GIFT OF 
 
 oo 
 
IDEALS 
 
 AND 
 
 DEMOCRACY 
 
 An Essay in Modernism 
 
 By 
 ARTHUR HENRY CHAMBERLAIN 
 
 Formerly Dean of Throop Polytechnic Institute 
 Editor Sierra Educational News 
 
 RAND McNALLY & COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO NEW YORK 
 
By the Same Author 
 
 STANDARDS IN EDUCATION 
 
 THE CONTINENTS 
 
 AND THEIR PEOPLE 
 (Joint authorship) 
 
 THE GROWTH OP RESPONSI- 
 BILITY AND ENLARGEMENT 
 OP POWER OP THE CITY 
 SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 OF THE MANUAL ARTS 
 
 DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION 
 (Joint authorship) 
 
 TECHNICAL 
 
 EDUCATION IN GERMANY 
 
 
 ; H. CHAMBERLAIN 
 
ZDebicatcb 
 
 to my 
 Jfatfier anb 
 
THE INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE title of this book is its own best introduction. 
 The theme should be of interest to all classes and 
 conditions of people. The treatment is unpretentious, 
 brief, informal. The reader who anticipates new and 
 startling revelation in these pages is doomed to disap- 
 pointment, but the hope is expressed that old material 
 may appear in new relations. It is the author's purpose 
 to recall to our minds some very common truths plain, 
 important, neglected and in a somewhat uncommon 
 manner lead us more fully to appreciate and apply cer- 
 tain of the great fundamental principles that lie at the 
 base of our social structure. That the desired point of 
 view may be brought out, and in order to present the 
 subject in a distinctly human rather than in a purely 
 professional manner, it has been found convenient to be 
 simple in form of statement and to use many illustrations 
 drawn from personal observation or experience. 
 
 Any far-reaching study of the purpose and application 
 of ideals as the basis of democracy would seem to begin 
 in the school. Such study and appreciation must have 
 their foundation in education. Thorough recognition has 
 been accorded this fact. The results of a modest attempt 
 to interpret the biological and social forces underlying 
 education, to evaluate their contentions, and to enlarge 
 and make them practical for the use of the teacher will 
 receive treatment in a subsequent volume. 
 
 Of excellent books for teachers there is no lack. The 
 present volume is intended primarily for Reading Circles, 
 for the general reader, and for those who find the average 
 
m The Introduction 
 
 book too technical in terminology, too extended in treat- 
 ment, or too diffuse. 
 
 This essay in one or another of its parts has been given 
 before the National Education Association, National 
 Department of Superintendence, the American Religious 
 Education Association, the American Library Association, 
 the California Teachers Associations, University of Colo- 
 rado Summer Session, a literary organization, and a 
 civic body, and the first section has appeared as a 
 magazine article. The entire essay forms a portion of 
 a series of lectures given at the University of California 
 during July and August, 1911. 
 
 A. H. C. 
 
THE CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. IMPRESSION AND PERSONALITY ... . . . i 
 
 First impressions disappointing. Familiarity tends to 
 increase interest. Impressions deepen as knowledge 
 grows. Mental pictures gained in childhood exceed 
 reality. The function of apperception in the forma- 
 tion of impressions. Completed impressions vs. added 
 concepts. The real vs. the symbol. The mental image 
 gradually develops. ^ Mental pictures of the unseen 
 are formed. Experience, study, and travel produce 
 clear concepts. Environment a determining factor in 
 impression. First impressions most lasting. The 
 meaning of personality. The importance of forming 
 right habits. Conclusions. 
 
 II. MEN IN THE MAKING 18 
 
 The need for higher ethical standards. The church of 
 the past an inclusive institution. Many-sided char- 
 acter of the sdiool. Congested city life weakens home 
 influences; the tenement evil. Some evils confront- 
 ing the rising generation. Moral and religious 
 training vs. sectarianism. Chief business of the school 
 to form character. Duties of the home not made less 
 through increasing the responsibilities of the school. 
 The curse of corruption. The newspaper as a menace 
 to virtue. Commercial cleanliness necessary to last- 
 ing success. Individual responsibility, word and act, 
 mean more than lessons learned from a book. The 
 need of backbone to resist temptation, corruption, 
 and ridicule. Increasing demand for the man of 
 character. Favorable signs of the times. 
 
 III. THE NEW CENTURY'S AWAKENING 32 
 
 Hudson's lesson to humanity. The mission of modern 
 battleships. Change and development in three cen- 
 turies. The cost of progress. Universal peace a 
 fundamental issue. The integrity of society demands 
 honest men and honest nations. Provincialism in 
 friendships means selfishness. Necessity for inter- 
 national friendships. War the enemy of morals. The 
 curse of the Commune and the French Revolution. 
 The military splendor fetish. Proper moral instruction 
 would stamp out war. Arguments favoring military 
 drill in schools. The fallacy of things military in 
 education. The tendency of history to glorify war. 
 The real province of history study. Preparedness for 
 
 vii 
 
mii The Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 war will not insure peace. Primitive man a natural 
 warrior. Present social and civic life built upon 
 spirit of trust and arbitration. Universal peace will 
 result in increased morality. 
 
 IV. THE CLASSICS OF INDUSTRIALISM ....... 49 
 
 The welding of industry and art. The utilitarian and 
 the artistic. Art appreciation and progress. The 
 truly useful is the essentially artistic. The builders 
 and craftsmen of early days were artistic. The art- 
 artisan vs. the machine-artisan. Art for art's sake 
 vs. union of art and industry. Utilitarian value of the 
 artistic. The work of Ruskin and Morris. The moral 
 effect of use and beauty combined. Danger result- 
 ing from machine methods; the American way. The 
 equality of master and man. 
 V. THE LIBRARY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR . . . .61 
 
 The value of books. The library classed with the 
 church and the school. Elements that constitute a real 
 library. Some interesting statistics as to library 
 instruction. The art of book using. Students should 
 be familiar with the library. Supplementary books 
 and reference works. The librarian as demonstrator. 
 Teachers and librarian cooperate. A love for good 
 literature may be developed. The library should be 
 drawn upon by all school departments. The location 
 of the school library and its use as a study hall. 
 Library bulletins, published outlines, and study topics. 
 The selective process applied to books. The children's 
 room. Individual interests must be considered. A 
 wide field of reading desirable, but a few good books 
 should be thoroughly digested. 
 
 VI. OUR EDUCATIONAL INVESTMENT 81 
 
 Growing interest of laymen in schools. Parents 
 interested in an external rather than in an internal 
 sense. The complexity of the educational machine. 
 In the business world investments must bring returns. 
 The merchant and his problem. The farmer and his 
 problem. The stock raiser's point of view. The 
 florist and horticulturist and their contributions; 
 Luther Burbank. The mechanical world and returns 
 upon investment. Business men give little attention 
 to their educational investment. The attitude of the 
 layman one cause for the unsettled condition of the 
 schools. Relation between education and the business 
 world not appreciated by the layman. Duty of the 
 parent to correct as well as to criticise. The teacher 
 not altogether a theorist. Taxpayer not informed on 
 educational problems. Negligence of the public re- 
 sults in establishing factory schools. The corporation: 
 
The Contents i% 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Its lesson to teacher and layman. Interest of patron 
 gives courage to teacher and taught. Responsibility 
 of the teacher; cooperation must be secured. Rights 
 of parents must be recognized. Cooperation and sal- 
 ary increase. Duties of the teacher reviewed. Pay 
 for the day's work. 
 
 VII. A MORE EFFICIENT SCHOOL 95 
 
 Memory processes still emphasized in school. Three 
 types of individuals the conservative, the radical, 
 and the well balanced. Real education vs. school 
 education. The development of modern schools. 
 The test of an efficient school. Schools for defec- 
 tives warrant careful study. ^ No educational standard 
 exists. Thoroughness lacking in higher education. 
 The beaten path still followed. Causes leading to 
 changed conditions in society. The lesson of adapt- 
 ability. Mis-application of modern ideas. Speciali- 
 zation and election in school. Portions of subjects 
 rather than entire subjects to be eliminated. Con- 
 structive criticism more helpful than destructive 
 criticism. A deliberate but marked educational 
 progress. The needs of to-day. The present-day 
 school never equaled. 
 
 VIII. VOCATIONAL ADJUSTMENT 119 
 
 The apprenticeship system and non-adjustment. The 
 manual-training high school and the trade school. 
 Vocational training implies a guiding motive. Reasons 
 for boys and girls leaving school. The problem of the 
 "misfit." Necessity for adjustment to life condi- 
 tions. Returns must come in terms of satisfaction 
 as well as in dollars. Undue emphasis must not be 
 given the industrial phases. Head workers as well 
 as hand workers are misplaced. Four fundamental 
 factors governing vocational interpretation and 
 adjustment. The dominant interests of the child. 
 Adjustment must begin early. The value of excur- 
 sions. The boy studied in his play period. Economic 
 conditions of the family. Occupational opportunities 
 in given regions. Collecting and tabulating data. 
 The work of advisers. The demands of the future. 
 The course of study as consequence and result in the 
 adjustment. The regular teacher must carry on the 
 work. Normal and training schools and universities 
 must offer courses. Conclusions 
 
 IX. ATTAINABLE IDEALS 135 
 
 Primitive man and the simple life. Necessities of envi- 
 ronment produce growth. Community life and evolu- 
 tion. Past ages not prepared for democracy. Ideals: 
 a definition, (a) Appreciation of others: Our debt 
 
The Contents 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 to the past. Tolerance toward others. The measure 
 of men. Advance in civilization increases interde- 
 pendence. Men not self-made. (6) Equality of 
 men: Men not rated by rank or position. A false 
 aristocracy of birth or money. Enduring qualities 
 furnish the yardstick of measure. The law of aver- 
 ages, (c) Richness of labor: The ideal of labor. 
 Idleness and crime. Roosevelt on self-dependence. 
 Money vs. muscle. Labor as a moral influence. No 
 true happiness without labor. Drudgery and over- 
 work vs. labor. The nobility of work, (d) Paradise 
 of play: Play as essential as work. The professional 
 players are social parasites. The summer vacation 
 mania. Unequal division of work and play. We live 
 at an overhigh tension. Proper adjustment of play 
 and work essential to successful living, (e) The 
 saving sense of humor: Humor and the day's work. 
 Humor mirrors comradeship. Humor foundations 
 hope and cheer and the spiritual gifts. Optimism 
 a duty. (/) The value of vision: Imagination 
 and insight conditioned upon vision. Personalities 
 inspired through vision. Vision necessary in the 
 material world. The vision an idealized real, (g) 
 Integrity and character: The ideal of honor. Selfish- 
 ness in relation to dishonesty. Desire for wealth 
 vs. wrongdoing. The call of the dollar difficult to 
 overcome. A healthy nation means honest men. 
 Business success calls for upright dealing. The effect 
 of one man as a leavening power. Be natural. Party 
 affiliation vs. independent thought and action. A 
 growing public sentiment mirrors a wholesome condi- 
 tion, (h) Service and responsibility: Good citi- 
 zenship means service. The life of Lincoln one of 
 service. To learn to serve is an important lesson. 
 Mr. Stetson's Christmas Greeting Responsibility 
 leads to service; responsibility means growth. The 
 lesson in unity. 
 
IDEALS AND DEMOCRACY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IMPRESSION AND PERSONALITY 
 
 MY first glimpse of the Grand Canon of the Colorado 
 River was immediately before sunrise on a June 
 morning. Long ago I read of the wonderful voyage of 
 Major Powell and his Indian guides down the Colorado 
 River, and of his many marvelous escapes: ^ature's 
 how he plowed his way through a cut in the master- 
 earth a mile and a quarter deep, the sides at ' ^ eces 
 times stretching so far apart that two townships, side 
 by side, could be dropped in, and again drawing so close 
 together at the top that one could throw an apple across; 
 how the canon was at the bottom in places as dark as 
 a path cut through a dense forest; how the rocks here 
 and there poked their heads through the river surface, 
 inviting disaster to the boat, which many times was spun 
 about as a chip in the turbulent eddies these facts are 
 familiar to all who have read the narratives. I had 
 followed the results of scientific explorations in this region, 
 and had seen thrown upon the canvas such pictures of 
 this natural wonder as to cause me to doubt the truth 
 of my own eyes. The brush of the artist had shown 
 for me such brilliancy of color, such play of light and 
 shadow, such blending of tone and tint, as would seem 
 possible only to the imagination. Surely Nature was 
 overdrawn, these pictures living merely upon the canvas 
 of a dreamer. 
 
Jj.' and Democracy 
 
 But to return to my first glimpse on that June morning. 
 I had walked to the rim of the great gash and stood look- 
 ing across twelve miles of vacancy that found a bottom 
 six thousand feet below, where the turbulent Colorado 
 could but indistinctly be seen a thread of silver in a 
 setting of bronze, the sides of the canon standing out as 
 slices of pure color. Awed and overpowered, I stood 
 trying to grasp the meaning of it all, and was unaware 
 of the presence of other human beings until the silence 
 was broken by a woman's voice. The individual in ques- 
 tion addressed herself to no one in particular as she 
 gazed vacantly down into the canon, and there was a 
 distinct shade of disgust in her tone as she said: "Well, 
 did I come away out here to see this dinky thing?" 
 
 Wonder and surprise at this remark found small place 
 in my thought at that moment. In the following days, 
 however, as I journeyed my mind found difficulty in 
 comprehending the attitude prompting it, second only 
 to that of realizing the significance of those matchless 
 sights we had been viewing. 
 
 In going from Mobile to Atlanta at one time, a fellow 
 traveler informed me that he was bored with the sights 
 he saw and by the experiences he encountered. He 
 explained that he had seen "everything" in Europe 
 and the Old World, had visited every locality in the 
 United States noted for grandeur and beauty, being 
 only then returning from the Yellowstone Park, and 
 assured me that nothing fully met his expectations. 
 The descriptions he had read and the word pictures that 
 had been painted for him were exaggerated and done in 
 brighter colors than were to be found in the originals. 
 In fact, he was being disappointed continually, and stood 
 ready to admit the littleness and insignificance of every- 
 thing that men call overpowering, and grand, and sublime. 
 
Impression and Personality 3 
 
 And now the other side. While upon one occasion in 
 that out-of-doors paradise, the Yosemite Valley, I was 
 privileged to converse with Galen Clark, the first white 
 man to see the big trees of that section. Mr. Clark, a 
 man at that time ninety-three years of age, was as enthu- 
 siastic as a boy. He dwelt upon the marvelous works 
 of nature; he grew eloquent over the glory of spire, and 
 dome, and crag, and snow-capped crest. To him there 
 was each day a new poetry in the music and beauty of 
 the waterfall, a touch of the "Divine fire" in each suc- 
 ceeding sunrise, and a benediction in each sunset. The 
 trees that had stood for centuries and that were old in 
 years when nations now in decay were pressing onward 
 in their strength and vigor, taught him constantly new 
 lessons of self-reliance, of firmness, of honor, of truth. 
 They renewed his faith in his fellows and increased his 
 reverence for the Infinite. These were the expressions 
 of one whose life had been spent among these scenes and 
 in such surroundings. 
 
 And only twenty-four hours later there sat opposite me 
 in a dining car a man who "knew Yosemite as he |knew 
 Broadway." He was weary of the sights of the won- 
 derful valley. For him its interest was gone. He had 
 visited it often and he hoped never to see it again. Such 
 were the verdicts of the two men. The impressions 
 made in either case were markedly different. 
 
 In an analysis of impression this problem at once 
 presents itself. At the first sight of one of Nature's 
 masterpieces a cataract or a mountain peak 
 -the first hearing of a renowned opera, the 
 first reading of an inspiring poem, the first 
 sense of beauty or sublimity one experiences upon 
 entering the Pantheon or in standing before the Sistine 
 Madonna, or the first thrill that comes when from an 
 
4 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 historic battle field one pictures a nation going down 
 to defeat or a happy people crowned with victory, is the 
 impression gained the clearest, most vivid, let us say the 
 fullest impression it is possible for such object, or com- 
 position, or environment to convey? Or rather, does the 
 impression or picture grow from day to day; does it 
 develop or brighten, as does the negative in the pho- 
 tographer's hands, gaining in intensiveness and exten- 
 siveness as one's conceptions broaden and expand? 
 
 The first view that first impressions are most striking 
 would to the casual observer seem to be the logical 
 one. It would be the common or empirical view. Con- 
 sideration, however, will tend to the conclusion that the 
 gradual-development view is psychologic or scientific in 
 character. 
 
 Many of you have had, if you will but recall, experiences 
 chat will give meaning and color to the thought sug- 
 gested. In childhood, what has been called 
 
 If childhood the em P irical vi ew does without doubt hold 
 sway. The stream that wound its way 
 through meadow and wood seemed to our untraveled 
 years as a veritable river in size. But returning after 
 a long period of absence to the home where the days of 
 our early childhood were passed, the same creek that we 
 had pictured as a clear, fair sized, running stream is 
 now found to be narrow and shrunken and muddy, its 
 picturesque banks vanished as a flight of the imagination, 
 and we can all but step across it. The bridge, too, over 
 which we daily passed to and fro, is now diminished from 
 a grand structure to a tiny walk. In the same way the 
 hills have dwindled, as to us in our youth they were 
 mountains. The first schoolhouse or the old home, once 
 large and commodious, now takes on a wonderfully 
 diminutive aspect. Within the house the ceilings are 
 
Impression and Personality 5 
 
 low, the staircases narrow, the rooms small. We mar- 
 vel that the old oak at the corner of the homestead 
 could ever have seemed to us a giant in size. The city 
 of our youth was in reality a village, and our forest 
 a mere grove. Altogether, our impressions of the old 
 home and its surroundings are entirely modified over 
 the ones previously held, and we can think ourselves 
 back to our former mind pictures only with feelings of 
 sadness and regret. 
 
 The child mind peoples the world with giants, and 
 everything beyond the sight is bright and wonderful, 
 while Santa Claus is real and Independence Day longed 
 for. These experiences are common to us all. The 
 impressions of childhood are disappointing, or rather 
 they appear dwarfed when maturity is reached and 
 after the acquisition of a wider range of knowledge, 
 when comes the ability to think one's self into the future 
 and to take the long look in perspective. 
 
 You may at once insist that the chief element in this 
 entire problem of the impression is what is known as the 
 doctrine of apperception. The glory and The doctrine 
 beauty of the Yosemite, you say, and the of apper- 
 majesty of the tree, still young in its towering ception 
 
 grandeur, are part and parcel of the life of Galen Clark. 
 They are the warp and woof of his mental machinery, are 
 bound up in his conceptions, and go to form the mind 
 fabric of the man. His close contact with this wonder- 
 land; his intimate knowledge of Nature and her moods 
 through a long series of years, have gained for him a 
 point of view that the new observer cannot possess. The 
 life of the Valley is his life, and because for him is the 
 bird's song, for him the wind and the rain; because for 
 him the river runs to the sea and the mountain peak 
 towers to the clouds, he knows these things. They are 
 
6 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 part of himself. This intensive knowledge possessed by 
 Galen Clark of every phase of natural phenomena as 
 met with in his environment makes of his mind a mag- 
 net, to which is attracted the new. He is thus able to 
 appreciate, absorb, work over, and appropriate the new 
 in the light of former experiences. In this manner, you 
 say, the impression grows directly with the acquisition 
 of knowledge and the gaining of new experiences. 
 
 The lines written by Charles Wesley Kyle entitled 
 Silence, and dedicated to the Yosemite, will illustrate: 
 
 "Emotions new and strange here rise 
 And sweep with cyclonic force the breast. 
 A new, strange world, all powerful and sublime, 
 Enchains, enslaves and fetters all. 
 The greatest most of all are fettered most, 
 Only the pigmies chatter, and fools alone 
 Find laughter here where nature speaks 
 In tones of grandeur and sublimity! 
 Strong lips are dumb and eyes unused to tears 
 Are forced to yield the highest tribute of the soul 
 To these grand thoughts of the Eternal Mind." 
 
 What meaning these lines take on for one who is famil- 
 iar with the Valley! What must they have conveyed 
 to Galen Clark! As a description or pen picture they 
 bring up a throng of memory transparencies. The 
 "grand thoughts of. the Eternal Mind" take shape in 
 physical outline. "Only the pigmies chatter" the 
 unobserving, the careless, the weak. But the strong, 
 pure soul, and most of all the one shot through and 
 through with the feeling, the poetry, the grandeur, the 
 divinity of it all, can carry an impression approaching 
 accuracy and completeness. To the one wholly unac- 
 quainted with such scenes, how far from complete is the 
 impression gained. To such, how little significance in 
 the emotions here described. Such a mental attitude 
 
Impression and Personality 7 
 
 must be discovered to him under a similar situation 
 before his mind can grasp their meaning. Let him but 
 once live in the atmosphere of these nature conceptions, 
 however, and he will read a fuller thought into these lines 
 and translate them into values of richness and power. 
 
 This same point of view is emphasized by the illus- 
 tration of the woman at the Grand Canon. With scant 
 experience at hand with which to compare this over- 
 powering sight, and with no category in which to place 
 it, its magnitude was lost upon her. Her apperceptive 
 qualities of mind, so far as the Grand Canon was con- 
 cerned, were nil. As an iron, heated to a high tempera- 
 ture, may seem to the touch to have lost its heat, or as 
 the mind crowded with fear may forget itself and turn to 
 things opposed, so here greatness was translated into terms 
 of the commonplace. The first view was disappointing. 
 
 In any field of human experience the best results come 
 when we present to the learner the real thing to be stud- 
 ied, the object itself. When this is not possible, vivid 
 descriptions, verbally or in the text, and models, photo- 
 graphs, drawings, parts, convey the most adequate and 
 complete ideas. According to our theory of apperception, 
 one having seen and studied symbols and reproductions 
 of an original should have a more adequate impression of 
 such original than would be possible to one entirely 
 unacquainted with its existence, and by the same token 
 the former would have a fuller appreciation than would 
 the latter. 
 
 In the art gallery at Dresden, Germany, are many 
 famous pictures, but there is one that appeals to all 
 who see it, and many there are who visit the gallery 
 with the one object in mind of looking upon Raphael's 
 masterpiece. Well I recall my intention on first entering 
 the gallery to view this picture, and as I walked from 
 
8 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 room to room there were preceding me a throng of 
 men and women, silent, expectant, purposeful, each 
 evidently intent upon a desired goal. As they passed on 
 they reached a small room guarded by attendants. Fol- 
 lowing, I found myself with twoscore others all the 
 room could contain each with eyes focused and atten- 
 tion bent upon the Sistine Madonna. 
 
 It was, in a measure, as we had expected to see it. The 
 reproductions had prepared us in part for this first sight. 
 The color, the attitude, the expression, all were famil- 
 iar to us, but somehow as we looked the picture took 
 on new meaning. In the beginning our mental pictures 
 seemed to be properly framed. We were delighted and 
 charmed, not overpowered or amazed. Reasoning from 
 the effect to the cause, we knew that everything was as 
 it should be. The original tallied with our secondhand 
 prints. When, however, the guards cleared the room 
 to make place for others, we found ourselves loath to 
 depart, and returned again and again to take our places 
 before the inspiring canvas. Gradually its greatness 
 began to grow upon us, and the negatives of our minds 
 became composites with the many exposures, while 
 again we grasped the whole picture less and less clearly. 
 Repeated visits, however, or given time to recall and 
 reflect, and the Sistine Madonna produces an impres- 
 sion so intensive, and deep, and significant as to bear 
 slight likeness to that which comes at first sight. It 
 builds itself into the mind as the stones are built into 
 the temple. The mind is, little by little, able to give 
 adequate expression to the object as the impression grows. 
 The mind absorbs as an animal of the lower order sur- 
 rounds and absorbs its food. 
 
 But whether you will or not, the mind reaches out and 
 builds up concepts of the things you have not seen and 
 
Impression and Personality Q 
 
 the experiences that have not been yours. If for the 
 first time you are to journey to the mountains or the 
 seashore, to the city or to the country; if The mind 
 for the first time you are to visit an historic pictures 
 spot or meet an individual of wide reputation, the unseen 
 or a family member not known to you personally; if you 
 are to leave the familiar school and enter an institution 
 of learning new to you; if before you lies your initial 
 experience in visiting a circus, or listening to grand opera, 
 or witnessing a balloon ascension, you will in any case 
 find if you analyze your consciousness that you have, 
 either at the moment or at another time, formed im- 
 pressions of these forces and faces, these scenes and 
 circumstances impressions that may not be adequate 
 or exact. The more knowledge you have at your com- 
 mand, and the more similar data you have with which 
 to compare in any particular instance, the more nearly 
 correct will be the impressions. Some you will find to 
 be wholly and entirely incorrect. Some appear to be 
 exact, but are finally modified and worked over as new 
 points rise into consciousness. Some are simply frame- 
 works, mere skeletons, and upon these the lasting or 
 complete impression is built up. 
 
 Are now those impressions formed in the absence of 
 the causal factors ever correct? Is it possible for one to 
 gain an adequate impression of an object, never having 
 seen it? It is said of Walter Scott that when he wrote 
 Kenilworth he had never seen the castle of that name, 
 although his descriptions of the historic structure are 
 exact and true to fact, even to the most minute detail. 
 But mark you, Scott must have been quite familiar 
 with the general style of architecture of which Kenil- 
 worth was a type. He had seen many castles. He 
 had listened to verbal and read written descriptions of 
 
io Ideals and Democracy 
 
 Kenilworth, and there was in his mind a mass of material 
 which, when grouped in certain relationships, would allow 
 the new conception or image to enter and locate so as to 
 be recognized in terms of the old knowledge. The new 
 picture was thus not only a recapitulation but a glance 
 into the future and a prophecy. No doubt Scott, after 
 visiting Kenilworth, found his impressions deepened and 
 amplified. 
 
 In the study of history, or literature, or biography, 
 or commerce, or politics, new life and meaning is given 
 Value of & the stu dent can reason from cause to 
 first-hand effect; if he has made himself familiar 
 through reading and illustrations, and more 
 particularly if he is acquainted at first hand with the 
 scenes, locations, or conditions described. If one is on 
 speaking terms with the literature of a given school 
 of writers, or has studied intensively the works of a 
 single individual, he sees in the first reading of a pro- 
 duction new to him much fuller meaning than would 
 be the case did he come with no understanding or appre- 
 ciation of the author's works, or with no knowledge of 
 the author's individuality. There is a certain human 
 element attaching to every piece of literature, and the 
 more one knows of the life and surroundings and habits 
 of the writer the more fully and keenly can one appre- 
 ciate the author's point of view. Familiarity with these 
 things would tend to enable one to gather from a page 
 a meaning somewhat adequate to that written into it by 
 its author. 
 
 The reader will find if he visit Acadia an increased 
 understanding of Longfellow's Evangeline, and a journey 
 to the poet's old home will intensify and enrich impres- 
 sions already clear. As one walks across the field at 
 Gettysburg one feels more keenly than before the meaning 
 
Impression and Personality n 
 
 of that great internal strife of a half century past, and 
 Lincoln's Gettysburg address takes on new significance. 
 To stand upon the wall at Old Chester and picture in 
 imagination King Charles the First again on the same 
 spot, helplessly watching his army going down to cer- 
 tain defeat on Rowton Heath, is to bring before the 
 mind a new understanding of the part played here by 
 Cromwell in the making of history. To visit the home 
 of the Master Poet at Stratford, to look upon the scenes 
 that to him were familiar, to walk his streets, to float 
 upon his river, to view his fields and woods, to dream 
 under his sky, and to live where he lived and worked, 
 all this ties one more clearly to the poet and to the 
 man than would be possible without this intimate asso- 
 ciation with Shakspere's England. To perform in one's 
 laboratory scientific experiments, to deal with elements 
 and compounds and to see the results grow under one's 
 own manipulation, mean a more perfect understand- 
 ing of physical forces, of chemical laws, of evolutionary 
 processes than could come to one in a lifetime of mere 
 reading or theorizing. The study of products, of raw 
 materials, of manufacturing processes, of transporta- 
 tion, of marketing, this leads to an understanding of 
 commercial relations. First-hand knowledge of social 
 conditions, of manners and customs, of governmental 
 policies and politics, of beliefs and traditions, indicate 
 to the careful observer how body and bent are given 
 our motives and ideals. Such knowledge shows how out 
 of chaos is born democracy. 
 
 Another element in the equation when considering 
 this matter of the impression is the condition under 
 which one finds himself, the environment surrounding 
 one. People react differently as environing conditions 
 change. Again, temperament and nationality have much 
 
12 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 to do in determining reactions. It is a common criti- 
 cism made upon Americans by foreigners that our 
 citizens are not patriotic. It is urged in 
 eonment Justification of this claim that we do not 
 dignify our national anthem, or show sufficient 
 reverence for the flag of our country, or give homage to 
 the President of our republic. True it is that many an 
 American will sit placidly in his seat while listening to 
 the strains of The Star-spangled Banner, or seem to be 
 unmoved at the sight of Old Glory, while in most Euro- 
 pean countries the national air will bring to his feet 
 every loyal subject, and the display of the national colors 
 will find every man with his hat off at "attention." 
 
 It must be recognized, however, that these are but 
 the outward signs of patriotism. They do not necessa- 
 rily indicate deep feeling or profound impression. They 
 may in fact mirror only habit born of centuries of tradi- 
 tion. The product of years and years of progress, our 
 people have worked and suffered, planned and built; 
 in war and in peace they have triumphed or have felt 
 the sting of defeat; they have broadened in their views, 
 grown more sympathetic in their feelings and more 
 tolerant in their criticisms, until they to-day have an 
 appreciation of the meaning and significance of real 
 patriotism, and national honesty, and civic righteousness 
 such as is possessed by few other peoples. "No Govern- 
 ment of modern times," said Elaine, 1 "has encountered 
 the dangers that beset the United States, or achieved the 
 triumphs wherewith the Nation is crowned." But this 
 fuller conception has come only through a careful study 
 of conditions as they elsewhere exist and a thorough 
 knowledge of the fate and fortune of individuals, peoples, 
 and nations. 
 
 1 Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. II, p. 676. 
 
Impression and Personality 13 
 
 There is no doubt tnat the mipression is intensified 
 when the surroundings are such as to tend to, rather 
 than detract from, the centering of thought upon the 
 focal point. As an experiment, place a dozen articles 
 upon a table in the center of a room. Select articles 
 in common use knife, newspaper, coin, book, watch, 
 pencil, and the like. Try the experiment first upon a 
 group of a half dozen persons by using a room bare 
 as to furniture and hangings, permitting each person in 
 turn to go into the room alone, each being allowed an 
 equal amount of time, and on coming from the room 
 to require each, working under a time limit, to record a 
 list of articles noted on the table. As a second experi- 
 ment, place another table with an equal number of 
 common objects in a room completely furnished and 
 proceed as in the first instance. Or try again when 
 there is conversation in the room, or music, or other 
 diversion. The counter attractions, the furnishings, the 
 additional persons, all offer a bar to concentration, and 
 the impressions gained will probably result in the recall 
 of a fewer number of objects than in the first instance. 
 
 But while experience and environment have much 
 to do with the intensity of the impression, it is true, 
 as previously hinted, that the first impressions have a 
 tendency to be more lasting. It is also true that impres- 
 sions gained in early years, when the mind is pliable and 
 plastic, are more readily retained than those coming at 
 a later day, although the subsequent or built-up impres- 
 sions are more perfect and accurate and inclusive. You 
 frequently say, in speaking of an individual, "My first 
 impression of him was correct; he is, as I first made 
 up my mind, lazy or studious, courteous or ill-bred, 
 cultured or illiterate, reserved or loquacious, dignified or 
 unconstrained. Closer acquaintance only confirms my 
 
14 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 first impression." When carried too far, however, this 
 doctrine leads to "jumping to conclusions." The open- 
 minded will always be ready to revise the impression in 
 the light of newer revelation. 
 
 Now the crucial point in this entire matter of the 
 psychology of the impression is to be found in the char- 
 acter of individuals what we may speak 
 Personality , .. -. ,., JL . . 
 
 of as personality. Personality is something 
 
 that cannot be defined; it is the you as you. Personal- 
 ity, if taken from the individual, would render all men 
 of a like type. Personality makes progress possible. It 
 is that which has built school and church and state 
 and the other great institutions, and working through 
 them gives back the best to the life of the people. 
 Thus is laid the foundation for all real democracy. The 
 personality that counts means openmindedness, culture, 
 poise, balance, contentment, generosity, responsibility; it 
 means service for others; it means the optimistic mind, 
 sound judgment, and clear vision. The man or the 
 woman, the student or the teacher with strong per- 
 sonality will trust first impressions only as they come 
 through an unbiased and unprejudiced mind. One 
 must always be ready to accept new truth and thus 
 modify the impression. He who would progress must 
 understand it is a mark of progress to be willing to dis- 
 card old theory for accepted practice. He must look at 
 things in a perfect perspective. 
 
 That great naturalist, John Burroughs, once told the 
 writer that his volume descriptive of his Alaskan trip is 
 in some manner the most unsatisfactory bit of writing he 
 has done, and that the reason for this lies in the fact of 
 the short time spent in Alaska and the consequent lack 
 of opportunity given him to observe and ponder and 
 weigh. Conclusions were drawn on too few data, and 
 
Impression and Personality 15 
 
 the impressions were fixed too early. "We see through 
 a glass darkly." With longer contact the "light shines 
 more and more unto the perfect day." 
 
 The implications of the foregoing are several and are 
 of vital consequence. In a summary of conclusions, the 
 value of proper habit forming stands forth importance 
 as of first importance. We speak of the of forming 
 impressionistic age as that of childhood and good habits 
 youth. Since impressions gained at this plastic period 
 are so lasting, how important it is to see to it that 
 the first impressions are as nearly correct as possible. 
 Habit, although not everything, is still a great deal. 
 Lasting impressions mean the forming of habits, good 
 or bad, that remain through life. As each additional 
 performance of an act tends to make each succeeding 
 repetition of the act easier than the last, care must 
 be exercised lest we make habitual those acts that will 
 weaken rather than give strength, and that tear down 
 rather than build up. If the impression at first is one 
 around which character may be built, the individual has 
 nothing to unlearn, and progress is rapid and sure. 
 
 We further conclude that the mind cannot at first 
 gain adequate impressions or a complete knowledge. 
 Just as man is a developing organism physically, so 
 may we expect that added knowledge and experience 
 will develop ability to comprehend, compare, and con- 
 clude. The impression of to-day, which may seem 
 complete and unified, may be in the light of to-morrow's 
 experiences inadequate and partial. As our experiences 
 are built into us, the impression approaches more and 
 more the real, the actual. 
 
 Another conclusion indicates that the learner can 
 best appreciate those things that have in part been 
 experienced, or such as possess attributes similar to 
 
i6 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 those possessed by objects of past experiences. The 
 study of the poem Snowbound by those who have never 
 
 seen a snowstorm would mean comparatively 
 Impressions 
 
 influenced by little. A lecture on orange culture would 
 experience CO nvey less meaning to an Eskimo than to 
 a Californian. If lessons are so planned as to indicate 
 a logical connection one with another, presenting those 
 things that articulate naturally with what has gone 
 before, much of the vagueness and indefiniteness in our 
 present teaching would disappear. The impressions are 
 thus deepened by looking upon the subject from many 
 points of vantage, just as the magnitude of the Califor- 
 nia big trees is more fully comprehended after one has 
 viewed them from a distance, studied them at close 
 range, ridden and walked around them, and measured 
 them with a tape. 
 
 It must also be remembered that in childhood there 
 are comparatively few experiences, so that those coming 
 to the immature mind may ofttimes prove more vivid 
 than would be the case later. In the schools of a half 
 century past there were few books and few subjects. 
 These were worked over and over and well digested. 
 While the imaginative power of the child should be 
 cultivated as an aid to vivid conceptions, care must be 
 exercised lest the work become so superficial and quan- 
 titative as to lack in real value. 
 
 Finally, our conclusions lead us to note that just as 
 individualities differ, so will impressions gained from the 
 same original differ with each individual. One will see 
 in terms of color, another in terms of form; one gathers 
 impressions mainly through one particular sense, and 
 one through another. To expect like results from all is 
 to disregard the element of individuality. 
 
 The common saying, "We get out of a thing in 
 
Impression and Personality if 
 
 proportion as we put into it," contains more than a 
 modicum of truth. In other words, those who put most 
 into the mill carry most away. To produce a 
 democracy we must have men strong men, n of* id/all 
 determined men, men unselfish, farsighted, 
 alert, sympathetic, incorruptible. Such are the men of 
 personality. As the man, so the society of which he is 
 a part. A chain is as strong as its weakest link. Soci- 
 ety does not necessarily or entirely exist for its members. 
 Men who wear their obligations all too lightly are those 
 in whom impressions have not produced personality. 
 One's first duty is toward his family, but if a man seek 
 wealth, or patronage, or applause for selfish ends or to 
 satisfy ambition, if he gain friendships only that these 
 may prove useful in a commercial way, he is not the 
 good citizen. The ideal personality will produce the 
 real democracy. 
 
 In this age of competition and push and progress, 
 where time seems such a vital element, it is an economic 
 and social necessity to judge quickly and 
 sanely and surely. If "snap" judgments quire rapid 
 prove to be false judgments, harm will J* sane 
 result. The swift march of events does not 
 always admit of the cautious and plodding method. 
 The man must train himself to judge not with haste 
 but with dispatch, and his impressions must be regis- 
 tered, passed through the clearing house of his mind, 
 catalogued, and conclusions drawn therefrom so as to 
 reach decisions instantly. Whether the impression be 
 of a book or a man, of an act or an object, the mind 
 should be so attuned and adjusted as to receive new 
 impressions willingly, to work them over analytically, 
 and to hold to them tenaciously only until other and 
 further knowledge makes change or modification desirable. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 MEN IN THE MAKING 
 
 THERE has never been a time in the history of the 
 world when there was manifest a greater need for 
 high ideals, for lofty aspirations, for deep ethical insight 
 than to-day. Not that this country is sunk in immoral- 
 ity and disbelief and dishonor. But never, 
 
 h^gh /deals so full y as at P resent has the sordid s P irit 
 of commercialism had such a grip on men 
 
 and women, young and old, rich and poor. The clouds 
 of greed and gain have been gathering, and what was 
 once in the financial world considered a crime is now 
 often interpreted in terms of keen manipulation or 
 sharp business practice. Competition has sharpened the 
 wits and has at the same time too often dulled the 
 moral sensibilities. Modern invention, the application of 
 scientific principles to the arts and industries, improved 
 methods of transportation, of manufacture, of home 
 keeping, have lessened responsibility among the rank 
 and file. Ambition to possess the material things of 
 this world and to be reckoned as wealthy as our neighbor 
 has led to high living, extravagant dress, costly accesso- 
 ries. Men of small means speculate, gamble, default, 
 and are punished. Men of large means are doing these 
 things constantly, and too often go unpunished. And 
 because morality seems to go unrewarded and deception 
 and corruption in high places is for the moment victo- 
 rious, false notions prevail in the minds of the unthink- 
 ing. How shall adjustment be made? 
 
 18 
 
Men in the Making ip 
 
 In the past the church attempted to do its own work 
 and be home and school as well. The church was respon- 
 sible for the inculcation of religious beliefs * 
 
 . - figenciKS vn 
 
 for the setting of moral standards, for character 
 laying the foundations of the intellectual building 
 life, for developing the physical side of the individual, 
 and often even for teaching the elements of a trade, 
 vocation, or profession which was to be followed in 
 later life. But however effectively the church did its 
 
 work in times past, the economic develop- 
 
 . , The church 
 
 ment of the country and the social evolution 
 
 of our people are now such as to render it entirely unable 
 to cope single handed with the problem of character 
 building. Indeed, as we now look back upon the work 
 of the church, we see how inadequately it performed the 
 task assigned it in any day and generation. 
 
 Again, we find the school endeavoring to be church, 
 home, and school combined. To note this condition, 
 
 it will not be necessary to hark back to _. , . 
 
 . , . . 2 he school 
 
 ancient history. Indeed, in many localities 
 
 to-day the school is the only medium of moral instruc- 
 tion with which the child comes in contact. Church 
 and Sunday school are unknown to him; his life at 
 home is that of the street and the cellar, and the few 
 hours spent at school with his teacher are in such small 
 proportion to the total number of waking hours during 
 the year 1 as to render impossible such teaching as is 
 necessary. 
 
 All thinking people agree in a general way as to the 
 purpose of education, whether received in the home, at 
 school, or in the church. They do not, however, all agree 
 as to the most important factors involved in a real edu- 
 cation, or as to the best methods of procuring results. 
 
 1 About one seventh in the upper grammar grades. 
 
2O Ideals and Democracy 
 
 Some want the training of the boy and the girl to be for 
 life, but they do not tell us in what life consists, or what 
 constitutes the best in life. Some wish to train for citi- 
 zenship, and to many, citizenship means earning a living 
 and voting a particular ticket on election day. Others 
 desire such training as will produce intelligent or cultured 
 members of society. These statements are both indefi- 
 nite and inadequate. 
 
 The home is and should be the center for character 
 building, but the crowded condition in cities, the unwhole- 
 some surroundings, the unhygienic environ- 
 The home , 1 1 < . 1 
 
 ment, the ignorance and privation of those in 
 
 the crowded tenement districts all this serves to coun- 
 teract and sometimes overbalance the advances made in 
 the more favored localities. Think of trying to inculcate 
 moral precepts and essential religious teachings under 
 conditions such as exist in every large city the country 
 over! A score of persons living in a space large enough 
 for two; families crowded together like sheep in a corral; 
 hovels and tenement houses unfit for animals dark, 
 damp, poorly ventilated stifling in summer, cruelly cold 
 in winter; rooms in which flowers will weaken and wither; 
 children associated with men and women who are blind 
 to all that ennobles and enriches character. Under these 
 conditions is it any wonder scant progress is made in 
 the teaching of the moral virtues and in an under- 
 standing of what constitutes the religious life? 
 
 How the owner of one such set of tenements or dwell- 
 ings with which every large city is cursed can easily offset 
 the work of school or church is readily understood. The 
 home, under these conditions, can offer practically no 
 assistance in building up the moral life of the individual. 
 Environment is such a factor for good or ill as to demand 
 our most earnest consideration. 
 
Men in the Making 21 
 
 The school stands for culture, for knowledge, for in- 
 formation, for technique, accuracy, and method. It trains 
 the intellect, it energizes the mental ma- 
 chinery, but does it give the proper moral a se 
 momentum to the life of the boy and the girl? Go upon 
 the streets of any city to-day and find your cheap places 
 of amusement crowded with boys and girls. Visit your 
 corner cigar stores, and notice boys young in years and old 
 in sin, their time worse than wasted. Their environment 
 is a preparatory school remarkably well adapted to the 
 teaching of vice and crime. The shelves of your book 
 stores are full of cheap literature, that constitutes the most 
 carefully graded series of textbooks of which I have knowl- 
 edge, for the information of the young on everything 
 which they have no need or right to know, and which 
 sears their minds and deadens their fine sensibilities. 
 And even in the school itself, the fraternities, sororities, 
 and secret societies are not only trouble breeders but 
 crime incubators as well, and the sooner 
 every elementary and high-school system 
 in the country shall eliminate them, root 
 and branch, the better. They draw unhappy social dis- 
 tinctions, they engender partisan feeling and encourage 
 the boy or girl to vote or to act as the whole body 
 votes or acts, right or wrong. They place the so-called 
 good of the society above that of the school or home. 
 They teach those financially unable to do so, to be 
 extravagant in dress and wasteful of money and time, 
 in many instances entailing serious discomforts upon 
 those who are responsible for their keeping. They cause 
 many a heartache on the part of those who, on account 
 of some inability to measure up to a false standard, 
 are kept from the inner circle. And under the guise 
 of good fellowship, vices are here learned and practiced 
 
22 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 that prove a menace to the whole after life of the indi- 
 vidual. Fraternities and sororities are undemocratic. 
 
 Not many months since an eminent divine in one of the 
 largest and most influential churches in the country, 
 R li ious speaking before a normal-school graduating 
 instruction class, strongly opposed religious instruction 
 in schools. in the sc hools. He deplored the fact that too 
 often teachers make it their business, by indirection or 
 otherwise, to seek to inculcate their own religious beliefs 
 and opinions. He insisted that the home and the church 
 should devote themselves to religious instruction, leaving 
 the school free to confine itself to the intellectual side 
 merely. To the public school come "the children of 
 agnostics and Christians, Mohammedans and Hebrews," 
 each with the understanding that neither directly nor 
 indirectly shall the employee of the state do that which 
 he has stipulated he will not do. "The state," says the 
 reverend gentleman, "is a purely technical institution, 
 and should refuse to accept the task of the religious and 
 moral training of the youth, for which duty it ought to 
 appreciate its own incompetency." He closed by say- 
 ing, "Upon you, O American father and mother, rests 
 the duty of training your children in the principles of the 
 faith you profess." 
 
 Surely no one could undertake to combat successfully 
 the sanity of this final statement. The public school, if 
 it be true to its mission, may not devote itself to sectarian 
 teaching and the inculcating of particular religious tenets. 
 Those parents who desire the education of their children 
 to be colored by doctrinal teachings will certainly place 
 their boys and girls in parochial or church schools or 
 denominational institutions of learning. They will not 
 expect the public school to compel the avowed Hebrew 
 child to sit under an exposition of Methodism, the Catholic 
 
Men in the Making 23 
 
 to accept even passively the Mohammedan doctrine, or 
 the agnostic to be steeped in Universalism. Particular 
 secular or religious beliefs should have no place either 
 directly or indirectly in the course of instruction in the 
 public schools. 
 
 But even though we agree with this high authority on 
 the teaching of religion in the public schools, should the 
 state take no account of the moral training of the youth? 
 Is it the business only of the church and the home to 
 carry forward this moral training, and have the public 
 schools no responsibility here? If the bishop is thinking 
 of religious training in terms of sectarianism or creed, then 
 we should agree with him that such teaching has no place 
 in the public schools. The schools exist not for theological 
 but for the most complete educational ends. So far as 
 character building is concerned, that is a different matter. 
 We shall venture the assertion that the principal excuse 
 the public school has for existing to-day is that it may be a 
 center of moral instruction. 
 
 Our educational fathers were sound in their doctrine 
 that "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary 
 
 to good government and the happiness of . , 
 
 j^nowieage 
 
 mankind, schools and the means of education mus t be based 
 
 shall forever be encouraged." * I understand on . an e j h ? al 
 
 ... . foundation 
 
 that the use of the word religion here is 
 
 not intended to be taken in any narrow sense, as indicat- 
 ing an "ism." Knowledge is necessary, but it too may be 
 secured at home, or at church, or out of school, in what- 
 ever capacity the individual may be placed. Knowledge 
 without a strong moral directivity, without an ethical 
 foundation acting as a dynamic, is often more to be 
 avoided than desired, and he who has the former without 
 the latter may become the most dangerous sort of criminal. 
 1 Ordinance of 1787, organizing the Northwest Territory. 
 
24 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 The school, you say, for intellection and the home and 
 the church for morality. To place upon the church and 
 the home the duty of inculcating the principles of moral 
 living, and to intrust the duty of such proper instruction 
 to ministers and fathers and mothers is not enough. 
 Time was when moral teaching took place largely in the 
 home. The home life was a community life. The home 
 was the center of the family. There were fewer congested 
 cities than now. Social and industrial conditions were 
 vastly more simple than they are to-day. Children are 
 now reared in apartment houses and tenements, and in 
 stifling cellars and garrets. The manifold duties of fathers 
 and mothers separate them constantly from their chil- 
 dren, and the latter simply are allowed to "grow" as 
 was Topsy. The increased desire for wealth and the 
 get-rich-quick spirit of the day render parents careless 
 of their duties in the realm of moral instruction. The 
 very atmosphere of this century of faster living makes the 
 problem ever increasingly complicated. 
 
 We would agree with the bishop that to the home should 
 be left in large measure the responsibility of the necessary 
 moral instruction, but we are confronted by a condition 
 and not a theory. Nor should we attempt anything in 
 the school that will relieve the fathers and mothers of 
 their responsibility in this regard. The parent is not 
 derelict in his duty because of the interest of the school 
 in this matter. Not at all. It is in part because, little 
 by little, our social and economic and industrial devel- 
 opment has been such that the home is ceasing to be 
 a home in fact, that the schools are forced to give heed 
 to the demands of the day in this particular. 
 
 Deception and corruption crop out in business and in 
 politics. The scramble for the dollar, the race for political 
 preference, the desire for social standing are constantly 
 
Men in the Making 25 
 
 turning our moral code upside down and creating an im- 
 moral code which is too often accepted in its stead. 
 Railroad rates, forest conservation, tariff revision, and the 
 hundred and one perplexing problems before our people 
 are mere trivial issues when compared with the problem 
 of the corrupt man. With honesty and integrity in high 
 places and low, these seemingly great problems will prove 
 to be very simple indeed. 
 
 One of the great hindrances to proper character building 
 is the average daily newspaper. Flaunted in the faces of 
 
 those who are immature and impressionable, 
 
 j.1 t_ 1 _c a. i 1 ' J.-L Newspapers 
 the newspaper at the breakfast table, in the may hinder 
 
 street car, and cried about town is doing 
 much to lower the standard of morality that 
 should be set. Take the average newspaper of to-day 
 and measure up the space devoted to murders, suicides, 
 scandals, divorce cases, robberies, frauds, and all that 
 pictures the black and ignoble side of life, and you will be 
 astounded at your findings. Usually occupying the most 
 conspicuous place in the sheet, and with the largest and 
 most prominent display of type so that he who runs may 
 read, these things are put before young and old for their 
 daily diet. It is criticism enough that adults have access 
 to such unhealthy and unwholesome tales. Business and 
 professional men should at least be satisfied with the bare 
 facts. Must then the child be allowed to drink in the 
 details in all their hurtful revulsion? No paper should, 
 under the subterfuge of news, be permitted to scatter 
 broadcast stories that can prove only a menace to society 
 and help to breed results that shall make possible more 
 stories of the same character. 
 
 "Each newspaper is not one tongue, but a thousand or 
 a million tongues, telling the same foul story to as many 
 pairs of listening ears. The vultures of sensationalism 
 
26 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 scent the carcass of immorality afar off. From the 
 uttermost parts of the earth they collect the sin, disgrace 
 and folly of humanity, and show them bare to the world. 
 They do not even require facts, for morbid memories and 
 fertile imaginations make even the worst of the world's 
 happenings seem tame when compared with the mon- 
 strosities of invention. These stories, and the discussions 
 they excite, develop in readers a cheap, shrewd power of 
 distortion of the acts of all around them." ' 
 
 The public, through its demand for the sensational, is 
 largely responsible for existing conditions. The press of 
 the country, properly restricted, may be made one of the 
 greatest elements of uplift. 
 
 Until the home and all humanity-advancing institutions 
 join hands in teaching the moral side of a clean commercial- 
 Effident * sm > anc ^ can snow that material interests and 
 moral honor in business go hand in hand, we cannot 
 
 instruction hope Qr honesty and equity to prevail in 
 business methods. To be able to recite the ten com- 
 mandments or to memorize pages of Scripture will never 
 of themselves lay a foundation for religious instruction. 
 To repeat accurately carefully learned lessons and to 
 pass a high examination in mathematics does not argue 
 the fixing of moral truths in the mind. The lessons, 
 wherever learned, must look toward some application of 
 the moral principles. It is a great mistake to suppose 
 that much talking about the moral phases of existence, 
 the necessity for upright dealing, for honesty among men, 
 for truth in all transactions, whether of man with man 
 or nation with nation, will be of material benefit to the 
 student in school or to the man outside. Unless the boy 
 can be assured that those who talk are also the ones who 
 perform; unless he knows that those who preach are they 
 
 1 William George Jordan, The Kinship of Self -Control, p. 15. 
 
Men in the Making 27 
 
 who likewise practice, the seed of moral teaching will fall 
 on stony ground, and the harvest will probably be of 
 tares rather than of wheat. 
 
 Morality is not a matter of special lessons. Morality 
 cannot be taught successfully from a book, because it 
 is not contained in a book. Morality is lofty thinking, 
 honest doing, righteous living. It must be found in every 
 lesson, every teacher, every associate of the boy, if we are 
 to expect him to think and do and live the best of which 
 he is capable. Unless builded upon moral principles, no 
 business can properly thrive, no life be made enduring. 
 
 In a recent conversation upon this very topic of moral 
 instruction with a man of broad culture and high moral 
 standing in the community, our talk turned to the bring- 
 ing from abroad of dutiable goods into this country. 
 When the statement was made that under the law, goods 
 to the amount of one hundred dollars may be brought 
 in by each individual duty free, my friend remarked 
 that he saw no harm in bringing in without declaration 
 more goods than the law allowed. Such a man will 
 recognize the crime in cheating his neighbor, but has 
 no conception of the existence of the same moral code 
 when dealing with a corporation or a country. There 
 are no degrees of honesty. Because he is not strictly 
 honest with himself he would lack positive force for 
 uplift among his associates. 
 
 I take it to be a fact that no one is qualified to teach or 
 preach, regardless of the degrees he holds or the diplomas 
 or honors he has won, unless his own life is a guarantee 
 of the success of moral teaching. No parent who is not 
 at all times a model after which the boy may with 
 safety pattern his actions and his words should have the 
 responsibility of rearing and training such boy. As it 
 has been aptly put, if every man in a given community 
 
28 * Ideals and Democracy 
 
 would, on going home from church, draw a circle leaving 
 himself in the center and say, "I will clean and purify 
 everything within this circle," such community would be 
 clean, and in a decade the moral problem would be solved. 
 
 What we most need in the promotion of character 
 building is not additional moral codes but a living up to 
 those we now have. Just as in this country it is not more 
 laws that are needed but a more efficient enforcement of 
 those upon the statute books, so we should have simply 
 a more strict observance of those things we know to be 
 right and true and just and generous. What may be 
 called backbone is lacking in most of us. The average 
 citizen is quick to shoulder his gun for the front when his 
 commercial interests need protecting, or when his honor 
 or his country's honor is in jeopardy. But to-day many 
 a man is inclined to wink at those things he knows to be 
 morally wrong lest his business suffer, his neighbor scoff 
 at him, or his party leaders call him a black sheep or 
 a backslider. He turns from the right lest he be con- 
 sidered a dreamer or idealist. The demand is for men 
 who, knowing the right and having the strength of 
 their convictions, cannot be moved by threat or ridicule 
 or bribe or argument. 
 
 In a recent address upon this subject of character 
 building, a speaker declared that the boy must be taught 
 
 Character to see the necessitv for morality in all acts 
 building and under all conditions of life, even if in 
 nothing more than in seeking to become a 
 man like his father, or in driving the cart 
 of the grocer next door. We must remember that if the 
 father is the right kind of man, there is nothing more 
 glorious or dignified toward which the boy may shape 
 his course than to follow the example set by the father. 
 There is as much honor in driving a grocer's cart as in 
 
Men in the Making 29 
 
 preaching a sermon. It is not the service that dignifies 
 morality. Morality makes any service dignified. 
 
 However important may be the training of the physi- 
 cal, the intellectual, or the social natures, let us say again 
 that in the last analysis the real, practical training is 
 to be found in developing the moral nature. Character 
 building is of the first importance. A bookkeeper may 
 be a correct accountant and a perfect penman, but if 
 he cannot be relied upon to keep an honest set of books, 
 do you want him in your office? Your banker may be 
 the most far-seeing financier, the best judge of property 
 values, and a careful investor, but if he uses your money 
 for his private investments, do you wish him for your 
 banker? Your clerk may be courteous, attentive, taste- 
 ful in dress, have a wide circle of friends upon whom he 
 draws to be your customers, but if he transfers to his 
 pocket the money that should go into the till, think you 
 he will long remain in your employ? Do you want as a 
 consulting engineer the college graduate who winks at 
 the salted mine, who overlooks weak members in the 
 structure you have engaged him to examine, or whose 
 figures are based on fancy rather than on fact? Your 
 butcher, your baker, your candlestick maker, each in 
 his own field may be a thorough master of his business, 
 but if the training of these men has not been such as to 
 make for upright, honest, square dealing, then their edu- 
 cation has not been practical, and in the open market 
 these men are worth less than one hundred cents on the 
 dollar, and " rejected " is to be written on their credentials. 
 
 Many favorable signs there are looking toward the 
 better understanding of what character and civic right- 
 eousness really mean, and the place they should occupy 
 in our daily life and dealings. Many also are the 
 signs pointing toward increased opportunities for laying 
 
jo Ideals and Democracy 
 
 foundations for such understanding. The great peace 
 movement is spreading; a sturdy, clean commercialism is 
 coming to the front; the rush of young men and women 
 cityward is being curbed, and the country is becoming 
 more attractive than ever before; crowded, unwholesome 
 conditions in the city are being eliminated; forms of 
 industrial training and home economics in school are 
 offering the most effective means for the best moral in- 
 struction; proper attention to the physical needs of 
 school children is tending to reduce the number of those 
 who have been counted lazy or incompetent or mentally 
 deficient; much attention is given children's reading, and 
 they are drilled in the art of study. All this forecasts 
 the dawning of a new day. 
 
 From those outside the school there frequently comes 
 the greatest help. To-day the need for a high standard 
 of ideals in education and in business must be advocated 
 by those without the teaching profession as well as by 
 those in it. And by these former also must this higher 
 standard be exemplified. When Theodore Roosevelt, in 
 the Earl Lectures, 1 hit out fearlessly at graft and sham 
 and superficial living he struck a chord of response in 
 every section of our land. 
 
 With the proper training in our schools there will de- 
 velop young men and women who will mold and shape 
 public opinion and stand for realizable ideals. The future 
 citizens will frown upon the special privilege and welcome 
 mutual trust and equal rights for all. They will declare 
 against the "short-change" method in business or politics, 
 and demand open-handed dealing in shop or mine or mill. 
 They will so preach and practice that honesty will be, not 
 the "best policy"; it will be the only policy. 
 
 i Delivered in the Greek Theatre, University of California, 
 April, 1911. 
 
M en in the Making 31 
 
 Men and women should realize that, aside from the 
 home influences, nowhere can right lessons be taught so 
 well as in the school. Here the intercourse of pupil with 
 pupil reflects in small the great throbbing, pulsating world 
 without. Here the boy has duties and obligations; he 
 meets others in friendly rivalry or in honest cooperation; 
 he must be serious and sad, happy and cheerful; he is 
 to give and trke, to ask and receive, to compete and 
 assist, to accept and reject; he must create and destroy, 
 analyze and compare, investigate and decide, learn and 
 unlearn; and everywhere and always, in school and out, 
 unless all that is learned, unless all that the boy becomes, 
 is based upon a sound appreciation of ethical and moral 
 life and responsibility the real work of the school is not 
 accomplished and failure, not success, is the reward of the 
 individual and the achievement of education. 
 
 My plea is for a training in conduct and character that, 
 beginning in the home and carried on by the school, the 
 Sunday school, and the church, shall spread and broaden 
 in the life of the individual, to the end that politics shall 
 be pure, commercialism shall be clean, and society shall 
 be sound. An education aiming at less is a delusion and 
 a snare. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE NEW CENTURY'S AWAKENING 
 
 centuries past an Englishman in the service 
 A of the Dutch sought a short route to India. Many 
 had dreamed of a direct and safe passage thither and more 
 than one hardy soul had attempted to find such. Holland 
 had built up an extensive trade upon the sea. She was 
 then, as she is to-day, a wealthy country. But the way 
 to India was long, the ships small, and chartless the un- 
 friendly waters. This Englishman who served the Dutch 
 three hundred years ago represented the best organized 
 and most wealthy corporation of the day, the Dutch East 
 India Company. This man, like many another before 
 him, had seen visions and had dreamed dreams. For him 
 a way should open, and he would lead his people to the 
 promised land. Brave, loyal, earnest, determined, with 
 his face seaward, he went forward to his task. 
 
 His equipment? Less than as many dollars as there 
 are days in a year with which to stock and provision his 
 boat. To his wife a promise by the company of eighty 
 dollars in case the explorer never returned. In an obscure 
 corner of the paper of agreement a further promise to 
 reward him at discretion should success crown his efforts. 
 Then with an untried crew of a score of men he sailed away 
 in a ship so small and mean and fragile you would not 
 go in her in a storm from the Statue of Liberty to Ellis 
 Island. His orders were to sail to the north and to return 
 if no passage was discovered. But he encountered ice 
 and contrary to orders he bore away to the west and into 
 the setting sun. 
 
The New Century's Awakening 33 
 
 And what of Henry Hudson? He crossed the Atlantic 
 and sailed up the river that now bears his name. On 
 returning to Holland he was accorded barely a "thank 
 you," so disappointed were the members of the Dutch 
 East India Company that the coveted passage was still 
 lost to them. Then at a later date Hudson, sailing under 
 the flag of his own country, England, discovered the land 
 around Hudson Bay and the bay itself. But ice barred his 
 way. The situation became serious, and it seemed that 
 Hudson and his men must winter in that awful region. 
 Provisions were low, and Hudson undertook to safeguard 
 the lives of his men by storing away in his own cabin such 
 portion of food as would be needed later. But, so strange 
 a thing is fate, this very act of his was used as an excuse 
 for mutiny. He was placed with three sick men and a 
 helpless boy in an open boat, and in the embrace of the 
 icebound, everlasting waters of the north, with his face 
 still to the west, Hudson without a word drifted away 
 into eternal remembrance. 
 
 The Dutch East India Company is almost forgotten, 
 save for its misdeeds, but Hudson's name is remembered. 
 He saw a vision. He worked not for gain or Hudson's 
 for glory. He worked for others, and working lesson to 
 thus he labored for himself. Not long since humanit y 
 in the city of New York there occurred a celebration in 
 honor of the three-hundredth anniversary of the discovery 
 of one of the most wonderful rivers in the world. In 
 the harbor and scattered up and down the river were 
 craft representing every nation on the earth with ships 
 afloat. And at night, to one standing upon the river's 
 bank and watching the myriad lights flash out from this 
 city on the water, the thought would come as to whether 
 anything akin to this scene appeared in the vision of 
 Henry Hudson as he began his life anew. 
 
j4 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 And now three hundred years from the time when the 
 Half Moon of Henry Hudson carried her wondering 
 crew past the palisades and the canoes of the startled 
 first Americans, our thoughts are directed across valley 
 and mountain and desert to the seas of Balboa. Here on 
 the heights rising above the old ocean that for centuries 
 has beat in its uneasy, ceaseless motion against the shores, 
 there stands a multitude of people gazing outward over 
 the Pacific. Away yonder where the sky meets the water 
 a spot of white appears over the rim of the Pacific a 
 spot that grows and then another and another. From 
 bits of white cloud the size of the hand they unfold and 
 separate. Sails, masts, turrets, massive hulls, gigantic 
 engines of war, men and cannon and flags, sixteen of 
 the most wonderful arsenals that were ever set afloat 
 are bearing down upon the land that holds in check the 
 sundown sea. 
 
 Let loose months before from that side of the continent 
 where Hudson found only Indians and wild beasts, these 
 The mission vesse ls have come around the world to bear 
 baM 0d h" US g f eeting ' Since Hudson's day one hundred 
 million people have found homes on this soil. 
 These massive structures are their property. They bear 
 our brothers on their decks and sail in our service. And 
 although there are now many routes to India, these ves- 
 sels represent a small portion only of the great navy we 
 must maintain that trade may be carried on with our 
 fellows in other lands, that lives may be safe, that honor 
 and integrity may be assured, that our own country may 
 be free from invasion by our sister nations, that peace 
 may be secured to us even at the expense of war. 
 
 In these three hundred years what marvelous changes 
 have been wrought! Step by step the first Americans 
 have been driven back back from the lands bordering 
 
The New Century's Awakening 35 
 
 the Atlantic to the Great Lakes and the valleys of the 
 Ohio and the Mississippi; to the plains stretching to 
 
 the shoulders of the Rocky Mountains; to n. 
 
 Changes and 
 
 the deserts that even now the white man development in 
 covets. During these three centuries the three centurie * 
 forests that sheltered these natives and wild beasts have 
 given place to orchards and vineyards and vast granaries 
 that feed the world. The tepee of the Indian is gone, and 
 in its place stands the massive manufacturing plant that 
 turns the raw material into the finished product. Instead 
 of the trail is the trolley. The whole continent is a checker 
 board, crossed by bands of steel. Messages are no longer 
 carried by fainting rider on weary horse, but flashing 
 back and forth they come from Atlantic to Pacific as the 
 shuttle moves before the vision. The streams are alive 
 with humanity. The ocean on either side bears to and 
 fro the people of many nations and the products of 
 many lands. 
 
 Progress has been abroad in these three centuries. 
 Homes have been builded, schools and churches have done 
 their work, mighty deeds have been accomplished, dis- 
 tance has been conquered, a new nation has been born, 
 and to-day the most wonderful people inhabit the most 
 wonderful land in the most wonderful age the world has 
 ever known. 
 
 But at what cost! No great work has ever been 
 achieved without its price price in pain and sacrifice 
 and death. The victory may be glorious, The heavy 
 
 but somewhere homes are saddened and price paid 
 hearts are sore. During these three centuries f r ^ rogre ' 
 of progress men have constantly paid a heavy price. If 
 greed has made glory possible and poverty has flowered 
 into progress, there are those who have suffered. Selfish- 
 ness and corruption and dishonor and slavery and war 
 
j6 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 have all claimed their toll of human life. War still goes 
 on. We must keep up our mighty navies, our standing 
 armies, our coast fortifications, our strongholds in the 
 interior. We war in fact or we war in spirit. Nor is 
 this all. We must maintain a readiness for war even 
 though our brother suffers for the necessities of life. Our 
 national debt must be increased that modern armaments 
 may be set aside for still more modern types. Our boys 
 in school must be prepared and made ready, as were the 
 Spartans of old, for the time when patriotism shall develop 
 into powder, and friendship and brotherhood be lost in the 
 desire for territorial expansion or commercial greatness. 
 
 The issue in the future should be one of principle. 
 To-day might does not make right. Men must at last be 
 Universal trained in the ethics of peace. A great 
 peace a funda- moral principle is involved and the home, 
 mental issue ^ churchj and the school must stand as 
 
 the centers of moral training. We are brought face to 
 face with an issue that means more in the future develop- 
 ment of the people than does commerce or party politics 
 or polar exploration, because it is more fundamental 
 than these. Money and lands and power and territorial 
 greatness and glory may no longer be secured at the price 
 of poverty and intrigue and war. To create a clear 
 understanding of the necessity for peace, and of the curse 
 of war among civilized peoples, high ideals must develop 
 and moral standards must be commonly held. 
 
 One of the greatest elements that shall make for high 
 moral standards, and that should be taught in the home, 
 the school, and the church, is the necessity for and sacred- 
 ness of peace among nations. We talk much of the 
 necessity for peace and friendship between rpan and man, 
 but at some slight provocation nation has been plunged 
 into war with nation that commercial honor may stand 
 
The New Century's Awakening 37 
 
 untarnished, that territorial glory may be upheld, or that 
 personal ambition may be gratified. 
 
 The man who is not morally sound when dealing with 
 himself cannot, in a broad sense, be morally sound when 
 dealing with others. Society is made up of The integrity 
 groups of individuals, and as the individual f society de- 
 so the society. We meet one another upon ^nandhlnlll 
 the street, in the home, at the school, at our nations 
 
 places of business, in the lodge room, in the church. We 
 carry on our various lines of business or practice our 
 professions; we buy and sell, borrow and lend, talk poli- 
 tics or crops or religion, show little acts of courtesy to 
 one another, speak the kind word and extend the helping 
 hand, but these things, necessary and needful and com- 
 mendable though they be, often only mirror the moral 
 nature. Morality is deeper and lies at the very founda- 
 tion of these outward signs. 
 
 Morality cannot come until true friendship comes. 
 True friendship for another means, many times, forgetting 
 oneself ; it means doing the thing that may show the doer 
 to the world at a disadvantage; it means sacrifice, pain, 
 loss, poverty, dishonor, death. But out of it all come 
 reward, pleasure, profit, riches, honor, and life eternal. 
 
 Friendship, however, to be most meaningful, must lay 
 its foundation far outside the circle of that chosen few 
 
 with whom we regularly associate and whom . . .. 
 
 _, . Provincialism 
 
 we delight to call our mends. This lesson in friendships 
 
 our institutions must teach. Selfishness and means 
 
 selfishness 
 
 provincialism characterize those who are un- 
 willing to call all men brothers and all nations neighbors. 
 Until the time shall come when man shall rest content 
 only as he forgets his own selfish interests, in carrying 
 peace and contentment, hope and inspiration, to all 
 until such time shall come when man shall not think of 
 
38 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 himself "more highly than he ought to think," the real 
 friendship of man to man, of people to people, and of 
 nation to nation cannot be established. This is one of 
 the very fundamentals of moral teaching. 
 
 The question of the necessity for real friendships between 
 man and man, between nation and nation, is a great moral 
 issue, and I would draw your attention to two or three 
 homely illustrations of the selfishness and greed of the 
 world and the need for the joining of hands of the church, 
 the school, and the home in an endeavor to bring to the 
 coming generations a proper conception of things. We are 
 willing to concede the necessity for personal friendships, 
 but this commercial age has such a hold upon our minds 
 and our consciences, our palms and our purses, that we 
 forget the significance of a national friendship and of an 
 international morality. 
 
 Not long since, through the fog that hung heavy over 
 the old ocean, away to westward, there crept into the 
 
 harbor at San Pedro, on the Pacific coast, 
 Necessity for + , ., 
 
 international ancl anchored at the very western edge of 
 
 friendships^ the continent, two vessels from a foreign 
 an illustration j , r 
 
 land bearing a foreign people. There was 
 
 no pilot to bring them in, no sun shone to guide them, no 
 cannon's roar told them that the journey was at an end, 
 no lookout saw the land as did Columbus sight the eastern 
 side of this continent. But through the fog the sailing 
 master, as he studied a chart in his cabin, and the man at 
 the lead, as he took his soundings, knew when the last 
 foot had been traveled, and the Japanese ships cast anchor 
 in San Pedro Bay. And these Japanese! We welcomed 
 them; they were shown the sights of our cities and towns; 
 they ate at our tables; they listened to our words of 
 friendship and praise and felt our hearty handclasps. 
 But how long and under what circumstances shall these 
 
The New Century's Awakening 39 
 
 two nations be friends? Always, we trust, and under any 
 and all conditions and circumstances; but if greed, or 
 glory, or commercialism, or desire for territorial expansion, 
 or revenge, or hatred on our part shall ever set aside this 
 bond of friendship, then have our homes, our schools, and 
 our churches been negligent in their duty in teaching 
 lessons of real virtue and morality and reverence and 
 brotherly love, and this American people shall have been 
 untrue to itself. 
 
 Selfishness begets war, and war has done more to break 
 down the results of moral and religious teachings than all 
 other causes combined. I have stood in that War a i ways 
 old historic French city of Rouen, looking up the enemy 
 at the statue of the French girl, Joan of Arc, of morals 
 erected upon the spot where, bound with chains and 
 surrounded by human beings, she was burned to death 
 by our own English ancestors. And my mind went back 
 to those days of which this scene was the forerunner 
 the days of the Commune and the French Revolution. 
 
 You recall how for centuries the nobles and the higher 
 clergy had been working in France for selfish ends. The 
 
 common people, the laboring classes, the 
 
 The curse of 
 peasants, themselves labonng for a bare the Commune 
 
 pittance, were forced to give the major por- and *%f F r. ch 
 
 Revolution 
 tion of their earnings to the church and the 
 
 aristocracy. In many instances the poor people were 
 hurried away to prison if the extravagant demands of 
 the aristocracy were not met, and at a later date the 
 Bastile and the guillotine awaited any whose beliefs or 
 opinions ran counter to the utterances of those in power. 
 Previous to the peasant uprising the people were mur- 
 dered by hundreds and they starved by thousands. The 
 aristocracy of France cared absolutely nothing for the 
 people, and when at last human endurance was at an end 
 
40 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 they arose men, women, children; starved, vengeful, 
 ill kept. You know the result. The people won. Vic- 
 tory came to the deserving, as it always does; as it had 
 come to our people a few years earlier in our own revo- 
 lution. But at what cost? France has never to this 
 day rallied from the results of her wars. Morality was 
 swallowed up in greed. As moral forces, the school and 
 the church counted for very little. The flower of the 
 French nation was swept away. 
 
 To note the lack of potent moral instruction in those 
 great centers of moral and religious inspiration, the school, 
 the home, and the church, is to trace the 
 
 Curse f war ' an(i to d this ne has but to 
 study conditions as they now exist. Pathetic 
 
 it is to see in the smaller countries of Europe the poverty 
 and squalor, the misery and wretchedness and privation 
 of the people, and the glory and pomp and splendor of the 
 ruling classes. The pride of little Denmark is still its 
 army and the castles and courts of its rulers. I have 
 stood by the side of the governor of one of the Swedish 
 provinces as he reviewed the vast number in the standing 
 army an army daily costing fortunes to sustain and 
 have on the same day broken bread in the home of a 
 Swedish peasant, the old father and mother barely able to 
 sustain life, the sons in the army or far over seas. What a 
 contrast ! And what of our country ? Are we following in 
 the footsteps of our sister nations ? Had moral instruction 
 
 been for the last fifty years the chief ele- 
 Proper moral , . ., 
 
 instruction ment in education, wars would have long ago 
 
 would stamp been impossible in this and every country. 
 Brother must cease to struggle with brother, 
 man with man, community with community. Peace, not 
 war, must be the watchword; love, rather than hate, 
 must be blazoned upon our banners. Nation must trust 
 
The New Century's Awakening 41 
 
 nation, and the good of all rather than the selfish interests 
 of a few must be the chief consideration. Only a nation 
 morally strong can long endure. 
 
 "The crest and crowning of all good, 
 Life's final star, is Brotherhood. 
 For it will bring again to Earth 
 Her long-lost Poesy and Mirth; 
 Will send new light on every face, 
 A kingly power upon the race. 
 And till it come, we men are slaves, 
 And travel downward to the dust of graves. 
 
 "Come, clear the way, then, clear the way: 
 Blind creeds and kings have had their day. 
 Break the dead branches from the path; 
 Our hope is in the aftermath 
 Our hope is in heroic men, 
 Star-led to build the world again. 
 To this Event the ages ran: 
 Make way for Brotherhood make way for Man. " l 
 
 Talk as we may of the value of military drill in the 
 school, it is largely a relic of barbarism and an echo of 
 tradition. Companies are formed, marching 
 favoring* clubs, boys' brigades, scouting parties. We 
 military drill claim that in the matter of physical devel- 
 opment these organizations are unexcelled. 
 The boys are kept in the open air; they become strong 
 and vigorous; they learn from nature; they learn from 
 their fellows; they become brave and honest and helpful; 
 class distinctions are torn away; they appreciate the 
 meaning of discipline; they learn to obey, and learning 
 this are preparing themselves to lead and to command. 
 Even the Boy Scout movement, organized through proper 
 motives, has largely developed into a military organization. 
 And when the evidence is all in we find the main excuse 
 
 1 Brotherhood, by Edwin Markham. 
 
42 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 for the existence among schoolboys of such organizations 
 to be set forth in the utterance of a man in public life 
 and quoted in a recent issue of a great daily. "To organ- 
 ize the American Boy Scouts is a creditable move," he 
 says. "Talk as you will about universal peace and all 
 that, but martial spirit is a good thing to instill into the 
 youth of the land. Martial spirit and interest in things 
 military is easily engendered in youngsters, more so than 
 in their elders, and both the Civil War and the Spanish- 
 American trouble proved the worth of young men who 
 had an inkling of tactics and camp life before they swore 
 allegiance to Uncle Sam." 
 
 Here then is the so-called practical man, the man of 
 affairs, the man who has served his country on the field, 
 The fallacy of ^vising this early training in things military 
 things military because marches and camps and firearms 
 in the school and smoke and cannon s roar 3^ the details 
 
 of the battle field appeal to the youth even more than to 
 their elders. In the olden days the Spartan youth were 
 so educated and so drilled. They were taught also the 
 art of theft, punishment coming only when they were 
 detected. Just because the youth is susceptible to teach- 
 ing and instruction, whether good or bad, is exactly the 
 reason for a proper training of children in the home, the 
 school, and the church. Why not follow the lead of some 
 of our European countries, and compel all young men to 
 serve an apprenticeship in the army, that they may 
 prepare against the time when shall come the call to 
 battle? 
 
 "Every self-respecting, humanity loving man should 
 closely watch the efforts to put afoot a movement that has 
 for its purpose the militarizing of our American public 
 school system. It is not fear which prompts this note of 
 warning that the introduction of this line of instruction 
 
The New Century's Awakening 43 
 
 will particularly hurt the system or the prevalent educa- 
 tional methods, but because to us it seems to have the 
 stamp of a well thought out scheme to poison the minds 
 of the children. 
 
 "Militarism is a disease bred of ignorance, foreign in 
 origin and character to an intelligent social order. Unless 
 we are ready to admit that we neither have nor can have 
 in the near future such intelligent social order, we must 
 be opposed to its being foisted upon the school children. 
 Wherever enters militarism, out goes democracy. Its 
 rule does not permit of argument, of reason, of love for 
 either child or mother, for either father or sister. As we 
 know militarism, it represents arrogance and brutality. 
 
 "The gun and education are unalterably opposed. 
 Discipline and submission are not one and the same thing. 
 To charge the air of the schoolroom with the military 
 spirit does not mean discipline. 
 
 "All of these facts have long been recognized by the 
 men and women advocating the new education, as it was 
 found that a fine physique and a warped mind are bad 
 companions. 
 
 "A fine physique and a fine, comprehensive mind, this 
 is the slogan of real education. Physical and manual 
 training will supply to our youth all and more of the 
 advantages claimed for khakiism; it will make strong, 
 true, industrious men; it will make of them world 
 patriots." 1 
 
 Morals cannot be legislated into human beings ; neither 
 can they be driven home at the point of a bayonet. 
 Unless we develop a nation of men and women who in the 
 plastic period of childhood have been taught the curse 
 of war and the meaning of brotherhood between peoples 
 of whatever country, or nationality, or color, we shall 
 
 1 The Progressive Journal of Education^ Vol. II, p. 207. 
 
44 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 have schools teaching militarism and find boys anxious 
 for war. We must begin in the school. 
 
 In school also less attention should be given the war 
 side of history. Take from the average textbook on 
 The tendency mstorv to-day those portions dealing directly 
 of history to or indirectly with wars and there is little 
 glorify war rem aining. Causes of and preparations for 
 war, size of armies, dates and locations of battles, lurid 
 pen pictures of carnage and destruction and death, the 
 shouts of men, the cries of the wounded, the smoke and 
 blaze of powder, the roar of shot, the battle-scarred flags, 
 the groans of the vanquished and the cheers of the victor, 
 these have a prominent place in our schools. And then 
 the periods that follow the war a country disfigured and 
 desolate, crops destroyed, homes forsaken, people sunk in 
 poverty and want, and the graves of the best and strong- 
 est of the nation's heroes. 
 
 History must reveal the glory and dignity and power 
 of peace rather than the glitter and splendor of war. It 
 Thereat ' must trace the needs of the statesman, the 
 province of inventor, the mechanic, the writer, the philan- 
 history study thropist> the explorer, the settler, the farmer, 
 rather than those of the warrior and the soldier. 
 
 "Our fathers ... got not the land in possession by 
 their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: 
 but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of 
 thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto 
 them. " * For the brave men of all past time, who without 
 selfishness or thought of glory or honor, and at great 
 personal sacrifice and financial loss, have given their 
 lives that the state might be spared, we are thankful. 
 But the day is now at hand to lay aside the memory of 
 the circumstances that made wars necessarv, and to hold 
 
 1 Psalms t xliv, 3. 
 
The New Century's Awakening 45 
 
 before the vision those things that shall render further war 
 forever impossible. Universal peace must reign. 
 
 Our institutions should seek to make clear the fact 
 that increased navies and enlarged standing armies will 
 not tend to decrease the prospect of war. When, a few 
 years since, wonderful inventions gave to us guns of tre- 
 mendous power and accuracy it was said by many that 
 this alone would prevent war. That no army or navy 
 could withstand the fire from such destructive engines 
 was the conclusion. 
 
 In the old days it was war constantly. Contests of 
 strength or cunning saved life, or property, or honor. 
 An argument ended in a duel, an insult in Primitive 
 a tribal uprising. A dispute over boundary man a natural 
 lines, or division of spoils, or the payment of 
 a debt meant bloodshed and massacre and revenge and 
 war. Men were ever on the alert to wrench from their 
 neighbors that which did not belong to them, and the 
 outposts had to be constantly guarded. 
 
 In order to prevent war this nation and our sister 
 nations vied, each with the other, in securing an adequate 
 armament. But hardly had this wonderful Preparedness 
 race for supremacy got well under way than for war will not 
 powerful war vessels and dreadnaughts be- *"**&** 
 gan to take shape. Now surely war should cease, for what 
 could bide the onslaughts of one of these monsters ! And 
 again nation followed nation in draining the pockets of 
 the poor that floating arsenals should be in readiness to 
 prevent war. And as a last development comes the fly- 
 ing machine, which some claim must certainly do away 
 with all thoughts of war, as whole cities and navies could 
 be destroyed by explosives dropped from above. 
 
 So long, however, as we prepare for war, war will not 
 cease. And people must suffer, the country must be 
 
$ Ideals and Democracy 
 
 hopelessly in debt, suspicion must hang over our neigh- 
 bors, and our moral natures must be dwarfed and shriveled, 
 Hear Eben Rexford say: 1 
 
 "O bells, to-day let warfare cease! 
 Christ came to be a Prince of Peace. 
 No longer let the sound of drum 
 Or trumpet, campward calling, come 
 To vex the earth with dread, and make 
 The hearts of wives and mothers ache. 
 Leave battle-flags to moths and dust 
 Let gun and sword grow red with rust! 
 Earth groans with carnage let it cease 
 Ring in the thousand years of Peace! 
 
 "Ring out the littleness of things, 
 Ring in the broader thought that brings 
 Swift end to all ignoble creeds. 
 Ring in an age of noble deeds 
 For all things pure, and high, and good 
 The era of true brotherhood. 
 Ring out the lust for gold and gain 
 The greed that cripples soul and brain, 
 And open eyes, long blind, to see 
 What grander, better things there be!" 
 
 To-day our whole social fabric is built upon the con- 
 ception of brotherhood; our commercial relations are 
 Present social k ase ^ upon confidence placed in our fellows. 
 and civic life Tear down this mutual trust and confidence 
 ^spiri^o/ 11 an( ^ our comr fl erc ial and financial standing 
 trust and would totter in a day. The same trust 
 arbitration and confidence displayed between man and 
 man should be in force between nation and nation. We 
 elect our chief executive, not at the point of a sword, but 
 by arbitration, that is, we agree to accept the judgment 
 of the majority. The winners in a game of baseball are 
 
 1 "At Christmas Time," in Home and Flowers. 
 
The New Century's Awakening 47 
 
 determined by arbitration. A contest in debate or 
 oratory is decided by judges chosen by representatives 
 from either side. We visit the tin shop or grocery store 
 or carriage factory, and by mutual agreement exchange 
 money for goods. We bring dutiable articles from a 
 foreign country into our own and arbitrate as to their 
 value. We are slandered or misrepresented in the public 
 prints, and push our prosecution through the courts, thus 
 agreeing to arbitrate the case. We argue and vote upon 
 the tariff, and suffrage, and the liquor question, and 
 franchises, and race-track gambling, and abide by the 
 decision of the majority in other words, we arbitrate. 
 The schools must teach that war is not necessarily dignified 
 or patriotic or humane; that it is usually unnecessary, 
 and that peaceable agreement brings better results than 
 unhappy war; that dreadnaughts will insure peace less 
 quickly than will mutual trust and confidence. 
 
 Let others speak of our tremendous expenditure in 
 dollars and cents in building up our army and navy, our 
 natural and artificial defenses. Let them 
 show how the cost of one dreadnaught will mV peace 
 
 build all needed schoolhouses, pay all teachers' will result 
 salaries, including an increase of ten per * 
 cent, and defray the entire cost of educating 
 the school children in a city of a million and a half of 
 people for an entire year. Let them show how elimina- 
 tion of poverty and disease could be hastened by applying 
 at the roots of these evils the energy and money put 
 into needless preparations for war. One argument alone, 
 and that, the resulting higher moral standards among 
 the people of the earth, is sufficient to justify the call 
 for universal peace. Common sense and justice should, 
 without statistics, suffice to prove this. Brotherly love 
 must uproot selfishness; honor must take the place of 
 
48 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 intrigue; responsibility and service must be the motto 
 of all men. Moral standards and high ideals must be 
 constantly before us. 
 
 I see a vision of a national ideal of responsibility and 
 service, of brotherhood and peace, and as the vision 
 grows I see a wonderful democracy of men; a union of 
 forces before which every evil must vanish as mist before 
 the sun, and in the path of whose oncoming, righteousness 
 alone can stand. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE CLASSICS OF INDUSTRIALISM 
 
 TNDUSTRY and art have for so long been separated, 
 -L the one from the other, that little attention has been 
 given the relation that should exist between the two. 
 "Art for art's sake," upon the one hand; 
 industry for strictly commercial purposes 
 upon the other, these have been the con- 
 ceptions commonly held for many decades. It is years 
 since an artistic commercialism has dared present itself 
 for consideration. 
 
 One summer morning when a boy I stood, shortly after 
 sunrise, upon a bridge that, spanning a river in one of 
 the largest cities on this continent, was swinging length- 
 wise of the stream to allow for the passage of a three- 
 masted schooner. A country boy, this was my first 
 view of the great city and of this waterway that, like a 
 mammoth ribbon, divided the city on either hand. As 
 I looked, delighted and amazed, there appeared upon the 
 river, craft of many descriptions then unknown to me. 
 Tied at the docks on either side were barges of coal and 
 lumber unloading their cargoes, these to be in turn dis- 
 tributed throughout the length and breadth of the great 
 city, or, perhaps, again loaded upon cars to be reshipped 
 in every direction the coal to warm the homes of thou- 
 sands and to keep alive the furnaces upon which manu- 
 factures and material progress depend; the lumber to be 
 turned into dwellings and the thousand-and-one projects 
 of the arts and industries. 
 
 4 49 
 
$o Ideals and Democracy 
 
 Other boats were taking on their cargoes of raw material 
 and manufactured goods to find port in every civilized 
 portion of the world. Sailing craft, lake and ocean- 
 going steamships, small sculls and rowboats, tenders, 
 tugs, government cutters, boats large and small, old and 
 new, were passing back and forth in a ceaseless, uneasy 
 movement. And this coming and going, loading and 
 unloading; this activity, life, motion, was ever before the 
 eye, telling to those who could read, of prosperity and 
 poverty, of joy and sorrow, of pleasure and pain, of gain 
 and loss; telling of a commercial life, meaningful and nec- 
 essary, that was being made to serve the life of man. 
 
 But standing there on this summer morning, the com- 
 mercial significance of the scene had no hold upon me. 
 The life, the movement, the white sails, the brightly 
 painted hulls, the slender, tapering masts, the ease with 
 which the immense floating structures slipped past one 
 another on this narrow waterway all was to my mind the 
 embodiment of art itself. It was only a beautiful pano- 
 rama, a play enacted for my pleasure. To later years of 
 discrimination it was left for me to realize that another 
 meaning attached to this picture upon the canvas of life, 
 and that bound up with the scene that had appealed only 
 to the eye was a commercial meaning, a business inter- 
 pretation, an industrial significance that could not and 
 should not be dissociated from the former. It was an 
 industrial art, an artistic commercialism. 
 
 When we endeavor to analyze our conception of the 
 term utility we have a task far from simple. We are 
 The aesthetic P rone to consider in an out-of-hand manner 
 vs. the that the utilities are those things, objects, 
 
 utilitarian Qr attr jbutes that can be put to immediate, 
 material use. Anything that may be used to our own or 
 to the advantage of others, anything that contributes to 
 
The Classics of Industrialism 51 
 
 our physical needs, would at once be classed as a utility. 
 The utilitarian view is, to the common mind, opposed to 
 the cultural or to the aesthetic side; it is the bread-and- 
 butter conception. Utilitarianism in the popular sense 
 refers to trade; it bespeaks the commercial spirit; it has 
 to do with coal and iron, shovel and pick, cotton and 
 coffee, steam and electricity. 
 
 This view is not, in a broad sense, the true one. If 
 culture and utility were two distinctly different phases 
 of our problem, art would have no relation to either. All 
 legitimate education is both cultural and utilitarian in 
 character, for what is truly the latter must perforce be 
 the former, and the everyday life of the individual is 
 influenced more than he can say by true art, whenever and 
 however it may appear. 
 
 How great an effect the aesthetic has upon the utilitarian 
 side perhaps cannot be told. "No people is intellectually 
 independent until it has a language and a literature, all 
 its own." 1 Just as the language of a people, both spoken 
 and written, furnishes the key to its future development, 
 so in a lesser degree and perhaps in a more fundamental 
 sense the aesthetic element performs the same function. It 
 cannot be denied that a people is intellectually inde- 
 pendent only when it has an art, that is, an appreciation 
 of art an appreciation so keen that the moral, intellec- 
 tual, and commercial life is advantaged thereby. 
 
 Art that is capable of making its appeal through 
 utility will be appreciated; whenever it is accepted as 
 having value from the utilitarian side it will make its 
 appeal to culture. True appreciation is not simply a 
 matter of development, of evolution, of education, 
 although the more complete the knowledge the more 
 
 1 Nicholas Murray Butler, Introduction to Chubb's The Teach- 
 ing of English p. xix. 
 
52 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 perfect the ideal. The beautiful may be appreciated at 
 once. This may perhaps be stating in another way that 
 only the real is be?.utiful; hence true art can always be 
 appreciated. 
 
 "Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine, 
 That lights the path one little step ahead 
 Across a void of mystery and dread. 
 
 Teach, then, the inward light of faith to shine, 
 Whereby alone the mortal heart is led 
 
 Unto the thinking of the thought divine." 
 
 The truly aesthetic, therefore, cannot exist aside and 
 apart from the useful. This implies that all useful things 
 are beautiful, although there are degrees both 
 of utilit y and of beauty. But of two things 
 otherwise equally good, the more beautiful 
 will serve its purpose the better. The crude clay water 
 jug of the primitive savage, fashioned around a basket 
 of woven rushes, was indeed an article of use, and not 
 without artistic merit. The delicately fashioned vase of 
 the Greek, designed for exactly the same purpose and with 
 a capacity equal to that of the clay jug, but combin- 
 ing symmetry and perfect lines, was by far the better 
 piece of work from a utilitarian point of view. The 
 water jug is forgotten by all save the archaeologist, but the 
 vase form is used to-day as it has been used through all 
 the centuries past. Because it pleases the eye, its mar- 
 ket value is greater than that of the other; it will be used 
 as a model while the other will not; it will have an effect 
 upon the life of the individual that the other cannot 
 have an effect beneficial from both mental and mate- 
 rial standpoints. 
 
 "There is one glory of the sun, and another giory of the 
 moon, and another glory of the stars"; there is likewise 
 an art of strength, an art of simplicity, an art of line, form, 
 
The Classics of Industrialism 53 
 
 and color, and all combine in use, which is the art itself. 
 
 In generations past, before the power of the dollar had 
 begun to assert itself in such definite and far-reaching 
 terms as is the case to-day; when time was less of the 
 vital element it is at present, and before division of labor 
 had been carried to its apparently extreme limit, but 
 withal, a limit that is constantly expanding as a rubber 
 band may be stretched, there was a day when art and 
 industry were blended and shaped together in the work 
 of the people. -. At the base of utility were stability and 
 beauty. The builder in wood was the artistic builder, and 
 his product was to endure not for a day but for time. 
 The mason kept in mind both his building and its beauty. 
 The worker in iron constructed on lines not only of strength 
 but of satisfaction. The architect, the mechanic, and the 
 artist were often one and the same. There was a unity, 
 a oneness, throughout the work, and that which at the 
 moment could not reach completion was not outraged 
 by hasty or careless workmanship. The worth of the 
 structure was to be determined by the test of time, the 
 relation of function to fitness, and the effect produced 
 upon the eye and mind. To meet this test, thought and 
 intelligence, care and patience, honest and artistic work, 
 beautiful ideals and strong realities, in fact, the very 
 lives and purposes of men, were built into the structure 
 as builders lay stones, one upon the other. 
 
 And so whether in the cathedral, the shop door, the road, 
 the wall, the piece of furniture, the picture, the implement, 
 the book, the fireplace, the silver for the table each 
 building, each separate piece, decoration, or utensil, was 
 made to use, to beautify, and to endure. 
 
 To-day all is different, although the tide has set again 
 toward the better conception. Division of labor and 
 specialization are now so far-reaching that ten, twenty, 
 
54 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 sixty men divide among them the processes formerly 
 carried on by one or two. A workman knows little and 
 frequently cares less about details of processes 
 machines outside his own narrow field. He is a human 
 machine, working automatically, his business 
 to turn out the largest amount of work in the shortest 
 possible time. He need have no care for artistic merit 
 or pleasing quality. Development in the world of science 
 is so rapid to-day, and new and improved methods in the 
 arts and industries so soon displace former practices, that 
 stability is given less consideration than would otherwise 
 be the case. The truly artistic cannot exist apart from 
 stability. 
 
 A great metropolitan daily 1 recently used the following 
 language in commenting upon labor conditions : 
 
 "Over at the town eating-house I sat alongside two 
 young mechanics in their shirt sleeves. They were 
 engaged in a most interesting discussion. 
 
 "One was arguing that German mechanics are superior 
 to Americans, and the other was opposing his views. 
 
 "'My old man is a Dutchman,' said the first young 
 fellow. ' He is a mechanic and I am a mechanic. I can 
 do good work and get good wages in the shop but, 
 pshaw, what do I know about mechanics ? 
 
 1 'With the help of a machine, I can make just one 
 part of one machine. My old man could go cut down a 
 tree and take a bar of steel and make the whole thing 
 from the raw state to the finished product. 
 
 ' ' If we studied our trades like my old man studied 
 his, there would be no trouble about wages and about 
 machinery.' " 
 
 There is a deal of philosophy in the utterance of the 
 young mechanic. While not a purist, he grasps in a 
 
 i The Times, Los Angeles, California. 
 
The Classics of Industrialism 55 
 
 wholesome way the distinction between the conditions 
 of to-day and those of the generations past. 
 
 The whole argument being presented is that our day and 
 generation have developed such tremendous industrial 
 and commercial problems, such lines of special A * 
 interest, that art and industry have become industry 
 almost hopelessly divorced; and while these divorced 
 lines of progress are to be welcomed and accepted, a right 
 and happy adjustment of the pleasing and the profitable 
 must somehow be brought about. The time has come 
 to cease considering "art for art's sake." The day is 
 past, if this country is to develop ideals and live up 
 to them, when a basis for governmental policies, moral 
 life, and educational growth is to be found in a sordid 
 commercialism. Art and industry must work hand in 
 hand. The artistic workman must take his place side 
 by side with the technical workman; the artistic and 
 technical elements must be developed in every man who 
 plans and builds. 
 
 "Much has been said in times past about art for 
 art's sake, science for the sake of science, and knowledge 
 for the sake of knowledge," says McMurry. 1 
 "But these are vague expressions that will 
 excite little interest so long as the worth of a man is 
 determined by what comes out of him, by the service 
 he renders, rather than by what enters in. Other 
 branches of knowledge used for educative purposes, there- 
 fore, resemble the useful arts in the recognition of their 
 bearings on man, their actual use as the goal in their 
 study.". .- A pleasing unity of art and industry, of beauty 
 and utility, and all making for stability, is the goal toward 
 which we should strive. 
 
 Beauty in form, in color, in musical note, reached a 
 
 1 How to Study and Teaching How to Study, p. 198. 
 
50 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 high standard of perfection in the life of the old Greek 
 and Egyptian; in fact, with all the boasted superiority 
 
 of our present-day civilization we have never 
 Industrial excelled the Greek in fa p Ower to depict 
 
 line and form or the Egyptian in his ability 
 to produce abstract color. Music, painting, and sculp- 
 ture have, however, until a recent day, been conceded 
 to comprehend the fine arts. When architecture became 
 an art, then in a measure was the utilitarian view con- 
 sidered. It remained for the applied arts, or the so-called 
 industrial arts, to clearly point the way of the relation 
 of art to utility. 
 
 We have had pictured to us the master Michelangelo, 
 as he toiled day after day and month by month until the 
 Sistine Chapel was complete, a marvel to all the world 
 and a monument to the creative powers of the man; we 
 have stood silent before the incomparable Madonna of 
 Raphael, being drawn again and again to view, with 
 reverence and wonder, this picture; the chisel of Phidias 
 has left its impress upon the lives of a multitude; the 
 majestic lines of Schiller and Goethe, of Emerson and 
 Shakspere, the music of Wagner and Beethoven, and the 
 sentences of Chatham and Webster are as fresh and 
 inspiring to-day as they were in the times of our fathers; 
 the Cologne Cathedral, which for nine centuries saw 
 progress year by year and from reign to reign, reminds us 
 of those who planned and placed and trued. And in the 
 effects upon our lives of this contact and this experience, 
 the least is by no means utilitarian in character. 
 
 However, art has begun to assume a broader aspect 
 than that symbolized by the brush and chisel only. 
 "Men fight to lose the battle," says William Morris, 
 "and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite 
 ef their defeat, and when it comes turns out to be not 
 
The Classics of Industrialism 57 
 
 what they meant, and other men have to fight for what 
 they meant under another name." 
 
 From the time of William Morris and John Ruskin the 
 beauty of utility has been more and more emphasized, 
 and to-day the term "art" may be applied to work in 
 silver or gold, iron or copper; to wood, glass, leather, or 
 paper. A book or mantelpiece, a city street or a shop 
 window may as clearly embody the art spirit as a painting 
 or a statue. Looked at from this viewpoint it is easy to 
 see how art may have a distinctly utilitarian'trend. 
 
 It may safely be said, therefore, that use is a determin- 
 ing factor in beauty, and that construction and decoration 
 are its two fundamentals. 
 
 I have spoken of the moral effect as being different and 
 apart from the utilitarian. But this is impossible. Let 
 me illustrate. I once taught a group of boys The in fl uence 
 in Henry Street. Those of you who live in of art on 
 New York City and have undertaken to 
 learn at first hand how the other half live need not be told 
 the location of Henry Street. The filth and poverty and 
 disappointment of the East Side are resident in this 
 locality; the pathetic and downcast mingle here with the 
 gay and the boisterous; confidence and suspicion watch 
 from opposite street corners. But with scant means, 
 meager homes, and an unhappy environment there is a 
 growing appreciation of the beautiful and an increased 
 understanding of how to construct useful and beautiful 
 things. On climbing to the attic of a Henry Street build- 
 ing and entering a small room occupied by two young 
 men who were working with the boys of the district, one 
 of the silent causes of this appreciation was apparent. 
 On the walls were prints of the masters, simply framed; 
 bookshelves cheaply and serviceably made, and some 
 home-bound magazines and books; pieces of furniture 
 
5# Ideals and Democracy 
 
 made by the young men, and scattered here and there 
 small articles of use so simply and honestly constructed 
 as to be within the ability and reach of all. This delight- 
 ful place the boys used to visit, and from it radiated such 
 an atmosphere of real art that they carried with them a 
 feeling for the useful and beautiful, and the moral as well. 
 Broadly speaking, that which appeals to the mass, and 
 continues to appeal to it, possesses the elements of utility. 
 The superficial and shallow will endure for a day; that 
 which is fine and true is lasting. In Germany the rich 
 and the poor, the young and the old, the workman, student, 
 and merchant, sit side by side at a Wagnerian production ; 
 all are interested, uplifted, instructed. No man has a 
 "corner" on the appreciation of such music. It appeals 
 to the average man, as does real literature and true art. 
 
 " The average man is the man of the mill, 
 The man of the valley, the man of the hill; 
 The man at the throttle, the man at the plow, 
 The man with the sweat of his toil on his brow. 
 Who brings into being the dreams of the few, 
 Who works for himself, and for me and for you. 
 There is not a purpose, a project, or plan, 
 But rests on the strength of the average man. 
 
 11 The man who, perchance, thinks he labors alone, 
 The man who stands out between hovel and throne; 
 The man who gives freely his brain and his brawn 
 Is the man that the world has been builded upon. 
 The clang of the hammer, the sweep of the saw, 
 The flash of the forge, they have strengthened the law; 
 They have rebuilt the realm that the wars overran, 
 They have shown us the worth of the average man." 
 
 It is only that education which has a relation to life, 
 day by day, that can be considered true education. The 
 art that does not appeal to everyday existence is not the 
 true art, although that which at first glance seems useless 
 
The Classics of Industrialism 59 
 
 and theoretical may prove to be of the greatest material 
 use. "We live on the electricity in the air much more 
 than we do on the food we put into our mouths " is another 
 way of expressing the truth that the unseen forces are 
 sometimes of the greatest utilitarian value. 
 
 The American way is the quick way, the machine way. 
 Quantity counts and character, whether reckoned in 
 terms of man's worth or of artistic merit, The 
 
 is too little thought of. I have observed American 
 the hundreds of girls and boys in one of the 
 large factories of an eastern city as they carried on the 
 various processes of lead-pencil making. Each had his 
 own part to perform, and the hands moved so rapidly as 
 to tax one in following as it would to follow the fortunes 
 of a moving picture. On observing a similar group of 
 young people in a large pen factory in the English city 
 of Birmingham, the contrast between the American and 
 English temperaments was clearly disclosed. The move- 
 ments of the latter were studied, deliberate, with time 
 enough and to spare. On the one hand was an exposition 
 of the "simple life," with thought and physical growth 
 possible; on the other, the expenditure of nervous en- 
 ergy such as produces invalids in adolescence. 
 
 Now modern methods or scientific processes in the 
 industries do not always imply a turning from the artis- 
 tic and soul-satisfying. But as we emphasize ^^ ^ 
 the value of quantity in production, as we ceases 
 
 make for to-day rather than for to-morrow, 
 as we of the schools educate one class to the value of 
 technique and another to the beauty of line and tone and 
 harmonious blending of parts, we tend to cut the cords 
 that should bind industry to art. We make of art a 
 thing of and by itself at which point true art ceases- 
 and emphasize an industry designed simply to make 
 
60 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 existence possible, trade brisk, and money, for its own 
 sake, more to be desired than before. 
 
 A real education implies an education for ah; an 
 individual education in whatever it may consist for 
 
 the individual man. The classics of indus- 
 befterthlnes trialism must appeal to all, and to accomplish 
 
 this the aesthetic must be bound up with the 
 industries in all the activities in which all are more or 
 less intimately interested. Day by day, hour by hour, 
 this appeal must be made, as it is constant dropping that 
 wears the stone. With the elements of beauty and of 
 utility combined ; with workmen trained to glorify indus- 
 try through pleasing form and to magnify beauty through 
 industrial processes and splended technique; with the 
 dawning of this day of better things will dawn also the 
 day when labor shall be dignified and the master and 
 the workmen shall be fellow builders, working toward 
 the same goal in the same school of service. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE LIBRARY AS AN EDUCATIONAL 
 FACTOR 
 
 MORE than three quarters of a century ago the first 
 real apostle of popular education in this country 
 wrote in his journal: "The people who speak to me 
 on the subject of my Secretaryship seem to think that 
 there is more dignity or honor or something in being 
 President of the Senate, than to be Missionary of Popular 
 Education. If t the Lord will prosper me for ten years, I 
 will show them what way the balance of honor lies. 
 But this is not a matter to be done sleeping." 1 And 
 over seventy years later a great soul said: "How do I 
 know that life is worth living unless I learn that some- 
 body else has found it so? Where shall I find that? 
 In a book! How shall I know that victories are to be 
 won unless I find the records in books? Men and women 
 who have been successful in life are telling us of this on 
 the printed pages. This is uplifting. A book is nothing 
 but an individual. If you sit down with one of HowelTs 
 books you sit down with Howell. If you have a public 
 library you have the best men and women of the world 
 as neighbors." 2 
 
 Horace Mann was prospered for his ten years. His 
 work as secretary of the Board of Education of Massa- 
 chusetts laid the foundation of the most far-reaching 
 reforms in school administration that our country had 
 
 1 Horace Mann's Journal. See Hubbell, Horace Mann, p. Si. 
 
 2 Canfield, "The Library's Part in Education," Public Libraries, 
 
 14: I2O, 1909. 
 
 61 
 
62 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 experienced to the sunset of the last century. And 
 James H. Canfield, as teacher, librarian, and man, 
 performed a work in stimulating the individual and 
 community mind for good books that rises to-day his 
 monument. 
 
