-Hotep, which is said to be the 

 oldest book extant, it is interesting to 

 note the clear, direct and picturesque 

 style as a piece of genuine literature, 

 and that it contains philosophy, ad- 

 vice in education, in the training of 

 character and for practical everyday 

 life. The book is translated from the 

 Egyptian with an introduction and ap- 



pendix by Battiscombe G. Gunn. The 

 writer in the Bulletin makes these sug- 

 gestive statements : 



"Ptah Hotep looks up to God as the 

 giver of all good things. He loves His 

 creatures, and above all loves man, and 

 observes man's actions very carefully, 

 and rewards or punishes them accord- 

 ing to their deserts. Indeed, the picture 

 of God is as striking a presentation of 

 the fatherliness and the providence of 

 the Almighty and of most of the lov- 

 able characteristics of the Deit^v as 

 there is to be found anywhere in litera- 

 ture until the coming of Jesus Christ. 

 And this book was written as long be- 

 fore Solomon as Solomon is before us !" 



He concludes with this suggestion : 



"There is no such thing as evolution 

 or progress in literature, and in art and 

 architecture we are far behind the an- 

 cients and the people of the Middle 

 Ages. Everything, indeed, depends on 

 ourselves and not on our predecessors, 

 and this in itself constitutes the highest 

 form of incentive to do our best work." 



We do not give these quotations our 

 unqualified approval. We reprint them 

 on account of their thought provoking 

 qualities. It is well to pause at times, 

 especially in educational work, to as- 

 certain just how far we really have 

 progressed. There is much liberal 

 thought in this ancient schoolmaster. 

 Ptah-Hotep, that it may be well for 

 us, forty-eight hundred years after his 

 time, to consider. One would naturally 

 suppose that the world would change 

 considerably in that period. Probably 

 it has changed, but is it now all that it 

 should be? That is the question. 



We live in a wonderful world, and 

 the wonders of the world without us are 

 matched and more than matched by the 

 wonders of the world within us. This 

 interior world has its natural history 

 also, and to observe and record any of 

 its facts and incidents, or trace any of 

 its natural processes, is well worthy of 

 our best moments. — John Burroughs in 

 "Under the Apple-Trees." 



Wood Lilies. 



Lifting painted cups to Heaven, 



To catch the sun and dew, 

 Like torches bright they light the way, 



The scented woodland through. 



— Emma Peirce. 



