Report, Comittee on Education
President White—Dr. C. E. Bessey, of the University of Nebraska, having now arrived, will read his valuable report for the Standing Committee on Education:
Dr. Bessey—Your committee recognizing that in the field of education we must for a time provide for a propaganda of suggestion and information, to be followed ultimately, when the public mind has been adequately wakened, with plans for a campaign of aggressive activity, now presents the following as a preliminary report. And while we feel confident that even at this stage something may be done more than the inauguration of a campaign of agitation, it is certain, nevertheless, that it is agitation more than anything else that we can best promote at the present time. And we must not belittle the importance of this stage of our work, for in every great movement there is first the period of agitation during which the “seers of visions and the dreamers of dreams” talk, and urge, and plead, with increasing vehemence and increasing confidence.
It is our privilege now to promote such a work of agitation. Accordingly our suggestions are all made with reference to this preliminary phase of our work.
There are three principal lines along which this preliminary work may be developed—namely, in the communities, in the schools, and in our law-making bodies.
I. WORK IN THE COMMUNITY.
Here we have to change the feeling of apathy, and carelessness, and irresponsibility, to one of active, conscientious responsibility. In this task we have to deal with the men and women and children who constitute the community. We must influence all of them. We must reach them in such a way that there will grow up in the community a better feeling with regard to the world we live in, and a clearer appreciation of our relation to it in every way. They must be led to see that the world is to be used, not destroyed. Just as the child has to be taught that his toy is to be enjoyed, and played with, but not wantonly destroyed, so we must bring the men and women in the community to see that preservation, and not destruction, is the higher duty. That citizen is the better one who leaves to the next generation a better world than he found; whose use of Nature’s soil, and water, and plants, and animals, leaves Nature still the rich storehouse in which others after him may find these unimpaired, and in abundance.
How shall such a high sense of responsibility be developed in the community? How may we awaken this larger and deeper altruism? How can we bring the men and women of this generation to see that they are stewards of their Master’s estate?
Your committee commends three agencies as rendering effective service:
(a) Public Lectures. For these we may rely upon public spirited men who are primarily interested in Conservation, as well as many whose affiliations to different branches of natural science have prepared them to appreciate the purposes of this propaganda. To these we may add the great number of ministers of the gospel who nearly to a man may be depended upon to favor the movement, and to speak for it as occasion offers. Last of all we may confidently enumerate the teachers in the public schools and the higher educational institutions, and from them we may certainly secure many regularly prepared addresses and many more less formal short helpful talks. The influence of all of these presentations can scarcely be measured beforehand, but we confidently predict that in a few years we shall find that there has been a decided change in the general attitude of the community from one of ignorant indifference to a more or less intelligent interest.