 The library is or should be one of the most vital of 
 educational factors. Says Draper: "The state which can 
 put a mark upon its map wherever there is a town or 
 village library, and find its map well covered, will take 
 care of itself." 1 "Many an end really within the indi- 
 vidual's reach is never grasped simply because it is con- 
 cealed by the screen of ignorance; and many a man in 
 later years can, with bitter, unavailing regret, see clearly 
 how his whole career might have been different if only 
 this end or that had been brought within his ken by the 
 written or the spoken word." 2 
 
 The school and the library are parts of one ard the 
 
 same great organic institution. Whether housed in the 
 
 school building or in a separate structure on 
 
 The library . . ,,. 
 
 an intrinsic the school grounds, or in a public building, 
 
 part of managed by a special board and financed by 
 the school . . J . V? ,. 
 
 the municipality, the library is essentially part 
 
 and parcel of the educational scheme. The books of the 
 library are as much a part of the school machinery as 
 are the various pieces of apparatus in the physical labor- 
 atory, the biological specimens, the collections used in 
 the study of mineralogy, or the tools and materials in 
 the craft shop or the school kitchen. To think of the 
 library as apart from education, and as simply a desirable 
 aid to the school, is to place it in the amusement column. 
 Many libraries, and the major portion of most, judged by 
 the books on their shelves, belong with the theater and 
 
 i American Education, p. 46. 
 
 5 MacCunn, The Making of Character, p. 193. 
 
The Library as an Educational Factor 63 
 
 the summer resort. A collection of books meeting this 
 requirement merely is not a library. We must of course 
 have a care for relative values and give full consideration 
 to the legitimate place the library plays as a means of 
 entertainment and recreation. 1 "After the church and 
 the school, the free library is the most effective influence 
 for good in America," said Theodore Roosevelt. This 
 is stating in another form that the church, the school, 
 and the library are three of the elements without which 
 any educational organization is less than perfect. 
 
 It has been said frequently, and with truth, that with 
 building and equipment and playground and library 
 facilities, and all that goes to constitute the 
 material and physical side of a modern school, 
 the plant would prove inadequate to meet 
 the demands imposed unless the teacher of purpose and 
 of power was the guiding genius of the whole. Person- 
 ality in the teacher counts for more than all else on the 
 success side of the balance sheet. So is it with your 
 librarian. Before building or equipment or books, the 
 librarian stands supreme. The librarian is the center 
 of the system, and all else depends upon her. 
 
 For what constitutes a library? A beautiful building 
 constructed by private funds or public bond issue and 
 raised amid charming surroundings of lawn and lake and 
 grove? Furniture and equipment of the most modern 
 type? A large collection of books? Too often this is 
 indeed the library. It is a show place. It constitutes 
 "Exhibit A" when visitors are taken proudly about 
 town on a tour of inspection. But what of the librarian? 
 Do her townspeople, her friends and associates, realize 
 the part she is daily called upon to play in shaping the 
 
 iJewett,"The Public Library and the Public School," Public 
 Libraries, 14: 119, 1909. 
 
<fy Ideals and Democracy 
 
 ideas and ideals of the community? A man or woman of 
 personality, of tact, trained in library lore and possessing 
 a knowledge of books, of teaching, and particularly of 
 individuals such will be the librarian in fact. And a 
 humble structure housing a handful of well-selected vol- 
 umes may be the library of real educational value in any 
 community. 
 
 "There is, undoubtedly, a certain benefit to the growth 
 of the civic spirit in a small town, in the presence of a 
 beautiful, dignified library building, and where it can 
 be maintained without detriment to the real service of 
 books, it is the fulfillment of a commendable ambition 
 to have such a building. But, oftentimes the library 
 service would be stronger in rented quarters, appropri- 
 ately and adequately equipped, with a sufficient collec- 
 tion of books, a sympathetic, up-to-date librarian in 
 charge to make known the contents of the library to the 
 community." 1 By all means have the beautiful build- 
 ing where possible. But ambition to possess "the best 
 library building in the state"; to be able to furnish, on 
 the initial request, the novel fresh from the press; or to 
 show in the annual report an unparalleled percentage of 
 increase in stock these are not necessarily commendable 
 ambitions either on the part of librarian or board. The 
 vital questions are: Has the individual been reading? 
 What does he read, and how? Is taste developing? Is 
 there an increased demand for the best in history and biog- 
 raphy and science and poetry and travel and art? Are 
 books read, or do patrons go through the library as the 
 average tourist visits an art gallery or "sees Europe"? 
 
 All librarians must be teachers in spirit and tempera- 
 ment, and all teachers must understand how to work with 
 
 i "Buildings are not Libraries," editorial in Public Libraries, 
 14: 56, 1909. 
 
The Library as an Educational Factor 65 
 
 books. Some 'one has truly said, in speaking of the un- 
 trained, that " you should not put drugs of which you 
 know nothing into a body of which you know 
 
 less." The individual who understands books The libr t arian 
 
 as a teacher 
 slightly, and boys and girls not at all, cannot 
 
 be expected to make either a good librarian or an excel- 
 lent teacher. It is then not only necessary to train 
 librarians for their profession, but all normal and train- 
 ing schools must offer to prospective teachers courses 
 of instruction in the use of the library. This suggestion 
 has in it no element of originality. Already many schools 
 are attempting this work. This is a matter that must be 
 worked out jointly by librarian and teacher, the training 
 and experience of the librarian being a positive force. 
 
 The replies to a recent inquiry as to library instruction 
 in normal schools show that of thirty-two schools reply- 
 ing (representing eighteen states) twenty Courses in 
 schools offer instruction in the use of the normal 
 
 library. Four schools offer no instruction 
 whatever; one replies, "Yes and no"; in one school 
 occasional instruction is given; in one, instruction is 
 incidental; in two, there is individual instruction, and 
 in three, courses are in contemplation. The number of 
 lessons per year ranges from one, two, or four in several 
 schools to sixty in one school. Between these limits 
 one school offers ten to eighteen lessons, three give eight- 
 een to twenty, one school thirty. In only twelve schools 
 is the work obligatory, and in all but three of these the 
 instruction is given by the librarian. Where library 
 work is optional, either the librarian or a faculty member 
 gives the instruction. 1 
 
 i " Library Instruction in Normal Schools: Results of replies to 
 a circular sent out from Newark, N. J., public library." Public 
 Libraries, 14; 147, 1909. 
 
66 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 While extremely suggestive as indicating the trend of 
 affairs, it is quite evident that as yet few school boards, 
 superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, or libra- 
 rians have seriously considered the necessity of preparing 
 all our teachers in the elements of library work. Such 
 work in normal schools and education departments in 
 colleges must be obligatory, for regardless of grade or 
 type of school, and in whatever subject, the teacher must 
 handle books. And no student should graduate from 
 such a school until he or she is proficient in the elements 
 of library administration. This knowledge is of greater 
 importance than much else the student is required to 
 know. If programs are now overfull, room must be made 
 through the process of elimination ; for library work is not 
 a subject, as is mathematics or Latin. "It is a method 
 of work." Without it no work can be effective. 9 We 
 have thus to consider what should be taught to teachers 
 in training. Since this depends upon what pupils should 
 be required to know that they may use the library under- 
 standingly, we must here speak of library administration 
 from the standpoint of the school. 
 
 One has but to study conditions as they exist, whether 
 in the public library or the school library, to note that 
 adults, not to speak of boys and girls, are practically at 
 sea when making investigations. In a general way the 
 location of certain books may be known. How to find 
 books on a particular subject new to one; how to locate 
 material bearing upon the text in use; how to find par- 
 allel studies, or substitutes, provided the required book is 
 missing; how to separate the wheat from the chaff, and 
 gather up the main points in a discussion; how to study 
 to the best advantage in fact, how to use the library. 
 On these matters the average boy or girl, man or woman, 
 is comparatively ignorant. Many well-meaning students 
 
The Library as an Educational Factor 67 
 
 spend more time in groping through the library in a 
 fruitless search than they give to reading, and many a one 
 remains away from the library altogether, when now and 
 again he finds a few moments for study, knowing that 
 only a prolonged search will reveal the desired material. 
 And with book in hand how few know how to use it. 
 Surely you have all had occasion to wish that the school 
 taught [pupils in the art of study. I sat i gnorance 
 recently in the library of a great university of how 
 observing a number of young people, the to study 
 product of our high schools, as they pursued their studies. 
 In the make-up of most of them the art of concentration 
 seemed entirely lacking. Pages were turned listlessly, 
 notes were made, passages were read and re-read, posi- 
 tions were shifted. Only for the briefest periods were 
 minds centered upon the subject in hand. Five minutes 
 of concentrated, consecutive, understanding study will 
 bring better results than will prolonged reaches of time 
 given under such conditions. And these college people, 
 well meaning and ordinarily bright and intelligent, are 
 typical of those found the country over. Conditions 
 with high-school and grade pupils are even worse. Not 
 interested, you say. They simply do not know how to 
 use books. Is it then the duty of the teacher and the 
 librarian to first instruct readers in this art, or is the time 
 to be given to the mechanics of school keeping and to 
 library routine? Welcome the time when with Elizabeth 
 Barrett Browning 
 
 "We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge 
 Soul forward, headlong, into a book profound, 
 Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth 
 Tis then we get the right good from a book." 1 
 
 Every well-regulated school of several teachers should 
 1 Aurora Leigh. 
 
68 I dials and Democracy 
 
 have a carefully selected list of books and a librarian to 
 preside over them. This librarian should be a member 
 of the faculty. Every public librarian should possess the 
 Library used mstmcts f tne true teacher. Much of the 
 at opening pupil's time during the first days of school, 
 of term particularly in the last two years of the 
 
 elementary and the secondary school period, should be 
 spent in the library, or in the recitation room with por- 
 tions of the library at his disposal. Where the school 
 is without a librarian, the public library should furnish 
 a demonstrator. And whatever the situation, all pupils 
 should report in the public library for instruction. They 
 should be taught in groups. The first lesson should 
 acquaint the pupils in a general way with their library 
 home. They should know each member of the library 
 staff, should visit every room, and be told something of 
 
 The elements ^ e un ^ ts composing the entire plant. They 
 of library should know how a book is ordered, how 
 shipped, what happens when it reaches the 
 receiving room, how it is classified, catalogued, and 
 shelved. In the beginning, specific books need not be 
 mentioned, but those covering the general subjects in 
 which the particular class is most interested may be 
 located. Subjects overlap, and a given book may touch 
 upon a variety of subjects while another may deal dis- 
 tinctly with a narrow phase of one subject. This the 
 pupils should understand, and thus they may more 
 readily appreciate the basis of classification of books. 
 The main features of the use of the card catalogue may 
 be illustrated, together with the value of the subject, 
 author, and title index and how to use the cross-references. 
 All of this, in simplified fashion, can be given to a class 
 in one or two lessons. And together with the instruc- 
 tion on the use of the library there can be given, here 
 
The Library as an Educational Factor 69 
 
 and there, hints on authorship, the value of good books, 
 methods of opening and handling new volumes, the place 
 of real literature and of books as friends. All this will 
 stimulate the class to a better care of books and an 
 increased desire to begin a collection that shall develop 
 into a library. 
 
 As opportunity offers, specific details should be pre- 
 sented. Many high-school pupils and most children 
 believe their textbooks contain practically all Textbooks 
 the information available on a given topic. supple- 
 Many otherwise excellent teachers believe Dented 
 that they need not go outside the prescribed textbook 
 for teaching material. When failing to find a particular 
 reference, the boy or girl does not know how to locate 
 other references perhaps just as good; may not even 
 know there are other references in existence. Or, having 
 a subject to investigate, the student may have forgotten 
 the name of the author cited to him; he may know the 
 author, and cannot recall the subject or the title. A few 
 minutes spent with a class, working on a typical case, 
 will result in the saving of hours to each pupil during the 
 year. Nothing will tend to draw young people to the 
 library for serious work as will a knowledge on their part 
 of how to use the tools. 
 
 Continually you have been disappointed, on entering 
 a library for the first time, in a search for a particular 
 item. Being familiar with the number of the p am m ar ity 
 book wanted, you may be told it is not in with books 
 unless upon the shelf where it properly 
 belongs. The library being new to you, and your time 
 limited, you may not be able to locate the shelf. Or, 
 putting yourself in the position of one who knows nothing 
 of library system, you cannot locate your book even 
 though you have time. In matters of this kind it is the 
 
jo Ideals and Democracy 
 
 survival of the insistent. The timid go away mentally 
 starved. 
 
 The librarian must show the student how failure to 
 
 find a given book in its accustomed place is no guarantee 
 
 it is missing from the library. The book 
 
 Why time as k e d for may simply be misplaced, but the 
 M wasted V 
 
 pupil may not realize this; or he may be 
 
 unable to trace a book so misplaced. A book may have 
 been returned to the library and be lying upon the receiv- 
 ing trucks, or it may be reserved. It may be in the 
 bindery. Just because these matters are not understood, 
 and because of young and old, students and teachers, few 
 know how to trace a subject unless they are in possession 
 of all the data, or how to secure a substitute for a book 
 that is unavailable, they go without. Human nature 
 is much the same in all of us, and what we speak 
 of as "our ignorance" we do not wish to exhibit. We 
 therefore prowl about here and there. We thumb this 
 book and that, make a pretense at interest, and finally 
 take ourselves from the library altogether, thenceforward 
 to rest content with the dictionary and encyclopedia, 
 which, by the way, we think we know how to use but 
 probably do not. "The fact that many of those who 
 frequent public libraries are inexperienced, and the still 
 more obvious fact that a vast number of people who do 
 not frequent public libraries, stay outside because they 
 do not know what books to ask for, if they enter, leave 
 a responsibility with the libraries and committees which 
 they cannot escape." 1 
 
 Not only should the public librarian offer instruction 
 to the students who come from the schools but many 
 librarians will, if called upon, be ready to visit the 
 
 i Hill, "Responsibility for the Public Taste," Library, New Series 
 7, p. 260, 1906. 
 
The Library as an Educational Factor 71 
 
 schools, and there, in the absence of a trained school 
 librarian, give instruction to the classes. Classroom 
 
 demonstrations on the care of books, open- 
 
 ,.. The value of 
 
 mg and handling, keeping them unsoiled and classroom 
 
 sanitary, on the meaning of title, introduc- instruction 
 tion, copyright, and dedication, and how to use the table 
 of contents and index these topics can be made of in- 
 terest and value to the pupils. The making of outlines, 
 abstracts, or briefs and the working up of a bibliography 
 are of prime importance and should be required of all high- 
 school students. The librarian should seek an early 
 opportunity to address the school in assembly. Here 
 can be brought out the necessity for an organic unity 
 between library and school. The pupils and public may 
 be made to understand that to locate and hand out books 
 is the least important part of the librarian's business. 
 The great question is: What will the library do if the 
 people will permit it to do it? 
 
 As books of reference the most common, the dictionary 
 and the encyclopedia, are, as previously hinted, very 
 little understood by the average reader. The dictionary 
 Practically the only use to which the die- not used un- 
 tionary is put is to give the proper spelling derstandlin & l y 
 of a word, syllabification, and in all too few cases, where 
 the art is understood, of pronunciation. The length of 
 time required for most high-school pupils to search out 
 a given word is appalling. They know little or nothing 
 of how to ascertain the various tones or shades of a word; 
 how to get at the meaning through illustration in the 
 context; to weigh the various forms of usage; to search 
 for synonyms or derivations. For the one who knows 
 how to use it to the best advantage there is more real 
 information in the commonplace dictionary than comes 
 to the ordinary reader from an armful of volumes. It 
 
J2 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 can be easily understood how the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, 
 and the dictionary laid the foundation for a liberal edu- 
 cation in the life of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The particular field and function of reference books 
 should be pointed out, and here again librarians and 
 
 The use of teac ^ ers must wor ^ together. For just as 
 ordinary few teachers know how to use the cumulative 
 i^ex, tne readers' guide to periodical litera- 
 ture, or have the courage to work over public 
 documents or state papers, so there is lost to them much 
 of the wealth contained in manuals, yearbooks, almanacs, 
 hand-books of dates, facts, and quotations, The Readers' 
 Hand-books, Adams's Manual of Historical Literature, 
 and the many general and special bibliographies. Could 
 librarians instruct the rank and file of the teaching pro- 
 fession in the technique of real reference work, a new 
 world would be opened to many a teacher. She could 
 accomplish more in less time, and perhaps feel that she 
 could afford to satisfy her desire for general reading for 
 culture. 
 
 Before teachers can instruct the pupils the teachers 
 must themselves be taught. Before classwork opens in 
 Instruction t ^ ie ^' tne librarian should meet and instruct 
 for the teachers. In the elementary school this 
 
 may be done by grades; in the high school 
 the teachers of a given subject may form a group for 
 instruction, or all may assemble in a body. It is abso- 
 lutely necessary that teachers be proficient, for from no 
 one can instruction so well come to the pupils as from the 
 class teachers. Like morals, the use of books and the 
 significance of good literature can best be taught inci- 
 dentally to the immature mind. While the set lessons 
 of librarians must be in a sense abstract and formal, 
 instruction in class comes in such manner and at such 
 
The Library as an Educational Factor 73 
 
 time as to show direct application to the work in hand. 1 
 The teachers should submit to the librarian a list of 
 topics upon which the various classes will be asked to 
 report during the first days of school. To- 
 gether with each list the teacher should give 
 the titles of books she desires the class to librarians 
 study. No book or reference should be thus 
 suggested with which the teacher is not perfectly familiar. 
 If she desires the librarian to add to this list she should 
 make this known. The reference list should then be posted 
 in the library. Both teacher and librarian must keep in 
 touch with the progress of pupils, and encourage them 
 to add to the lists any desirable references found. This 
 will assist the pupils in working out their bibliographies 
 later in the term. 
 
 With this proper understanding between teacher and 
 librarian the former will not shoulder her responsibili- 
 ties upon the latter, nor will the librarian The teac i ier 
 fail to meet the emergency call of the student, and librarian 
 If the teacher does not inform herself on ^operate 
 what the library has to offer, but simply admonishes the 
 pupil to "go and ask the librarian," both teacher and 
 librarian lose cast with the pupil; the teacher is held 
 to be ignorant and the librarian a servant. The process 
 as between school and library must be one of integration. 
 The teacher and librarian must work together. Whether 
 in the school or in the library we must realize the force 
 of Dr. Harris's remark: "It is our policy rather to de- 
 velop ability than to give exhaustive information. The 
 printed page is the mighty Aladdin's lamp which gives 
 to the meanest citizen the power to lay a spell on time 
 and space." 
 
 i Mendenhall, "Library Instruction in Normal Schools, " Public 
 Libraries, 13, p. 39, 1908. 
 
74 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 The teachers and the public librarian must strike hands 
 in the matter of selecting books to be ordered. The 
 librarian should be given extended powers in all matters 
 of administration, and then held for results. The board 
 is an advisory body and must have the final word as to 
 funds, but the judgment of the librarian should be taken 
 in the matter of selection of books, having first advised 
 with the teachers. The teachers should keep in touch 
 with trade-list journals, catalogues, publishers' bulletins, 
 and review columns. They should keep a bibliography 
 on each subject taught, and add to it from time to time. 
 They should work in the library side by side with their 
 pupils, thus giving to the latter the same zest and 
 enthusiasm as comes to them when their instructors take 
 part in their games and sports. This will tend to relieve 
 the library work of any element of drudgery that might 
 attach to it in the pupils' eyes, did they think it was only 
 for those who had to recite. 
 
 Librarians frequently remark: "We must order what 
 
 our patrons demand. The people pay the bills. Our 
 
 readers call for novels and light literature; they 
 
 tort?* 11 * do not cal1 for the other kind." This is in part 
 answered by saying that one reason novel readers 
 patronize the library and other readers do not is because 
 the first find their wants gratified, while the others may 
 not be so fortunate. Students can be made of novel 
 readers. Many times a boy may be led to better reading 
 by encouragement and by telling him he is capable of 
 going deeper into his subject than are those about him. 
 The books he is reading are interesting, but you have 
 something for him along the same line, only of a better 
 order. Little by little a wrong tendency may be changed. 
 The influence here of the teacher is of the utmost value. 
 To preach a taste for good books, and then be found 
 
The Library as an Educational Factor 75 
 
 reading trash, robs the teacher's opinion of weight and 
 her advice of force. 
 
 Many a library is rich along one line of school work 
 and almost barren of books touching other phases. This 
 will probably be due to the bias of the libra- Reco nition 
 rian, or more likely to the fact that some for all 
 
 particular teacher requires considerable li- de P artrnen ^ 
 brary work of his students and, little by little, books 
 have been purchased for his department. Naturally, 
 the English and history departments in their various 
 phases make the greatest draft upon the library. But 
 care must be exercised lest the library become top- 
 heavy. All subjects have a strong humanizing side, and 
 those who study science or mathematics or industrial or 
 technical education must be made to feel that the library 
 is for them as well. Too frequently we endeavor to force 
 the boy who is mechanically inclined to read poetry or 
 English history, and try to turn the attention of his more 
 bookish brother toward natural science and the indus- 
 tries. In this way, we say, we shall make well-rounded 
 students. Librarian and teacher must beware lest the 
 boy, halted in his purpose, stop reading entirely and 
 forsake the library. By suggestion and careful direction 
 the boy may be led where he can never be forced. 
 
 That the school and library may integrate still further 
 it has been found advantageous in some localities to 
 organize libraries and schools under one and Advantages 
 the same management, or, again, to have a of joint 
 member of the board of education a member 
 also of the library board. The librarian may in fact be 
 a member of the school board. The same argument 
 would apply to the desirability of this double represen- 
 tation for library and school as for playground and school. 
 The same care shown in planning a school building should 
 
f6 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 be exercised in planning a library, and experts should 
 be intrusted with this work. Lighting, heating, ventila- 
 tion, location of stacks and shelves, arrangement of 
 rooms, offices, and desks these are matters of the first 
 importance. All of this suggests that from the financial 
 side the advantages of the dual representation are ob- 
 vious. No question would then arise as to the librarian 
 giving necessary time to the school, and here could be 
 located a branch library presided over by a librarian 
 salaried by the school. 
 
 Care should be taken not to duplicate unnecessarily 
 the magazines and periodicals found in the school library 
 and those in the public library. In so far as possible 
 the permanent pictures should also be different. Simple 
 but artistic decoration and finishing should always be 
 secured. 
 
 Discrimination should be exercised by school authori- 
 ties and principals as to the location of the school library 
 Location room - K space is at a premium, as it usually 
 and is, the library will likely be found in a dark 
 
 decoration s ^ COVQt or ^ the basement, or on the third 
 floor, or at one side of a dreary study room. Without 
 exception, the library should occupy the best location 
 in the building. It should preferably be removed from 
 sound of playground or street, and be placed on the first 
 or second floor. It should be sunny and commodious, 
 and unless the school is unwieldy, the study periods should 
 be spent here rather than in a study room. The books 
 should be grouped as to subjects ancient history, Eng- 
 lish literature, French, chemistry, geography, and the 
 like. The pupil should report for study in the library, 
 and take up his position in the alcove where the books 
 of his subject are grouped. The librarian or an assistant 
 may thus, without loss of time, know what each pupil 
 
The Library as an Educational Factor 77 
 
 is doing and can lend aid or suggestion. If the book or 
 books needed in a given instance are not available the 
 librarian should know this. The pupil, with 
 
 proper adjustment between teacher and li- TJ ! e J ibrar y 
 . . d study room 
 
 branan, may not return to his class unpre- 
 pared and with the excuse that his book was "not in." 
 The small-room library with its selected list to meet the 
 needs of the class from week to week is essential to good 
 work. However, too great a draft must not be made upon 
 the public library. The subject will determine whether 
 one copy of each of several books or several copies of 
 one should be placed in the classroom. It sometimes 
 happens that teachers themselves, thoughtlessly or other- 
 wise, have levied on all the reference books in a given 
 subject and then refuse to accept the explanation from 
 the pupils that nothing can be found. 
 
 And "Let the student be sent to the library early and 
 often; there is no more welcome visitor, but let him be 
 sent upon an errand of dignity. Let the subject be one 
 which will broaden his outlook, increase his store of 
 valuable knowledge and increase his pleasure in the 
 use of good books. Do not, I beg of you, even if he be 
 sent, let him work so long over an allusion in a classic 
 which he is studying that he lose his appreciation of the 
 literature and go away from the library with a distaste 
 instead of a taste for 'the best that has been thought and 
 said in the world.' A teacher fails somewhat if the pupils 
 are not led to books. What use if a child be taught to 
 read if he be not taught what to read and where to get it ? 
 The teacher should seek to create an appetite for books, 
 the librarian to gratify the appetite created." 1 
 
 Some of the money used in the purchase of new books 
 
 1 Jewett, "The Public Library and the School Problem," Public 
 Libraries, 14: 119, 1909. 
 
7 8 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 could more profitably be spent in issuing a series of bulle- 
 tins, these in sufficiently large editions to provide students 
 
 and others interested. Clear, simple, but com- 
 bulletins prehensive abstracts of books and articles should 
 
 from time to time appear. Every dollar put 
 into cheap novels which, when read, are out of date and 
 will never again be referred to, would better be devoted 
 to securing additional library assistance and in publishing 
 bulletins. Only in rare instances should a book of fiction, 
 or a volume of more pretentious foundation by an untried 
 author, find place on the library shelves in less than a 
 Standard vear ^ rom its appearance. The major portion of 
 works cheap books would thus never be brought within 
 
 the library. One authority advises against buy- 
 ing for school libraries literature less than twenty to 
 twenty-five years old. 1 One of the evils of the day is 
 found in the unwholesome novel, the cheap magazine, 
 and the Sunday newspaper. The danger lies not so much 
 in the story itself as in a warped habit of mind soon 
 established in the reader. It is for the teacher and libra- 
 rian to study the dominant interests and needs of the 
 boy, and to properly direct his reading into normal 
 channels. 
 
 The children's or juvenile room, if properly conducted, 
 is of the greatest value. Because teachers have their 
 Tfo own tasks to perform they can give little as- 
 
 juvenile sistance here in person. Through counsel and 
 
 advice they can do much. Story-telling and 
 reading to children should have a large place, and hence, 
 to be of the greatest service, a sufficient number of 
 assistants or associates must be in attendance here. Our 
 children's rooms in libraries must be modern in method. 
 
 i "Public Schools and their Libraries," Library^ New Series 7, 
 P- 373, 1906. 
 
Thi Library as an Educational Factor 79 
 
 Stories and readings, given along the line of the school 
 program and school activities, and such as will offer sug- 
 gestions for dramatization, will greatly facilitate the regu- 
 lar teacher's work. For nothing tends to humanize school 
 work more than does story-telling and dramatization. 
 
 If then the curriculum be crowded and the school 
 system so rigid that no place remains for the humanizing 
 influence of good books, the teacher and the The p upi i s > 
 librarian must work out the problem between interest 
 them. If the pupil's interest lies in states- considered 
 craft and oratory, give him Patrick Henry and Webster 
 and Pitt and Lincoln ; if he wishes verse, there is Steven- 
 son and Lowell and Riley and Kipling; if applied science 
 or invention, then Franklin and Fulton and Morse and 
 Edison. For each one, young or old, the library may 
 be "made to talk" if only the teacher and the librarian 
 are wise and tactful. The day of few books is past, 
 and it is worse than useless to deplore the change from 
 the few well known to the many scanned; but at least 
 some good books revealing the life and times of the great 
 epochs in all countries can be well assimilated. A few 
 books should be thoroughly digested. But with our 
 libraries overflowing with richness; with books and 
 newspapers and magazines; with pictures and 
 exhibits and lectures; with museums and 
 concerts and recitals, and all given in the name 
 of education, teachers and librarians have wonderful 
 opportunities and increased responsibilities. They must 
 also pave the way that the pupil may gather the kernel 
 from many books of many kinds, and from these manifold 
 sources, all of which are more or less closely related to 
 the library. 
 
 "Through the cooperation of principal, teachers, 
 parents, and librarian, the library may be made the very 
 
8o Ideals and Democracy 
 
 center of the school work. ' ' * Modern methods of teaching 
 lay more and more stress upon the use of the library as 
 a working laboratory for all departments and as a means 
 of supplementing the regular textbook work in the class- 
 room by the use of books and illustrative materials, thus 
 to give the pupil a broad view of the subject and awaken 
 an interest which may lead to further reading on his 
 own account. To create a love for reading, and to develop 
 a library habit which will lead him to the best use of the 
 public library after school days are over as well as during 
 his school life, should be the desire of those who have the 
 training of the boy in charge. 
 
 iHall, "What the Librarian may do for the High School," 
 Library Journal, 34: 154, 1909. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 OUR EDUCATIONAL INVESTMENT 
 
 THE past few years have recorded marked progress 
 throughout the country in the interest taken by 
 laymen in the public schools. Indeed, much of the ad- 
 vance made in socializing the school is owing to this 
 interest. The man in the commercial or professional 
 field, and who is himself a product of the school, should 
 be well fitted to determine in an unbiased way its strengths 
 and weaknesses. It is the one outside the school who is 
 often able to indicate how the work of the schoolroom 
 may be made to harmonize with life as it really exists. 
 It is he who, through suggestion and cooperation with the 
 teacher, may shape and mold the courses of study toward 
 truly useful ends. 
 
 Organized efforts in many sections have developed a 
 powerful working force among the laymen. Mothers' 
 
 and fathers' clubs, parents' meetings, citi- 
 
 , ... i_i_ t. j The growing 
 
 zens committees, neighborhood conferences, interest of 
 
 advisory ooards have been of immense value . the layman 
 in bringing together the home and the 
 school. Familiarity here breeds not contempt but inter- 
 est. Cooperation of taxpayer and teacher means efficient 
 schools. 
 
 While it is true that in many p A aces this cooperation 
 forms a union of interests making for the betterment of 
 the schools, for the most part the schools, on their organic 
 and executive sides, are let severely alone by the laymen. 
 Whenever the parent and the teacher stand shoulder to 
 c 81 
 
82 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 shoulder it is usually from the external point of view. 
 Theoretically, the parent is interested in the school; 
 practically, education is shaped by the schoolmen, as the 
 taxpayer is too busy to trouble himself with the education 
 of his children. 
 
 Do you realize how few parents, and teachers even, 
 have ever stopped to consider seriously what a complex 
 Complexity of P rocess education really is and what a 
 the educational complicated machine the school is becoming ? 
 machine JJ QW man y f think you, under our present 
 
 rapidly developing economic and industrial system, real- 
 ize fully that the judgment and energy of both teachers 
 and laymen are necessary in working out the educational 
 problem? Consider for a moment what it means to 
 carry on our educational existence. From the material 
 side there are lands, and buildings, and textbooks, and 
 schedules, and courses of study, and equipment of all 
 kinds.^ There are taxes, and salaries, and school boards, 
 and rules, and reports. There are the teachers them- 
 selves, and janitors, and various school officers and 
 employees. Then there is geography, and history, and 
 composition, and reading, and spelling, and nature study, 
 and physiology, and hygiene, and manual training, and 
 music, and gymnastics, and drawing, and penmanship, 
 and bookkeeping, and arithmetic, and domestic science, 
 and domestic art; there is zoology, and botany, and 
 physics, and chemistry, and physiography, and Latin, 
 and French, and Spanish, and German, and algebra, and 
 geometry, and more besides. There are organizations, 
 and recitations, and study, and mental growth, and phys- 
 ical development, and moral insight, and punishment, and 
 examinations, and marks, and promotions, and failures, 
 and discipline, and pleasures, and disappointments, and 
 graduations. And what is it all about ? 
 
Our Educational Investment 83 
 
 We agree in a general way as to the meaning of education 
 and the importance of the schools. As you think of it 
 a moment can you organize your thoughts into such 
 concrete form as to set forth a statement, satisfactory to 
 yourself and to others, on the significance of it all? 
 
 Now suppose you come into possession of a sum of 
 money say five hundred dollars. You have at the 
 moment no need for this amount, either for 
 the support or pleasure of your family or 
 yourself, or to settle outstanding bills. You merits must 
 therefore desire at once to seek a safe and brin z returns 
 profitable investment. To deposit your money in the 
 bank may prove a safe measure, but if it draws no 
 interest so placed you look elsewhere. You must realize 
 upon your investment. You desire to put it somewhere 
 at work that it may yield an increase. 
 
 In seeking for an investment you proceed logically 
 and thoughtfully. You listen to the advice and counsel 
 of your friends. You contrast the successes or failures 
 of those who have invested funds in this or that enter- 
 prise. You talk with those whose business it is to look 
 after such investments. You interview those who have 
 for sale stocks or bonds or mortgages or bank shares or 
 mining interests or lands or houses or goods or personal 
 property, and you study the conditions and investigate 
 the merits of each project. Finally you weigh the evi- 
 dence and conclude accordingly. 
 
 If you are a merchant you put yourself in touch with 
 the temper of the times, the demands of the trade, the 
 direction of public opinion. You endeavor The merchant 
 to look into the future, and your goods are . and 
 purchased after careful study. You want 
 salable articles and those upon which you can realize. 
 The investment must be a profitable one. If you are a 
 
84 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 farmer you study the markets, the last year's crop yield, 
 and the prospects for the year to come. You contrast 
 The farmer ^6 P^ces * one product with those of 
 and another. Through investigation and exper- 
 
 his problem ^Q^^Q^ you determine whether or not 
 the soil is adapted to a particular crop, what effect this 
 or that fertilizer has upon the yield, what irrigation and 
 working of the soil will accomplish, how rotation of crops 
 affects the output in fact, you make a business of farm- 
 ing that your investment may bring returns. 
 
 The stock raiser makes an equally intensive study of 
 his vocation. He wishes to produce an animal for speed 
 The stock or endurance or weight or beauty. He 
 raiser's desires a horse for the track or for traffic, 
 
 viewpoint an( j j^ gaudies the problem, having in mind 
 a particular object. The demand is for poultry of size 
 or of a particular delicacy of texture, and these matters 
 engage his attention. An animal of a certain color is 
 developed. Sheep, fowl, sea food, hogs, cattle, through 
 cross breeding and care and feeding, are produced to 
 meet the required demand. Everything that pertains to 
 our material welfare, our comfort, our convenience, our 
 commercial gain, is carefully worked over and planned and 
 studied, that progress may be assured and development 
 made possible. Our investments must bring returns. 
 
 A bush, small and ill shaped, that grows by the road- 
 side or in the swamp, or far within the recesses of the 
 forest, is laid hold of and transplanted in the 
 
 Contributions , .. _. . _. 
 
 of the florist garden of Luther Burbank. In the original 
 
 and hor- s t a t e the fruit is scant and small and hard 
 ticultunst , , . 
 
 and bitter, and rendered further useless by 
 
 the presence of countless seeds. A few months of prun- 
 ing and grafting and most careful attention, and behold ! 
 a shrub, symmetrical, sturdy, producing fruit large and, 
 
Our Educational Investment 85 
 
 luscious and in quantity far in excess of the original yield. 
 From a rose, small and unattractive, are born the most 
 magnificent blossoms. The cactus, with weapons to repel 
 those who would seek its fruit, is become an excellent 
 and valuable food. How amply has investment brought 
 returns in this particular field ! 
 
 The railroad locomotive of an earlier day consumed an 
 excessive amount of coal in producing sufficient energy 
 
 to haul the train one mile. Little by little _ 
 
 , . - The mecham- 
 
 and step by step, through careful manage- C al world and 
 
 ment and exact experiment and calculation, returns upon 
 
 investment 
 this amount was reduced; the construction 
 
 of the engine was modified. When the amount of coal 
 saved by one engine in traveling one mile was multiplied 
 by the total number of miles traveled in a day, and this 
 increased by the number of engines in use, a sum vast 
 enough to produce a marvelous increase in dividends was 
 saved. By watching carefully from the footboard of the 
 engine the oil as it fell, drop by drop, from the cup to the 
 bearings and gears, and by adjusting this flow to meet 
 the actual requirements, a saving in a day was figured 
 in oil alone such as would make a fortune for a poor 
 man. Investments must pay. 
 
 But how is it in education? Your merchant or farmer 
 or stock man or florist or mechanic; your clerk or lawyer 
 or banker or blacksmith or politician or financier are 
 these considering their educational investments equally 
 with those other investments in the business and material 
 world ? How about the boys and girls who are to become 
 the future citizens? Is such care and attention bestowed 
 upon them as is accorded the colt and the cabbage? Is 
 the average man as concerned in developing each year 
 a better product from the school as he is in perfecting 
 a larger variety of corn, a record-breaking horse, or a 
 
86 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 labor-saving and hence a money-maidng device? These 
 things we look after carefully, and indeed not too carefully. 
 We give them our personal attention. We do not leave 
 them entirely to assistants and employees. 
 
 We subscribe for papers and reports that we may study 
 the stock quotations and follow the daily movements of the 
 Businessmen markets of the world. We read scientific 
 pay little articles in magazines written by experts and 
 to 'their* investigators that we may keep in touch with 
 educational the latest developments in commerce and 
 manufacture and agriculture. We interest 
 ourselves, and all too little, in the doings at our state 
 capital and at the seat of national government, and we 
 advise and argue and criticize and question as to the 
 probable effect of a new legislative measure. We pursue 
 with attention the findings in the medical world, the 
 better to know how to cope with physical disorders. ' No 
 time is too valuable, no energy too great, no monetary 
 consideration too excessive to devote to matters concerning 
 our material welfare, provided the investment, whether 
 of time or energy or money, promises returns in dollars 
 or satisfaction. To gratify ambition or pride or taste or 
 desire for wealth, no effort is spared. But the education 
 of the nation's children seems to be a secondary con- 
 sideration, left largely in the hands of poorly paid em- 
 ployees of the state men and women for the most part 
 conscientious, and usually competent, but too often out 
 of touch with the world of men and things, and therefore 
 looked upon by the laymen as idealists and theorists. 
 
 "Hold!" says the layman. "The teachers themselves 
 do not agree on many of the details and some of the broad 
 issues even. How then can I be of assistance? I have 
 my business to attend to, and the school people are paid 
 to do their work." Let it be said, however, that if this 
 
Our Educational Investment 87 
 
 indictment be true the fault lies not alone with the 
 teacher. That so little has been settled in the educational 
 world is largely on account of lack of sufficient Att't d f 
 cooperation between taxpayer and teacher; layman one 
 because so little thought is given their educa- caus ^setfled 
 tional investment by the laymen. These condition of 
 latter seldom endeavor to ascertain how the the schools 
 account stands. They have no double-entry system of 
 books for the school showing what it demands and what 
 it returns. They seldom take an inventory or strike a 
 balance or have the books audited or experted. The 
 school is simply the place to which, during several years 
 of their lives, the children go daily preparatory to enter- 
 ing upon the more serious duties to follow. Education 
 is a continued story without a climax. There is so much 
 that remains unsettled. 
 
 This whole matter reminds me of an incident related by 
 ex-Governor Alva Adams of Colorado. An inmate of the 
 state penitentiary was one day conversing with the warden. 
 During the interview the prisoner indicated displeasure 
 at his treatment at the hands of the prisoners' association. 
 "But," said the warden, "I presumed you were well 
 taken care of. Have they not looked to your comfort in 
 matters of food and books and the like?" ' "Oh, yes, 
 they 've brought me things," was the reply, "but you see 
 it 's this way: they have given me nothing but magazines 
 containing continued stories, and I am to be hanged on 
 Friday." 
 
 The average citizen possesses so little knowledge of the 
 processes of education, of methods of obtaining results, 
 or of the intricacies of the educational machine, that he 
 contributes his portion of the running expenses, charges 
 it up to profit and loss, and thinks little more about it. 
 He blindly trusts that somehow the school will send his 
 
88 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 boy and girl back to him with what is called an education. 
 He cannot for the life of him tell just where or how his 
 Relation be- investment has yielded returns and where 
 tween education it has not. If there exists any relation 
 n^worldnot between putting money into schools and 
 appreciated by extracting it from financial ventures he 
 
 does not know it. His duty in giving time 
 and thought to the betterment of educational method 
 and endeavor, whether or not he has children to educate, 
 he cannot see. 
 
 The most important consideration before our people 
 to-day is the proper education of the generation now in 
 Duty of the scno l &&& those generations to come. It is 
 parent to cor- not just that we leave that delicate organ- 
 tifcriticize ** ism ~~ tlie growing, developing, expanding 
 
 child and his educational necessities and 
 wants to our teachers alone. The laymen should not 
 criticize unless they attempt to study the methods and 
 equipments of the school and the teachers as well, 
 that light may be thrown upon the school and its 
 product, and the educational investment made to yield 
 more abundant returns. There is not one layman in a 
 dozen, not one in a hundred, who has ever read a book on 
 education or the conduct of the school or the nature of 
 the boy. There is not one in a hundred who can even 
 name such a book. Only an occasional parent has ever 
 given thirty consecutive minutes to conversation with 
 the man or woman with whom his boy or girl spends 
 a large portion of each school day. The number of 
 fathers is small indeed who have ever followed that boy 
 or that girl to the schoolroom to note, at first hand, the 
 progress made. 
 
 And the teacher who is accused of being a theorist, of 
 knowing nothing of business or affairs, of having no 
 
Our Educational Investment 8p 
 
 conception of the so-called practical phases of life, how 
 is it with her? It is the common comment of the busi- 
 ness man that he can ''tell a teacher at first -,, 
 
 1 /TVI -i * ^ teacher 
 
 sight. The pedagogue of two or three years' not altogether 
 experience carries herself with an independent a theorist 
 air. The average woman teacher manages her own 
 business affairs. She is self-supporting and frequently the 
 sole support of the family. She buys and sells. She has 
 a bank account, small perhaps, and is conversant with 
 the ordinary banking methods. She carries life insurance, 
 makes investments, borrows money, gives mortgages, 
 pays rent and taxes, buys furniture, and gains experience 
 through suffering at the hands of unscrupulous promotors. 
 She follows developments in the world of business, com- 
 merce, industry, politics, religion, and gives her students 
 the benefit of her knowledge. In a word, the teacher is 
 less of a theorist in matters pertaining to the great world 
 of life and activity than is the business man in affairs 
 educational. 
 
 Can any sane man imagine for a moment that the 
 product of the school is less vital than the product of 
 
 the shop ? Do newspapers consider it worth 
 
 , ., . . - Taxpayer not 
 
 while to devote space to discussions of great informed on 
 
 educational questions while murders and educational 
 prize fights and scandals abound so freely? 
 And again I say that the average man has never read a 
 single treatise on education its history, its method, its 
 psychology. He does not suggest how the course of 
 study may be improved, the training of the boy made to 
 be more in harmony with his after-school life, the equip- 
 ment bettered, or the school funds spent to greater 
 advantage. In short, the average layman does not con- 
 sider how the investment he has made and is making in 
 education may yield a more substantial return. 
 
go Ideals and Democracy 
 
 So negligent have been the laymen as regards their 
 public schools and so slow the teachers to conform to 
 changed conditions, that some of the far-seeing corpora- 
 tions, finding they cannot secure the right sort of product 
 from the schools, have organized educational concerns 
 of their own. These they conduct at their own expense. 
 Herein they train young men for the service of the cor- 
 poration, trade, or business represented. 
 
 Larger returns from investments in the business world 
 mean a breaking away from traditions and the accepting 
 
 Negligence of of tne new order of tnin g s brought about 
 the public by the application of science to the arts, 
 'establishing ^ ne development of economic and industrial 
 factory conditions, and the substituting of labor- 
 
 saving devices and intricate and powerful 
 machines for the hand labor of bygone days. Larger 
 returns demand constructive thought and the transforming 
 of ideas into action, rather than adherence to worn-out 
 methods of imitation. And the great business concerns, 
 realizing this, realize also that the school must step into 
 line or be satisfied with returns inadequate to meet the 
 demands of the day. 
 
 These industrial corporations of which I am speaking 
 see to it that in their schools there is a fine adjustment 
 of courses. Those who support these schools 
 nave made an in ^nsive study of the educa- 
 lesson to tion of to-day and are not satisfied with the 
 retums on the investment. They do not 
 believe in chance or in "guess work" or in 
 "hit-and-miss " investments. They do not take the school 
 on trust. They wrench apart the doors of tradition; they 
 test the strength and worth of methods and courses, and 
 compare values ; they analyze their findings and strengthen 
 the weak parts; they eliminate the useless, utilize the 
 
Our Educational Investment pj 
 
 by-products, and build up the educational machine along 
 the line of the demands of the day. All this is a sugges- 
 tion of the necessity for a closer coming together of the 
 layman and the teacher. It shows the desirability of the 
 taxpayer looking into the details of education, that he 
 may ascertain whether the investment is bringing ade- 
 quate returns. 
 
 When parents begin to take an active interest in the 
 work of the school the teacher is encouraged and spurred 
 on to greater effort. Through contact with 
 men of affairs the teacher is enabled to puffincw- 
 improve the school by gaining the point of a & ed b y interest 
 view of the world at large. The boys and ****** 
 girls are led to see that the school has a real meaning, 
 because their fathers and mothers interest themselves in it. 
 
 But it is not entirely the fault of the laymen that 
 they are not in close touch with the school and its life. 
 Many teachers welcome the parent into the 
 classroom; but many others much prefer the 
 parent should remain away and allow those * gaining 
 "whose business it is " to conduct the schools co P eration 
 as they choose. As a class, teachers have come to look 
 upon parents who visit the school frequently as meddlers. 
 They are supposed to hinder the progress of the school 
 routine in general, since each parent is anxious mainly 
 for the welfare of his own boy and expects the work to be 
 shaped to meet his individual needs. The parent further 
 expects that the teacher will devote more than the pro- 
 portionate time allotment to John or Clara, and feels 
 sure that partiality for other children is shown and that 
 blame is attached where it does not belong. 
 
 Let not the teacher forget that fathers and mothers are 
 fathers and mothers, even though their judgment may at 
 times be warped and twisted, and notwithstanding their 
 
92 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 opinions of John's ability and Clara's seriousness of pur- 
 pose are not well founded. For after all, John's father 
 and Clara's mother have rights and privileges 
 rights that which the teacher must not ignore. If the 
 
 must be teacher consult the parent as to his wishes ; 
 
 recognized ., 
 
 council with him on the progress his boy is 
 
 making; study the home conditions, the temperament and 
 viewpoint of the parent, and enlist the taxpayer on the 
 side of the school, the latter will soon see his cooperation 
 is desired. He will feel that he has an investment in the 
 school, and that this investment demands his constant 
 attention. If the parent can be made to understand that 
 he is not an interloper when he visits the school ; that as 
 a member of the firm it is understood he comes not to 
 dictate, but as a counselor and to know what transactions 
 are taking place, more fathers and mothers would take 
 an active interest in school affairs, and these institutions 
 would be made vastly more efficient than now. 
 
 From another point of view it would be to the interest 
 of teachers to seek an active cooperation with the tax- 
 Codperation P avers - The whole matter of teachers' 
 and teachers 1 salaries is now being threshed out the country 
 over. As the increased cost of living has 
 confronted the teacher, as it has confronted every other 
 member of society, the strain has been great. Salaries 
 are not adequate to meet the enlarged financial demands 
 made upon the teacher. The average citizen takes the 
 stand that the teacher is paid for twelve months' work 
 and is generously allowed three months' vacation with 
 no attendant responsibilities. He further believes that 
 teachers are employed five days only each week, with 
 evenings, Saturdays, and Sundays free. Hence, contends 
 the citizen, the salaries are commensurate with results 
 accomplished and with demands made upon the teacher. 
 
Our Educational Investment 
 
 93 
 
 This attitude and misconception on the part of men 
 and women without the school would change were they 
 familiar with the routine of the schoolroom Duties of 
 and thoroughly acquainted with the exacting the teacher 
 requirements of the teaching profession. Let renewed 
 the teacher bring the parent to the school that the lat- 
 ter may familiarize himself at first hand with the work 
 of the classroom. Let the parent but fully appreciate 
 what it means to qualify for the profession of teaching, 
 through the several years of study and preparation; what 
 it signifies to prepare, day after day, the several lessons 
 in the school program. Let him realize the labor involved 
 in reading and grading written papers, in correcting 
 outlines and problems, in studying each individual child. 
 Let him see how the teacher must reckon with each case 
 of absence, tardiness, discipline; how he must bring up 
 the slow or defective pupils and give extra work to the 
 rapid or competent ; how he must suggest proper physical 
 exercises, assist in games and sports, see that eyes are not 
 overstrained and that all hygienic laws are observed; how 
 he must insist upon proper observance of moral standards 
 let the teacher through cooperation with the taxpayer 
 lead him to appreciate the manifold duties and respon- 
 sibilities resting upon the shoulders of the former. Then 
 will the question of adequate salary for the competent 
 teacher be satisfactorily settled. 
 
 With all his duties, then, the teacher must have one 
 other added to his list that of interesting the parents 
 in the schools. Education is to-day so complex that the 
 parent hesitates to examine into the organization of the 
 school and besides, the school and courses of study and 
 methods of arriving at results are vastly different from 
 those of his early days. Life is so exacting in its require- 
 ments that parents find difficulty in laying aside the 
 
P4 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 regular routine of their affairs for a tramp off "cross lots" 
 to the school. If the teachers are to be responsible for the 
 establishment of parents' organizations, for cooperation 
 and union of interests, more than ever must professional 
 standards be raised and more than ever must we demand 
 the teacher of purpose and of power. 
 
 And what shall be the reward of such a teacher ? Withal 
 his task is heavy. He meets hardships and discourage- 
 ments. The results he aims at are not 
 day's work always achieved. His power for good cannot 
 be measured. More than any other calling 
 is that of the true teacher a noble one. He deals with 
 the future of the nations of the earth. He has it in his 
 hand to shape the destinies of individuals. Shall he not 
 be paid for his services? Is he not to receive a fitting 
 compensation? 
 
 The teacher has his reward. Pay for the work of the 
 public schools of our country? Pay for the accom- 
 plishments of Socrates and Pestalozzi and Mann and 
 Barnard and Parker? Pay for the educational giants of 
 the past and present? Pay for the multitude of teachers 
 scattered over the length and breadth of our land ? These 
 we cannot pay. Day by day, hour by hour, they receive 
 their reward in the consciousness of tasks begun and 
 accomplished, of arts turned to useful accomplishment, of 
 sacrifices made, of character formed, of lives brightened 
 and ennobled, of hearts made happier, of thoughts made 
 better, and of minds directed to service for mankind ; in 
 the realization of boys and girls who under this care and 
 this guidance shall grow to be blessings to themselves and 
 to the world. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 A MORE EFFICIENT SCHOOL 
 
 THE era of educational cataloguing has not yet passed 
 into history. A knowledge of the number of bones 
 in the human body and their location is still looked upon 
 in some quarters as one of the fundamentals in the study 
 of physiology. To be able to recite in exact 
 order the periods, ages, epochs, eras, and times subjects 
 in geologic development argues to the minds still weak 
 of many the mark of a trained geologist. The 
 dates of battles, relative size of armies, in- 
 trigues of courts, details in the line of princesses, time 
 of discovery and exploration, mean historical knowledge. 
 .Geography promises for some time to come to be made 
 up in large measure of definitions of land forms, location 
 and size of cities, heights of mountains, length of rivers, 
 and territorial areas. Arithmetic is still too much a 
 matter of rules than of reasons, and is so arranged and 
 presented as to consider very little any information that 
 may prove of value out of school. Language, drawing, 
 and other elementary-school subjects; science, mathemat- 
 ics, English, in the high school; philosophy, economics, 
 and psychology as practiced in colleges and professional 
 institutions all are taught with a greater or less bias 
 toward the cataloguing method. Chronological order and 
 quantity of material still count for more than ability to 
 know where to go for information when a demand is 
 created for it, or than a knowledge of how to study. 
 The cataloguing method has from the beginning been 
 
 95 
 
96 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 applied to individuals. They have been classed as good 
 or bad, rich or poor, high or low, cultured or uncouth. 
 There are those who help and those who hinder, those 
 who push and those who retard, those who smile and 
 those who sulk. Some are classed as conservatives, some 
 as radicals; some as optimists, others as pessimists; as 
 progressives or as non-progressives; as builders or as 
 obstructionists. In every department of life and thought 
 we still find a strong tendency toward classification and 
 cataloguing, in far too many cases considering this the 
 end. We still live in the cataloguing age. 
 
 This method of classification of individuals is based 
 upon the place men occupy in the material world, the 
 Lack of work they attempt to do, and the results 
 vision retards they accomplish. The ultra-conservative, non- 
 progress progressive, the old-is-good-enough-for-me 
 type ot individual is perfectly content to "let Nature 
 take her own course," as he thinks she has always done. 
 He does not know that man, who, in the beginning, r/as 
 largely the creature of his own environment, has, whenever 
 progress has been made, taken hold of his environment 
 and shaped it to suit his own needs. This type of man 
 labors in the world of to-day but lives in the atmosphere 
 of yesterday. His eyes see the wonderful changes wrought 
 in the fields of commerce, industry, art, science, morals, 
 the whole social fabric, but his mind does not compre- 
 hend the meaning of these changes or the significance of 
 this development. When not blind to progress he is 
 fearful for the future and will be loyal to tradition for 
 the sake of the "good old days." He is a conservative, 
 and may easily develop into an obstructionist. The 
 other type of man is not always content with things as 
 he finds them, but he seeks to know how they may be 
 improved. He knows that the world moves, and desires 
 
A More Efficient School gj 
 
 to have a share in shaping this movement. Realizing 
 that while evolution is a sure it is sometimes a slow 
 progress, he pleases himself and others by preserving 
 a happy disposition, coupled with judgment, poise, and 
 balance. He works for the best good of all and thereby 
 advances his own individual interests. 
 
 In the educational world two distinct types or classes 
 of people largely predominate. One of these holds for 
 the methods, the curricula, the ideals of the 
 fathers. Since progress has been made, why, ^tiwand 
 say they, change a certainty for an experiment the radical: 
 that may prove fatal ? The other class must 
 advocate the new simply for the sake of the new, know- 
 ing indeed, like the calamity howler, that "something is 
 wrong," but having no knowledge of where the remedy 
 is to be found or how to apply it. A few, and a few only, 
 have so fully analyzed the conditions as to be able to 
 take the valuable in the schools of the past and to use 
 this in connection with modern thought and practice, 
 to the end that our schools of to-day may be made to 
 meet the demands imposed upon them. 
 
 But note further: the question is an open one in the 
 minds of many as to whether the wonderful progress 
 made during the past few decades is due mainly to the 
 work of the schools; as to whether school education, or 
 that obtained from books, is real education, or that which 
 comes from a study of things. The contention is made 
 that development, advance, progress, come not because 
 of but in spite of the schools. The school, they say, is 
 superficial ; the world is actual. The idea further prevails 
 that the school trains away from rather than toward the 
 actualities of life, and that when the individual enters upon 
 these actualities of life he is forced to unlearn many things 
 taught him in the superficial atmosphere of the school. 
 
 T 
 
g8 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 "That which our school courses leave almost entirely 
 out, we thus find to be that which most nearly concerns 
 the business of life. All our industries would cease were 
 it not for that information which men begin to acquire as 
 best they may after their education is said to be finished. 
 And were it not for this information that has been from 
 age to age accumulated and spread by unofficial means, 
 these industries would never have existed. Had there 
 been no teaching but such as is given in our public schools, 
 England would now be what it was in feudal times. The 
 vital knowledge, that by which we have grown as a 
 nation to what we are, and which underlies our whole 
 existence, is a knowledge that has got itself taught in 
 nooks and corners, while the ordained agencies for teach- 
 ing have been mumbling little else than dead formulas." 1 
 
 It is safe to say that the school tends many times in 
 its training toward dependency and away from self-reli- 
 ance and leadership; it does not materially add to, even 
 though it does not detract from, the initiative of the 
 boy; and since many of the leaders go to school, it is 
 clear that some of them must come away. That the 
 school-trained man is not alone the educated man has 
 ample proof. "The Boers taught a lasting lesson to 
 the British in the philosophy of war, and proved to them 
 that the school-trained man was not all." Before the 
 British could successfully cope with their opponents they 
 were forced to add to their school-made curriculum a few 
 courses in the art of rough-and-ready warfare. In other 
 words, it was necessary to adjust methods so as to meet 
 the conditions. 
 
 Certain it is that the school as now organized and 
 conducted is not entirely, although perhaps largely, 
 responsible for the rapid advances made during the past 
 
 1 Herbert Spencer. 
 
A More Efficient School pp 
 
 few years either in the field of learning or elsewhere in 
 human achievement. That educational institutions are, 
 however, playing a remarkable part in our Themeanin 
 upbuilding must not be overlooked. Here of a modern 
 and there is to be found a modern school, school 
 
 modern not merely as to time but in the character 
 of its work, the ideals toward which it strives, and the 
 results it achieves. These modern schools may be of 
 elementary, secondary, or collegiate grade; they may be 
 vocational, trade, industrial, commercial, or correspond- 
 ence in type; they may emphasize agricultural, tech- 
 nical, classical, scientific, or professional training. But 
 whatever the character or the grade of school or the 
 particular kind of instruction offered, the promoters of 
 such institutions realize that education to be effective must 
 meet a demand, and that if no real motive animates the 
 learner the school must furnish this. 
 
 The prevailing belief in the minds of some so-called 
 educationalists has seemed to indicate that the schools 
 should teach nothing that could in any way False 
 
 be used in everyday life. One is almost conceptions 
 forced to the conclusion that precaution was f educa " 
 taken lest there should creep into the curriculum that 
 which should have a relation to out-of-school existence. 
 Education has by some been considered a process, by 
 others a product. Both these standards are inadequate 
 because both fall short of the ultimate. Education is 
 both a process and a product. The process alone leads 
 to no accomplished result; the product alone means form 
 rather than character or content. Only as he of the 
 school is enabled to react the better upon society because of 
 his school experiences, are these experiences to be reckoned 
 in terms of value. 
 
 It not infrequently happens that those who have superior 
 
loo Ideals and Democracy 
 
 home advantages and no financial handicap suffer most 
 in the matter of a real schooling. And in some localities, 
 
 in order to take advantage of the best things 
 
 "vs."* in elementary education, a boy must be blind, 
 
 public-school or ( j ea f > O r dumb; he must be incorrigible or 
 
 a criminal; he must be crippled, or maimed, 
 or a pauper, or mentally deficient. In other words, the 
 State provides for its wards, or there is provided for 
 those who are less than normal physically, morally, 
 or mentally a form of education much superior to that 
 offered many of our normal children. The reform schools 
 and institutions for defectives are frequently more modem 
 in their curricula and methods than are some of the public 
 schools with which you are familiar, and many a boy, in 
 order to gain admission to the former, has, of his own 
 volition, become a criminal. Even the American Indian, 
 fettered and circumscribed about as he is, and cruel and 
 unjust though his treatment has been at our hands, still 
 is offered an education which, unsuited though it be in 
 many respects to his needs, is nevertheless superior to that 
 given in many of our public schools. That all this is a 
 sad commentary upon the character and efficiency and 
 adaptability of the schools need only be suggested here. 
 Educational standards differ widely in various localities. 
 The unit of measure is not constant, or rather the unit 
 
 of measure in one locality is not that in use 
 
 m another. In Illinois they speak of raising 
 of standard- thirty-one bushels of oats to the acre, in Iowa 
 .ing i$eri thirty-two bushels of corn, in Minnesota or 
 California so many bushels of wheat. In Texas in the 
 old days they produced four bales of cotton to the mule. 
 When this last statement is analyzed, you find that the 
 labor of a negro and a mule for .a year produced four 
 bales of cotton. The cotton raisers of certain sections 
 
A More Efficient Scho:ol 101 
 
 of Texas now say that this yield of four bales per mule 
 has been increased one hundred per cent since the devel- 
 opment of expeiimental and scientific farming. As one 
 Texan put it to the writer, "The Professor Emeritus of 
 mossback, antiquated methods must be displaced by the 
 modern farmer." And then this same Texan goes on to 
 say that the agricultural and mechanical colleges, together 
 with the experiment stations, are the coming institutions 
 of higher learning in the country, their work being far 
 superior to that of the traditional college or university. 
 These latter, he contends, are not responsible for advances 
 even though "you can't throw a stone but you will hit a 
 college." 
 
 Now what does all tms mean? It would be manifestly 
 narrow and unfair to say that the Texan is right in his 
 
 conception of the "old education." He is 
 
 . ,. . The school 
 
 right, however, in his contention that as keen mus t give an 
 
 a searchlight should be turned upon the product account of 
 of the school as upon the negro and the mule. 
 If the labor of these two does not produce eight bales 
 of cotton, an investigation takes place that the cause may 
 be ascertained. "You can't throw a stone but you will 
 hit a college," and still too many college-trained men are 
 failing every day men who go out from college carrying 
 degrees attesting to the fact of their incompetence to work 
 outside the schoolroom. These college graduates are of 
 course not to be blamed for this, as in the schools they 
 are not taught the meaning of the degrees. They learn 
 to do many things poorly rather than a few things well, 
 with the result that there is nothing for which they are 
 thoroughly fitted. 
 
 Your college-trained man ofttimes cannot foot a column 
 of figures correctly, although he has had years of arith- 
 metic and algebra and geometry, not to speak of 
 
".' : /64*: :"*'' Ideals and Democracy 
 
 trigonometry, calculus, and various branches of higher 
 mathematics. He is unable to draw up a paper such as 
 
 is demanded in the most common business 
 Noticeable . . _._. . , t . - 
 
 weaknesses transaction. He cannot be relied upon to 
 
 in college compute interest, find the premium on an 
 training . , r 
 
 insurance policy, determine the cost of pa- 
 pering or plastering a room, or to perform intelligently, 
 accurately, and quickly any one of the many business 
 problems constantly presenting themselves. He may at 
 the same time have mastered rules and formulae governing 
 mathematical processes that will be needed only once in 
 a lifetime. 
 
 The school of the past placed its stamp of approval 
 upon memory processes chiefly. It dealt with ideas 
 Criticism ra ^ ner than with things. It trained so-called 
 on the faculties rather than human minds. The 
 old school definition of education in these schools was 
 the "harmonious development of all the faculties," and 
 when we hear this definition given to-day it comes to 
 us as a voice from the past. The old schools were "his- 
 torical mosaics." In them subjects, not boys, were taught. 
 A knowledge of things classical was the element of chief 
 importance. Individuality received slight consideration, 
 and the teaching was done en masse. 
 
 But how aptly this description of the old school fits 
 many of our present-day schools. "Faculties of mind," 
 The child and ra ^ ner than individual powers, are still of 
 the machine: main concern. Memory, not thought, is 
 a comparison trained Children are taught in bulk, the 
 work being handed out to them without regard to indi- 
 vidual tastes, or needs, or capacities. Just as a bundle 
 of wheat made up of grain, straw, weeds, and various 
 foreign substances is fed to the machine, so the child is 
 given good and poor alike. The machine eliminates the 
 
A More Efficient School 103 
 
 waste; the boy is as likely to retain the useless as the 
 useful, and store away that which should never have been 
 given him. The machine is the object of care and atten- 
 tion that it may perform its functions without unneces- 
 sary strain or friction; the boy must adjust himself as 
 best he can to receive and assimilate his mental doses 
 and react from their effects. 
 
 Charles Mills Gayley says: "Too often we have 
 reduced literature to a card catalogue and history to 
 tissues and bones. We have reasserted the creed that 
 learning to be real must be dark, to be deep must be 
 narrow. We have multiplied swells and slopes, with 
 never a view in sight. We have invented the thesis. 
 We have invented the thesis that cannot survive unless 
 it is buried in footnotes." l 
 
 While there is in many respects an analogy between 
 the school of the past and that of to-day, and while, 
 again, progress has been rapid and standards and ideals 
 have been greatly raised, and methods and results have 
 been materially increased, we have still some things to 
 learn from the old school. Education in past time came 
 from books, but the books were few, the equipments 
 meager, the courses simple. The things done were 
 usually well done. Early specialization was not thought 
 of, and much attention was given to oral expression, to 
 spelling, to mental arithmetic, to legible writing. Many 
 agree with the "wise ones" that 
 
 "The three R's still . . 
 
 Are the things to be learned by our youth to-day; 
 For of all the branches taught, the pick 
 Are readin' and writin' and 'rithmetic." 
 
 To-day all is different. The complexity of the cur- 
 riculum; the multitude of studies caused by division of 
 i Idols of Education, p. 108. 
 
104 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 subjects and continual additions to the course of study; 
 the pressure that is brought to bear upon each grade of 
 
 school by the one next above to accomplish 
 Our present . ... , , . . /. 
 
 school condi- an impossible amount in a given space of 
 
 tions less time; the nervous strain on the part of both 
 teachers and taught, resulting from the high 
 tension under which the school is constantly working; the 
 many outside interests, the social amenities, the societies, 
 the fraternities and sororities, the excessive demands in 
 competitive athletics all these tend to superficial think- 
 ing, to lack of thoroughness, to a general knowledge of 
 many things without a complete grasp of anything. 
 There is as little in an education obtained under extreme 
 conditions of this sort as Lincoln claimed was to be 
 found in the speech of Douglas in the famous Alton 
 debate, which he said contained as "little substance as 
 soap made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had 
 starved to death." 
 
 Did not the school of a half-century past, crude and 
 undeveloped though it was, meet the demands of its 
 The school ^^ an ^ ?> enera ^ on m fuller measure than the 
 of to-day present-day school meets the demands imposed 
 preeminent upon it? We ^ not see kj n g to poi nr a com . 
 
 parison between the educational workshops of past time 
 and those of the present. As a human institution, the 
 present-day school is far and away the best the world has 
 ever seen. But that the old school was in many respects 
 better adapted to the ideals of its own times than is the 
 school of to-day to the ideals of the times in which we 
 live, is the point here being made. In other words, the 
 school seems to lack power of adaptability and adjust- 
 ment, and adaptability and adjustment mean thorough- 
 ness, and thoroughness means efficiency. 
 
 Before there was division of labor, and before 
 
A More Efficient School 105 
 
 specialization had been carried to its extreme limits, every 
 community was self-sustaining, every family an industrial 
 unit, every individual a complete thinking 
 machine. One section of the country did not condiiionf: 
 have to rely upon another for the common the then and 
 necessities of life, and individual was not as 
 dependent upon individual as is the case to-day. From the 
 raw material to the finished product seemed only a step, 
 as the converting process was accomplished through the 
 aid of few hands and no intricate machinery. To-day a 
 shoe, in its journey from the raw material to the usable 
 article, often passes through the hands of threescore 
 men; while our fathers wore boots made entirely by 
 themselves, from the tanning of the hide through the 
 various subsequent processes. An ordinary writing pen, 
 from the time it is stamped from the sheet of metal 
 until it passes through the last polishing process, has 
 been handled by two dozen persons; but a quill, shaped 
 by a knife blade, sufficed for writing Penn's Treaty and 
 the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 The watchword then of the school of our fathers 
 was adaptability. The lesson we must learn from the 
 past, if our education is to meet the demands 
 of this opening century, is the necessity for 
 an adaptable and efficient school. Efficiency ity exempli- 
 is not measured by what a man knows but ^ ec lH p as t 
 by what he can do with what he knows. It 
 is not a question of a man's brain area as to whether 
 or not he is educated. It is a question, rather, of how 
 he applies his brain power. Adaptability is the lost 
 chord in education. We are constantly spoiling good 
 mechanics for poor clerks, or good clerks for poor clergy- 
 men, or are converting excellent, agricultural timber into 
 second-rate politicians. The inefficiency of the school 
 
io6 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 drives many away, or gives them such a training as to 
 render them only indifferent workers in the various fields 
 they seek to enter. Too often it fails to fit them to enter 
 any trade, profession, or calling, and they are thrown 
 back on the same world they should serve, finally to 
 claim from it that which they say it owes them a living. 
 
 It is clear that the curricula of elementary, secondary, 
 and higher educational institutions are becoming broader 
 and more comprehensive as the art of teaching and the 
 science of education develop. The tendency is to con- 
 sider the school more and more from the social side, and 
 courses are to some extent being fitted to the learner 
 rather than compelling the learner to conform to the 
 courses of study. But for the most part we continue 
 to cling to old courses and methods and systems; to 
 conceptions and ideals that are outgrown, antiquated, 
 moth-eaten; that do not meet modern conditions; that 
 are as foreign to the spirit of our present-day civilization 
 as would be the pony express, the scythe and cradle, the 
 hand printing press, or the tallow candle. 
 
 This condition of non-adjustment is brought about, 
 first, by our tenacity in holding to old courses of study, 
 
 dusty with ages of tradition and mildewed 
 Conditions , . 
 
 making for by decades of bigotry, under the belief that 
 
 ?~ what educated our fathers will educate us; 
 
 and second, because of the excessive growth 
 of courses within the school. In the institutions of ele- 
 mentary grade we have added to the traditional subjects 
 physical culture, expression, gymnastics, drawing, in- 
 dustrial work in its many forms for both boys and girls, 
 domestic science, home economics, foreign languages, 
 elementary algebra, nature study. The high-school 
 problem is even more complicated, for while the college 
 above is crowding much of its former work down into 
 
A More Efficient School 107 
 
 the high school, it is the avowed ambition of the spe- 
 cialists in the latter institution to push forward various 
 studies to the third and fourth years of the high-school 
 course. Here higher mathematics, the sciences, history, 
 English, and the languages all clamor for a place. To 
 clear the atmosphere, manual training and industrial 
 subjects were introduced, but instead of drawing together 
 the various humanities, or giving an industrial bias to 
 the school idea, these industrial subjects are frequently 
 taught along parallel lines with the traditional work. 
 There is no actual articulation of book, laboratory, and 
 shop courses, and as yet there is no complete solution of 
 the time problem. In the college, the university, the pro- 
 fessional school, an intensive knowledge of more than a 
 narrow field is an impossibility, owing to the multiplicity 
 of subjects and the extreme division of subjects into many 
 courses, caused by the growth of specialization, the de- 
 velopment of new forms of knowledge, the application 
 of science in the arts and industries, and the creation of 
 new fields of study and research. 
 
