IV AND WHERE TO FIND IT 91 



primary education carefully abstain from hinting 

 to the workman that some of his greatest evils 

 are traceable to mere physical agencies, which 

 could be removed by energy, patience, and frugal- 

 ity ; but it does worse it renders him, so far as it 

 can, deaf to those who could help him, and tries 

 to substitute an Oriental submission to what 

 is falsely declared to be the will of God, for 

 his natural tendency to strive after a better 

 condition. 



What wonder, then, if very recently an appeal 

 has been made to statistics for the profoundly fool- 

 ish purpose of showing that education is of no good 

 that it diminishes neither misery nor crime 

 among the masses of mankind ? I reply, why 

 should the thing which has been called education 

 do either the one or the other ? If I am a knave or 

 a fool, teaching me to read and write won't make 

 me less of either one or the other unless some- 

 body shows me how to put my reading and writing 

 to wise and good purposes. 



Suppose any one were to argue that medicine 

 is of no use, because it could be proved statistic- 

 ally, that the percentage of deaths was just the 

 same among people who had been taught how to 

 open a medicine chest, and among those who did 

 not so much as know the key by sight. The 

 argument is absurd ; but it is not more prepos- 

 terous than that against which I am contending. 

 The only medicine for suffering, crime, and al] 



