252 Education as a Factor in Civilization. 



development is one of the profoundest concerns of society. 

 Yet in comparison with all that is waiting to be done, 

 how little has been accomplished ! Throughout all Chris- 

 tendom, from thousands of mines and factories, is heard 

 " the cry of the children " for the human birthright of 

 which they are defrauded; the vagabond and criminal 

 classes, increasing at an appalling rate, are the despair 

 of the legislative wisdom required to deal with them, yet 

 compulsory education is hardly more than a name, and the 

 best education yet devised makes only negative provision 

 for moral development ; great teachers, much as they are 

 needed, are, as Lowell says, "rarer than great poets," and 

 the world is blind to the fact that it can better dispense 

 with the poet than with the pedagogue ; the subjects of 

 physical and manual as well as moral training are at 

 present mere educational nebulae ; the supreme value of 

 primary education is still only grudgingly conceded ; higher 

 education can hardly hold its own, to say nothing of 

 making headway, against spirited opposition ; agreement 

 has yet to be reached as to what constitutes a liberal edu- 

 cation and to what extent the State may be called upon 

 to furnish it ; the great mystery of heredity, whose powers 

 and possibilities form so mighty an element in all educa- 

 tion, is not yet penetrated ; there is no work in the world 

 carried on with such wicked waste of time and material, 

 such enormous and needless friction, as that of educa- 

 tion, and it is no small matter for Americans to consider 

 that, notwithstanding our vast expenditures for schools 

 and our claim of superior culture, the boys and girls of 

 this country are two years behind the youth of Europe in 

 all important respects. In the meantime great social 

 jn-obleuis, tragic in their extent and significance, are 

 clutching civilization by the throat and will not relax 

 their threatening hold until some satisfactory answer is 

 wrung from the lips of scholars and statesmen. Tlie aid 

 which education can give in this emergency lies largely 

 in the direction of industrial and scientific training. 

 Through the ages, service has been considered synonymous 

 with slavery, though the world's workers are soon to see 

 the dawning of a better day. The mechanic's cap and 

 blouse will not much longer be looked upon as the outward 

 and visible tokens of mental and social inferiority, for 

 evolution is teaching respect for honest, Avholesome human. 



