FOOTNOTES:
[11] Dr. Charles H. Chapin.
[12] Mankind in the Making.
[13] Dr. H. M. Eichholz, Inspector of Schools. Paper before Conference of Women Workers, London, 1904.
[14] Motto, Mary Lowell Stone Home Economics Exhibit, Jamestown Exposition, 1907.
CHAPTER VI
The child to be educated in the light of sanitary science. Office of the school. Domestic science for girls. Applied science. The duty of the higher education. Research needed.
No Christian and civilized community can afford to show a happy-go-lucky lack of concern for the youth of today; for, if so, the community will have to pay a terrible penalty of financial burden and social degradation in the tomorrow.
President Roosevelt, Message to Congress, December, 1904.
The loss of faith brings us by a short cut straight to the loss of purpose in life—of any purpose, at least, beyond purely material ones. To those who need money the duty of getting it first and above anything else becomes the gospel of life. To those who feel the need of position, whether in society, business, or elsewhere, their gospel drives them to all means within the law to attain that. To those who have both money and position comes the only remaining purpose in life—that of using them for an existence of amusement and enjoyment. Is it too much to say that never before in our history have such aspirations so completely dominated and limited such large classes?
What is the poor American to do in his present fever and with his present nerves, but with fivefold greater powers placed in his hands and fivefold greater attention and capacity demanded for their control? If sixty years ago the free forces and rushing advance of the republic urgently needed the regulation of a powerful and learned conservative body, who can overestimate the necessity for such service now?
When you ask how it is to be rendered, one cannot be mistaken in turning first to those priceless qualities in any sound national life whose tendency to decay we noted at the outset. Give back to us our faith. Give back to us a serious and worthy purpose. Restore sane views of life, of our own relations to it, and of our relations to those who share it with us.
Whitelaw Reid, Phi Beta Kappa address, 1903.