STATE EDUCATION. 45 



able, so long as the real cause of that depression continues to exist ; 

 and that cause is to be found in the unhealthy character of these 

 occupations. Will you, with me, take a momentary survey of 

 what the surroundings are 1 



The strongest and hardiest among the workers are soon sensible 

 that there is a loss of energy. Then, as the seeds of their insidious 

 malady are being daily sown, there steals over them a lethargy 

 and apathy which no effort of will can bid away. 



Then comes loss of appetite and the increasing burden of their 

 daily toil to which they feel unequal. This is the moment of 

 supreme trial to most of them, for it is then that they seek to rally 

 their sinking spirits and failing strength by recourse to stimulants. 

 There is not, I maintain, any a priori cause why our countrymen, 

 more than others, should be addicted to intemperance, except it be 

 through their unhealthy occupations superinducing a condition 

 a disease I call^t which craves for it. It might be well if 

 our social reformers would regard our prevailing intemperance 

 from this point of view, for I am satisfied that it is an incredibly 

 fruitful, if not the chief, source of it. 



I find that I have inadvertently used an expression to which 

 attaches a kind of political significance. Let me at once disavow 

 any such intention in speaking of "educating" the State, and, at 

 the same time, explain to you what I mean by that expression. 



It is almost trite to remark that every nation has its own indi- 

 vidual life history. Its childhood, youth, and maturity are each 

 a period fraught with its own peculiar and fitting education. 

 That part of history, which shows us how those lessons have been 

 learnt upon which a nation's ultimate stability depends, is not the 

 least instructive. Let us, for example, take the matter of national 

 health. We have it on the authority of Niebuhr that the preval- 

 ence of plagues, more than ethical or political causes, influenced the 

 destinies of such cities as Florence and Athens; and, that the de- 

 cline and fall of such an empire, as the Eoman, were brought about, 

 not, as we are accustomed to believe, by a species of moral dry-rot, 

 but by the pestilences which carried off the adult male population, 

 and left the then proud mistress of the world an easy prey to the 

 barbarian. Who can read the long continuing death-tax of our 



