The Past as Related to the Present
In a significant degree the present is the heritage of the past, and any critical appraisement of the present must take cognizance of the influence of the past. That there are weak places in our present civilization, no one will deny; nor will it be denied that the sources of some of these may be found in the past. We have it on good authority that “the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Had the eating of sour grapes in the past been more restricted, the present generation would stand less in need of dentistry. When we take an inventory of the people of the present who are defective in body, in mind, or in spirit, it seems obvious that the consumption of sour grapes, in the past, must have been quite extensive. If the blood of the grandfather was tainted, it is probable that the blood of the grandchild is impure.
The defects of the present would seem to constitute a valid indictment against the educational agencies of the past. These agencies are not confined to the school but include law, medicine, civics, sociology, government, hygiene, eugenics, home life, and physical training. Had all these phases of education done their perfect work in the past, the present would be in better case. It seems a great pity that it required a world war to render us conscious of many of the defects of society. The draft board made discoveries of facts that seem to have eluded the home, the school, the family physician, and the boards of health. Many of these discoveries are most disquieting and reflect unfavorably upon some of the educational practices of the past. The many cases of physical unfitness and the fewer cases of athletic hearts seem to have escaped the attention of physical directors and athletic coaches, not to mention parents and physicians. Seeing that one fourth of our young men have been pronounced physically unsound, it behooves us to turn our gaze toward the past to determine, if possible, wherein our educational processes have been at fault.
The thoughtful person who stands on the street-corner watching the promiscuous throng pass by and making a careful appraisement of their physical, mental, and spiritual qualities, will not find the experience particularly edifying. He will note many facts that will depress rather than encourage and inspire. In the throng he will see many men and women, young and old, who, as specimens of physical manhood and womanhood, are far from perfect. He will see many who are young in years but who are old in looks and physical bearing. They creep or shuffle along as if bowed down with the weight of years, lacking the graces of buoyancy and abounding youth. They are bent, gnarled, shriveled, faded, weak, and wizened. Their faces reveal the absence of the looks that betoken hope, courage, aspiration, and high purpose. Their lineaments and their gait show forth a ghastly forlornness that excites pity and despair. They seem the veriest derelicts, tossed to and fro by the currents of life without hope of redemption.
Their whole bearing indicates that they are languid, morbid, misanthropic, and nerveless. They seem ill-nourished as well as mentally and spiritually starved. They seem the victims of inherited or acquired weaknesses that stamp them as belonging among the physically unfit. If the farmer should discover among his animals as large a percentage of unfitness and imperfection, he would reach the conclusion at once that something was radically wrong and would immediately set on foot well-thought-out plans to rectify the situation. But, seeing that these derelicts are human beings and not farm stock, we bestow upon them a sneer, or possibly a pittance by way of alms, and pass on our complacent ways. Looking upon the imperfect passersby, the observer is reminded of the tens of thousands of children who are defective in mind and body and are hidden away from public gaze, a charge upon the resources of the state.
Such a setting forth of the less agreeable side of present conditions would seem out of place, if not actually impertinent, were we inclined to ignore the fact that diagnosis must precede treatment. The surgeon knows full well that there will be pain, but he is comforted by the reflection that restoration to health will succeed the pain. We need to look squarely at the facts as they are in order to determine what must be done to avert a repetition in the future. We have seen the sins of the fathers visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation and still retained our complacency. We preach temperance to the young men of our day, but fail to set forth the fact that right living on their part will make for the well-being of their grandchildren. We exhibit our thoroughbred live stock at our fairs and plume ourselves upon our ability to produce stock of such quality. In the case of live stock we know that the present is the product of the past, but seem less ready to acknowledge the same fact as touching human animals. We may know that our ancestors planted thorns and yet we seem surprised that we cannot gather a harvest of grapes, and we would fain gather figs from a planting of thistles. But this may not be. We harvest according to the planting of our ancestors, and, with equal certainty, if we eat sour grapes the teeth of our descendants will surely be put on edge.
If we are to reconstruct our educational processes we must make a critical survey of the entire situation that we may be fully advised of the magnitude of the problem to which we are to address ourselves. We may not blink the facts but must face them squarely; otherwise we shall not get on. We may take unction to ourselves for our philanthropic zeal in caring for our unfortunates in penal and eleemosynary institutions, but that will not suffice. We must frankly consider by what means the number of these unfortunates may be reduced. If we fail to do this we convict ourselves of cowardice or impotence. We pile up our millions in buildings for the insane, the feeble-minded, the vicious, the epileptic, and plume ourselves upon our munificence. But if all these unfortunates could be redeemed from their thralldom, and these countless millions turned back into the channels of trade, civilization would take on a new meaning. Here is one of the problems that calls aloud to education for a solution and will not be denied.
One of the avowed purposes of education is to lift society to a higher plane of thinking and acting, and it is always and altogether pertinent to make an inventory to discover if this laudable purpose is being accomplished. Such an inventory can be made only by an analyst; the work cannot be delegated either to a pessimist or to an optimist. In his efforts to determine whether society is advancing or receding, the analyst often makes disquieting discoveries.
It must be admitted by the most devoted and patriotic American that our civilization includes many elements that can truly be denominated frivolous, superficial, artificial, and inconsequential. As a people, we seek to be entertained, but fail to make a nice distinction between entertainment and amusement. War, it is true, has caused us to think more soberly and feel more deeply; but the bizarre, the gaudy, and the superficial still make a strong appeal to us. We are quite happy to wear paste diamonds, provided only that they sparkle. So long have we been substituting the fictitious for the genuine that we have contracted the habit of loose, fictitious thinking. So much does the show element appeal to us that we incline to parade even our troubles. Simplicity and sincerity, whether in dress, in speech, or in conduct, have so long been foreign to our daily living and thinking that we incline to style these qualities as old-fogyish.