EDITOR'S TABLE. 



847 



160,000. The increase in population even 

 during the decade 1880-'90 was 13,000. 

 Whether there has been a decrease since 

 1890 nobody at present knows, and will 

 not know until the decennial census is 

 taken next year. 



In view of these facts, I feel justi- 

 fied in challenging the correctness of the 

 gentleman's statement, quoted above. 



There can be no room for doubt that 

 Maine has sustained considerable losses 

 in population from farm desertion, but 

 no statistics can be presented to show 

 that the State has, during the time 

 stated above, been dwindling in the 

 number of people living within her bor- 

 ders. J. EAKLE BROWN. 

 WOONSOCKET, R. I., August 17, 1899. 



EDUCATION AND CHARACTER- 

 BUILDING. 



IT is many years ago now since 

 Mr. Spencer, in his Study of So- 

 ciology, remarked upon the exag- 

 gerated hopes commonly built upon 

 education. With the courage that is 

 characteristic of him, he went coun- 

 ter to a current of opinion which 

 was then running with perhaps its 

 maximum force. He said that the 

 belief in the efficacy of education to 

 remold society had taken so strong 

 a hold of the modern world that 

 nothing but disappointment would 

 avail to modify it. This was in the 

 year 1872 ; since then the disappoint- 

 ment has in a measure come, and 

 many are prepared to accept his 

 views to-day, who, twenty-seven 

 years ago, thought they proceeded 

 from a mind fundamentally out of 

 sympathy with modern progress. 

 Facts indeed are accumulating from 

 year to year to prove the soundness 

 of the philosopher's contention that 

 " cognition does not produce ac- 

 tion," and that a great variety of 

 knowledge may be introduced into 

 the mind without in the least in- 

 clining the individual to higher 

 modes of conduct. 



We are reminded of Mr. Spen- 

 cer's line of argument by an arti- 

 cle lately published in the London 

 Spectator, entitled Influence on the 

 Young. The writer sees clearly that 

 enthusiastic educationists undertake 

 far more than they can perform. 



" The character forms itself," he 

 says, " assimilating nutriment or 

 detriment, as it were, from the 

 air, which the parents or teachers, 

 for all their pains, can in no way 

 change." There seems indeed to be 

 in the young, he remarks, a distinct 

 tendency to resist influence. Father 

 and son will be opposed in politics; 

 very pious people too often find, to 

 their sorrow, their children growing 

 up far otherwise than they could 

 wish. The man who is very settled 

 in his habits is as like as not to have 

 a boy who can not be persuaded to 

 take a serious view of life. The 

 most unexceptionable home lessons 

 seem to be of no avail against the 

 attractive power of light compan- 

 ions. Evidently, Nature is at work 

 in ways that men can not control. 

 If there is a law of " recoil," as the 

 writer in the Spectator hints, we 

 may be pretty sure it serves some 

 good purpose. It introduces, we can 

 see at once, a diversity which makes 

 for the progress, and perhaps also 

 for the stability, of society. Two 

 practical questions, however, sug- 

 gest themselves: (1) What can we 

 reasonably hope from education? 

 and (2) What can we do to make a 

 wholesome milieu for the rising gen- 

 eration ? 



With regard to education, it is 

 evident that we can not know the 

 best it can do until it has been re- 

 duced to a science until, that is to 

 say, as a result of the joint labors 



