THE C. L. S. C. AN EDUCATIONAL NECESSITY OF THE TIMES.
Necessity is a word which in its use depends on circumstances. What is necessary to a people in one age may not have been to their ancestors a generation earlier. Time was when the masses of men were not required to act with intelligence of their own, but to follow the decree of the privileged few or obey the behest of the autocratic individual. Illustrations of such a state of society remain. They are to be found wherever the autocracy or oligarchy, whether political or ecclesiastical, continues its sway.
Under such conditions it is easily seen that the only education required is obedience, blind and unquestioning. All that goes beyond this only makes the individual unhappy and embarrasses authority. Hence, since her ambition has been absolute power, the wisdom of that favorite motto of the Romish church, “keep the people in ignorance,” a motto which she has done her best to put in practice.
But our age and civilization have fallen upon other conditions. Obedience is still required, and indeed ever must be, but it is no longer with eyes tight shut, but open; and we are not only encouraged, but by the very conditions of society, are required to ask questions concerning the very grounds of obedience. Something has taken the place of infallible Church and infallible State. That something is enlightened conscience and educated judgment.
In this country the corner-stone of whose stability and permanence must rest on obedience born of intellectual and moral enlightenment, some things have become, and daily are becoming more and more apparent. It is apparent that universal education of a certain kind, a kind that includes to no small degree both head and heart, must go with universal suffrage. It is neither treason nor heresy to say that in the light of experience and of the signs of the times, neither our common schools on the one hand, nor our academies, colleges and universities on the other, are competent to meet and provide for all the educational needs of the American people. Too much can not be said in praise of these institutions. They have been the conservators of our national ideas in the past. But we are growing, and citizenship means higher responsibilities and higher obligations than aforetime. The common school which fits a man for the transactions of ordinary business and prepares the foundation for a higher development, does a great work; but the man who settles down to life without further inspiration and opportunity can hardly be fitted for the higher work and duties of the home and society. Whence then comes, or can come, this inspiration and better preparation? Thus far in our history it has come through the seminary and college. But it is evident that not more than one in twenty of the American youth can have these higher advantages. Reduce the expense to the minimum and there are still insurmountable barriers in the way. It needs no argument, therefore, to show that an organization with the plans, aims and methods of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle has a mission which bears the sanction of necessity. The wide gap between the common school and the college must be filled, and only can be filled by that which brings the means of education to the home; to the youth learning his trade, to the man or woman in the midst of daily duties and employments. The demand is for that which will fill the atmosphere about life with aspiration and the spirit of inquiry. It is for that which will furnish suggestions, a plan and a guide to lead the inquiring mind. Precisely this is the C. L. S. C. Here is its mission and here its necessity—and the necessity likewise of all kindred similar organizations which are yet to spring up and follow in her course.
