106 On the Campus 



achievement of industry, setting men free, from the old 

 shackles of time and space, all this invention, this ma- 

 chinery to exploit the world and make us rich all this 

 carries with it, as it seems to me, elements of peril, peril 

 even by the very fascination of its novelty and excite- 

 ment, making us forgetful of all that humanity has 

 learned to prize. 



It may seem reactionary to call our industrial tri- 

 umphs hazardous. But are they not so, even in literal 

 sense? Aeroplanes and zeppelins in struggle for the 

 mastery may yet destroy the Louvre and the Vatican. 



Our real and immediate danger, as it seems to me, 

 takes two phases : the first affects our young people, and 

 so the immediate future; the second affects our whole 

 population, both present and future, because it shows 

 the oppression and discontent of the sons of toil. 



Our triumphs have made us rich; our young people, 

 great numbers of them, are set free from the necessity 

 of initiative and labor, and instead are constantly met 

 by every sort of nervous excitation. The dance seems 

 absolutely irresistible. Many young folk, all unem- 

 ployed in serious tasks, tango the night away and spend 

 insipid hours at cards, as if to " bridge " over the sad 

 vacuity from one idle amusement to the next ; sacrifice of 

 human life, wasteful as war. Who can contemplate the 

 fact and not fear for the Republic, in peril to-day even 

 as in 1861. We have for our children glorified the so- 

 called practical, until they begin to measure all human 

 success in terms of luxury, of physical comfort of 

 wealth, after all impossible to thousands, and have 

 forgotten that life itself should be reckoned practical, 



