102 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



him with social qualities which may be trained to grand and noble purposes. 

 Reason and revelation enjoin upon man the obligation to cultivate for noble uses 

 these God-given powers. The capacity developed and the direction given to 

 these is what is implied by the term education. But it is true that much the 

 largest proportion of mental and moral training received by each member of soci- 

 ety comes through exterior channels. Man is unconsciously educated by that 

 which is daily transpiring around him. As the rocks and pebbles polish each 

 other by contact in the flood, so men affect each other, and character is mould- 

 ed by personal influence in the rushing tide of hfe. Coming within the circle of 

 these ever operative forces, we see that the process of training that we call edu- 

 cation goes forward much more rapidly out of school than under the care of the 

 professor. Prominent among the agencies that make up the sum total of the 

 educating forces is the social influence of the home. As a rule the life receives 

 its outline and general direction before the pupil enters the public school. Ed- 

 ucation begins with life. The sense of touch first ministers to the infantile train- 

 ing; afterward the sight, then the hearing. The senses are the guides leading 

 the van in the progress of nature. We necessarily begin with present and tangi- 

 ble things. Afterward we give absent things a visible form^ by picture, and this 

 meeting the eye, is described and impresses the mind through the sense of hear- 

 ing. Thus, before we are conscious that the child is affected by surroundings, 

 the foundations of character are laid. 



"The real seed corn whence our republic sprung was the Christian house- 

 holds which stepped forth from the cabin of the Mayflower, or which set up the 

 family altar of the Hollander and the Huguenot on Manhattan Island or in the 

 sunny south." The best characters, the best legislation, the best institutions 

 were cradled in such homes. Immediately in connection with the home are oth- 

 er social influences that operate continuously as teachers. There are groups of 

 children in the alleys and on the commons, the natural product of the saloons, a 

 vicious and neglected element, being educated rapidly for evil. In a few years they 

 will control the elections and re-enact the shameful scenes so recently perpetrated 

 in Cincinnati. 



The religious and secular press are agencies of great power, wielding a 

 mightier influence on the public conscience and the character than the schools. 

 The poet Browning says: 



" But mightiest of the mighty means 



On which the arm of progress leans, 



Man's noblest mission to advance. 



His woes assuage, his weal enhance, 



His rights enforce, his wrongs redresss, 



Mightiest of mighty is the press." 

 How shall we speak of this enginery for good or evil, this resistless force that 

 day and night moves on with ever increasing power, enlarging its sphere and in- 

 tensifying its importance as an educator ? Through the press religion, liberty 

 and law are made effective in fitting men for noble deeds. But by the same 



