Consists rather in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a Light
Supposed to be without.

What is essential in education is not so much a matter of discipline and training as it is a question of ends to be attained. For every mountain peak worth scaling there may be innumerable paths that lead to the summit. For every boy or girl worth raising there may be many routes to success in life. But whether a person attains success should be as patent as standing on the mountain peak.

Where Education Begins

Knowing what we want our children to become, the practical question is, What should we do for them while they are growing into manhood and womanhood? It is a question directed to parents as well as to teachers-I myself am speaking as a parent.

What counts most in the making of men and women? If we parents were free to act in the best interests of our children; if schools did not have fixed schedules and classes and courses of study and marks and examinations and prizes and promotions and graduations and bouquets; if teachers were all-wise and omnipotent; if our friends and neighbors would only let us do some things that they don't care to do, instead of forever goading us on to do as others do; if only we had the courage to do what our common sense dictates-what would we do with our children while they are growing into men and women?

Shall we send them to college? I fancy some of us put that question to the babe in the cradle. At any rate, I know of parents who enter their boys in a famous New England school as soon as their names are decided upon. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I don't know which, the schooling of girls is not taken quite so seriously. But nevertheless we do begin to think very early of the schools to which our daughters are to be sent. We begin inquiries concerning dancing-masters and music-teachers; we discuss the relative values of classical and modern languages; we are very insistent on good spelling and a proper pronunciation; all these are matters within our own control.

But the baby's food, the air she breathes and the water she drinks, these are mysteries known only to nurses, physicians, and grandmothers, just as the bacteria and bacilli are dispensations of Divine Providence. So long as the baby is contented and happy and lets us sleep o' nights, what difference does it make whether or not her diet contains the proper proportions of fats, proteids, and carbohydrates? Carbohydrates are starch, and starch becomes sugar in digestion; what harm, then, can sweets do? The only trouble with this argument is that most of us parents do not even know enough of chemistry to use the terms properly, to say nothing of making the right food combinations. Like politicians who are willing to overlook a little matter of constitutional law among friends, so we are quite willing to neglect the nutrition of our children in the home. No greater shock ever came to me than when I once called a physician to diagnose the illness of one of my children and was told very bluntly that what primarily ailed the child was lack of food. I am satisfied that the major part of our bodily ills are due to the bad start made in the nursery. With proper nutrition and plenty of sunshine. and out-of-door exercise, resistance to disease is at its maximum, and the conditions are right for the development of a sound mind in a sound body.

The Prime Essential

The first question, therefore, is not as to what college we shall send the child to, but, What shall we give it to eat? If higher education is concerned at all, the question. should be, What college or course of study should the parents enter?

When you ask me what counts most in education, I have no hesitation in putting to the front good health. I cannot think of anything worth attaining in life for man or woman that will not be worth more, that will not give more joy, satisfaction, and zest to life, if good physical health accompanies it. "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" He has nothing to give that is worth taking if his digestion is ruined, his nerves shattered, or his brain unbalanced.

The responsibility for good health does not rest primarily with the school. It is the duty of the teachers, of course, to observe hygienic laws, and not to ask more of a pupil than can reasonably be expected, but

what is usually called "overburdening" of the pupil is really underfeeding and malnutrition. The schools have sins enough of their own to atone for without adding those that are committed by the ignorant but well-meaning parent. The pathetic part of it all is that the mischief is done before the school has a chance to try its hand. Only one recourse is left to the school and to the intelligent parent, namely, to instruct the boy and girl, who will some day have children of their own, how to save their children from those faults from which they themselves have suffered. "Is it not an astonishing fact," Herbert Spencer asks, "that though on the treatment of our offspring depend their life and death, their moral welfare or their ruin, yet not one word of instruction is ever given to those who will hereafter become parents?"

