Feb. 2.—Since moving to the country I have been greatly impressed by the spread of education. Those who are set in authority over us seem to think that education is a remedy for everything. If the farmers are not prospering the cry goes forth, "Educate them." When the high cost of living begins to pinch in the cities they trace the whole trouble to the farmer, and then some one yells, "Educate him!" If the farmer complains about the exactions of the middlemen, the answer invariably is "Educate him." No matter what goes wrong, the only solution that occurs to any one is to "educate the farmer."
Once in a while a reporter representing the press, our modern palladium of freedom, calls on a canning magnate and tells him in a deferential tone that the farmers are complaining because he is not paying enough for tomatoes on the hoof and is charging altogether too much for catsup. The great man looks at the paragraphical serf with a baleful eye, scatters some benzoate of soda on a pile of bills, puts them into his vault and snarls: "The farmer is grumbling, is he? Then ejjercate him."
Another trembling representative of the above-mentioned palladium calls on a high financier and tells him that the farmers are complaining because the last issue of watered stock he unloaded on them had typhoid germs in it.
"Oh, they are, are they?" sneers the plutocrat as he packs a tainted million in a deposit vault and wipes his hands on his overalls. "Then why don't you educate them?"
Up to a certain point this attitude is a good thing for the farmer. In the past he has been woefully lacking in education. But now he is being educated so thoroughly that almost any farmer I meet is ready to sit down and have a breezy chat about the way the soil particles are held together by the water menisci or to discuss intelligently the value of (PbHAsO4) in destroying codling moths. The farmer is getting his education all right, and it is a good thing, even though it might be better adapted to his needs than it is. Moreover, if you would only increase his opportunities a little he would clamour for more education. But that is not what is bothering me.
While I sat on a corner of the voluminous report of the Department of Education meditating on these deep matters in a playful spirit I began to wonder what would happen if the farmers got to thinking, like every one else, that education is a national cure-all. If they once get this into their heads they will want to educate a few other people who are standing in the way of progress. They will want to start night schools in Toronto and Montreal to educate a few plutocrats into right ways of thinking. Does not your imagination kindle at the prospect? The class-room would be the smoking-room of the Millionaires' Club, and the little scholars would be sitting around in large, kind-looking arm-chairs, smoking expensive cigars, toying with slim-necked glasses, and letting their second chins rest comfortably on the bosoms of their dress shirts. Unobtrusive imported waiters would be flitting about noiselessly, taking orders and promoting good cheer. Enter Bill Simmons, instructor in true economic doctrines. Bill's necktie is climbing over his collar, but no one dares to smile, for he is carrying a well-oiled harness tug in his brawny right hand. Hanging the tug suggestively over the corner of the mahogany desk, he takes his place on the costly Ispahan rug, thrusts out his chin truculently, and opens the proceedings with a few well-chosen words. Thus Simmons:
"The House Committee informs me that after last night's session some of the hollow-stemmed glasses were full of cigarette ashes, and that there were cigar stubs in the silver-plated champagne-coolers. Now, I want it distinctly understood that if I catch any dollar-besotted financial degenerate up to tricks like that I shall dust his swallow-tails so that he will eat his meals off the onyx mantelpiece for the next week and then I shall kick him several parasangs down the street. Do you get me?" (Oh, yes, he would talk like that. You have been educating him, you know.) "The class in elementary economics will now step forward."
Prompt at the word Sir Philabeg McSporran, Senator Redneck, Mr. Gosh Whatawad, and a few others step to the edge of the rug, where they stand with thumbs at the seams of their trousers legs, heels together, and their toes well apart.
"Now, my pretty ones," says Bill, "if a railroad is built under a government charter, with the assistance of the public treasury, and is then presented to the company that built it, to whom should that railroad finally belong?"
"To me," pipes Sir Philabeg, who is a High Financier and understands how to manipulate the market.