 It is not necessary, even though it were possible, to 
 return to the "good old days." It is not essential that 
 every boy and every girl should be schooled 
 in all the processes of manufacture of a coat simplicity 
 or a carriage. The argument frequently and ric ^ n fy e 
 made that the training of the country boy 
 of a half -century past was far superior in every way to 
 that of the city chap of to-day must not be forced too 
 far. It is true, nevertheless, that our schools too often 
 give sanction to the spendthrift spirit of our age, and 
 couple with their progressive tendency the superficial 
 atmosphere and an ambition to be lavish with rather than 
 to conserve material. They teach how to be extravagant 
 rather than how to be economical. As Dean Russell so 
 
io8 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 forcibly puts it, the modern schools should ''teach how to 
 live better on less and have something over." They must 
 return to the older days to the extent of learning from 
 them the lesson suggested by MacDonald, where he 
 says, "There is a great deal more to be got out of things 
 than is generally got out of them, whether the thing be 
 a chapter in the Bible or a yellow turnip, and the mar- 
 vel is that those who use the most material should so 
 often be those who show the least result in strength 
 of character." 1 
 
 The very ideas put forward by those who sought to 
 wrench the present-day school from the grip of tradition 
 have been too often perverted and misinterpreted. "Soft 
 pedagogies" have in some quarters all but ruined the 
 schools. "Interest" and " self-expression " and "initi- 
 ative" have been twisted and warped and wrenched 
 until the terms are no longer recognizable in their new 
 forms. Old-time discipline has been lost and no disci- 
 pline is often the substitute. Reverence, consideration 
 for others, obedience, courtesy, generosity, have all too 
 frequently given place to arrogance, incivility, selfish- 
 ness, and perversity. Thoroughness and efficiency are 
 lacking, and unless the school adapts itself to the growing 
 demands of the age it will, as an institution, be left far 
 behind in the onward march of civilization. 
 
 Now while there is danger of carrying specialization 
 too far there is also great danger of being too rigid in our 
 
 ... requirements, unless the future life work of 
 
 Specialization: Jt . -. . - ,. . 
 its value the individual is absolutely determined. And 
 
 when properly because we insist that what is "sauce for the 
 
 goose is sauce for the gander," failures are 
 
 constantly being made and slipshod, inefficient work is 
 
 often the order of the day. Before one may graduate 
 
 i Sir Gibbie, p. 8. 
 
A More Efficient School 109 
 
 from the ordinary high school one must, willy-nilly, be 
 put through a year of elementary algebra and a year of 
 plane geometry. It frequently happens that a boy or 
 girl is not mathematically inclined and cannot think 
 in terms of mathematics. The year's work is a failure, 
 even though it has been conscientiously done, and a 
 second or a third year still finds the student at the 
 same grind. Tradition has it that every one should 
 know the elements at least of algebra and geometry. The 
 student may go to a college that demands these subjects 
 for entrance, even though he may not plan to do so 
 while in his high-school course. Besides, it is claimed 
 that the study of mathematics brings to the student a 
 certain kind and quality of mental discipline such as can 
 be had through the study of no other subject. This 
 claim is based upon theory rather than upon any tangi- 
 ble evidence. 
 
 Both boys ana girls are constantly failing, and are 
 unhappy in their school life, and in many instances drop 
 out entirely, not only because of lack of prep- . selective 
 aration and adaptability but because of their process 
 
 distaste for a subject in which they have no 
 interest and the application of which to their 
 later life work they cannot see. Not that this latter would 
 be a conclusive argument for allowing such students to drop 
 the subject; but, as a matter of fact, unless these students 
 go to college this mathematics will probably have little 
 application to their after-school life. In any event, one 
 year of such subject is of no great material value after all. 
 It is worth no more than would be one year only of a 
 foreign language. That girls fail less frequently than do 
 boys in the study of algebra is no argument for com- 
 pelling the non-college-going girl to take the subject if 
 she has a distaste for it, as girls are more compliant than 
 
no Ideals and Democracy 
 
 are boys; they work harder, worry more, and perhaps 
 suffer more in the long run. The field of mathematics 
 is here drawn upon simply to make clear the point under 
 consideration. 
 
 That all desirable knowledge cannot be secured in the 
 few years devoted to school education is clear, and stand- 
 ards of scholarship could be immeasurably raised were 
 substitutions more freely allowed in the high school. 
 Practical chemistry and applied biology would frequently 
 be of much greater value to girls than algebra or geom- 
 etry, and in the same way bookkeeping and business 
 arithmetic would better be given the boys. This illus- 
 tration is used only as a suggestion of what could be done 
 in extreme cases. Students would, under these conditions, 
 do more satisfactory work and remain in the school for 
 a longer period than would otherwise be the case, and 
 would accomplish more of advantage in the real life of the 
 home or of the business world. 
 
 It is easy to understand that the present-day education, 
 to be effective, must be practical in the best sense of that 
 Value of term. Many a girl is prevented from pursuing 
 domestic courses in domestic science or in some other 
 branch of home economics, in schools where 
 such courses are offered, simply because of the number of 
 other studies demanded for graduation. Any girl who 
 desires to take up domestic science in school should be 
 permitted to do so, and this means that all schools should 
 offer such courses. Left to choose, the vast majority of 
 boys studying arithmetic in the upper grammar grades 
 would prefer the mathematics offered in the well-regulated 
 commercial department, because the work herein given 
 is usable, and the pupils know it. 
 
 The desire to fit the student for the work of an advanced 
 grade is too strong, and as a result the high-school and 
 
A More Efficient School m 
 
 elementary-school courses are not sufficiently rounded out 
 or complete in themselves. All along the line the work 
 must be made more adaptable. Schedules Read j ustment 
 must be adjusted, and in the elementary, the vs. total 
 secondary, the higher institutions, the un- ******** 
 necessary must be eliminated. All subjects are honorable, 
 and one should hesitate long before dropping any one 
 entirely from the curriculum. What is needed is a read- 
 justment and an elimination of large masses of material 
 within the subjects themselves, thus giving opportunity 
 for broader or wiser selection, and more intensive work 
 upon those portions of subjects studied. As Payne points 
 out, the fact that certain studies are on the program 
 of so many schools is a proof of partial worth at least. 1 
 No endeavor should be made to eliminate the studies 
 themselves, as every subject is of some value to every 
 individual, but by change and modification within 
 subjects a much more serviceable course of study may 
 be arranged. 
 
 Not only should the product of the school shape and 
 mold his environment, but we must recognize that the 
 years of school are very active years of life. During 
 these years the boy and girl are not merely learning how 
 to live; they are indeed living. And during these years 
 "Education," as John Ruskin says, "does not mean 
 teaching people what they do not know. It means teach- 
 ing them to behave as they do not behave. It is not 
 teaching the youth the shapes of letters and the tricks 
 of numbers and then leaving them to turn their arith- 
 metic to roguery and their literature to lust. It is, on 
 the contrary, training them into the perfect exercise and 
 kingly continence of their bodies and souls. It is a 
 painful, continual, and difficult work, to be done by 
 
 i Public Elementary School Curricula, p. 181. 
 
Ideals and Democracy 
 
 kindness, by watching, by warning, by precept and by 
 praise, but above all by example." 1 
 
 Criticism alone will never result in an improved con- 
 dition of the schools. The foregoing pages set forth a 
 statement of the educational situation as it actually is at 
 its weakest point, and offer a suggestion of the lessons to 
 be drawn from the school of a half-century past rather 
 than being an arraignment of present methods and 
 results. We may well pause and ask ourselve the follow- 
 ing questions: 
 
 Are our public schools on the highroad to perdition? 
 Is education out of step with the social and economic 
 progress of *the time ? Are teachers incompetent, super- 
 intendents mere politicians, school boards dishonest? 
 Are courses of study antiquated and teaching methods 
 moth-eaten? Are our elementary schools conducted 
 solely in the interest of those who are to go to high school ? 
 Are our universities and higher institutions of learning 
 still dominating the high school, and dictating as to text- 
 books, requirements for graduation, and personnel of the 
 teaching body ? If the public school is to-day in this pre- 
 dicament then indeed are the times "out of joint," and 
 our educational system in sad and sorry plight. What, 
 then, is the situation; what the remedy? 
 
 Month after month we see in the^educational magazines, 
 general periodicals, and newspapers one long, continuous 
 Destructive wa ^ ^ t ^ ie weaknesses, the shortcomings, the 
 criticism crimes, the heresies of the modern system of 
 not helpful educatioiL The tales that are told throu gh 
 
 the columns of the press and the word pictures painted 
 from many a platform are startling if true. Surely in 
 another decade we shall all become pessimistic, dis- 
 couraged, disheartened, and leave the schools in the 
 i Crown of Wild Olives, Section 144. 
 
A More Efficient School 113 
 
 hands of those who see only failure and ruin for those 
 who continue through and beyond the grades; and ruin 
 and failure for those who, at the first opportunity, go to 
 do battle in the world of men and things. 
 
 The truth is it has become fashionable to growl at the 
 shortcomings of our school system. Some severe criti- 
 cisms have been made on the "unrealness" of present-day 
 education. Our educational scheme is inadequate, our 
 methods less than perfect, our equipments not of the 
 best, our standards for teachers not all that could be 
 hoped. Even so, have our economic and social, our 
 industrial and commercial, institutions reached that high 
 plane of efficiency where no further progress is possible? 
 In point of fact, all our institutions church, society, 
 home, and the commercial organizations as well are less 
 progressive than could be desired. And let it be remem- 
 bered that it is only recently that society in general has 
 come to believe in efficiency. Frequently the principle 
 of efficiency in organization and administration has first 
 been worked out in education and has later found appli- 
 cation in local, municipal, or state institutions. 
 
 Those who to-day are making the loudest outcry 
 against present-day education are not fully alive to the 
 tremendous accomplishments educational- jj nsat i s f ac t ory 
 wise of the past few years. Then, too, those conditions 
 who complain loudest frequently contribute 
 least toward the betterment of undesirable 
 conditons. Did they study carefully the landmarks of 
 history they would observe that lasting changes are 
 brought about slowly and by degrees. We must not 
 be complacent or self-satisfied. Every thinking member 
 of the teaching profession knows full well that there are 
 many weaknesses in our schools. Many of our teachers 
 and administrators the country over are striving to better 
 
114 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 the conditions. Little by little, courses of study are 
 being modified to meet the needs of the individual boy 
 and girl. Slowly but surely, the standards of teaching 
 are being raised; teachers are touching elbows with life, 
 and what was once a craft is coming to be a profession. 
 Education to-day is a science, teaching an art. Methods 
 are more modern than they formerly were, school- 
 books are more interesting and less slavishly followed, 
 equipments more varied and valuable, and politics and 
 corruption less frequent. The school reaches a larger 
 percentage of pupils than ever before, and the school 
 life of individuals is greater. Criticize as you will the 
 school of to-day, there was never a time since the dawn 
 of civilization when education was so far-reaching and the 
 school so efficient. 
 
 Is the primary school conducted only in the interest 
 of those who go into the high school? What of the 
 courses in the grades in applied art and design, in indus- 
 trial work, in home economics, in physical education, in 
 hygiene and health studies, in agriculture, in moral and 
 humane training, in world-peace movements, in literary 
 appreciation, in music, in biography, in self-government, 
 in social service, and in geography, history, commerce, and 
 travel through the stereopticon and the moving picture! 
 And all over the land there are universities gladly accord- 
 ing recognition for any high-school subject successfully 
 completed. More than this, it must not be forgotten 
 that the efficiency of a system of education depends not 
 alone upon meeting the needs of the individual boy and 
 girl; it is conditioned as well upon the total number 
 reached, whatever the length of time the participants 
 may remain under instruction. A college education is as 
 common to-day as was a high-school education in the 
 days of our fathers. 
 
A More Efficient School 1/5 
 
 In tfce rural school a new note has been struck. Here 
 efficiency is demanded as well as in the city school. 
 Enlarged grounds, improved buildings, sanitary surround- 
 ings, better libraries and appliances, a more thoroughly 
 equipped teaching force, is the order of the day. Super- 
 vision is closer and more profitable, salaries on the 
 increase, the movement for retirement provision steadily 
 gaining headway. And in institutes, conventions, and 
 meetings slowly but surely the trend is from the super- 
 ficial to the sane. 
 
 Disraeli wisely said that it is "easier to criticize than to 
 correct." It does not require genius to tear down. The 
 school to-day is crying aloud for builders those who 
 can construct upon an already well-laid foundation a 
 superstructure that shall be sane and sound. Teachers 
 need to be heartened, not dismayed. Let the voice and 
 pen of the calamity howler be used to encourage and 
 uplift. Let no one dare criticize and destroy only as a 
 substitute is offered one better adapted to meet the 
 demands of a developing people. 
 
 Weak spots there are, many of them. We need more 
 and better teachers. We need higher professional stand- 
 ards. We need particular curricula for par- The call for 
 ticular conditions. We need schools that fit construc- 
 tor life and its manifold problems. We need 
 vocational bureaus and experts to keep boys and girls 
 from entering the ' 'blind-alley" occupations for which they 
 are not fitted and in which advancement is impossible. 
 We need to apply everywhere the principle of efficiency. 
 
 The school needs men and women who are not satisfied 
 with present conditions. It needs those with moral stam- 
 ina who are not afraid to cry out against existing evils. 
 It needs at the same time men and women who are not 
 blind to the accomplishments of present-day education 
 
n6 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 and who with clear vision, broad outlook, and large op- 
 timism are ready to make onward for a more efficient 
 school. It needs men and women sufficiently brave and 
 progressive to acknowledge the good in the educational 
 system of yesterday and to work toward an improved to- 
 morrow. It needs men and women who can hitch the 
 curriculum to the community, can make of the school- 
 room a workshop, and bring factory and forge and office 
 into close communion with the home and the school. 
 
 Such are the men and women we need. Such are the 
 demands we make for a more efficient school. Men and 
 women to produce such a school must be as ready to 
 praise as to blame; must construct, not destroy. Where 
 they tear down they must build again. And if from our 
 leaders there is not forthcoming that help and inspira- 
 tion to take us out of bondage, to whom shall we turn? 
 
 How then shall the schools be made to meet more nearly 
 the demands of the present day demands growing out 
 of economic, social, and industrial conditions, not only 
 differing widely from those in vogue a half -century past 
 but vastly changed from those pertaining less than a 
 decade ago? 
 
 First: By emphasizing early specialization less, and by 
 laying a strong general groundwork upon which the spe- 
 cialty may later be built with safety. This may mean 
 the placing of greater emphasis than at present upon 
 specialization at the proper period. 
 
 Second: By considering each school, whether elemen- 
 tary, secondary, or other type, an institution in and of 
 itself, not simply a fitting school for the one above. Even 
 the various years or grades of school must be looked 
 upon as complete units. This does no violence to the 
 other consideration that from the kindergarten through 
 
A More Efficient School HJ 
 
 the university the school system should be so many con- 
 secutive years of work with no breaks from first to last. 
 It simply means that a pupil must find in any grade 
 or year that which meets his needs at a particular period 
 of his development. 
 
 Third: Teachers must realize the value of subjects 
 other than their own, providing for adequate considera- 
 tion of each subject, and recognizing relative values and 
 individual worths. 
 
 Fourth: While certain subjects are to be required of 
 all, and this especially within definite courses or depart- 
 ments, substitutions for such requirements may, under 
 conditions, be freely allowed. 
 
 Fifth: Time must be gained through the process of 
 elimination not of subjects but of portions of subjects. 
 The selective process must be used constantly, owing to 
 the rapid growth of subjects and the increasingly great 
 amount of desirable educational material. 
 
 Sixth : The work must be made more thorough than at 
 present. Superficial thinking and superficial doing must 
 be displaced by thorough, conscientious, intensive thought 
 and action. The textbook must be used less, the formal 
 giving place to real, thought-provoking exercise. The 
 pupil must be required to work out his own salvation, 
 and each individual must be looked upon as a separate 
 entity, demanding special consideration and with a devel- 
 oping personality distinctly his own. 
 
 The schools will, under these conditions, be made 
 more efficient, and will become better adjusted to meet 
 the imperative and exacting demands of a critical and a 
 progressive people. 
 
 While there are none among us sufficiently wis6 to 
 dogmatically proclaim this or that system of education 
 the absolutely true one, we are sure that, with all its 
 
n8 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 shortcomings, our general scheme of education in America 
 is undoubtedly superior to that found to exist elsewhere 
 throughout the world. While we may not say that this 
 and this only shall be taught, we may ask ourselves the 
 question: What is the duty of the school and of the 
 teacher ? Is it not to teach boys and girls, young men and 
 young women, how to do their own thinking? Must not 
 the school and the teacher give the necessary educational 
 stimulus, the mental momentum, and then leave the solu- 
 tion of the great problems to the pupils themselves? 
 
 Education as a science is developing; teaching as a 
 fine art is being comprehended; the school as an insti- 
 tution is beginning to serve the people as never before. 
 We are moving forward. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 VOCATIONAL ADJUSTMENT 
 
 NO subject is making a stronger appeal to the country 
 at large than that of vocational adjustment. It 
 is only in very recent years that there has been any 
 attempt to assist the boy or girl in the choosing of a voca- 
 tion or calling. Indeed, the beginning has The 
 hardly yet been made. In the past the eld- apprentice- 
 est son has frequently carried on his father's ship $ y stem 
 work. This has been done regardless of aptitude or desire 
 on the part of the boy or of opportunities offered in the 
 given field of activity. Under the old apprenticeship 
 system the boy was handed over to the tradesman, and, 
 after several years of grind, was expected to come out of 
 this school of hard knocks, an adept. Usually the boy 
 had no voice in selecting the line of work he was to 
 follow. The choice had been made by the father with- 
 out regard to capacity or temperament; and the oppor- 
 tunity for advance in the craft chosen was no more an 
 element in the equation than was that of a survey of the 
 local field. In any event the boy, without expert guid- 
 ance, would be unlikely to choose wisely, even if permitted 
 to select his future work. 
 
 For three decades the manual-training high school and 
 the trade school have been occupying opposite Trade 
 
 sides of the educational arena. The avowed teaching vs. 
 purpose of manual training in the high school educ ^^ s 
 has been for all-round development. It has 
 been declared to be educational in character. Those in 
 
 up 
 
120 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 charge of such schools have been careful to have it under- 
 stood that trades were not taught, and somehow there 
 grew up the idea that to learn a trade was beneath the 
 dignity of those who could afford to attend public or 
 private high schools. 
 
 On their side, the trade schools were narrow and 
 restricted. As the work of the manual-training school was 
 general and desultory and led nowhere in particular, so 
 the trade-school work was one-sided. All the richness 
 and culture were squeezed out, and only the dry husks 
 of technique were left. And the trade school offered to 
 an individual pupil work in a particular line only. 
 
 With the change in educational thought that has come 
 upon us in the last half -score years there has developed 
 an understanding that manual training, as generally 
 taught, is not necessarily industrial education, and that 
 the old form of apprentice or trade-school work is not 
 vocational in the broader and truly educational sense. 
 We have come to know that what is vocational in the 
 proper meaning of the term is truly cultural, and that 
 there is no divorce between culture and accomplishment. 
 
 To work with tools in the shop or with materials at 
 the domestic-science table in the laboratory does not 
 necessarily imply a training vocational in character. 
 Work to be truly vocational must point toward a definite 
 end. In other words, the pupil does not merely make or 
 construct from a so-called educational viewpoint; there 
 must be motive underlying the effort. 
 
 Hundreds of boys and girls are leaving our schools at 
 the close of the compulsory school age and are going 
 directly into trades and pursuits for which they are by 
 temperament totally unfitted. Moreover, no amount of 
 training would render many of these capable of promotion 
 in their fields of endeavor or give to them the capacity 
 
Vocational Adjustment 121 
 
 to enjoy their work. The necessity of earning a livelihood 
 or the desire to help support the family forces many of 
 these into wrong channels. In numerous in- 
 stances they are dissatisfied with the school, leading 
 or have no appreciation of the significance of non ~ 
 
 an education. They can look no farther than ad ^ U5tment 
 to the immediate future. Again, they are lured by false 
 notions of independence. They desire to be self-support- 
 ing. The prevailing tendency toward extravagance in 
 dress, even among young people, is a considerable ele- 
 ment here. The well-dressed young man, working for a 
 living wage merely, is the ideal of the younger boy. 
 The new hat or tasteful gown worn by the girl behind 
 the counter rouses envy in the soul of the girl in school. 
 That the girl behind the counter is poorly nourished and 
 out of tune with her daily occupation is not understood 
 by the former. This condition at times leads boys and 
 girls to take at a pitiably low wage the first job that 
 offers. They find when too late the difficulties of read- 
 justment. Such positions and jobs prove often nothing 
 more or less than "dead-end " or "blind-alley" occupations, 
 and there is constantly coming up to us the moan of the 
 "misfit."'" In many instances the position, which at the 
 moment promises the most in salary, is the least satis- 
 factory for the reason that it leads simply into a "blind 
 alley." In the beginning the salary may be adequate to 
 support the young man or woman. Later in life, when 
 larger draft is made in a financial way, no outlook for 
 increased salary appears, and the ability of the employees 
 does not warrant their employers in promoting them to 
 superior positions at more lucrative compensation. We 
 have thus a large army of so-called "unemployables." 
 
 Did these young people take the long look; did their 
 parents, their teachers, or other advisers help them to 
 
122 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 understand the dangers to come from lack of vocational 
 adjustment; were they led to see how in the end time 
 and money could be saved by proper placement, many 
 young people would remain in school for a longer time. 
 Not alone is this adjustment needed in the large cities, 
 but in the towns and rural communities as well. Girls 
 as well as boys must receive due consideration. 
 
 Vocational guidance, so called, must be in the nature 
 of adjustment of the individual to his life \\iork. To-day 
 the choice of a vocation is due largely to accident. It 
 is a case of the "blind leading the blind." In many 
 instances little choice is exercised by any one. The 
 boy simply "drops into" a place. There is no study 
 of vocational opportunities. Many American fathers, 
 especially mechanics and tradesmen, or those who have 
 risen from poverty to plenty, strongly advise their sons 
 against following the father's trade or calling. Endeavor 
 is not made to ascertain if the boy be fitted for the work, 
 as many times he is. The workingman believes his son 
 should not be compelled to work as he worked and urges 
 him into a profession in which in later years he may prove 
 a misfit. 
 
 Men and women must be schooled in essential lines 
 in order to properly assist these young people. Every 
 large school or system of schools should be provided with 
 competent men and women whose business it is to coun- 
 sel not alone with those now in the school but also with 
 those outside, looking toward a better adjustment. With 
 proper vocational guidance, with some one to study the 
 abilities, aptitudes, and desires of the individual, to know 
 intensively the industrial and economic conditions in the 
 local environment, the individual may be directed into the 
 most desirable channels. 
 
 But inability to advance financially is not the only 
 
Vocational Adjustment 123 
 
 disadvantage under which the misfits later find themselves. 
 The pleasure and satisfaction which is the rightful portion 
 of every individual, these misfits never get out of life. 
 With an equal wage and even a longer working day in a 
 more arduous task but withal a task for which the indi- 
 vidual is fitted, the work will be a joy where before it was 
 drudgery. Temperament and training are considerable 
 factors here. 
 
 For proper training must make humans as well as 
 machines. The "refined pleasures of life" find all too 
 little place, whether with man or master, and no one is 
 properly adjusted to his vocation who does not find mixed 
 with the cares, the responsibilities, and the weariness of 
 his day's work that eminent joy and satisfaction which, 
 after all, make the work worth while. It is a crime to 
 simply provide operatives for industrial machines, for- 
 getting that a deeper and more fundamental obligation 
 is that occupational adjustment that prepares for the 
 vocation of living. 
 
 This brings us at once to the proposition that adjust- 
 ment must be along the literary and traditional lines 
 as well as in the industrial phases. There is 
 danger, in this industrial age, of experts and humanities 
 
 enthusiasts "going to seed" on the necessity 
 
 for purely industrial work. Those who speak ' Corker 
 
 of vocational education usually think in 
 
 terms of brick and mortar and stone and steel, of building 
 
 materials, of industrial projects, of occupations of the 
 
 trade, of traffic, of commerce. And to the rank and file 
 
 vocational adjustment signifies an adjustment to indus- 
 
 trial occupations only. Never must we lose sight of the 
 
 value of literature, and history, and music, and art. 
 
 Those finer qualities of the mind to which the best in 
 
 literature makes its appeal are essential to complete 
 
124 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 living. They are of even greater necessity to the day 
 laborer than to the king of finance or the man of leisure. 
 The proper employment of the leisure hours of the 
 laboring classes is one of the most vital and perplexing 
 problems with which we have to deal. 
 
 Lives grow lean and dwarfed when cut off from the 
 refining flavor of poetry and music. Books are not all, 
 but the qualities of soul and sense cannot grow upon the 
 daily newspaper alone. The man of toil must have lei- 
 sure hours, and the taste for literature and pictures and 
 music and nature will bring pleasure to the worker and 
 contentment to the home. The man of literary tastes 
 and tendencies, and the employer, need just as much a 
 first-hand touch with tools and materials, that their leisure 
 hours may be healthfully employed, and that they may 
 gain the viewpoint of the laborer and be in sympathetic 
 relations with him. 
 
 For it is not alone those who labor at forge and factory 
 who are misfits. It is not only the callings and the crafts 
 that furnish blind-alley occupations. Many 
 adjustment a congregation suffers long and acutely un- 
 applied der the administrations of a spiritual adviser 
 professions w ^ cnose a profession neither wisely nor 
 well. Careful study and expert guidance 
 would have produced of the clergyman a mechanic or 
 statesman of the highest order. There are lawyers who 
 should be farmers and engineers who should be printers; 
 and teachers there are, or rather those who are drawing 
 teachers' salaries, conscientious and scholarly, who, under 
 proper placement at an early age, would now be engaged 
 in other occupations to the peace of mind of pedagogue, 
 of pupil, and of parent. 
 
 There are four fundamental factors underlying this whole 
 matter of vocational interpretation and adjustment that 
 
Vocational Adjustment 
 
 here must receive consideration. They are, first, the 
 dominant interests of the child; second, the economic 
 condition of the family of which the child is 
 a part; third, the occupational opportunities 
 offered in the given locality; and fourth, con- 
 sideration for the future prospects and needs of the 
 community, and the country at large. 
 
 In considering the dominant interests of the child let 
 the distinction be drawn as between vocational education 
 and vocational adjustment. Vocational edu- The 
 
 cation is specific education, and this should dominant 
 not be emphasized at too early an age. Voca- interests 
 tional adjustment implies a study of tendencies and 
 capacities; a seeking after dominant interests and the 
 developing of these possibilities and interests. In a 
 modern school, working under a rational course of study, 
 all pupils may be given a thorough grounding in funda- 
 mentals while at the same time giving due consideration 
 to these dominant interests of the individuals. It is 
 claimed, and with absolute justice, that the individual 
 should be kept pliable; that he should be educated in 
 such fashion that without serious inconvenience or with- 
 out loss of energy or time he may, should occasion require, 
 pass from one occupation to another. This ability pre- 
 supposes a general rather than a special training in early 
 life. All of this may still be brought about through 
 general education in the fundamentals an education 
 that is as essential to the clerk as to the clergyman, to 
 the plowman as to the painter. But the study of these 
 fundamentals in schools need not be pursued at the ex- 
 pense of work that makes its appeal to the particular 
 child. And these fundamentals afford one of the channels 
 through which the work of vocational adjustment is to 
 be carried on. 
 
126 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 When thoroughly developed, any plan for adequate 
 vocational adjustment must begin at an early age per- 
 haps with the child's first years at school. An excellent 
 start has been made in the establishment of vocational 
 courses in certain high schools, and in pre-vocational 
 courses in grammar or intermediate schools. In the 
 light, however, of what has been said of the necessity for 
 enriching and humanizing the vocational work, let me 
 hazard the statement that the work of vocational guid- 
 ance should begin in the first school years. It is not 
 enough to say that there is danger from early specializa- 
 tion; that mistakes will be made if at too tender an age 
 the life work of the boy or girl be determined. Whether 
 we will, or not, these boys and girls leave school and 
 enter fields that later prove unproductive and distaste- 
 ful. Under the best system mistakes will be made; it is 
 a question of producing the least number of misfits. 
 
 If the interests of the boy change, the work of the school 
 must, in a measure, adapt itself to the boy. The sooner 
 the dominant interest takes a new direction the sooner 
 will those who watch the development of the individual 
 be able to eliminate methods and materials that point in 
 the wrong direction. 
 
 Visits must be made with the young children to factory 
 and mine and mill; to store and print shop and drafting 
 room; to art gallery and shipyard and can- 
 excursions nerv ; to justice court, and bank, and dairy 
 farm ; to library and bindery and lighting plant. 
 These experiences the child needs as a working background 
 to help him apply the knowledge he gains at home and 
 at school. Records must be kept of these visits; of tend- 
 encies noted and of desires expressed, just as records are 
 kept in history or arithmetic or science. And when a 
 dominant interest is found, there must be thrown around 
 
Vocational Adjustment 127 
 
 the boy or girl opportunities for further development, not 
 with a view of narrowing the vision or compelling early 
 decision. Under these conditions the boy or girl will the 
 sooner show a "sagging back" and a drooping interest 
 that might otherwise be years in cropping to the surface. 
 This fitting of the course of study to the pupil will result 
 in a more rational course of study than we now have. It 
 will further react in keeping pupils in school, and lessen 
 the number of those who for one reason and another drop 
 back from class to class, or leave the school entirely. 
 Enlightened vocational interpretation and a correspond- 
 ing enrichment in the courses of study will -do more than 
 all other forces combined to produce efficiency in school 
 from kindergarten to university. The aptitudes and de- 
 sires as exemplified by the boy through his school studies, 
 while of the greatest importance, leave out of account 
 elements of the highest significance. The out-of -school 
 life of the boy and girl, when watched and directed, fur- 
 nish criteria for wise conclusions. The playtime of the 
 boy finds him natural and free from restraint. In his 
 play the boy exhibits tendencies and possibilities other- 
 wise unknown to either himself or his associates. In 
 his plays and games, in his out-of-school life generally, 
 in his reading, may ofttimes be found the key to future 
 accomplishment. School and home life must cooperate, 
 and the parents must report to the school, as now the 
 school reports to the parent. 
 
 We shall soon come +o know, therefore, that this guid- 
 ance is to begin at an early age; that the dominant 
 interests of the child are to be studied; that every oppor- 
 tunity is to be offered for the change of this dominant 
 interest. And withal, the tendencies of the pupil as exhib- 
 ited through his literature, his history and biography, his 
 art, his music, his play, his out-of-school visits, must be 
 
128 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 as closely watched and fostered as are those tendencies 
 pointing industrialward. 
 
 The second factor, that of the economic condition of the 
 family, demands serious consideration. Generally speak- 
 ing, we may assume that the boy or girl coming 
 
 from a home below the normal financial level 
 will be unable to take advantage of more than 
 a grammar-school education. Where the circumstances 
 of the family are such that the child is needed to help in 
 its support, we may expect boys and girls to leave school 
 at the end of the compulsory age period. This means 
 that such boys and girls must select for their future 
 work some craft or calling lying within their ability. To 
 be sure, there is no hard and fast line here, and individual 
 tendencies, native capacity, strong determination, may 
 overcome drawbacks and difficulties. However, we should 
 hardly expect the son of the least opportunitied, from a 
 financial point of view, to be able to give the years to 
 preparation that would be required in engineering or law; 
 and in the same way it would be uncommon indeed to find 
 the son of the judge, or the banker, taking up cabinetwork 
 or bricklaying. 
 
 It is obvious, therefore, that in any consideration of 
 the adjustment of the boy or girl to future life work it 
 will be necessary to give due weight to the economic 
 conditions of those responsible for their training and 
 education. 
 
 The third factor is one that has received large consid- 
 eration at the hands of vocational experts. Those who 
 have accomplished much in a material sense in the field 
 of vocational guidance lay great stress upon a study of 
 the local field. Each community has its own problems 
 to solve. From the industrial and commercial sides 
 particularly, for these offer the largest field in the 
 
Vocational Adjustment 129 
 
 beginning, there must be a systematic survey. One region 
 may emphasize stock raising, another mining, another 
 manufacture. The vocational opportunities 
 for girls and boys in the given region must be opportunities 
 thoroughly canvassed. This means systematic in a z iv 
 work in charting and mapping, in collecting 
 and indexing data, in getting closely in touch with 
 employers, agents, factory managers, commercial and 
 industrial promoters, corporations, unions, and labor 
 organizations. It means a sympathetic relation between 
 the vocational adviser and the parents. It implies a 
 perfect understanding between the adviser and the boys 
 and girls he represents. 
 
 Caution must be exercised that guidance, or adjust- 
 ment, be not carried too far on the basis of a regional 
 survey. In the more poorly paid occupations the vast 
 majority of boys and girls will likely find employment at 
 home. But no one should be shut off from entering a 
 field of endeavor for which he shows fitness, even though 
 such field of activity lies at a distance. 
 
 This touches closely the fourth factor, and one to which 
 sufficient weight has not been attached. No one should 
 be barred from any plane of endeavor simply Future 
 
 because it lies remotely. Moreover, those 
 who are responsible for progress are those 
 who with large vision see clearly the shadows of coming 
 events. Noting certain tendencies in the individual, and 
 realizing that future needs of the community or the nation 
 lie parallel with these lines of strength, every desirable 
 opportunity should be thrown around such individual. 
 Capacities undreamed of will oftentimes develop. Our 
 industrial, or economic, or social life, and our civic life, 
 constantly call for trained men and women that the world 
 cannot supply. A notable example of this is found in our 
 
I jo Ideals and Democracy 
 
 great cities, where experts are needed for research and 
 conservation problems. In the fields of vocational inter- 
 pretation, adjustment, and guidance, men and women are 
 needed to carry on the very work here being discussed. 
 These experts we shall not have in sufficient numbers 
 until they have been trained. 
 
 Vocational guidance means not alone the adjusting 
 of individuals to environment, to vocations, to courses 
 of study; it means as well the modification 
 applies to an d application of school studies to best meet 
 school the needs of individual boys and girls. The 
 
 adjustment applies to the course of study 
 and the vocation even more than to the individual. 
 And further, the responsibility for this guidance or 
 adjustment, entirely in the hands of teachers and advisers 
 at first, is, as the pupil develops, shared by him. Parents 
 resent any attempt to drive the boy where they would 
 prefer he should not go. Hence they must understand 
 that guidance means direction only, and that the work 
 of adjustment is simply to help the boy to "find himself." 
 
 Trained men and women for this work we must have. 
 
 Bureaus of vocational guidance are essential. With 
 
 such a plan in force as the one outlined the 
 
 demand objection is at once raised that a few experts 
 
 for trained an d advisers, well trained though they be, 
 teachers 
 
 cannot accomplish the necessary results. 
 
 This is obvious. The teachers themselves must, under 
 careful direction, carry on the work with the children in 
 the grades. They must do this because it is a physical 
 impossibility for a few experts to do it. They must do 
 it because at present no city or locality will finance more 
 than a limited number of such experts. They must do it 
 because no one, so well as the teacher, has opportunity 
 to study the child from so many angles or in so many 
 
Vocational Adjustment jjj 
 
 moods. They must do it because, with our greater 
 understanding of what school is, of what school life should 
 mean, and of the necessity for boys and girls entering, in 
 active life, those fields of endeavor for which they are best 
 fitted, has come as well the understanding that to hear 
 lessons recited from a book is the least of the teacher's 
 duties. Her hours must not be lengthened or the details 
 of her task multiplied. But with large masses of material 
 within each school subject whittled off, and cast to the 
 rubbish heap, there will be opportunity to emphasize fun- 
 damentals. Courses of study are of less importance than 
 health and happiness. We are to stop teaching subjects; 
 we are to teach boys and girls. 
 