I do not know how long we shall wait for such instruction, but the time is coming when it will be given. If it is incompatible with college education, then college education will have to give way to something more rational. If a boy cannot be taught how best to use his own body, there is something lacking either in the boy or in his teacher. If the principles of reproduction and heredity, of physiology and hygiene, of food selection and preparation, cannot be given properly in a secondary school to girls who will soon be in need of such information, then there is something radically wrong with those schools, or with our modern notions of what is worth teaching.

Pledges Unfulfilled

The greatest peril of our education today is that it promises an open door to every boy and girl up to the age of fourteen, and then turns them ruthlessly into the world to find most doors not only closed but locked against them. Throughout this country. we are telling thousands-yes, millions of boys and girls that anything they please may be had for the asking, and during the six or eight years of the school course they are instructed that nothing is beyond attainment. Then, too, our democratic notion of equality of opportunity is responsible for the attempt to hitch some very ordinary wagons to stars of the first magnitude. The result can only be bitter disappointment. Instead of a happy, contented, and able farmer, we make of the ambitious country boy a clerk or helper in some city industry, or a cog in some factory wheel. Instead

of helping the quick-witted city boy, who leaves school at twelve or fourteen, wise far beyond his years, to employ his mental strength in shortening the term of apprenticeship in the trades and in improving the quality of the output, we turn him over to the tender mercies of the trade-union, or allow him to bungle ahead in his efforts to become a capable workman. What wonder that our skilled craftsmen are foreigners, and that our best American boys become petty politicians or walking delegates or seekers after the soft places? We do not teach them to do the day's work in such a way as to find pleasure and satisfaction in it. The result is grumbling and fault-finding and discontent in private life, and in civil life the beginnings of socialism and anarchism.

Morals and Manners

Think of what it means to our girls to enjoy for eight or ten years day-dreams. which the first contact with life shatters. Is it any wonder that the girl of eighteen or twenty who has never had an hour's instruction in the scientific and esthetic interpretation of those duties which confront her should find no pleasure in home-making? The situation is bad enough in the country, but it is infinitely worse in our great cities. What chance has the girl of the tenements, even though she be well schooled and quickwitted? She leaves the school at fourteen or fifteen to get her postgraduate training in housekeeping from her mother. Think of what that means. A home of two or three or four rooms in a crowded quarter; every member of the family at work or seeking it; living confined to the barest necessities; no conveniences for doing the ordinary work of a home, even if that were necessary. What is left to the girl? The street; and it is nothing remarkable that some thoughtful persons should hold our public schools responsible for adding to the dangers of city life for bright and attractive girls. The surest way to break down family life and destroy the sanctity of the marriage tie is to mate an ignorant man with an ignorant woman-ignorant, I mean, of what marriage means, and unfitted to meet its obligations.

The next desideratum is proper manners and morals; in a word, suitable habits. I am not sure that there is any hierarchy in these practical ideals. Good health was put first because without it all else is worthless; proper manners and morals next, because

without some such norm there can be no effective participation in social life.

It is a commonplace that a man must be honest, and that a woman must bear a good reputation. We go even further and say that the great object of education is the development of good character; but we do not always include in that the whole round of conduct which marks the agreeable member of society.

Education's True Aim

We are not concerned here with the origin or inculcation of customs or conduct. It matters little whether they come from mere imitation, or result from definite instruction reenforced by persistent effort. It is what we do that counts most in society. And every grade of society demands that its members conform to an accepted norm. We recognize this insistent demand when we require our children to eat with a fork, to dress becomingly, and to speak grammatically. Reverence, courtesy, gentleness, sympathy, modesty, obedience, bravery, when socially considered, are virtues crystallized in good manners and morals. They are the surest evidence of what we call good breeding. Moreover, from the social standpoint these virtues have a value directly proportional to their habitual expression. Veracity as a fixed habit is far preferable to truth-telling for a consideration. Temperance induced by fear of evil consequences is far less effective than instinctive self-restraint. When these desirable modes of conduct become thoroughly ingrained—become "natural," as we often say-then character is fixed. "Manners makeyth man" is an adage of greater truth than is commonly recognized in our modern educational practice.

