Ingratitude is so common a sin that few have occupied the pulpit for a year without using the story of the Ten Lepers as the basis of a sermon; and one could speak upon this theme every Sunday in the year without being compelled to repeat himself, so infinite in number are the illustrations. Those who speak of ingratitude usually begin with the child. A child is born into the world the most helpless of all creatures; for years it could not live but for the affectionate and devoted care of parents, or of those who stand in the place of parents. If, when it grows up, it becomes indifferent; if its heart grows cold, and it becomes ungrateful, it arouses universal indignation. Poets and writers of prose have exhausted all the epithets in their effort to describe an ungrateful child. Shakespeare's words are probably those most quoted:
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child."
But it is not my purpose to speak of thankless children; I shall rather make application of the rebuke to the line of work in which I have been engaged. For some thirty years my time, by fate or fortune, has been devoted largely to the study and discussion of the problems of government, and I have had occasion to note the apathy and indifference of citizens. I have seen reforms delayed and the suffering of the people prolonged by lack of vigilance. Let us, therefore, consider together for a little while some of the priceless gifts that come to us because we live under the Stars and Stripes—gifts so valuable that they cannot be estimated in figures or described in language—gifts which are received and enjoyed by many without any sense of obligation, and without any resolve to repay the debt due to society.
These gifts are many, but we shall have time for only three. The first is education; it is a gift rather than an acquirement. It comes into our lives when we are too young to decide such questions for ourselves. I sometimes meet a man who calls himself "self-made," and I always want to cross-examine him. I would ask him when he began to make himself, and how he laid the foundations of his greatness. As a matter of fact, we inherit more than we ourselves can add. It means more to be born of a race with centuries of civilization back of it than anything that we ourselves can contribute. And, next to that which we inherit, comes that which enters our lives through the environment of youth. In this country the child is so surrounded by opportunities, that it enters school as early as the law will permit. It does not go to school, it is sent to school, and we are so anxious that it shall lose no time that, if there is ever a period in the child's life when the mother is uncertain as to its exact age, this is the time. I heard of a little boy, who, when asked how old he was, replied, "I am five on the train, seven in school and six at home." The child is pushed through grade after grade, and, according to the statistics, a little more than ninety per cent, of the children drop out of school before they are old enough to decide educational questions for themselves. They are scarcely more than fourteen.
Taking the country over, a little less than one in ten of the children who enter our graded school ever enter high school, and not quite one in fifty enter college or university. As many who enter college do not complete the course, I am not far from the truth when I say that only about one young man in one hundred continues his education until he reaches the age—twenty-one—when the law assumes that his reason is mature. I am emphasizing these statistics in order to show that we are indebted to others more than to ourselves for our education. That which we do would not be done but for what others have already done. Even those who secure an education in spite of difficulties have received from some one the idea that makes them appreciate the value of an education.
When we are born we find an educational system here; we do not devise it, it was established by a generation long since dead. When we are ready to attend school we find a schoolhouse already built; we do not build it, it was erected by the taxpayers, many of whom are dead. When we are ready for instruction we find teachers prepared by others, many of whom have passed to their reward.
How do we feel when we complete our education? Do we count the cost to others and think of the sacrifices they have made for our benefit? Do we estimate the strength that education has brought to us and feel that we should put that strength under heavier loads? We are raised by our study to an intellectual eminence from which we can secure a clearer view of the future; do we feel that we should be like watchmen upon the tower and warn those less fortunate of the dangers that they do not yet discern? We should, but do we? I venture to assert that more than nine out of ten of those who receive into their lives, and profit by, the gift of education are as ungrateful as the nine lepers of whom the Bible tells us—they receive, they enjoy, but they give no thanks.
But it is even worse than this; the Bible does not say that any one of the nine lepers used for the injury of his fellows the strength that Christ gave back to him. All that is said is that they were ungrateful; but how about those who go out from our colleges and universities? Are not many of these worse than ungrateful? I would not venture to use my own language here; I will quote what others have said.
Wendell Phillips was one of the learned men of Massachusetts and a great orator. In his address on the "Scholar in a Republic," he said that "The people make history while the scholars only write it." And then he added, "part truly and part as coloured by their prejudices."
Woodrow Wilson, while president of Princeton University, said: