CHAPTER XXIV
WORLD-BUILDING
An outline.—Education is the process of world-building. Every man builds his own world and is confined, throughout life, to the world which he himself builds. He cannot build for another, nor can another build for him. Neither can there be an exchange of worlds. Moreover, the process of building continues to the end of life. In building their respective worlds all men have access to the same materials, and the character of each man’s world, then, is conditioned by his choice and use of these materials. If one man elects to build a small world for himself, he will find, at hand, an abundant supply of petty materials that he is free to use in its construction. But, if he elects to build a large world, the big things of life are his to use. If he chooses to spend his life in an ugly world, he will find ample materials for his purpose. If, however, he prefers a beautiful world, the materials will not be lacking, and he will have the joy and inspiration that come from spending a lifetime amid things that are fraught with beauty.
Exemplifications.—This conception of education is not a figment of fancy but a reality whose verification can be attested by a thousand examples. We have only to look about us to see people who are living among things that are unbeautiful and who might be living in beautiful worlds had they elected to do so. Others are spending their lives among things that are trivial and inconsequential, apparently blind to the great and significant things that lie all about them. Some build their worlds with the minor materials, while others select the majors. Some select the husks, while others choose the grain. Some build their worlds from the materials that others disdain and seem not to realize the inferiority of their worlds as compared with others. Their supreme complacency in the midst of the ugliness or pettiness of their worlds seems to accentuate the conclusion that they have not been able to see, or else have not been able to use, the other materials that are available.
Flowers.—To the man who would live in a beautiful world flowers will be a necessity. To such a man life would be robbed of some of its charm if his world should lack flowers. But unless he has subjective flowers he cannot have objective ones. He must have a sensory foundation that will react to flowers or there can be no flowers in his world. There may be flowers upon his breakfast table, but unless he has a sensory foundation that will react to them they will be nonexistent to him. He can react to the bacon, eggs, and potatoes, but not to the flowers, unless he has cultivated flowers in his spirit before coming to the table.
Lily-of-the-valley civilization.—All the flowers that grow may adorn his world if he so elects. He may be content with dandelions and sunflowers if he so wills, or he may reach forth and gather about him for his delight the entire gamut of roses from the Maryland to the American Beauty, the violet and its college-bred descendant the pansy, the heliotrope, the gladiolus, the carnation, the primrose, the chrysanthemum, the sweet pea, the aster, and the orchid. But, if he can reach the high plane of the lily-of-the-valley, in all its daintiness, delicacy, chastity, and fragrance, he will have achieved distinction. When society shall have attained to the lily-of-the-valley plane, life will be fine, fragrant, and beautiful. Intemperance will be no more, and profanity, vulgarity, and coarseness will disappear. Such things cannot thrive in a lily-of-the-valley world, but shrink away from the presence of beauty and purity.
Music.—Again, the man who is building such a world will elect to have music as one of the elements. But here, again, we find that he must have a sensory foundation or there will be no music for him. Moreover, the nature of this sensory foundation will determine the character of the music to be found in his world. He may be satisfied with “Tipperary” or he may yearn for Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Melba, and Schumann-Heink. He may not be able to rise above the plane of ragtime, or he may attain to the sublime plane of “The Dead March in Saul.” He has access to all the music from the discordant hand organ to the oratorio and grand opera. In his introduction of a concert company, the chairman said: “Ladies and gentlemen, the artists who are to favor us this evening will render nothing but high-grade selections. If any of you are inclined to be critical and to say that their music is above your heads, I beg to remind you that it will not be above the place where your heads ought to be.” In substance he was saying that the nature of the music depended not so much upon the singers as upon the sensory foundation of the auditors.
Music and life.—Having a sensory foundation capable of reacting to the best music, this man opens wide the portals of his world for the reception of the orchestra, the concert, the opera, and the choir, and his spirit revels in the “concord of sweet sounds.” Through the toil of the day he anticipates the music of the evening, and the next day he goes to his work buoyant and rejuvenated by reason of the musical refreshment. He has music in anticipation and music in retrospect, and thus his world is regaled with harmony. His world cannot be a dead level or a desert, for it is diversified by the alluring undulations of music and made fertile by the perennial fountains of inspiring harmony, and his world
“shall be filled with music