EDITOR'S TABLE. 



55 



and perpetuate its own superstitions. 

 To ask such a question is to answer it. 

 Fetichism is a phenomenon which 

 has made its appearance in every 

 quarter of the world, and which be- 

 longs specifically to a certain stage of 

 the human mind. It has its roots very 

 deep in human nature, and we may 

 be allowed to doubt whether those 

 roots are entirely dead in any human 

 being to-day. Certainly we see stray 

 shoots springing up from them in the 

 very heart of civilization. The most 

 prosaic of us will conceive singular 

 attachments for various inanimate 

 things of no special intrinsic value. 

 We say we prize them for their asso- 

 ciations ; but that is only another 

 way of saying that something has at- 

 tached itself to those objects which, 

 for us, changes their character and 

 gives them a certain human or, as 

 we might say, spiritual interest. One 

 of the sanest of English poets, Words- 

 worth, has given expression in more 

 than one passage of his works to this 

 sentiment. As to any intellectual 

 difficulty involved in attaching sanc- 

 tity to a stock or a stone, it would be 

 little felt by a savage; but, so far as 

 felt, would probably be an aid to the 

 maintenance of the cult. Over a 

 century and a half ago it was re- 

 marked by the philosophical Mon- 

 tesquieu that, " by the nature of the 

 human understanding, men like, in 

 the matter of religion, whatever sup- 

 poses an effort, just as, in the matter 

 of morals, they like, speculatively, 

 whatever bears a character of se- 

 verity." 



It is clear, therefore, that to hand 

 on a fetich istic worship nothing is 

 necessary beyond the ordinary, spon- 

 taneous action of the tribe ; and it is 

 equally clear, we imagine, that to 

 bring on what is popularly spoken 

 of as the millennium in the genera- 

 tion in which our children will be 

 the chief actors would require noth- 

 ing short of a miracle. We are not 



millennial people ourselves, and no 

 determination to which we could 

 possibly come in regard to the edu- 

 cation of our children could have the 

 effect of throwing them forward in 

 moral development more than one 

 generation. A tree may in a favor- 

 able year make a little more growth 

 than in an unfavorable one; and a 

 river may, in a year of unusually 

 heavy rains, carry down more allu- 

 vium to an estuary than is carried 

 down in an ordinary year. Thus we 

 may conceive that a little more work 

 for civilization may be done in one 

 generation than in another ; but any 

 such variation will be confined with- 

 in limits somewhat analogous to those 

 which obtain in the purely physical 

 region. 



At the same time the problem of 

 education is one deserving of the 

 most earnest attention of all who are 

 interested in social progress. Edu- 

 cation is the debt of each generation 

 to its successor, and, if we can not 

 place those who come after us on 

 a better footing than ourselves, we 

 should at least see that we transmit 

 an undiminished heritage. The aim 

 should, of course, be and among all 

 but the most thoughtless, no doubt, 

 is to give those who come after us 

 a better start than we had. The 

 progress of science is doing wonders 

 in the way of improving the surface 

 of the earth; but the only progress 

 which really makes for happiness is 

 that connected with advancing ideals 

 and better principles of action. Will 

 the next generation enter upon ac- 

 tive life with a higher conception, 

 on the whole, of that in which the 

 true value of life consists than we 

 had at the outset of our career ? It 

 will be well if it is so ; but it some- 

 times seems as if the most strongly 

 marked characteristic of the next 

 age would be a keener appetite for 

 pleasure. If so, that is not progress. 

 The late poet laureate of England 



