Education as a Factor in Civilization. 243 



rests the burden of proof. While a good education and a 

 skilful handwriting may lead to forgery and to prison, 

 there is no reason to suppose that they must do so. It is 

 an unceasing wonder that our schools, working under so 

 many and such great disadvantages, offer such successful 

 resistance to the turbulent tides of ignorance and deprav- 

 ity threatening to overwhelm us. The very existence 

 of the schools implies moral education, and the children 

 who are learning the physical law that a body unsupported 

 falls to the ground are just as surely learning the moral 

 lesson that sin is followed by suffering. 



While it is assumed that schools supported by public 

 money for the public benefit should exclude all forms of 

 religious teaching, it cannot yet be claimed that they are 

 doing all that is desirable or possible in the direction of 

 moral development. The too-commonly conceited, law- 

 less spirit of our youth is something to be considered 

 with fasting and prayer, if, so be it, this kind goeth not 

 out otherwise, and is represented by the eager fellow 

 who ordered to be made, for a high school, a class badge 

 hearing the figure of the graduate and the world of knowl- 

 edge he was supposed to have conquered, the youth to be 

 two inches high, the earth an eighth of an inch in diameter. 

 The moral tone of the school can improve only as there is 

 improvement in the teaching and directing force. When 

 superficial study, love of display, and haste for results, 

 give place as they surely will in time to the slow and 

 oareful culture which, tempted to no selfishness or deceit, 

 develops not only mind but body and soul as well, the 

 graduates of our schools will stand erect in the stature 

 of an emancipated and spiritualized manhood and woman- 

 hood, regarding the world and their fellow-men in that 

 humble, teachable, and reverent spirit which characterizes 

 the true scholar. 



Crime is the costliest product of our civilization, and we 

 pay most for what we desire least. In 1870 only fou.r per 

 cent, of the population of England of school-going age 

 were under instruction, and many believe that the adoption 

 in that year of the English Elementary Education Act 

 saved the country from revolution. Pauperism and crime 

 diminished in proportion as school attendance increased. 

 In our country crime is increasing to a greater relative 

 degree than in any other civilized country except Italy and 



