84 THE NEW METHOD 



but the overshadowing and pressing necessity is the 

 introduction and use of the educational ideas of the 

 nineteenth century. 



We are clinging with extreme tenacity, to a sys- 

 tem of education which was better suited to the wants 

 of earlier times, but is out of harmony with the in- 

 tellectual necessities of modern life ; a system which 

 idolizes the past and worships precedent and author- 

 ity. Progress consists not in rejecting the past, but 

 in assimilating and reorganizing its truth into har- 

 mony with new circumstances and new requirements. 



The deep defects of the predominant culture are 

 everywhere apparent. It violates the laws of devel- 

 opment in almost all its processes. Vicious alike in 

 its methods and its tendencies, it crushes out the 

 natural love of knowledge, and signally fails to 

 accomplish the high purposes which a true culture 

 must accomplish. We must extend the knowledge 

 of our predecessors and correct their errors. Our 

 errors will be corrected by our successors. Obedi- 

 ence to obsolete forms must no longer be held forth 

 as a virtue, for the knowledge of truth is progressive. 



Civilization has its inflexible laws. Institutions 

 are not born perfect and adapted, without change, to 

 all time and all circumstances. The history of all 

 civilizations plainly shows that perpetual stagnation 

 is the fatal consequence of extreme conservatism. 



