34
sume the rights and duties of citizen­
ship, should become learned in his poli­
tical standards, practice, and ideals:
this in itself would involve a liberal edu­
cation in American history, for all our
early history focused in the great con­
flict of the 60’s, and our present flowed
out of it.
Out of his great utterances can be
made a very bible of Americanism and
a gospel of liberty; and a fitting com­
mentary can be compiled from the ad­
miring verdicts of the best judgments
of the world. He defined American
freedom once for all: “As I would not
be a slave, so I would not be a master.
This is my idea of democracy. What dif­
fers from this, by the extent of the dif­
ference, is not democracy.” He grasped,
with his remarkable insight, the great­
est lesson of modern times yet to be
learned by the great mass of our citi­
zens, especially those in comfortable
circumstances—; that we live in a mov­
ing world and must move forward our­
selves: “The dogmas of a quiet past,”
he wrote in one of his messages, “are
inadequate for the stormy present. The
occasion is piled 'high with difficulty,
and we must rise with the occasion. As
our case is new, so we must think anew
and act anew. First, we must disen­
thrall ourselves, then we shall save the
Republic.” Would to God that even
these two sentiments had been faithfully
educated into the minds and hearts of
the generation now ruling the affairs of
our country. Certainly it is not too soon
to begin with those who will succeed us
so soon in the arena of national life.
Not for one moment do I mean to
confine the attention of American child­
ren to American heroes. The best of
all ages have made their contribution to
the great stream of freedom and hu­
manity which we believe is culminating
in the ideals of America today. Old
Socrates was far more American than
much stuff that is taught in school his­
tories of the United States. Deeper
than Americanism even is humanity,
and no man can afford to be ignorant
of the old Greek sage and martyr; but
alas, the graduate of the classical course
in the high school may be able to de­
cline nouns and conjugate verbs, but he
has not a glimmer of the meaning of the
life and death of Socrates, nor of the
priceless heritage which the Attic Greeks
left to all times to come.
The greatest of all figures, Jesus him-’
self, is far too little known: how unut­
terably sad that millions know his name
only in sacrilege, and even those who
have enjoyed the typical instruction in
church and Sunday school have the most
meagre and often distorted conception
of the fundamental facts concerning the
Son of Man. Yet without His work and
message democracy in the true sense
would never have been born, and there
would have been no Declaration of In­
dependence announcing the equality of
men as such.
Education for politics must reach all
the way from the sky-heights of ideals
THE WESTERN AMERICAN
down to the grass roots of the common­
est daily routine in the school. The
teacher without the ideals will certainly
fail in the details, in spite of all the
technique in the world; the teacher with
the ideals will almost always have some
success without technique; but of course
full efficiency will be achieved by com­
bining ideals with technical skill.
The school will have to do more to
train its pupils toward political think­
ing. I am not unawawe of the obstacles
and perils that lie along this path: even
now almost every university in the land
is under suspicion among certain classes
of people who confuse sociology with
socialism and mistake an exposition of
facts concerning syndicalism with advo­
cacy of the program of the I. W. W.
Propaganda in favor of either side of
the question which divides the body
politic can not in the nature of things
be required or even permitted in the
universal public school. Happily the
main business of education for Amer­
ican citizenship is not teaching the
young what they shall think on any
question, 'but rather teaching them how
to think and fostering the habit and
capacity of thinking on all questions, of
forming their own rational conclusions,
and of acting accordingly. The prob­
lem of actual instruction in this field for
various grades of the school is already
being successfully worked out in many
places, without any serious difficulty or
objections. It is too large to be dealt
with here.
All democracy has failed thus far:
in the recent war as in the Civil War,
we surrendered for the time being much
of our bill of rights and gave almost
absolute power into the hands of the
executive. No people thus far have been
able to pay the full price of liberty:
from the viewpoint of history there is
November, 191
a painful doubt whether any people evl
can. The task of American educatil
is to enable the people of America I
pay that price.
The first element in the price is i]
telligence: but it is intelligence worki]
hot in an academic vacuum, remote fro]
all concrete affairs, nor in the far-l
and unrelated past, but rather in t|
problems which confront us here al
to-day. These problems are rich enoul
in intellectual content and human vail
to engage the best mental powers I
mankind. The school is the chief agenl
for creating such intelligence. The ]l
culiar demand in a democracy is til
every full-fledged citizen must posse]
and exercise this type of intelligence. I
The other element is harder to nair
it is loyalty, or patriotism, or characti
call it by its truest name, the love I
mankind. Without this, intelligence I
useless or worse than useless. The th
teenth chapter of the First Epistle I
the Corinthians is still true: “Thon
I speak with the tongues of men and ]
gels, if I have not love I am nothin]
The young American must learn the re
procity of rights and duties, and I
mutual character of human relatio]
To the clear thinking of old Socral
must be added the humanity of the fl
of Man: the Gospel and the Declaratl
of Independence are close akin: both!
moving together toward fulfilment. I
will doubtless be a long checkered con]
of progress: no wisdom can set a til
to it: the educator will perform el
larger and larger functions, and ■
have ever growing credit and ever grl
ing reward.
Sometimes a man who was bort
fool gets bravely over it.
Some persons do not wish to be lov]
but only to be loved.
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