82 On the Campus 



men really interested in public education; sincere men, 

 but, as it seems to me, men of more narrow vision; men 

 who, though themselves not plumbers, yet deem the schools 

 a failure, because every boy who leaves them is not trained 

 with ready hand to wipe a joint; men who are not 

 farmers, but think that young people should all study 

 agriculture, etc. Or the critic is a philosopher, a man 

 of letters, and deplores the lack of complete literary 

 training for every human soul; he is a moralist or re- 

 ligionist or churchman, and says the schools are lacking 

 in religious training; they are Godless. In short, these 

 are generally real critics. Sometimes such a critic plain- 

 ly has an ax to grind, but generally speaking he is sin- 

 cere; he deems public education a failure because, as 

 he thinks, some one thing is not realized as the case de- 

 mands. He calls for changed regime, assuming that suc- 

 cess or failure lies chiefly in the program, and if the re- 

 sults are in any way less fortunate we should blame the 

 bill of fare. Such criticism may receive brief attention 

 as we go on. 



It will contribute to clearness if at the outset we con- 

 sider just what is really proposed. Before we can dis- 

 cuss a particular machine as to its success or failure, we 

 must know its purpose, what it is for ; and in exactly the 

 same way we attribute success or failure to any institu- 

 tion. The test of an invention is the accomplishment 

 of an inventor's dream; the test of a patriot's vision, his 

 prevision, is history ! 



What then do our common schools propose ? 



The common schools, as I conceive, propose primarily 

 just one thing, viz., civic training. But this training 

 shall be: 