 Before teachers can undertake successfully to carry out 
 any such program they themselves must receive instruc- 
 tion. For the present the vocational adviser 
 and a scant literature are the only sources of schools 
 help and inspiration to the teacher. Without must ff er 
 fear of successful contradiction the statement 
 is made that as soon as the necessary budget can be 
 arranged and the best-prepared instructor secured, every 
 normal and training school in the country, and every 
 higher institution of learning awarding credentials to 
 teach, should offer courses in vocational interpretation 
 and adjustment. These courses should be required 
 of all candidates for graduation. Indeed, one of the 
 weaknesses in normal schools the country over has been 
 the lack of just such courses. A proper course would 
 involve the most fundamental facts in child psychology, 
 in practical pedagogy, in economics and history, in 
 geography and literature and art. It would compre- 
 hend a knowledge of industrial conditions and processes, 
 of business methods, of keeping of accounts and filing 
 systems. The most successful teacher of such a course 
 
Ideals and Democracy 
 
 will have large sympathy, great tact, and patience 
 abounding. 
 
 Such normal-school courses should train teachers in 
 the observation of pupils; in how to detect, interpret, 
 and tabulate tendencies; in the kinds of work to bring 
 out undeveloped characteristics. Before graduating, these 
 teachers should know how to work with their associate 
 teachers in the study of particular cases; should know 
 how to cooperate with fathers and mothers or those 
 having charge of boys and girls; and they should be 
 trained in the methods of making regional surveys, of 
 indexing data, and of securing the cooperation of em- 
 ployers and of social, industrial, and other organizations 
 in the community. If no work in library instruction is 
 given in the normal school, the course in vocational 
 adjustment should include the fundamental features of 
 such library work. The teacher must know how to use 
 books in order to teach her pupils the same art. The 
 teacher should be schooled not alone in how to study 
 books but particularly in how to study boys and girls. 
 
 The work of vocational adjustment will, for some 
 time, be confined to the larger cities. The reasons for 
 this are obvious. In summarizing, we would appear to 
 have arrived at the following conclusions. 
 
 First: Teachers should devote a considerable portion 
 of their time to a study of the child and his dominant 
 interests and aptitudes, and to the vocations, the better 
 to fit the curriculum to the pupil and the pupil to envi- 
 roning conditions. Teachers must counsel with parents. 
 Vocational interpretation and the adjustment of the 
 pupil call for a system of records such as are made for 
 other school studies. 
 
 Second: Parents and pupils must be won to the aid 
 of the movement. All social and other organizations 
 
Vocational Adjustment 133 
 
 should join hands with the school in promoting the 
 cause. The parents must understand at the outset that 
 vocational adjustment applies not to blacksmithing more 
 than to law or banking. They must understand that the 
 steering gear is not attached simply to the boy, but to 
 the course of study as well. They must understand that 
 all elements are to be brought into harmony the boy and 
 his abilities, the region and its possibilities, the course 
 <5f study and the educational forces in home and school, 
 on playground and street. They must understand that 
 proper adjustment is demanded, that to the individual 
 may come returns not alone in dollars but in satisfaction. 
 The perpetuity of society itself demands such adjust- 
 ment. The economic condition of the family is always a 
 determining factor. 
 
 Third: The school department, working in conjunc- 
 tion with the industrial and social forces of the com- 
 munity, should establish a Bureau under whose direction 
 the work of vocational interpretation and adjustment is 
 to be carried forward. 
 
 Fourth: The director of this Bureau should be a 
 teacher, a business man, a student of sociology, and pref- 
 erably a man at home with one or more of the trades 
 prevalent in the district. He must be educated in 
 literary as well as in mechanical lines. He must be far- 
 seeing, patient for results, determined, tactful. He must 
 possess James Bryce's four elements that enter into the 
 make-up of a leader intellectual independence, tenacity 
 of purpose, sound judgment, and sympathy. He must 
 know many things well ; he must know men and women, 
 boys and girls, best of all. 
 
 The director, the advisers, and the teachers should 
 make a survey of the local region. All occupations, 
 trades, vocations, professions, should be catalogued and 
 
134 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 charted. The requirements, compensation, opportunities, 
 and distribution of each vocation must be noted and 
 the possibilities for developing the industry or profession 
 studied. Thorough consideration must be given the fu- 
 ture prospects and needs, both at home and in the nation. 
 The securing of the data will require considerable time 
 and expert work. 
 
 Fifth: The employers, manufacturers, and corporation 
 and labor organizations must be interested and their co- 
 operation secured. 
 
 Sixth: Courses of study in vocational interpretation 
 and adjustment should be introduced into the normal 
 schools and education departments of colleges. High- 
 school courses in vocational adjustment should be offered 
 in every high school. 
 
 All education, of whatever nature, is or should be a 
 part of life, and the greatest thing in life is living. Train- 
 The ing for the vocation of living is after all the 
 
 vocation of chief work of the school. This means training 
 hving - m ^bits of industry, habits of thought, habits 
 
 of action, habits of cheerfulness, habits of character, and 
 habits of service. To achieve lasting and large results, 
 teachers must be trained for vocational guidance. They 
 must study the boy and girl from the time of entrance 
 to school. Until the significance of vocational education 
 in the upper grades and the high school is understood 
 and acted upon our courses of study will remain inade- 
 quate. Until vocational adjustment is made a part of all 
 school work, vocational education will fail to meet the 
 demands of this developing age. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 ATTAINABLE IDEALS 
 
 OOMEWHERE in the dim reaches of the past a 
 ^-/ distant day as we reckon time but only as yesterday 
 when considered in the light of evolutionary history 
 the human animal existed in his simplicity. From the 
 rising of the sun in the heavens to the darken- 
 ing of his world this simple man followed Primit ^ e e 
 nature. His needs were few, his wants hardly 
 greater, his ambitions yet unborn. He lived from day 
 to day, and only the change of seasons made it neces- 
 sary for him to change his daily mode of action. To 
 procure food and to protect himself from the elements 
 and from savage beasts and human enemies were his 
 only cares. For him a cave was a palace, a hollow tree 
 trunk was a stately dwelling, a sheltering cliff was a mod- 
 ern bungalow. He fished with his hands, hunted with a 
 club, and ate flesh as we eat oysters. There were no 
 latest styles to trouble him, no roads to build, no cities to 
 beautify. His taxes were never delinquent. He had no 
 polished floors to rewax, no trousers to be creased, and 
 milk pasteurized or sterilized was unknown to him. He 
 possessed no watch with a mainspring to be repaired, no 
 plow with a share to be sharpened. He was troubled 
 neither with railroads, telephones, books, breakfast foods 
 (similar in composition but bearing different names), 
 gas stoves, newspapers, steamboats, electric flatirons, nor 
 pure-food laws. The tipping crime was unknown and, 
 because civilization had not yet been substituted for 
 
 10 135 
 
136 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 native honesty, graft was not then invented. He studied 
 neither sociology nor ethics, felt no obligation toward 
 that vague thing called society, and interested himself 
 not at all in that still more indefinite element known as 
 culture. He hunted and fished, ate, drank, slept, swam, 
 climbed, lived, and died, and another took his place and 
 life went on. 
 
 But the storm, the wind, the rain, ice, snow, and sleet, 
 lightning and thunder, the scorching sun each in turn 
 The made it necessary for this early man to 
 
 beginning seek shelter or suffer. He became quick to 
 of education take a( j va ntage of Nature and to improve 
 upon and assist her. His cave developed into a cabin. 
 The cunning of the wild animals made necessary artificial 
 weapons, and to assist him he laid hold of the sharpened 
 stone. The skins of the animals slain for food were used 
 as protection to his body against the cold. He began to 
 utilize to his own advantage those things that lay in his 
 immediate environment. He was becoming educated. 
 
 During this long period there was practically no society, 
 no division of labor, no trading of commodities, no barter, 
 no exchange of goods, no printed records, no labor-saving 
 devices, no scientific laboratories, no understanding of 
 natural laws, no standard of ideals, no policies of gov- 
 ernment. Each man performed the duties of life much 
 as every other man performed them, the necessities only 
 receiving attention. 
 
 But individuals at last rotated together. The family 
 members lived in a common center, and thus in time 
 a tribe appeared. A clan followed, and al- 
 tnou S h tne ste P is a mighty one, the nation 
 finally resulted. With the tribe or clan came 
 the community; villages, towns, cities, sprang into exist- 
 ence; the hands and sharpened stick gave place to the 
 
Attainable Ideals 
 
 crude plow, the hoe, the shovel, and finally the most 
 intricate and modern implements of the world's most 
 important industry agriculture. The sharpened stone 
 was the forerunner of the ax, and the tools of the arts 
 and sciences finally appeared. From a human animal, 
 with his head to the ground, the man, erect and clear 
 sighted, was evolved, clothed, and civilized. The wild 
 animals were domesticated and trained to labor for 
 his advantage. He walked on streets made by his own 
 hands; he rode on vessels fashioned by his own cun- 
 ning; he built of wood, of stone and brick, of iron and 
 steel; and he molded and shaped materials through the 
 aid of fire, which had come to his service. Physical laws, 
 while not yet understood, were still appreciated, and of 
 such appreciation advantage was now taken. Principles 
 involved in the physical, chemical, and biological sciences 
 were dimly grasped. Subject matter blazed the trail 
 for method. 
 
 Education, up to this time, had been delayed. The 
 process now was comparatively rapid. The world of 
 science was at last unfolding, and scientific principles 
 were applied to the everyday life and in the ordinary 
 occupations and crafts. The arts were being evolved; a 
 moral sense was being built; standards of morality were 
 becoming fixed: altruism was developing; reverence for 
 Deity was being substituted for superstitious worship. 
 Ideals were pointing the way to greater and greater prog- 
 ress; democracy was looking toward possibility; evolution 
 was resulting in civilization. And now distance has been 
 conquered, literature has been developed, nature has 
 been harnessed to do man's bidding in a thousand ways. 
 The possibilities of yesterday have become the realities 
 of to-day. 
 
 All during these countless ages of man's development 
 
Ideals and Democracy 
 
 he wss laying foundations for higher ideals, and during 
 all this time he was being prepared to produce and to 
 live in a democracy. Ideals and Democracy! Never in 
 What real ^ e hi stor y f tne world has there been such 
 democracy need for a real democracy, and never was 
 there a country where the natural conditions 
 were better suited to or the people more thoroughly 
 prepared for a real democracy. Real democracy means 
 liberty, but liberty under law and not license. This 
 country stands for liberty, equality, fraternity; it stands 
 for justice, right, truth; it stands for honor, integrity, 
 high moral purpose ; it stands for education, religion, good 
 home influences, civic righteousness, political freedom, 
 commercial cleanliness; it stands for high manhood and 
 noble womanhood. This country stands for all these 
 things, but, as a people, we have not yet attained to them. 
 Our ideals have not yet been set sufficiently high ; we have 
 not lived up to our knowledge of the best, and our democ- 
 racy is a democracy in part only. Before it shall become 
 a democracy in truth, ideals must be held by all men, and 
 these ideals must be realized. 
 
 How imperfectly have the people of any age that is 
 past been fitted to establish a democracy in fact, and 
 Relation of ^ ow ma dequate have been their standards of 
 ideals to the life, of moral conduct, of duties of individual 
 
 development to individual or of individual to community! 
 of democracy 
 
 The ideals possessed by the early peoples and 
 
 by nations of great promise were often far from exalted 
 ideals that were not ideal. Centuries there have been in 
 which war and lust and greed and gain have been the 
 prevailing conceptions of life. Brother has been at war 
 with brother, man with man, nation with nation. Selfish- 
 ness, not brotherly love, has been the watchword ; intrigue, 
 not honor, has been blazoned upon the standards; personal 
 
Attainable Ideals i jp 
 
 interest rather than the good of all has been the heading 
 of each chapter in life's unfolding. Truly, high ideals are 
 a matter of growth, and character is not developed in a 
 single day. Let us consider the relation of ideals to the 
 development of true democracy and whether democracy 
 is in itself an ideal. 
 
 " I am keenly aware," says Jastrow, 1 "of the dis-service 
 of ideals, of the part they have played in the history of 
 fanaticism, of intolerance, of pseudo-science, as well as 
 of their service in progress and reform. I appreciate more 
 practically how readily in lesser concerns an ideal, like 
 a conscience, may become a troublesome burden. Ideals 
 are often made to work overtime and unseasonably; and 
 ideals unwisely worn often restrict rather than illuminate 
 the outlook. But to achieve a worthy or serviceable 
 foothold in this tumultuous and competitive world of 
 ours, some decided singleness of purpose and some sup- 
 porting ideals are alike indispensable." 
 
 But are ideals attainable? It was said recently by 
 one in my hearing, while speaking of the fundamental 
 principles upon which a great organization 
 is founded, "Its teachings look toward high 
 ideals, and such ideals as are practical; such 
 as may actually be attained to." This he characterized 
 as a paradox. An ideal worthy the name must be practi- 
 cal. Ideals are visions of improved conditions; ideals are 
 yearnings after higher purposes; they are desires for more 
 perfect standards; they are glimpses of richer promises; 
 they are determinations for a fuller realization of life and 
 all that it is and means. Ideals are practical; they can 
 be realized. An ideal beyond attainment is less than 
 an ideal. It is a product only of the imagination. ^ It 
 is a vain searching for the impossible. It is a reaching 
 1 The Qualities of Men, p. 90. 
 
140 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 out after empty dreams. To make simply for the non- 
 attainable is as 
 
 "An infant crying in the night: 
 An infant crying for the light, 
 And with no language but a cry." ! 
 
 The lack of high ideals on the part of so many men and 
 women is a matter of grave consideration to those who 
 give attention to this question, and especially to those who 
 have in their charge the training of the youth, whether 
 in the home, the school, the church, or the shop. High 
 ideals must be developed in the mind of every boy and 
 every girl, every man and every woman, and all must work 
 toward their realization. 
 
 Ideals of appreciation must be cultivated if we are to 
 attain to a real democracy. Few of us realize our debt 
 Ideals essen- ^ those wno have gone before us; we little 
 tialtoreal appreciate the extent of our obligation to 
 democracy ^ Q generations of past time, whose work and 
 faith and loyalty have made our present standards possible. 
 Just as each man owes much to his friend, so each of 
 us owes infinitely more than he can in a lifetime repay 
 to the men and the women who, through past time, have 
 worked and lived and died, suffered and failed, joyed 
 and conquered, that our life and civilization might be 
 made possible. In this sense, every man who has lived 
 is the benefactor of each of us, and each must be looked 
 upon as a friend. 
 
 "Every man contains in himself the elements of all 
 the rest of humanity. Some time or other to each must 
 come the consciousness of this larger life. In accepting 
 as his own the life of others, he becomes aware of a life 
 in himself that has no limit and no end. " 
 ! Tennyson, In Memoriam, stanza 5. 
 
Attainable Ideals 141 
 
 That what we are as individuals is owing to those who 
 lived in the past, that the progress of to-day is built upon 
 the achievement of yesterday, has frequently 
 found expression. The mountain torrent ^o'tfo^ast 
 and the mountain lake lie high up and far 
 removed from the eyes of men on the lower levels. The 
 torrent grows into the stream, the stream expands into 
 the ever widening river, and flowing on and on, finally 
 finds its way to the free and throbbing ocean. Upon the 
 surface of the river, back and forth, pass the craft laden 
 with freight or carrying the traveler. Cities spring up 
 upon its banks. Along its borders on either side men till 
 the soil, and plant and harvest their crops. These are 
 carried up or down the river, and in the cities the raw 
 material is converted into the finished product, and again 
 the manufactured article is sent from point to point. 
 
 But men think only of the river, of this mighty highway 
 of communication. To the mountain torrent they give 
 no thought. Let me take from you the torrent, the very 
 source and life of this majestic stream, and what of the 
 river, the cities, the manufacturing industries, the vast 
 agricultural interests, the very homes of a contented peo- 
 ple? All are gone. Just F as we as a people, when con- 
 sidering our present achievement, cannot ignore the part 
 played by all those who have gone before; and as the 
 river must needs look for its life in the mountain torrent, 
 so must every man look to the past and to that great body 
 of teachers and taught who have worked and thought 
 and struggled in all earlier times. The future shall be 
 fashioned from the present, and to-day is because yester- 
 day was. 
 
 Few men realize their obligation to others and to them- 
 selves. We all are too free to criticize the other fellow, 
 reserving to ourselves special privileges we are not willing 
 
142 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 to accord him. We fail to put ourselves in the place of 
 our neighbor and to demand of ourselves as strict 
 accounting as we demand from others. 
 
 There is, indeed, an appreciation that must carry over 
 from individual to individual. Whether embodied in word 
 
 or deed, in attitude or expression, that which 
 The strenuous , , , , . . 
 
 life blunts should be our pleasure is too often mter- 
 
 the finer preted in terms of duty, and the duty is left 
 sensibilities ,., _, 
 
 undone. Tardily we see our error. The 
 
 hurry and worry of this economic age so engrosses the 
 attention that the finer sensibilities suffer. " For the first 
 time in all the years I have worked with him, Mr. Smith 
 actually said he was proud of his corps of associates," 
 said a conscientious, competent employee. Being human, 
 she and her associates missed the occasional word of 
 appreciation a word that would lighten the load and 
 make work a joy instead of a drudgery. To be apprecia- 
 tive we must measure the qualities of men, and attribute 
 proper values. 
 
 "I measure men by the bigness scale 
 
 A man is all that he means to be; 
 His heart may falter, his feet may fail, 
 
 And yet the man is the same to me. 
 
 I 've never looked on the perfect tree 
 That showed no mark of the winter's gale, 
 
 And never perfect the man I see 
 I measure men by the bigness scale. 
 
 "I measure men by the bigness scale, 
 Nor ask what defects may lie below. 
 
 I know the soul of the man is frail, 
 I know the hope of the man is slow, 
 I know the thorns that around him grow, 
 
 The brambled ways that his feet assail 
 The best of man is the man I know; 
 
 I measure men by the bigness scale. 
 
Attainable Ideals I43 
 
 "I measure men by the bigness scale; 
 
 In ev'ry mortal two men there are; 
 The man who looks from the gloomy jail 
 
 May fix his gaze on the shining star. 
 
 For life is long and the way is far 
 For some the sun and for some the hail, 
 
 The good to save or the ill to mar 
 I measure men by the bigness scale. 
 
 "I measure men by the bigness scale; 
 
 I measure men by a simple rule 
 I learned myself by the lonesome trail, 
 
 The stony path and the murky pool, 
 
 I learned myself in the sterner school 
 Where right may lose and the wrong prevail 
 
 And, saint or sinner, or sage or fool, 
 I measure men by the bigness scale. 
 
 "I measure men by the bigness scale; 
 
 I pray that others may measure you 
 Not by your lifetime's tangled tale 
 
 But by the things you tried to do. 
 
 I sometimes look to the skies of blue 
 And catch the spirit of Holy Grail 
 
 And know, and know, when the game is through, 
 Christ measures men by the bigness scale!" ! 
 
 A conception of what we owe other men those of past 
 time and those of our day and generation whether asso- 
 ciated with our business or social interests or 
 separated from us by sea or land expanse realization 
 
 has never been so clearly before the people as ofourinter- 
 J . . dependence 
 
 to-day. In our commercial relations we are all 
 but helpless without the aid of those in our own and in 
 other lands. The food that comes to our table, the fabrics 
 with which we clothe ourselves, the materials contained 
 in the homes that shelter us are provided, not at hand, but 
 come at our bidding from the farthermost corners of the 
 1 Douglas Mallock, The Measure of Men. 
 
144 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 earth. Our social and mental appetites are satisfied by 
 books, works of art, and masterpieces of music that were 
 born in the brains of men who speak languages alien to 
 our own, and whose mode of life is vastly different from 
 ours. Even our moral and spiritual natures receive 
 stimulus not only from those with whom we touch elbows 
 but by the acts and words and life of all those, of what- 
 ever country or whatever time, whose high moral purpose 
 and constant searching after better things admonish us to 
 look upward and onward and to strive to be, each day, 
 not better than our neighbors but better than ourselves. 
 We are interdependent, and as such must join hands so 
 as to complete the circuit between the past that has made 
 us and the future for which we are responsible. 
 
 No man owes what he is to himself alone. There are 
 no self-made men. "What a burden of responsibility is 
 True removed from the shoulders of the Almighty," 
 
 democracy responded his hearer, when an acquaintance 
 a national announced himself as a self-made man. And 
 
 because we owe this debt to the past, we 
 must repay in part by meeting our obligations to the 
 future. There can be no true democracy until the ideal 
 of all men shall grow into a national ideal; an ideal that 
 shall make each responsible for all. We must realize 
 that while the children of men are anywhere in misery, 
 or want, or ignorance, or privation, or bondage, no one 
 of us is free. As Tennyson sings, 1 
 
 "Is it well that while we range with Science, glorying in the Time, 
 City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime?" 
 
 Our debt to the past can be met only by holding before 
 us high ideals of what we shall do for the future and by 
 seeing the realization of the ideals in results accomplished. 
 
 1 Locksley Hall Sixty Years After. 
 
Attainable Ideals 145 
 
 The lad at school is usually admonished, when in a con- 
 troversy with his fellows, that he is no better than any 
 of his associates. As a man he insists that 
 one individual is as good as another. Do The 
 you recall Lowell? "Amid all the fruitless 
 turmoil and miscarriage of the world, if there be one 
 thing steadfast and of favorable omen, one thing to 
 make optimism distrust its own obscure distrust, it is 
 the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and 
 more beautiful than themselves." 1 If all men at all 
 times exemplified the ideal as set forth by Lowell we 
 should indeed be able to herald the real democracy. In 
 our littleness we clothe ourselves in bigotry and surround 
 ourselves with sham. We are too prone to think more 
 highly of ourselves than we ought to think. 
 
 The gospel of equality is well illustrated in an anecdote 
 that comes from the personal experience of an American 
 Minister to Sweden. A Swedish peasant was traveling 
 by post chaise and desired a change of horses. In the 
 more distant country districts travel is altogether by post, 
 with a post house every few miles along the way. The 
 keepers of these post houses are expected to give the 
 traveler a change of horses on request, and this without 
 regard to rank or title or station of the individual. The 
 first to come shall be first served. The peasant in question 
 ordered fresh horses for his conveyance and while he was 
 partaking of refreshment a second traveler, the Governor 
 of the province, chanced by. He also required fresh 
 animals. It so happened that only two horses remained, 
 and the attendant, at the command of the Governor, 
 was placing these at the disposal of the latter when the 
 countryman appeared and ordered a halt in proceedings. 
 "What," said the Governor, "do you refuse to permit 
 
 1 Democracy and Other Essays, p. 36. 
 10 
 
Ideals and Democracy 
 
 those horses to be harnessed into my carriage?" "Yes, 
 I do, " said the peasant. "And do you know who I am ? " 
 blustered the dignitary. "I am the Governor of this 
 province, a Knight of the Royal Order of the North Star, 
 and one of the Chamberlains of His Majesty, the King." 
 "Oh, ho!" said the peasant. "And do you, sir, know 
 who I am? " Fearing now that the attire of the country- 
 man was merely a disguise, the negative reply from the 
 nobleman was somewhat hesitating. "Well," replied the 
 peasant, walking up to his face and looking him firmly 
 in the eye, "I'll tell you who I am / am the man that 
 ordered those horses." 1 Needless to say, he got them. 
 
 In our country there is no aristocracy of birth, although 
 the attitude of many a man would seem to indicate the 
 contrary. There is no aristocracy of money, but material 
 possession is daily ruining many an otherwise excellent 
 character. Wealth or position is not necessarily a guar- 
 antee of quality or nobility of soul. The man of humble 
 parentage who struggles for a livelihood frequently wins 
 the race for the abiding things of life. 
 
 Men are to be measured in terms of those things which 
 abide. Let us take heed lest we give undue prominence 
 to the shallow and superficial and leave 
 averages ' unmeasured those qualities that endure. 
 Beneath many a plain exterior there dwells 
 a soul of rare beauty, and the cottage is often the home of 
 contentment. And after all, when the evidence is all in 
 we are forced to admit that the law of averages holds here 
 as elsewhere. Few men merit one hundred per cent in 
 all things. Those who excel here are short weight there, 
 and it not infrequently falls out that the one of small 
 means, of scant opportunities, and humble social distinc- 
 tion, and who is styled as average by the society lion, the 
 
 i W. H. Thomas, Jr., Sweden and the Swedes, p. 27. 
 
Attainable Ideals 747 
 
 critic, the leader of fashion, is, as a man, a citizen, a 
 neighbor, a taxpayer, in all ways the suoerior of the 
 latter. 
 
 The man who would rise above the dead level of the 
 average, whether that average be high or low, should seek 
 in others for those qualities which others would admire in 
 him. Having found them, he must strive to rise to the 
 heights to which they carry their possessor; having found 
 them not, let him still strive to perfect himself, that he 
 may be to his fellows an example of what they should 
 hope to attain 
 
 "In one of Murillo's pictures in the Louvre," says 
 Gannett, 1 "he shows us the interior of a convent kitchen; 
 but doing the work there are not mortals in old dresses, 
 but beautiful white-winged angels. One serenely puts 
 the kettle on the fire to boil, and one is lifting up a pail 
 of water with heavenly grace, and one is at the kitchen- 
 dresser reaching up for plates; and I believe there is a 
 little cherub running about and getting in the way, trying 
 to help. What the old monkish legend that it represented 
 is, I hardly know. But as the painter puts it to you on 
 his canvas, all are so busy, and working with such a will, 
 and so refining the work as they do it, that somehow you 
 forget that pans are pans and pots pots, and only think 
 of the angels, and how very natural and beautiful kitchen- 
 work is, just what the angels would do, of course." 
 
 How admirably this sets forth the ideal of labor! The 
 dignity, the glory, the morality of work is here made 
 real. And, in truth, it is high time that men 
 and women everywhere thoroughly believed The ^^ 
 in the nobility of accomplishing tasks through 
 physical or bodily exertion. It is an unanswerable fact 
 
 1 Blessed Be Drudgery, p. 27. 
 
148 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 that all men should preach the gospel of work and practice 
 the classics of industrialism. 
 
 Too often we find that the man who, as a boy, was 
 forced to perform manual labor that he might aid in the 
 support of himself or of the family looks back upon his 
 early experiences with regret. He would not have his son 
 work as he worked. His great desire is to amass a for- 
 tune that his son may be reared in idleness, or, at the 
 best, that he may enter a profession. He would have his 
 son receive a salary, not wages; he must occupy a position, 
 not hold a job. 
 
 Such a man does not dignify labor. He is robbing his 
 son of the best heritage he could leave him a knowl- 
 
 Idleness e ^ e * wor ^ at ^ rst ^and anc * a * ove ^ or 
 vs. labor. He is cheating him of his right. He is 
 
 depriving him of the very elements necessary 
 to produce strength of character and stability of purpose; 
 of the foundation upon which to build a proper moral 
 structure. Work has been the salvation of man since the 
 beginning of time, and in our age and generation, more 
 than in any other period of the world's history, is an 
 appreciation of and participation in work by every one a 
 necessity. The strife between the worker and the idler is 
 on. The commercial spirit of the age is being intensified. 
 The money interests are becoming so centered that, many 
 times, the desire is for more that those who accumulate 
 may work less. Those who have been taught that work 
 is degrading are living examples of the fallacy of this false 
 philosophy. Overtaken by misfortune and adversity, 
 directed in a wrong course, they swell the ranks of the 
 improvident and the unemployed, not only because they 
 will not work but because they have not been taught how 
 to work, and no task can be performed by them in an 
 acceptable manner. The street corners abound with men 
 
Attainable Ideals 
 
 and boys of both classes; the cheap places of amusement 
 must have their patronage; and libraries of criminal 
 literature are written for them. They walk railroad 
 tracks, mingle in the crowds of the discontented, and 
 fill our prisons, almshouses, asylums, and institutions for 
 dependents. 
 
 In an address delivered in the White House during 
 February, 1908, I heard Theodore Roosevelt, then 
 
 President of the United States, say: "I 
 
 u ., J Importance 
 
 would not have you preach an impossible of self - 
 
 ideal ; for if you preach an ideal that is impos- de P endence 
 sible, you tend to make your pupils believe that no ideals 
 are possible, and therefore, you tend to do them that 
 worst of wrongs to teach them to divorce preaching 
 from practice, to divorce the ideal that they in the abstract 
 admire from the practical good after which they strive. 
 Teach the boy and girl that their business is to earn 
 their own livelihood; teach the boy that he is to be 
 the homemaker; the girl that she must ultimately be the 
 homekeeper; that the work of the father is to be the 
 bread-winner, and that of the mother the housekeeper; 
 that their work is the most important work by far in all 
 the land ; that the work of the statesman, the writer, the 
 captain of industry, and all the rest is conditioned first, 
 upon the work that finds its expression in the family, that 
 supports the family. So teach the boy that he is to be 
 expected to earn his own livelihood; that it is a shame 
 and scandal for him not to be self-dependent, not to 
 be able to hold his own in the rough work of actual life. 
 Teach the girl that so far from its being her duty to try 
 to avoid all labor, all effort, that it should be a matter of 
 pride to her to be as good a housewife as her mother 
 was before her." 1 
 
 1 Proceedings, National Education Association, 1908, p. 213. 
 
Ideals and Democracy 
 
 This is an age demanding work. The boy at work is 
 doing no injustice to himself, no injury to others. There 
 
 is no better moral tonic than honest work, no 
 muscle VS * mental appetizer superior to dignified labor, 
 
 and all honest labor is dignified. Money alone 
 can accomplish nothing. The mind to plan and the money 
 to purchase or command are helpless without the hand to 
 execute. The vast enterprises undertaken and accom- 
 plished by this American people would be impossible but 
 for the labor of many hands. The development of our 
 wonderful resources, the growth of marvelous industries, 
 the building up of a great commerce, the making of this 
 country into a home for millions of people all this is 
 possible only through work. 
 
 This material side, however, important though it be, 
 is subsidiary to that which is underneath. The moral 
 
 fabric of the individual is strengthened in the 
 of luork*** V6I 7 atmosphere of honest toil. " I have 
 
 learned," says Booker T. Washington in his 
 book, Up from Slavery, "that success is to be measured 
 not so much by the position that one has reached in life 
 as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying 
 to succeed." It is not enough that a portion of our peo- 
 ple work. Before the proper bond of sympathy can exist 
 between capital and labor, capital must labor. Those 
 who feel that their burdens are too severe would have less 
 cause so to feel if real work were the portion of every 
 man. " It will become a matter of wonder that there ever 
 have existed those who thought it admirable to enjoy 
 without working, at the expense of others who worked 
 without enjoying." 
 
 And Ruskin, always a believer in intelligent work as 
 the salvation of the race, says: "It is only by labor 
 that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought 
 
Attainable Ideals 151 
 
 that labor can be made happy. And the two cannot 
 be separated with impunity. All professions should be 
 liberal, and there should be less pride felt in peculiarity 
 of employment and more in excellence of achievement. 
 And yet more, in each regular profession, no master should 
 be too proud to do its hardest work." 
 
 Struggle as man may for happiness, he may look for 
 permanent riches in this direction only as with mind and 
 body he occupies himself in honest toil. Plowman or 
 painter, peasant or philosopher; the low or the high, the 
 poor or the rich; office boy or bank president; stevedore or 
 capitalist each must have his own work to do, must do 
 it, must glory in the doing. To do one's own work cheer- 
 fully and to do it better than any one else can do it should 
 be the ideal, believing with Emerson that "there needs a 
 revised ideal of life. . . . Life is not for learning, nor 
 is life for working, but learning and working are for life." 
 
 Many a youth who thinks himself fortunate in being 
 exempt from work looks back upon this condition in 
 Labor must ^ s ^ e as a c ^ m ^J' Labor should never 
 not degenerate degenerate into drudgery. Drudgery kills 
 into drudgery t h e spirit and dulls the soul. Drudgery saps 
 the intellect and corrodes the conscience. It dims the 
 eye, steals beauty of feature, and bends the back. There 
 are thousands of children of the poor, scattered over the 
 length and breadth of the land, who in factory and shop 
 are leading desolate lives. With them it is not work that 
 kills, but overwork. Labor with them is drudgery. 
 
 But drudgery comes not alone from overwork. Any 
 work can be made mere drudgery. To those who look 
 upon the tasks of others as more pleasing than their own 
 there will soon come bitterness and discontent. Our 
 labor is what we make it. Let no one be mistaken in 
 this. Make your work a pleasure. Dignify the laborer 
 
 11 
 
i 52 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 by dignifying the labor of his hands. Be sure your work 
 is ennobling if you can say each day that you have done 
 your best. Let the work of to-day be better than that 
 of yesterday. So strive that the result of to-morrow's 
 labor shall surpass that of to-day. 
 
 Play is as essential as work. It not infrequently falls 
 out that those who have the least respect for labor are 
 Recreation as P r fe ss i na l players. Some people there are 
 necessary who shift all responsibility to the shoulders 
 of others. As a consequence, overwork is the 
 portion of many. As a result of this unequal division 
 of things a serious injustice is done both classes. The 
 professional players injure themselves and the society of 
 which they are a part. Those who "work without 
 ceasing" injure themselves as well, and society is thereby 
 impoverished. 
 
 The rank and file of business and professional men 
 tradesman, employer, clerk, publicist, theologian, teacher, 
 jurist play in the summer. The habit of vacation taking 
 is American. After nine, ten, or eleven months of unceas- 
 ing grind it becomes necessary to drop the burden and 
 go out into the wilderness. It is a habit that is brought 
 about by the congestion of cities, our competitive system, 
 our strenuous existence, and the temper of the American 
 people. The average man or woman is wound up to the 
 highest pitch and must, after working to the limit for 
 months, stop suddenly or run down. 
 
 Our leading argument for a summer play time is the 
 oppressive heat. It is indeed a fact that in cities espe- 
 cially the heated term furnishes a particularly undesirable 
 work period. This is especially true when men and women 
 are overworked and physically and mentally fagged. 
 The business man of to-day is, as summer approaches, 
 
Attainable Ideals j r j 
 
 as an engine that has been designed to average forty 
 miles an hour, and, when run at seventy, finds itself in 
 the middle of the journey laid up with a broken crank 
 shaft. Many a man must work day and night for fifty 
 years that he may accumulate stores on earth such as to 
 allow him to rest the last twenty of his threescore years 
 and ten. Alas! at the age of fifty-one the "pitcher is 
 broken at the fountain." Had he interspersed play with 
 work he would have enjoyed his fifty years and perhaps 
 have lived to enjoy in greater degree the remaining 
 nineteen. 
 
 The plan is wrong. No man, no organization, no nation 
 can do the best work by fits and starts. Around us every 
 day we see exemplified the fallacy of our un- 
 natural course failures, invalids, deaths. It 
 is not absolute rest that many of us need, it is 
 change of thought and occupation. Over-occupation kills. 
 
 " I could not enjoy my vacation," said a business man 
 to me. ' ' For several weeks preceding my outing I worked 
 day and night to get my business into such shape that I 
 could leave it." This is a common experience. Others 
 carry their business with them, and experience no change, 
 as they realize they must again overwork on their return 
 to "make up for lost time." Some play so hard that 
 they must get into the routine of their work in order to 
 recuperate. 
 
