“I reflected, as I stood among her spars and chains, her anchors and her capstan, of the significance of the career of the famous vessel, and of her associations with the man whose investigations revolutionized scientific thought and spread consternation for a time in the pulpits of the world. The attitude of these pulpits has been modified by reason of those researches, and the blessings of the world and of the Church now follow the author of them for having shown the way to a juster and more rational conception of the power and purposes of the Creator.”
SCIENCE STUDY AND NATIONAL CHARACTER.
By ALBERT B. CROWE.
Until very recently it had come to be a commonly accepted view in America that the civilization of a nation is directly proportional to the amount it expends for education, and inversely proportional to the amount it expends for war. The budgets of European countries have given Americans good reason to accept this standard, since its application gave the most gratifying evidence of our great intellectual and moral advancement. Less than three years ago the President of the National Educational Association proudly exclaimed: “England, six to one for war; Russia, thirty-eight to one for war; America, four to one for education!”
Since that time our country has become involved in war projects, from which we can hardly hope it will withdraw, that have increased our expenditure for war four times, and a policy has been inaugurated which, if persisted in, will certainly almost at once reverse our boasted ratio, making it “four to one for war”! This course has been supported by a great body of our people. Even our Christian ministers have committed “The White Man’s Burden” to memory, and breathe never a whisper of the sixth commandment. If, as has been held by all wise and good men, the victories of peace are more worthy to be sung than those of war; if the ability to avoid quarrels or to settle them without force of arms is nobler than that which achieves military success; if true enlightenment and education make for peace and not for war, then our law of direct and inverse proportion has lately been scandalously dishonored.
If we have expended so much for education and at the same time have lowered our ideal of national greatness, something must be wrong with that education. If the sharpening and quickening of the intellect are accompanied by a blunting and atrophy of the moral sense, the best and the worst thing that can be said of our school system is that it gives daily rations to hundreds of thousands of teachers. Evidence of disease of the national conscience must raise in the minds of thoughtful men grave doubts as to the sufficiency of our education to “insure national progress, prosperity, and honor,” whether because of inherent weakness of the system or because of the strength of the forces opposed to it.
Has our system of education, then, failed to elevate our national character? He who would answer this question in the affirmative would be a pessimist indeed. Incalculable “general good” has come to us, we think, by the agency of our schools. Without them our civilization could not be so far advanced as it is; our national life might have ended long since. In every crisis, however black has been the storm, however fierce and ominous the lightning flash, there has followed in good time the gentle rain, soothing and allaying our fear, and giving renewed promise of prosperity and peace. It is the sober second thought, we are in the habit of saying, which saves us, which takes the helm and sheers us away from the half-hidden reefs in our first mad course. It is not. It is the sober first thought which has redeemed us from destruction time after time—the sober first thought of the few who are truly educated, who have looked below the surface of things and considered the hidden and obscure results, who have weighed the right and wrong and stood immovable for the right. It is the counsel of such men which has fallen like the rain that follows the first bursting of the storm, and has given us courage and power to restrain ourselves and to face our hardest duty. For such men in our national affairs we may reverently offer thanks, and for an educational system which is partly, at least, responsible for them we may have sincere praise. But our safety must always depend upon the presence of such men, strong enough in numbers and in influence to control each difficult and dangerous situation which may threaten us. Our work as teachers is not faithful if we do not increase this number and strengthen this influence. And if such men have been overpowered in the important events of the past two years, if they have been entirely ignored, or if they have been taunted and ridiculed, we have reached a dangerous crisis, and our sacred duty is to stop and take our bearings. If we have manifested certain national traits hitherto scarcely suspected, and now unwillingly confessed, every motive of patriotism and of prudence should impel us to study our case, that we may effectively prescribe for it.
Are there not, then, certain signs which we may all agree are discernible? Have not the waves of powerful feeling which have swept over us, the storms of acrimonious debate which have raged in our papers and forums, the pæans of praise which we have chanted at our “peace jubilees” and hero parties, revealed the prevalence and rapid growth of certain sentiments which we may all, without regard to political belief, clearly recognize? I do not in this place raise the question of the political wisdom or simple justice of the course which the country has taken in its international relations. I do not now challenge any belief as to these matters which has been formed thoughtfully, honestly, manfully; but I do maintain that the past few months have left lessons for thoughtful, honest men to unite in studying.
Probably the most striking phenomenon which we have witnessed has been the tremendous display of excited feeling. However careful our national leaders may have been, however honest in basing their actions on what they considered sufficient information, or however careless and dishonest, no man who has read any considerable number of our papers, who has listened to the clamor of the crowds, can doubt that the force of blind passion has been in hundreds of thousands of men the dominant force. If during the war with Spain you stood in the cheering, surging crowds before the bulletin boards, if you heard storms of hisses greet the name of the innocent boy-King of Spain, or noted the cheer of triumph which applauded the capture of a lumber scow by an armored cruiser, you will have no difficulty in agreeing with me. You will smile at the idea of imputing to such men the credit of serious thought. On the birthday of the greatest American, whose life was a message of liberty—“who,” said a great Spanish orator, “laid down his life at the foot of his finished work”—our papers printed jokes about the mistake of the Filipinos in trying to fight Uncle Sam, and in our cities, at least, the report of their slaughter was received with exultation. Whether they were civilized or not, whether they were misled or not, whether they were ignorant of America’s carefully concealed intention or not, the killing of thousands of men who thought they were fighting for their freedom, who faced machine guns, and who crawled away into the bushes to die for the cause for which they had fought, is hardly a subject for jokes or for exultation, when people are governed by reason and not by feeling alone. When the Maine was sunk in Havana Harbor her captain, in a notable dispatch telling of the disaster, urged a suspension of judgment until the facts should be known. Facts! In an hour our battle-cry was, “Remember the Maine!” Under that motto, within a few days, one of the great Chicago dailies (the Inter-Ocean) hung out the pennant of the wrecked battle ship and enlistment signs. Who was right—the Maine’s captain or the paper? Which appeal meant safety, and which danger? Our own commission investigated the wreck. After an examination, which was kept entirely within our own hands, the commission reported that the ship had been destroyed from the outside, but that there was no evidence to fix the responsibility. Did we fix the responsibility? Though the investigation board could find no evidence, though reason said that the destroyer of the Maine, were he Spain’s own king, was Spain’s worst enemy, we forgot the cause of deliverance, and went into battle with the cry of vengeance on our lips. This is not a statement of sentiment but of fact. Your motives, or the President’s, or mine may have been pure—your opinion may have been unprejudiced—but these things around us we all saw and all heard. We know that many men were carried away by their feelings, and did not think. We know that their feelings grew into a prejudice which was absolutely certain to distort the facts and to drive them far from the truth if they ever came to the point of thinking. The ears of the multitude have been closed to all counsels, however wise; their eyes to all consequences, however fatal; their minds to all logic, however clear and simple.
We may consider more briefly, but not less carefully, other tendencies which have been shown, seeing many of them in the facts which have already been referred to.