How to get on with other people—for that is really the criterion of proper manners and morals-is the chief end of one great type of education. The Persians, according to Xenophon, insisted that their leaders should learn both to rule and to be ruled, to command and to obey. These ends are not secured by formal instruction; they are the result of discipline under conditions which are favorable to the fixing of habits. Education, Professor James says, is the organization of acquired habits of conduct and tendencies of behavior. Walt Whitman, in one of those strange outbursts of his, tells how it is that the child goes forth every day into a new world and becomes part and parcel of all that he beholds.

His own parents, . . .

The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table;

The mother with mild words-clean her cap and gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and clothes as she walks by;

The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, anger'd, unjust;

The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure,

The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture-the yearning and swelling heart, Affection that will not be gainsay'd-the sense of what is real-the thought if, after all, it should prove unreal,

The doubts of day-time and the doubts of nighttime-the curious whether and how, Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all flashes and specks?

These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.

A very serviceable education can be given with a modicum of formal instruction. In fact, we seldom hear a course of study justified because of the information it gives. It may be well that some of these courses put forth no such claim, but the truth is that much of what we claim for study may be gained and is gained by far the greatest number in any society-from leading a wholesome life with one's fellows. English education, as given in the great public schools, is preeminently of this type.

The Day's Work

The next vital thing in the education of anybody, man or woman, is the ability to engage in useful occupation. I had almost said the ability to earn a livelihood, but some one may object to the utilitarian limitation of that statement. Let me put in the word decent-the ability to earn a decent livelihood-and I am as satisfied with the one expression as with the other. We do want both our boys and our girls to succeed in doing something worth while and

suited to them. We also want them to have sufficient ability in some useful occupation to gain a living thereby in case of need. Now I wish to emphasize this demand. We do want just this thing-all of us-regardless of our social standing, or our wealth, or any other consideration. If sometimes we fail to talk out loud about it, the reason is that we are willing to take chances on the future, to run the risk of leaving to some one else the duty of instructing our children in doing the day's work when the need of the day's work arises.

I have said that this categorical imperative is directed to girls as well as to boys. The woman who has nothing to do in life may be left out of account. And if there be work for woman to do, her pleasure and satisfaction in life, her influence upon others, and her returns for her labor, all demand that she be fitted for her task. I am not thinking only of so-called "working-women," nor of professional women, nor of any particular class of those who work for money. If any one thinks that getting married relieves a woman of work and responsibility, let him try it and see for himself. If there is any occupation that induces greater physical strain and nervous waste, any profession that

calls for more of the moral virtues, or profits more from the use of common sense, than the profession of wife and mother, I should like to know what it is. It is not a money-making profession; it is, on the contrary, preeminently the moneyspending profession.

In my opinion to spend money wisely is even more difficult than to earn it. We hear much of a living wage, but the real problem is not in what the workman receives, but in what his wife spends. I will undertake to guarantee the stability of our American democratic institutions if you will see to it that American wives are taught how best to spend the money their husbands earn. Somewhere in that last ten per cent. of a man's income are hidden away his present happiness and future prospects. If that last ten per cent.

is expended along with what has gone before, life must soon become a dreary routine, destructive alike of good health and high ambitions. If we could stop the noisy clatter of our educational machinery for a moment, I think we should hear in the awful silence these words, "With all thy getting, get understanding. And their interpretation is this: the chief end of education is not, as many seem to think, to earn, to earn, to earn, but rather to spend, to spend, to spend; to spend prudently that there may be no waste; to spend wisely that the best may be obtained; to spend generously that as many as possible may be benefited thereby; to spend money that represents a man's toil so as to lighten his labors; to spend energy in such a way as to give increased strength; to spend time in order that more time may be had for the things that count.

