JANUAEY 30, ]914] 



SCIENCE 



155 



culture, nor engineering, nor medicine — of 

 equal importance. It is also true that none 

 is more backward and empiric, none in 

 greater need of scientific principles and 

 scientific methods. 



The adequacy of much of our mathe- 

 matical teaching is illustrated by the high- 

 school boy's answer to the question "What 

 follows when the three sides of a triangle 

 are equal?", this being "The other side 

 will be equal too." However that may be, 

 science, education and democracy are the 

 essential sides of the triangular base on 

 which rests the pyramid of the civilization 

 that we have, on which will stand even more 

 solidly the better civilization that is to be. 

 The foundations we can follow downward 

 as far as we may fancy — to prehistoric and 

 prehuman times, to metazoa and protozoa 

 which learn by experience and have a cer- 

 tain equality of opportunity. In the long 

 course of evolution, science and education 

 always have been interrelated. Accumu- 

 lated and transmitted knowledge has been 

 the basis of education, and in turn educa- 

 tion has made possible the accumulation 

 and transmission of knowledge. Thus have 

 come language and writing, the alphabet 

 and printing, tools and machines, fire and 

 shelter and clothing, the cultivation of 

 plants and animals, fine arts and religions, 

 sciences and their applications, codes of 

 conduct and methods to enforce them. 



During the historic period there has been 

 a conflict between science and education, 

 on the one side, and democracy, on the 

 other. Among the lower animals and to a 

 certain extent in savage tribes, there exists 

 a kind of democracy and equality of op- 

 portunity. Each individual faces the world 

 with the endowment received at birth, not 

 greatly helped by the position of his family 

 or his group. But when knowledge and 

 education became so complicated that they 

 could not be shared equally by all, when 



wants increased to the extent that some Iwd 

 to be deprived in order that others might 

 be gratified, when there was competition 

 for property and wealth, then society was 

 thrown into a patriarchal or feudal or des- 

 potic or oligarchic system. The material 

 resources did not suffice to provide ade- 

 quately for all ; the stronger seized on them, 

 and the many were compelled to toil in 

 ignorance and poverty in order that the 

 few might enjoy knowledge, leisure and 

 luxury. Unto those who had was given and 

 from those who had not was taken even 

 that which they had. The system of indi- 

 vidual, family, class, race and sex privilege 

 gained the saddle and still rides us all. 



The dominance of privilege was perhaps 

 a necessary stage in social development. It 

 may be that power and wealth concentrated 

 in individuals, citizens and slaves, an aris- 

 tocracy exploiting serfs, dependent women, 

 subject races, were required to save the 

 primitive state from submergence under 

 savagery and barbarism, to develop its in- 

 stitutions, to promote science and the arts, 

 to set standards of conduct. Plato provided 

 slaves for his republic ; the New Testament 

 accepted Casar, slavery and the subjuga- 

 tion of women. When the resources of so- 

 ciety were sufficient to provide adequately 

 for only a part of its members, universal 

 education and equality of opportunity 

 could not exist. The masses were com- 

 pelled to work incessantly for the bare 

 necessities of life, in order that there might 

 be classes in a position to advance science 

 and the arts. When the average age at death 

 was twenty years, the race could only be 

 continued if women spent their lives in 

 bearing, rearing and burying their children. 



But science with its applications has re- 

 created the world. Within a century, or at 

 most two centuries, it has quadrupled the 

 efficiency of labor and doubled the length 

 of life. Steam and electricity enable one 



