SCHOOL AND STATE. 267 



ty may walk— many low roofs would point more truly to the sky, than the loftiest 

 steeple that now rears proudly up from the midst of guilt, and crime and horrible 

 diseases, to mock them by its contrast. In hollow voices from workshop, hospi- 

 tal, and jail, this truth is preached from day to day, and has been proclaimed for 

 years. It is no light matter — no outcry from the working vulgar — no mere ques- 

 tion of the people's health and comforts that may be whistled down on Wednesday 

 nights. In love of home, the love of country has its rise ; and who are the truer 

 patriots or the better in time of need — those who venerate the land, owning its 

 wood, and stream, and earth, and all that they produce? or those who love their 

 country, boasting not a foot of ground in all its wide domain ? " 



The fault with our public school system is that we educate too much the 

 mind and too little the heart. Freedom of religious worship does not forbid the 

 State from becoming a great moral educator. It is because of this same want 

 that the Nihilism of Russia is propagated by the students of the universities. 

 And there can be no wonder at the mad resolve to exterminate the aristocracy 

 and organize society anew, for there the serf has no voice in the national council?, 

 no star of hope upon which to fasten his faith, nothing in the future but slavery 

 or if he disobey the behests of the Czar, the mental and moral leprosy of a Sibe- 

 rian exile. But here the serf is a sovereign if the State can but point out the way. 

 Teach them not only the duties of the citizen to the State but of the man to 

 society. 



This is pre eminently an age of doubt. And when the State essays to edu- 

 cate, let it not be forgotten, that, " all private virtue is but public good." Shake- 

 speare said: 



" There is a mystery in the soul of State 

 Which hath an operation more divine 

 Than breath or pen can give expressure to." 



That mystery is the soul of man. Oh, who can tell what life is ? Here — 

 some "Little Nell" laughs sweetly in the sunshine, and whispers of love — there, 

 the winds of winter are whistling keenly through the gray locks of some maddened 

 Lear; here is a station of honor; there is a past of shame ; here is a poet's statue 

 in Westminster Abbey; there, somebody's darling is buried in a potter's field; 

 here is the heroic patience of a broken heart ; there, a plunge into the dark river; 

 here, the lowly follower of the holy Nazarene ; there, he who taking his burden 

 for a pillow " lies down to dreamless sleep." Ah, 



" Happy the many to whom life displays 

 Only the flaunting of its tulip flower; 

 Whose minds have never bent to scrutinize 

 Into the maddening Riddle of the Root, — 

 Shell within shell, dream folded over dream." 



The ocean of human life is never at rest. Between " two eternities," strug- 

 gling against the bars of circumstance, striving to pierce the wavering gloom of 

 the unknown, human life, faint with the oppressive environment, from the great 