This leads me to my fourth point-the appreciation of what is best in life. Good health, proper conduct, ability to earn a livelihood (even to the extent of accumulating great wealth) are meaningless to him who knows not the relative values of what life offers. Lord Kelvin has said that the end of education is first to help a man earn a living, and then to make his life worth living. Life human life is a succession of choices. It is the glory of man that he can choose, that he is free to put his own valuation on what is offered him. How important, then, that he should see life in its proper perspective, that he should feel the charm of nature, see the beauty in art, feel the uplift in literature and history, respect the truths of science, take comfort in religion, and find good in everything. This is the goal of all education. All else is a means to this great end. The one thing needful is the ability to discriminate. in what life offers, to single out the best, and to appropriate it in the struggle

for attainable ideals.

Notwithstanding what I have said of the shortcomings of our public schools, I do believe in the best ideals of American edu

cation, just as I have an abiding faith in the ideals of American life. Equality of opportunity as guaranteed in our civil and industrial life is a possession of which we may well be proud. It comes to us sealed with the blood of our forefathers, and it is our duty to hand it on unsullied to our children. But we should not blind our eyes to the fact that it is the greatest experiment of the ages. Every other great nation that I know of has attained its greatness by a system of education that is calculated to keep the many down while helping up the few. Germany and England today have one system of training the masses and another and quite different system of training leaders. Our salvation depends upon our ability to work out a scheme of education which will make of every person who wills it a leader in his own way. The man of trained intelligence who works on the farm, or in the factory, or at a trade, may be a leader of as much social value as the man who engages in business or enters a profession. Granted good health, and habits of conduct which make of one an agreeable member of a community, and the ability to earn a decent livelihood, I have no fear of social unrest or domestic unhappiness. The man or woman who can do something well is sure to take pride in the work, and to find satisfaction in doing it.

The Life Worth While

The final effort in all education, therefore, should be directed to the proper appreciation of the opportunities that life offers. The education to which we are accustomed in school and college is properly the evaluation of what is best in life. I do not ask that we abate in the slightest degree our zeal for the best in literature, history, and science. My plea is that we do also these things of which I have been speaking-not that we should leave the others undone.

The struggle to find what is best, and the determination to pursue that course to the end, is the record of every good man's life. It is well that history and literature portray great characters and record their struggles. What man has done, I can do!— is the watchword of the boy who is surely going forward. The attainment of any virtue is made easier if good example attend the precept. The great ideals of Christian character were exemplified in the life of the Master. He did not appeal to his disciples to follow truth for its own sake, nor did he

present the beautiful and the good in the abstract. And any one who would uplift boy or girl, man or woman, must show that the good, the beautiful, and the true are the dynamic forces which make life worth living. The greatest good is the good that man can do; the purest beauty is the beauty that man may be; the noblest truth is the truth that makes man free.

The Lesson of Life

Not long since I visited in the South an institution that is linked with the names of two great men-Washington and Lee University. I was taken into the chapel on a beautiful spring afternoon by a man eminent in Southern life, who himself was a student in that institution about forty years ago. He said: "My home was near here in the Shenandoah Valley, and I was a boy too young to go to war. My father went, and did not come back. One brother after another followed him, and failed to return. Home was broken up, everything lost, father and brothers gone. After the war was over, when General Lee returned to the ways of peace and settled down as a teacher and as president of this institution, my mother and I felt that there was only one thing for me to do, to become a student under General Lee.”

I thought of those four horrible years when that valley was a scene of carnage and destruction, when Lee's victorious army would sweep northward, and then Sheridan and his men force him back; back and forth through that valley, the granary of the Confederacy, they fought. And then I thought of that little boy, too young to take an active part in it, but not too young to suffer the consequences, striving to get inspiration from the nearer approach to the man who was reckoned a demigod by the people of Virginia. And as we stood in that chapel that afternoon and looked upon that magnificent recumbent statue of General Lee, this man said: "Do you know, the turning point in my life came one night right on this spot. It was a custom after General Lee died for the cadets of the school, the students, to stand guard over his tomb, and all night long I stood in this aisle with a musket in my hand, standing guard.”

Can you imagine what that means for a boy or for a girl? Why, that is almost all of education-standing guard, not over, but with, a noble soul!