In this busy world there is honest work for every man to perform. Civilization has multiplied human wants and also developed the ingenuity necessary to gratify them. But it requires labor. Not such, however, as was performed by the slave, but skilled labor—labor where the hand is guided by an intellect, quickened by the agency of class-room and laboratory for the task assigned; labor, such as will reflect credit upon and elevate a gentleman. For there is no honest work a gentleman may not do. Work elevates a man. It perpetuates the manhood he inherited, which was built up by labor and thought in the flesh and blood of his ancestors. The necessity for labor, therefore is heaven's blessing and to repudiate it is to invite physical and mental decay.
Liberal education should take a far wider range than has ever been assigned to it and exert an influence affecting matter as well as mind. It has a double mission, that of facilitating earning power to provide for physical comforts and also to prepare them to live.
In a republic where every able bodied citizen is an equal factor and where one is possessed of mutual privileges and obligations, society demands that each shall do his part. To be consistent society also should afford equal educational facilities for all; facilities having as direct bearing upon vocation as upon profession, and for those desiring it, an educational training as liberal for manual pursuits as is required for law, medicine or theology.
The standard of manhood must advance to meet the new conditions and the tremendous responsibilities of the century we have entered upon. Within the present boundaries of the United States there exists the requisite area, soil fertility and other resources sufficient to support a government of five hundred million people. Our patriotism, therefore, must be directed toward realizing the largest possible destiny for our country. We should strive so to conserve the natural resources of the nation that with six or seven times our present population there will be no abridgment of opportunity to make a living and to fulfill the purpose for which life was created. The experiment of self-government will have to withstand severer strains in the future than in the past unless our education is as democratic as our politics. The educational energies of the nation must be so diffused as to uplift all classes, reducing to the smallest possible minimum the army of unskilled workmen. Through skill and training, labor must become pleasure. Steam and electricity must take the place of human energy, lessen waste of raw material and elevate the hand that guides the machine.
The present generation is sinfully extravagant. Forests, mines and soil fertility are wasted with wanton prodigality. We speak of our coal deposits and oil and gas wells as inexhaustible. We simply mean that it will be impossible for this and probably for the next generation to exhaust them. But coal mines are not inexhaustible. Oil and gas wells are problematical as to the length of time they will yield their products. To such an extent have the forests been destroyed that substitutes for timber are already sought for building purposes and manufactures. Timber that would be worth millions of dollars to our grand children is burned in a day to provide a sheep pasture on some western mountain. We seem determined to waste and destroy what we cannot consume or turn into ready money.
European countries abound in sad memories of wasted soil fertility and forest destruction. Slowly but surely they are rebuilding and rehabilitating worn out tracts at tremendous expense. The ruin which ignorance accomplished with alacrity, education is slowly and painfully undoing. Americans should heed the lessons of history and profit by the mistakes of other countries. The production of food, clothing and other necessaries of life which is of vital importance to a nation, cannot, with safety, be left to blind forces or to revered but ignorant traditions. For it is a singular fact that science had quite as much to do with ridding agriculture and the manufacture of commodities of debilitating superstitions that not only retarded progress but were positively injurious to both man and material, as it had to do with the introduction of rational ideas. The rapid increase of the world's population and the very general occupancy of arable lands throughout the world, presupposes that the maximum of food production will soon be reached. A liberal and general diffusion of scientific information among agriculturists alone can augment the productive power of the soil and at the same time conserve its fertility for the support of future generations. This subject demands a real awakening of public sentiment as to its importance. Provision must be made for thorough training that will direct the labor which produces the fruits of the earth. Thus to broaden the scope of liberal education it must be divested of all aristocratic limitations and rendered sufficiently democratic to meet the wants of the sons of toil.
The question naturally arises, will the general introduction of science studies in American schools tend to lower the standard of scholarship? If so, will the more democratic and hence utilitarian influence it exerts, compensate for the change? To the first question the classical schools will quite generally and naturally give an affirmative answer. But the answer must not be considered as conclusive in settling the question even if believed to be true, in view of the contention that surrounds the second question. More than scholarship is needed to direct and control the affairs of men. Mere scholarship—book-learning—is seldom effective in the solution of intricate national and economic problems. For profound judgment and constructive ability, such as frequently become imperative in great crises are qualities which are not evolved through classical investigations. They are born rather of experience and contact with the rugged every day affairs of life. To exert a guiding influence in the affairs of state one must feel the throb of living forces and come in touch with the great heart of humanity.
The study of ancient languages has long held the honored place in the universities of Europe and America as peculiarly essential to mature scholarship. They answered the purpose intended, for the sciences were unknown or in the infancy of their development and there was but little besides the ancient languages with which to train the student mind. But should they dominate the curricula of the twentieth century? Do they meet the requirements of this intensely practical age?
Whatever may be said against the materialistic tendency of the present time, the scholarship of the idealists at least did not retard its growth. Materialism abounds everywhere at present. The object sought by introducing scientific in lieu of classical studies in some of the higher institutions of learning is that facilities may be afforded the children of the productive classes, such as they can accept and which will have a directing influence upon labor. Whether such change will tend to increase or lessen materialistic tendencies, remains to be seen. The conditions will certainly be made no worse. For to balance educational forces and more nearly to, equalize educational opportunities can only result in improvement. Equilibrium of intelligence tends to unify and harmonize American interests and to strengthen patriotism. And should liberal scientific education thus extend its beneficence to all conditions of men, especially to those hitherto unprovided with facilities for preparation for their vocations, we can at least endure the innovation, for it does not aim at the impairment of educational opportunities so long maintained for students able or desirous to take classical training. Some of the foremost educators of the day admit that the study of the sciences possess as much disciplinary value as that of the ancient languages, and the information obtained, even though incidental to the culture sought after is of inestimable value in the practical affairs of life. The fact that but few instructors are prepared to teach the sciences as creditably as they are to teach the ancient languages, does not weaken the claims set up for scientific education. In the opinion of many sound educators, the cultural advantages of the dead languages, all things considered, are received at the expense of more important subjects. Says The World's Work: "The easier and better way of retaining, restoring and greatly broadening the culture-studies of a college course is to recognize the culture of our own language and literature. A broader and saner and more humane and thorough and loving study of the literature of our own race is the obvious way out of the dilemma. And it is more than an escape from a dilemma. It is a better means of broadening and deepening our culture than we have over utilized or tried."
The ancient classics as taught in high schools are of but little cultural value. Not one student in a hundred reaches the degree of attainment that presupposes a positive benefit. If the time were devoted to acquiring a more thorough understanding of our mother tongue it would be more creditable. To give time to translating good Latin into poor English is paying an extravagant homage to a fetish. Training in the ancient languages must be long-continued and far-reaching, or it seems to be of little value. The needs of culture cannot be satisfied by mere discipline any more than they can be satisfied by merely utilitarian subjects. But where the training is essentially practical and directly helpful in discharging the highest of all human duties, that of providing the necessaries of life, while at the same time affording abundant opportunity for the study of the language and literature of our own race, the blending thus of cultural and practical training should possess a clientage immeasurably larger, because more useful, than where only the purely cultural is sought. Where the head is educated away from the hand and the number fitted for ministerial and professional duties far overruns the demand for service, a heavy burden is imposed upon the producing masses. At the same time thousands are graduated every year for positions that have only a prospective existence. The professions are overcrowded to a degree that challenges the sanity of the country's educational energies. And were it not for the gravity of the theme, the strenuous defense that is set up for the system and the efforts put forth every day to still further augment the number of neophytes for professional honors, it would seem ridiculous.