 We are living in an age of electricity, of labor-saving 
 devices. We are alert for the "done while you wait" 
 sign. It is the quick-lunch-counter period. The , 
 We pay excess fare, take the twentieth- the twentieth- 
 century limited, and chafe at the least delay. Sd 
 
 Our automobile pleasure trip develops into 
 a joy ride, when the most elastic speed limit is doubled and 
 then broken. We chide Central if our wants are not 
 
154 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 anticipated, and we fume and fret when the line is busy. 
 A blockade on the elevated throws us into a panic. We 
 bolt our eggs and coffee while devouring the latest Stock 
 Exchange news. We rage and threaten to return to 
 tallow candles when the fuse burns out and the electric 
 lights are off a dozen minutes. The curtain at the 
 theater must go up as we take our seats or we criticize 
 the management. Our work crowds us. Competition is 
 keen. We are the victims of an industrial and economic 
 system that is being abused. The size and importance 
 of the dollar are constantly made to expand. 
 
 Shall we then mix our play with our work? Shall the 
 combination be macaronic? Should we lop off our play 
 times, and lead the strenuous life from spring 
 to spring? We should do neither. Living is 
 of work a serious, although withal a pleasant, business, 
 
 and " There is a certain dignity to be kept up 
 in pleasure, as well as in business." "All work and no 
 play makes Jack a dull boy," but Jack can accomplish 
 little when his play and work are mixed. And Jack ac- 
 complishes less than he should when he works three hun- 
 dred days and then plays sixty-five. Short play spells 
 from time to time bring best results. The mind of the 
 business man, keyed up to high tension, must be given 
 change and recreation, and this should come frequently 
 and in short periods, from week to week, and from month 
 to month. The overheated engine is stopped and cooled, 
 and is again ready for its work. The carrier pigeon relaxes, 
 and once more takes up its journey. We shall sometime 
 come to understand that it is wrong to keep the mind and 
 body running at high speed until, exhausted, a prolonged 
 rest is required before the fires are again started under 
 the boilers. And following such strain, neither mental nor 
 physical machinery can assume normal condition . 
 
Attainable Ideals 
 
 Through a happy adjustment of work and play, time, 
 money, and health may be saved, and length of days may 
 be secured. And the books, when we leave, will show a 
 balance in results accomplished. 
 
 To achieve the most in life, and to derive the most from 
 life, a sense of humor must be cultivated. As individuals 
 we must be ready and willing to see the pleasant side of 
 things. No pessimistic, gloomy, morose, sullen, sulky 
 character ever achieved anything worthy of emulation. 
 
 Did you ever enter a street car on your way to business, 
 on a beautiful morning when all nature smiled, and in the 
 fullness of joy and the best of comradeship Humor as 
 say "Good morrow" to a fellow passenger? a password 
 And what a wet blanket of disaster and to P r z ress 
 sadness was thrown over the whole atmosphere of the 
 car when your fellow traveler absolutely ignored your 
 greeting, or at the best emitted only a growl, as much as 
 to say: "You attend to your own business and I'll take 
 care of mine." The reaction from this attitude was such 
 that you slammed the office door, kicked over the waste 
 basket, frowned at the office boy, and accomplished 
 nothing in your forenoon's work. We owe it to others 
 as well as to ourselves to cultivate and preserve a sense of 
 humor. Humor develops into disposition. Disposition 
 foundations character. Humor is a password to progress. 
 
 By humor I mean much more than the ability to appre- 
 ciate the joke or send back wit for wit. Humor mirrors 
 comradeship and happiness and the tendency to grasp 
 the brighter side. Such an appreciation of humor enables 
 us to catch the viewpoint of the other fellow. To picture 
 the dark and gloomy side requires no particular effort or 
 ability. Our work goes right or wrong as we possess this 
 saving sense of humor. It leads to good judgment. It 
 
1 56 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 ofttimes restrains us from doing the unkind or unjust thing 
 to another or the unwise thing to ourselves. It curbs us 
 and keeps us from trouble. It makes us happy and 
 contented and young and full of health and vigor. 
 
 And what right have we to be out of humor and pes- 
 simistic? If others lack this virtue, it is a calamity; if 
 we lack it, it is a crime. Think you that Stevenson and 
 Homer and Milton were downcast and out of sorts? 
 Forced to leave home and society, frail in body but in 
 spirit free, Stevenson to the last was ever hopeful, inspir- 
 ing, cheering, uplifting. Helen Keller, deprived of the 
 senses which to us seem indispensable, has accomplished 
 more in a few short years than many a man or woman in 
 a long life. And throughout, what a sense of humor has 
 been hers, what cheerfulness, what comradeship ! 
 
 When vexed with your neighbor or irritated with self, 
 when out of sorts with creeds and politics and society, 
 when things at home go wrong, when pleasure palls and 
 business is a burden, when the day is dull and because of 
 your own blurred vision every man seems to think only 
 of self, read you then, and read again, from one who sang 
 and sang: 
 
 "The day returns and brings us the petty round of 
 irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, 
 help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces, 
 let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go 
 blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our rest- 
 ing beds weary and content and undishonored, and grant 
 us in the end the gift of sleep." l 
 
 That the one who is possessed of the saving sense of 
 humor is also the one with vision and insight will be found 
 the exception only sufficient to prove the rule. A con- 
 stant looking inward, a thinking of self, a mind given to 
 
 1 Prayer at Morning, by Robert Louis Stevenson. 
 
Attainable Ideals 157 
 
 growling and complaint will accomplish little. Those who 
 see the rift in the cloud, and who turn their thoughts from 
 themselves to others, are well on their way 
 
 /"*? ' ' 
 
 tx> prosperity of mind. Imagination and imp iill r t 
 insight are essential to produce richness of perspective and 
 life. To possess clear vision means that the balanced 
 eye sees in perfect perspective and the mind attains a 
 thoroughly balanced view. The visionless mind impover- 
 ishes the real self as the sightless eye beggars the powers 
 of description. How clearly is this set forth by Saxe 
 in his delineation of the reactions of the four men, who, 
 blind, were first placed in contact with the elephant. 
 The first, who grasped the elephant's tail, declared it a 
 rope; the second, who laid hold upon the trunk, pro- 
 nounced it a serpent; the third man, with hand [placed 
 upon the tusks, proclaimed them the horns of a steer; 
 while the fourth man, on leaning against the animal, said 
 he was leaning against a wall. 
 
 Sentiment aside, and confronted by the so-called com- 
 monplace of daily existence, the fact is borne in upon 
 us that vision is a virtue. Did Washington, think you, 
 possess vision through the trials of that fearful winter at 
 Valley Forge? Surrounded by the most disheartening 
 conditions; his men scantily clothed and poorly nourished; 
 with finances at low ebb and ammunition scarce; with 
 sickness laying its devastating hand upon his wasted 
 followers, and criticism's echoes becoming daily more 
 audible through it all the great leader held to his vision. 
 Himself inspired, he thus inspired others. Did Clara 
 Barton possess vision when, away yonder in the East, 
 amid shot and shell and desolation and death she went in 
 and out upon the field of battle, seeking out the wounded 
 and distressed? Did the lad who saved his friend while 
 losing his own life; the father who sacrificed himself that 
 
1 58 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 the daughter might be spared ; the humble workman who, 
 far within the mine, deliberately gave his own life that the 
 scores of miners in a distant part of the workings might be 
 freed did these hold before the mind the vision ? Was the 
 Great Teacher possessed of vision when he answered the 
 query, "Who is my neighbor?" Was it vision that held 
 Columbus to his course as he crept across the trackless 
 ocean? Says Joaquin Miller in his Columbus: 
 
 " Behind him lay the gray Azores, 
 
 Behind the Gates of Hercules; 
 Before him not the ghost of shores, 
 
 Before him only shoreless seas. 
 The good mate said: 'Now must we pray, 
 
 For lo! the very stars are gone. 
 Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?' 
 
 'Why, say, "Sail on! sail on! and on!'" 
 
 *' He gained a world; he gave that world 
 Its grandest lesson: On! sail on!" 
 
 "Are you an engineer?" questioned the manager of a 
 great corporation of a lieutenant who had been suggested 
 as one competent to carry out a tremendous undertaking, 
 involving the expenditure of a vast sum of money and 
 requiring a high order of engineering skill. "No," came 
 the prompt reply, "but I know when I need an engineer." 
 With keen vision this guiding genius brought to a success- 
 ful termination a project that would have foiled many a 
 man of narrow insight yet possessed of all the learning of 
 the schools. 
 
 The worth of insight, imagination, vision, is not to be 
 questioned in the commercial world. The more matter- 
 of-fact the age, the keener the spirit of competition, the 
 faster the race for industrial supremacy, the greater is the 
 need for a looking out and beyond the immediate sur- 
 roundings and conditions. To be successful, the business 
 
Attainable Ideals 159 
 
 man must anticipate the output of soil and mine and 
 forest. He must evaluate supply and demand, must 
 prophesy weather and figure transportation, 
 
 and reckon with law and labor. A hit-and- . V 1 i . sion an 
 v . , , r , v ... A ., idealized real 
 
 miss policy is but fumbling with fortune. And 
 
 just as true is it that in the less tangible though equally 
 important sphere of culture, this vision is necessary. 
 Intellectual quickening is conditioned thereon. Enjoy- 
 ment that lasts and ideals that enrich look back upon 
 these visions. Vision is more than castle building, for 
 the castle may be without foundation and constructed by 
 a dreamer. The vision is an idealized real. 
 
 Ideals of integrity and high moral purpose are essen- 
 tial in a successful man, a prosperous business, or a 
 stable state. A democracy, to be established The country 
 and to exist, must be the symbol not for needs honest 
 things but for men. What the country needs 
 is not dollars but clear-eyed, well-poised, high-minded, 
 honest men men who know the right and whose honor 
 cannot be impeached, whose business life is a revelation 
 of the moral life behind it all. We want men who realize 
 their responsibility and who have the courage of their 
 convictions. 
 
 Dr. George L. Spinning quotes Mr. Roosevelt in an 
 interview concerning the injustice done the American 
 Indian. After Dr. Spinning had described to the President 
 the condition of the Indian, his misery and wretched- 
 ness, the false promises that had been made him and 
 how even the land that had been given him had been 
 again taken away, the President replied: "This is not 
 politics; this is not righteousness, and righteousness is 
 what we are here to do!" 
 
 Our commercial honor needs repairing. Not only as 
 
160 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 individuals, but in a civic and a national sense this holds 
 true. Little by little the moral sense of whole commu- 
 The thief vs ^ties goes wrong. Individuals, from selfish 
 the king motives, are dishonest ; families become mor- 
 
 ally degenerate; cities grow corrupt; nations 
 fall into decay. There are in every community men and 
 women who consider themselves perfectly honest, who 
 would not defraud a friend, yet who, if opportunity offered, 
 would not hesitate to withhold the fare from the street-car 
 conductor. There are those in whose hands a neighbor's 
 goods would be as safe as in their own, but who would 
 take a spoon or a napkin from a hotel table simply as a 
 souvenir. There are individuals in many towns and cities 
 whose public ideals are so inadequate as to make dis- 
 honor, immorality, and corruption so common as to call 
 for slight comment on the part of those living in this 
 atmosphere. There are localities wherein the man who 
 takes ten dollars in the ordinary manner is branded a thief 
 and suffers accordingly, while he who defrauds the public 
 out of a million dollars is a king of finance and goes 
 unpunished. From the common criminal to the court of 
 justice one looks in vain for a high moral standard. 
 Crime is alike in high planes and low, and when an honest 
 man is found I say honest, for there are no degrees of 
 honesty his bravery is rewarded at first with sneers. 
 Such a man comes, however, to be the admiration of all, 
 for even the dishonest fear and admire honor. Such is 
 the situation put at its extreme point. But the thirst 
 for riches has become a game, so widespread as to make 
 The value ^ a menace an d ideals of integrity and moral- 
 of right ity, of simplicity and straightforward dealing, 
 
 must be inculcated in the younger generation 
 at home and in the school. When Matthew Arnold said 
 that "Conduct is three-fourths of our life and its largest 
 
Attainable Ideals ifa 
 
 concern," l he could have added that the remaining fourth 
 was conduct also. Conduct is character, and Beardshear 2 
 has put it strongly thus : 
 
 " After all, the most substantial value of earth or sky is 
 right character. It passes current in every world. It 
 is not subject to fire and storm. Robbers cannot molest 
 it, nor rust corrode, nor devils hinder. It is the most 
 liberal of educations. Its beauty surpasses that of the 
 stars and of the human face. Character is the security 
 of commerce, the wealth of nations, the light of the home, 
 and the hope of the world. Use it and it is more. Its 
 possession impoverishes no one and enriches the world. 
 Give character eternities and it is a never-fading youth. 
 It is the seed of a myriad aeons and the handiwork of 
 an infinite loving God. It is good to live by, and, best 
 of all, to spend eternity by." 
 
 He speaks truly who says, "To form character is to 
 form grooves in which are to flow the purposes of our 
 lives." 
 
 In speaking of the ideal of integrity, of high moral 
 purpose and strict honesty, I have in mind no sentimental, 
 Sabbath-day type of the article. I am think- 
 ing rather of that kind of honesty and moral- ^^ con ducive 
 
 ity that is on the bottom of the box as well , to civic 
 . al . -., , righteousness 
 
 as on the top ; that is with us in solitude as 
 
 well as in company; that is on call seven days of each week. 
 " You cannot judge a man's life by the success of a moment. 
 You must know his life as a whole. " An ideal that makes 
 for right because it is right, and not from policy, is the 
 kind we want. ' A civic righteousness that holds the right 
 of the people at large as co-equal with that of one's family; 
 
 1 Literature and Dogma. 
 
 8 William Miller Beardshear, A Boy Again and Other Prose 
 Poems, p. 1 86. 
 11 
 
162 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 that considers the country's honor as sacred as personal 
 honor; that makes obligations toward corporations or 
 strangers as binding as those touching a friend or brother 
 this is the civic righteousness needed to-day, and to 
 attain this standard we must set high ideals. 
 
 Some one has said that a better life and a better law in 
 this country does not imply a revision of the Constitution ; 
 Civilization ^ means rather that we must revise our own 
 the product of constitutions. There is a world of philoso- 
 realized ideals phy in ^ utterance of David Harum when 
 
 he states that we cannot have an "honest hoss race until 
 we have an honest human race." Ideals of honor are 
 becoming more and more popular every day. No people 
 is truly civilized until ideals of honor and high moral 
 purpose have developed into everyday realities; and 
 these ideals can never be realized until man understands 
 that it is "not intellectual statements of opinion that 
 count, but the ability to recognize the relation of God 
 to man." It is "better to swim and live in a clear stream 
 than to sink in a mud hole." 
 
 The demand to-day is for individuals who are absolutely 
 honest; who cannot be bribed or frightened or coerced 
 into doing that which they know to be wrong or unworthy. 
 
 "Whatever we have dared to think 
 That dare we also do. " 
 
 In talking to a friend recently he repeated a statement 
 made to him by a fellow townsman. " How do you know 
 that to be a fact?" said I. My friend looked at me in 
 amazement. "He told me so," was his simple comment. 
 He told me so ! That was sufficient. When this man said 
 a thing my friend knew it to be the absolute truth. The 
 man's word was complete guarantee of fact. Those who 
 knew him appreciated the worth of the man. 
 
Attainable Ideals 
 
 We sometimes speak in terms of veneration of the 
 man who is known to be absolutely honest. The un- 
 common thing, however, should be to find the The real 
 man who is dishonest. Men commonly lack American 
 what has already been spoken of as backbone. nmi 
 
 We fear the sneer or criticism of those who wish us to 
 follow the lead of the mass. We dare not stand alone 
 even though we know we are in the right. We shrink 
 from unpopularity. We must be with the crowd or "on 
 the fence," lest we lose prestige or social standing, or, 
 perchance, a customer from our business. Daily do we 
 come in contact with so-called well-meaning men who 
 insist they must give short weight or wink at a shady 
 business transaction because other business men do the 
 same. ' The spirit of get-rich-quick is contagious. Money 
 we believe to be necessary because we are possessed of the 
 desire to make an equal showing with our neighbors in 
 everything other than the things of the spirit. "What 
 America needs more than railway extension, and Western 
 irrigation, and a low tariff, and a bigger wheat crop, and a 
 merchant marine, and a new navy, is a revival of piety, the 
 kind mother and father used to have piety that counted 
 it good business to stop for daily family prayers before 
 breakfast, right in the middle of the harvest; that quit 
 work a half hour earlier Thursday night, so as to get the 
 chores done and go to prayer meeting; that borrowed 
 money to pay the preacher's salary and prayed fervently 
 in secret for the salvation of the rich man who looked with 
 scorn on such unbusiness-like behavior. That 's what we 
 need now to clean this country of the filth of graft, and of 
 greed, petty and big; of worship of fine houses and big 
 lands and high office and grand social functions. What 
 is this thing which we are worshipping but a vain repetition 
 of what decayed nations fell down and worshipped just 
 
164 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 before their light went out ? Read the history of Rome in 
 decay and you'll find luxury there that could lay a big 
 dollar over our little doughnut that looks so large to us. 
 Great wealth never made a nation substantial nor honor- 
 able. There is nothing on earth that looks good that is so 
 dangerous for a man or a nation to handle as quick, easy, 
 big money. If you do resist its deadly influence the 
 chances are that it will get your son. It takes greater and 
 finer heroism to dare to be poor in America than to charge 
 on earthworks in Manchuria. " l 
 
 A prominent clergyman, fired with enthusiasm and 
 dominated by high ideals, had as a listener from Sunday 
 to Sunday a young business man of great 
 competition promise and sterling qualities. In course 
 discourages of time this parishioner became wavering in 
 attendance, and he finally left the church 
 entirely. Inquiry on the part of the clergyman drew 
 from the business man the statement that he had found 
 it absolutely impossible to follow the teachings of the 
 minister, which he knew to be right, and at the same 
 time make a success of his business. He had used every 
 endeavor to be straightforward and just in his dealings. 
 But his competitors were not honest, and his customers 
 slipped away from him. He must make a living, and he 
 could not lend himself to hypocrisy by pretending to 
 believe in the lessons enunciated by the minister. 
 
 Bad as the situation is, it is much less serious than the 
 young business man pictured it. One honest man in a 
 community where ideals are at a low ebb may soon create 
 a changed sentiment, and little by little the moral tone of 
 the entire community may be raised. We should expect 
 honesty in every transaction and should boldly denounce 
 
 1 Editorial in the Wall Street Journal, reprinted by the Board of 
 Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
Attainable Ideals 165 
 
 any attempt at corruption. Purchasing a paper from a 
 newsboy in a strange city, I handed him a nickel and 
 walked away. This was the price I paid for my morning 
 paper at home. After me ran the newsboy to return to 
 me some pennies. I thanked him cordially and accepted 
 the change. "But," say the critics, "you should have 
 allowed him to keep the change as a reward for his hon- 
 esty." Must then the individual be rewarded for being 
 honest ? Must we put a premium upon common decency 
 as if we rather expected every man to be a knave? 
 
 The young business man, had he followed his inclina- 
 tions, would have conducted a legitimate business. With 
 backbone and a determination to be oneself one may easily 
 retain his self-respect. To be successful it is necessary 
 to play the part of success. "You play many parts," 
 said his friend to a great actor of the day. "You play 
 Henry the Eighth, and King Lear, and Hamlet, and 
 Caesar, and Macbeth. How do you impersonate them 
 all so successfully?" "Yes," was the reply, "I play 
 many parts. I play Henry the Eighth, I play Lear, I 
 play Hamlet and Caesar, but I am Macbeth!" 
 
 It is not the simple thing to live as one ought to live, 
 but it is the courageous thing. In political life the 
 
 individual man or the small group originates 
 
 j Pohti'Cdl 
 the movement looking toward an improved , ideals 
 
 condition of affairs. This man or group of 
 men are subject to jest, and scorn, and ridicule, and 
 threat; but the movement, in the beginning restricted 
 and unpopular, may develop into one of state-wide char- 
 acter. It no longer is regarded as unpatriotic to forsake 
 a party ticket and vote for the honest candidate, regard- 
 less of party affiliation. "The man who for party for- 
 sakes righteousness goes down, and the armed battlements 
 of God march over him." We are coming to understand 
 
166 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 that there is no inherent righteousness in a party. Only 
 as the party offers the most convenient channel for the 
 establishing and maintaining of a principle is the party to 
 be righteous. If men are not honest with themselves the 
 party to which they belong must needs be corrupt, and 
 the state is made to suffer. For victory at the expense 
 of corruption is less than victory. Our experiments in 
 popular government have more than once demonstrated 
 the truth of William Jones's reply to his query: 
 
 "What constitutes a State? . . . Men, who their duties know, 
 But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain." 1 
 
 No man should be tied to party. He who votes with 
 his party against his better judgment, simply that party 
 standards may be maintained, sacrifices his right to be 
 called a good citizen. He is loyal to neither state nor 
 nation. Many a man will stay with his party in a state 
 or national contest, but reserves the right to vote for 
 individuals and for principles in a local or municipal 
 election. In the former instance he allows himself to be 
 tied hand and foot. A voter should stand by his party, if 
 he has one, so long as the party holds for what he knows 
 to be right and for the best interest of society at large. 
 All of this means independence of thought; a desire to 
 strive for and uphold the right as the light is revealed; 
 a determination to keep clear of the spoils of office, the 
 dishonest practices of commercial life, and the littleness 
 of things that drag personal integrity in the dust. Every- 
 where strong, courageous, determined men and women 
 are making popular a movement that has for its object 
 the dignifying of personal cleanliness. They are demand- 
 ing that our commercial relations at home and abroad be 
 above criticism. They are closing the gateway for the 
 
 i Ode in Imitation of Alcceus. 
 
Attainable I deals ifij 
 
 payment of political debts through the appointment of 
 incompetent or graft-seeking office holders. They are 
 creating a public opinion that shall render it difficult for 
 Boards or Commissions to long continue practices that 
 are to the disgrace of the community and dangerous 
 to the public, but that have been continued as no one 
 cared or dared to raise a voice in protest against the 
 distemper of the time. Of these strong, courageous, 
 determined men and women there is daily an increasing 
 number. The triumph of individual honesty and social 
 integrity demands a rallying to the standards. 
 
 "God give us men! A time like this demands 
 Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands: 
 Men whom the lust of office does not kill, 
 
 Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; 
 Men who possess opinions and a will; 
 
 Men who have honor men who will not lie; 
 Men who can stand before a demagogue 
 
 And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking; 
 Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog 
 
 In public duty and in private thinking 
 For while the rabble, with their thumj>worn creeds, 
 Their large professions and their little deeds, 
 Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps, 
 Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps. " 1 
 
 He who has missed the joy that comes from rendering 
 service has cheated himself. The call of the dollar may 
 be so loud as to drown the call for service. 
 The sordid, selfish individual, if he think only O f 
 of self, becomes more sordid. The miser 
 thinks only of accumulating. He contributes nothing to 
 the common welfare; he enters not at all into the civic 
 or community life. A large class of respected and more 
 or less respectable folk evade the assessor if they can, pay ' 
 
 1 True Men, by J. G. Holland 
 
 12 
 
168 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 their taxes only after protest, offer themselves never in 
 the interest of public service, keep away from the polls 
 on primary or election day, and actually believe or pre- 
 tend to believe they are well within the bounds of the 
 law. These people, many of them possessing wealth and 
 education, contribute nothing to the life of the commu- 
 nity. Only as they are enumerated in the census sheet 
 are their fellow townsmen aware of their presence. Life 
 is not measured by length of day or size of bank account. 
 
 "We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; 
 In feelings, not in figures on a dial. " ! 
 
 The unspoiled, natural child is happy in his giving and 
 joyous in his serving. The helpful people are those who 
 carry the spirit of the child into their daily lives. 
 
 Before a rude fireplace, stretched out upon the floor, his 
 only light coming from the smouldering logs, I see a boy, 
 and beside him the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, and the 
 dictionary. And as he reads he patiently turns from time 
 to time to consult the dictionary. As a youth I see him 
 in a clearing, surrounded by trees that his own ax has 
 felled and from which he is splitting fence rails. Again 
 I see him, still a youth, but doing the work of a man, 
 plying back and forth upon the mighty Mississippi. As 
 a young man he stands with his companion in the city 
 away yonder by the Gulf, before the block upon which 
 the slaves are sold, and as he looks and listens his fists 
 clench and his eyes glisten as he says: "If ever I get a 
 chance I '11 hit this accursed institution and I '11 hit it 
 hard." And as the President of this great republic I see 
 him signing the Emancipation Proclamation that struck 
 the chains from an innumerable company. To the poor 
 in spirit and the penniless in purse he gave advice as a 
 
 iFestus, scene, "A Country Town," by Philip James Bailey. 
 
Attainable Ideals i6g 
 
 lawyer, and no fee would tempt him to work in an unright- 
 eous cause. He suffered alike with his soldiers and with 
 his opponents. This man's whole life was one of service, 
 and not alone the people of our own country but those 
 in the most remote corners of the world remember Abra- 
 ham Lincoln. He lives to-day and forever. 
 
 "He was the North, the South, the East, the West, 
 The thrall, the master, all of us in one. " > 
 
 Not what can I get out of a thing, but rather, what can 
 I put into it? This is the spirit. We are to-day, more 
 than ever before, one great family, each member dependent 
 upon his fellows. 
 
 One cold winter morning, while awaiting a train in an 
 elevated station in New York City, a newsboy approached 
 me. His coat was thin and ragged, his hat tattered, his 
 shoes out at the toes, his fingers blue with cold. Not 
 more than nine years of age, he wore pendent from a 
 buttonhole in his coat a tag upon which was printed: 
 "I will give ten per cent of my earnings to-day to the 
 Philadelphia strikers." As I bought my paper a man at 
 my side advised jthe boy to keep his money and purchase 
 a pair of shoes. As I read my paper the thought kept 
 crowding into my mind that the newsboy was learning one 
 of the greatest lessons in life, the lesson of service. What 
 matter the justice or injustice of the strike? In Phila- 
 delphia there were suffering mothers and starving children. 
 Poverty and want and privation were abroad, and the 
 boy was learning that suffering anywhere meant suffering 
 for him. His sacrifice of self meant service for others. 
 Perhaps after all he was the gainer for his act. 
 
 No better illustration comes to me of the unselfish 
 character and the one who sought to serve than that of the 
 
 i Lincoln's Grave, by Maurice Thompson. 
 
Ideals and Democracy 
 
 life and work of William Wallace Stetson. The following 
 was written while Mr. Stetson was lying ill ; and although 
 well aware he could not remain to see the Christmas 
 dawn, he desired his friends to have his last message: 
 
 "Souls grow lean if they think much of self or the 
 recompense they should receive for exhibitions of concern 
 for others. They are victims of a poverty no riches can 
 relieve or conceal. They are barred from those sanctu- 
 aries where the heart sings the songs of peace. As the 
 days loiter to their close they discover life is a sleepless 
 torture. They refuse to learn it is not what you have 
 that makes happiness but the sacrifice made and forgot- 
 ten that brings joys which abide. Life yields the larg- 
 est dividends when you serve as spontaneously as you 
 breathe and with as little aftermath of reflection. When 
 this truth illumines your dome you will exalt daily tasks 
 by associating with them tropical greetings, assuring 
 welcomes, honest smiles, strengthening words, comforting 
 deeds, delicate praises and ante-mortem recognitions. 
 Then you will walk with those who travel in lonely 
 paths, place a lifting hand beneath wearying burdens, 
 give unregretted dollars to carry sunshine into shadowed 
 lives, dispense home-brewed hospitalities and nerve the 
 elect with your hail and God-speed. Such service will 
 tint the dawn when your lovers are legion, shed around 
 you 'the light that never was on sea or land,' sing anthems 
 in the chancel of your soul and let you whisper, as the 
 canvas of the Lord slips down the west, 
 
 '"I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 When I have crost the bar. 1 " * 
 
 Ideals of service and of responsibility are given all too 
 small a place in our conception of things. To develop 
 
 1 The Joy of Serving was written as a Christmas Greeting for 
 1910. 
 
Attainable Ideals 171 
 
 a true democracy man must be fired with love for his 
 fellows and be ready to render service in their behalf. 
 Man too must recognize his responsibilities, not from the 
 standpoint of the mass only but as an individual. He 
 must look upon himself as one of the responsible elements 
 of which society is composed and appreciate that he is 
 to become great only as he is privileged to serve. Man 
 must strive not to be too great to render service but to 
 humble himself that he may be exalted enough to serve. 
 The history of nations shows that they were well on 
 their way to decline when the people began to live away 
 
 from the idea of responsibility. As responsi- 
 
 Al _ , . J The birth 
 
 bihty is felt, the desire to serve is strength- O f democracy 
 
 ened. Let the desire to serve, however, never 
 degenerate into a desire for glory, or position, or applause. 
 Ideals of responsibility and service mean brotherly love 
 achieved, and out of brotherly love is born democracy. 
 
 An individual responsibility means a united responsi- 
 bility, and a service by individuals means a joint service. 
 
 On the twenty-fourth day of July, 1908, I sat with a 
 vast company of more than one hundred thousand persons 
 in the great stadium in London and witnessed the finish 
 of the world's famous Marathon race, the first ever run 
 outside the continent. Within the inclosure we saw the 
 sixteen-hundred-meters relay race won by the Americans; 
 on this day the pole vault record was broken by an 
 American, and the high hurdles, the shot put, and the 
 hammer throw were won by representatives of the United 
 States. But while these events and others were taking 
 place in the stadium, fifty-seven men, representing sixteen 
 different countries, were running as in the Marathon races 
 of old; running under the scorching sun from Windsor 
 Castle a distance of twenty-six miles to London; running 
 as ran Pheidippides from Marathon to Athens. 
 
if 2 Ideals and Democracy 
 
 From time to time, as news of the race would reach the 
 stadium, the numbers of those leading would be displayed, 
 and as their names became known through reference to 
 the printed program the stadium would resound with the 
 shouts and cheers of their countrymen. 
 
 As mile after mile was covered, Clark of Great Britain 
 and Burn of Canada were each in turn leading, and these 
 gave way to Hefferon of South Africa, to Lord and Price 
 of Great Britain, and in their turn to men of other 
 countries, but no word from representatives of our own 
 country until the nineteenth mile, when Hefferon, an 
 Italian called Durando, and a man named Hayes from the 
 United States were in the lead. And from that moment 
 until the finish, one hundred thousand persons stood upon 
 the seats and waved their hats and shouted, and one 
 hundred thousand faces turned toward the entrance to 
 the stadium ; for the race would be won by the contestant 
 who should first make a half circuit of the track and 
 reach the tape unaided. From the twenty-mile post the 
 Italian led ; the American seemed to be forgotten, and when 
 Durando appeared at the gate he was greeted with 
 cheers from every nation there represented. But he was 
 exhausted; he stumbled and fell, and officials helped him 
 to rise; he staggered forward, and fell again; and five 
 times he fell, and as many times was raised and carried 
 forward by willing hands until he reached the tape. Now 
 as the flag of Italy was flung aloft on the pole, Hayes, 
 the American, entered. Those of us who gave the matter 
 calm consideration knew that even so worthy a runner as 
 Durando could not claim the race; and as Hayes started 
 on his course around the track the tension was broken and 
 the cheers were deafening. 
 
 The United States is commonly spoken of by English- 
 men as "the States." As Hayes, unaided and with 
 
Attainable Ideals 173 
 
 reserve strength, worked his way down the track, some 
 one shouted, "The American! The American!" An 
 Englishman, who was as enthusiastic as the Democrat 
 Americans themselves, cried out, and with impossible 
 the best of feeling, "What state is he from?" without unit y 
 Quicker than I can tell you, an American at my right 
 was on his feet. He was the true American. For him 
 there were on this day no states, no territories, no divisions 
 in our great land; no New York, Chicago, Boston, San 
 Francisco; no North or South, no East or West; no New 
 England, or Mississippi Valley, or Pacific Coast. There 
 was only one great, undivided country, and as the query 
 came, "What state is he from?" this American, with 
 fist clenched, with eyes ablaze, and in a voice to be heard 
 by all about shouted, "From U.S. A." The effect was 
 magical. There was for some moments the silence that 
 sometimes follows a benediction. As I look back upon 
 it now, this event furnishes the most remarkable illus- 
 tration I have ever known of the value of unity. One 
 nation, one people, one sentiment, one goal. There were 
 no halfway measures. The time is coming in this country 
 when the nation is to rise or fall as honesty or dishonesty 
 is the ruling force. There can be no compromise in 
 this. And until the ideal of a oneness in honesty, in 
 purpose, in service, is before all the people, and this ideal 
 has developed into a realization, the real democracy will 
 not be upon us. 
 
Are You Equal To Your Task? 
 
 "The great teacher," says Orville T. Bright, "whether in 
 the country school or the university, is the one whose work is 
 limited only to his possibilities not for self but for children." 
 
 These possibilities, it is well to know, may be greatly 
 increased by the use of books like these: 
 
 BOOKS FOR TEACHERS 
 
 Common Sense Didactics. HENRY SABIN, Superintendent of 
 Public Instruction for the State of Iowa for eight years. 
 The teacher's friend and guide, full of common sense, inspiration, and 
 understanding of the teacher and child. Cloth, 343 pages . $1.00 
 
 The Child. AM Y ELIZA TANNER. Clark University. Worcester, 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 The first complete scientific treatise on the child his thinking, 
 feeling, and doing. Cloth, 430 pages $1.25 
 
 Education for Citizenship. Dr. GEORG KERSCHENSTEINER. 
 
 Member of the Royal Council of Education, and Director of the Public 
 
 Schools of Munich. 
 
 The purpose of the book is to make of children better men and 
 women, to place before them a noble conception of civic duty, and inspire 
 them to live it. Cloth, 133 pages 75 cents 
 
 The Evolution of "Dodd." WILLIAM HAWLEY SMITH 
 
 A forcible illustration in story form of t he teacher's power to make 
 or mar the life of the boy in her care. Cloth, 458 pages . 60 cents 
 
 Growing a Life. CHARLES A. EVANS. B.Sc., M.A.. President 
 
 of Central State Normal School, Edmond, Oklahoma. 
 Invigorating in thought, the book upholds with enthusiasm the doctrine 
 of child study and child development. Cloth, 214 pages . . Ji.oo 
 
 Geography in Horace Mann School, Teachers' College, Columbia 
 
 University, New York. 
 
 Full of help for any elementary teacher of geography. Cloth. Ji.oo 
 
 Five Messages for Primary Teachers. NETTIE ALICE 
 SAWYER, formerly Supervisor of Primary Education, Seattle. 
 Messages rich in practical suggestion, as well as exercises for develop- 
 ing the first-grade child. Cloth Ji.oo 
 
 RAND McNALLY & COMPANY 
 CHICAGO NEW YORK 
 
KRSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBKAKY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 Books not returned on time are subject to a fine of 
 50c per volume after the third d 
 
 'iO JM.T volume after the sixth d;r 
 d.-inand in.-ty U- renewed if application is made i 
 expiration of loan period. 
 
 JUN 23 1920 
 
 
 f.Om 7,'1G 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY