V É Piò HQ 7 t ; • Socialism in the Schools Hon. Bird S . Coler HON. BIRD S. COLER, broker, publicist, author, lecturer. Graduate of Brooklyn Polytechnic School and Phillips Andover Academy, active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. M r . Coler was Comptroller of the City of New York in 1897, Democratic candidate for Governor of the State of New York in 1902, and President of the Borough of Brooklyn from January 1, 1906, to January 1,1910. 1 "Two and Two Make Four" is one of Mr. Coler's latest publications. It is a work The Boston School of Political Economy recommends. " I t is one of the most remarkable and most valuable publications of present times," says the Most Reverend Archbishop of St. P a u l ; " a more impartial and more exact conspectus of facts, with their causes and consequences, I have never had in my hand. No student of history jn earnest search of truth, should allow it to be absent from his t a b l e . . . . For thè welfare of America the book should have the widest circulation." GitiW*- 2 / Socialism and the Schools. TH E School Question in the United States h a s become trouble-some, I think. The public schools are fast becoming the temples of a new religion. This statement may startle some good citizens who are under the impression that all religion is being excluded from the schools. I t , i s true nevertheless; just a s true is it in psychology a s in physics that nature abhors a vacuum. T h e old religion is being excluded from the public schools, b u t a new religion is rushing in t o t a k e its place. I t is variously called. By some it is known a s Agnosticism, by some Atheism, by some Socialism, a n d by others Ethical Culture. It is affirmative, dog- matic, intolerant. Atheism is not satisfied with its own assertion that there is no God; it insists that you shall accept t h a t assertion. Your agnostic is never satisfied with h i s undisputed declaration that h e does not know; h e will knock your head off if you do not admit that you do not know either. And your Socialist, while h e pleads for your votes on t h e ground that his creed is merely political, turns back for his faith and his inspiration t o t h e literature which declares there i s no room for a God in t h e material universe, that the deistic conception is merely t h e reflex of economic conditions. As a recent writer h a s pointed out, h e substitutes t h e promise of a heaven on earth for t h e promise of a heaven on high, and abolishes hell altogether. H e ignores the fact of death. And this is t h e religion that is being taught in the schools. This is t h e faith that i s being substituted for t h e old faith in a God and a God-given ethical system. If you will look carefully you will find that it is with t h e school system that t h e Fabian is most deeply concerned. You will find that Socialists are hungry for seats in the Board of Education. You will find that in our schools, under the cloak of humanitarianism, Socialism i s being translated from theory into practice. Nowhere, I think, is this more true t h a n in New York City. Nowhere h a s t h e pet socialistic theory of State supervision of t h e child, of t h e substitution of State control for family control, had a more practical result. For t h e public schools of New York not only teach t h e child how t o read and write and figure, b u t how to sew and cook—things that t h e mother: was at one time supposed to teach. The State doctor now examines the ii child, looks a t its teeth, its hair, its clothing; t a k e s into his hands the matter of the health of t h e child, and recently h a s also taken up t h e question of feeding t h e child. Something had to b e crowded out to let all this in. Something was crowded out. God was crowded out. Thorough methods of instruction were crowded out, and "get-wise-quick" methods have become a s popular with educators a s "get-rich-quick" methods have become popular in business. Perhaps there is a relationship between t h e two things. T h e result of t h e crowding-out process is beginning to b e felt, in t h e world of work. There is a .very general complaint among business men that young clerks and stenographers do not know how to spell. One college president, if my memory is not playing m e false, published not long ago a similar complaint with regard to college students a n d college graduates. Certainly the art of reading h a s gone back. A young man j u s t out of school is apt t o read the word " e l e p h a n t " a s " e l e m e n t " to-day, or "elevator." H e doesn't try to learn how it is written; h e just t a k e s a slap-dash a t it. P e r - haps t h e modern "sight-reading" method of t h e public schools h a s something to do with this. Perhaps h e would b e more likely to read it a s it is if h e h a d been taught in t h e primary classes to read it a s it was instead of to read it a s what it "looked like." T h a t something crowded out, then, h a s left u s with godless schools. I t h a s left u s with a school-house which h a s ceased to b e t h e source of t h e religious training and h a s become t h e model-room of applied Socialism. All this, in t h e words of t h e hour, is "going some." It is a long way beyond what Horace M a n n believed in, a n d Horace M a n n i s known a s t h e Father of Public Schools. H e was against denomina- tional studies in schools, but it was "Christian denominationalism" h e meant. H e says so himself; h e berated Roman Catholicism, b u t resented with hot anger the accusations of t h e Congregationalists of Puritan New England that h e was driving Christianity out of t h e schools. H e cited the universal experience of t h e nations to show that a godless people must decay; that Greece fell when h e r gods became allegories; t h a t Rome grew rotten when h e r people lost f a i t h ; t h a t , in every one of t h e dead nations, faith was t h e soul of t h e people, a n d putrefaction followed its departure. As a matter of necessity some god there must b e , or man dies. H e is not sufficient unto himself alone—he never h a s been. Atheists have devised beautiful ethical codes, b u t never have been able to get people to live them. The man who sees only death before him is careless of what he does with his life. Teach man that h e is of t h e earth alone, and h e will b e of the earth earthy. Teach man t h a t h e h a s no soul, and h e will act as if h e had none. Will man pause on the road of his heart's desire for any crime, great or small, if h e h a s not before him t h e warning " W h a t shall it profit a man if h e gain t h e whole world and lose his own soul"? The most beautiful program of what h e ought to do will make no appeal to him if you cannot tell him why h e ought to do it. Do t h e majority of the pepple of the United States want godless schools? Does the Christian want a school from which the Father Almighty h a s been eliminated? Does the J e w want a school from which the God of Abraham and Isaac h a s been shut o u t ? Does the Moslem want a school whose doors are closed to Allah? I think not. Yet in the United States that is what we are getting, Christian a n d Jew and such Moslems a s are among u s ; that is what we a r e getting. Dr. Hodge in the Princeton Review, a s f a r back a s 1887, cites the instance of a refusal of a work on political economy a s a text-book for the public schools of Chicago on the ground, a s the Superintendent of Schools stated it, that " t h e first sentence damned it for public u s e . " And the first sentence was, "All natural wealth is due to the beneficence of God.'.' This old world is so numerously a n d so variously troubled that no new trouble, clamorous for attention, finds a ready consideration awaiting it. It staves off its perplexities a s long a s possible. It never grapples with its troubles until they have grappled with it. It wrestles with its evils only when they have it by t h e throat. It never h a s been and never will it b e a "stitch in t i m e " world. We, a s a part of'it, are much like the rest of it in t h i s : we a r e given to procrastination. It is not the Spaniard only who says, " M a n a n a . " Or, if it is, we have something just as good; we say, "To-morrow." We have said it quite a lot. We said it about black slavery until black slavery became red war. And then it said to us—as all such things do sooner or later—"Not to-morrow! Now!" It answered our procrastination with its own terrible promptness. I t closed our long sentence in the future tense with a bloody period in the present tense. It dragged u s violently out of the foggy subjunctive mood into the fiery imperative. It is to be noted that when hand-grips came at last, the nation did the right thing. I t didn't let black slavery kill i t ; it killed black slavery. For black slavery had become a n evil intolerant, and an ii evil intolerant is a n evil intolerable. It is really seeking destruc- tion when it is looking for fight. So from this instance a generaliza- tion may b e projected by the optimist. We have projected, it being optimistic. But if black slavery died, procrastination didn't. It is too much a part of u s to b e rooted out by so terriffic a storm even as the war we had. Other questions were pressing which we staved off, other problems were calling for solution which we pushed from us, or, rather, from which we retreated. One of these questions had loomed up at the very beginning of our national life, but, a s it was a hard one, we put it off. We stepped back from the face of it while we told ourselves-we were solving it. Sometimes we stuck a n American flag on top of it and called it a patriotic and an admirable thing and no question a t all. Sometimes we boasted of it as a little boy boasts of the mumps. It was the School Question. I t is the School Problem. We must grapple with it now. We must do it now for the simple —and the selfsame—reason that you cannot defer a settlement with a fellow who h a s a n oppressive thumb on your windpipe. You must knock him down or choke. The State must grapple now with the School Problem or choke, morally and intellectually. There is a question a s to which aspect is the more important — the moral or the intellectual. It isn't a debated question; it is a question which is fought. For it reaches deep; men are in deadly earnest about it, and the things, about which men are in deadly earnest are t h e things about which they fight. Matters of opinion we debate; matters of desire and necessity we fight about. It is a mistake to say that men ever bandy anything more substantial than word's over opinions; " m e n willing to die for their opinions" never existed, and the phrase, although common, does not mean what it says. It isn't his opinion that the religious or patriotic enthusiast is willing to die for—it is his f a i t h : ids faith in his country, his faith in justice, his faith that there is a God, his faith that there, isn't, his faith that he is of God's chosen people, his faith that Roman Catholicism is the only true Christianity, h i s faith that it isn't, his faith that there is one God and Mahomet is his Prophet, his faith that the Son of God died on the cross of Calvary to redeem sinners! With u s the first shall be last—we shall give precedence to the intellectual aspect of the matter. We shall try to demonstrate that Socialism in our public schools means intellectual strangulation. For the thing behind the secularization of the schools is Socialism. It sails under false colors; it always does. It pleads for liberality, but it is the least liberal of all things. It asks for tolerance, but it is the most intolerant of all things. In the schools it will defend itself from assailants behind the "little red school-house" of Puritan New England. But it isn't the "little red school-house" a t all. The "little red school-house" was the home of a very real and very virile faith in a very real God! This thing is its antithesis. No, this is not the "little red school-house" ; it is the modern red flag. It is well to demolish first a popular misconception. It finds expression in the term " a half-truth." There is no such thing a s " a half-truth." Truth must b e complete ; it must b e flush with the facts; it must b e just, in the sense in which mechanics use t h e word. There is no more " a half-truth" than there is a two-sided square or a half-dimension. If I state that a block, which in fact is four hundred feet long, is two hundred feet long, my statement is not half true, it is all false. Two halves make a whole ; two such statements would not make a truth. I may assume, I take it, that education is, on its intellectual side, the development of a man's intellectual capacity by teaching him the truth. I t is the furnishing him with facts for the development of his mind. It is the lighting of the lamp by whose gleams h e is to look ahead. For it is ahead that man must always look, and it is from his back that t h e light must come. If you think you can sfee anything ahead with a lantern held in front of your eyes, try it. Only, if you happen to b e driving a horse or an automobile, it would be prudent to have your life insured. If you can see any glimmer in the future that is not a reflection of the past, you are either a seer or there is something wrong with your works. Either you have t h e spirit of divine revelation or a lesion in your brain. If you have either of these, this is not for you. It is for the common run of u s whose brains are normal and who lack the spirit of prophecy. For u s the future is a fog, with lights a n d shadows vaguely thrown upon it by the sun and the things of yesterday. We look forward to ae|ial transportation because it is the gigantic and uncertain shadow upon the mist of the morrow cast by a few daring men who learned yesterday the secret of precariously sustain- ing themselves in a machine heavier than t h e supporting medium. If we see in the future the longed-for government of thè world by law instead of by brutality, it is merely the glorious light thrown ahead by the fact of yesterday that the spirit of peace h a s made some headway among the rulers of nations against the spirit of war. If we dimly see wireless telephones ahead, it is because we can clearly see wireless telegraphy behind. ii I remember seeing once a great, long spar lying upon a dock in t h e New York Navy Yard; the butt of it and some t e n f e e t of its length were clearly visible, the rest of it to t h e tip was hidden in a cloud of steam. Because of what I could see I knew t h a t there was a continuation of that spar in the steam; how much t h e r e was I could not tell. T h e vapor hid all that. It is so with the future. W e know from the past—because everything back of the period of this sentence is in the past—what h a s b e e n ; we can conjecture from t h e lines that are in the visible past something as to their development in the invisible to-be. Uncertain, then, a s is this basis for conjecture, dim as this light of the past may be, we need every bit of it to guide the race on its path into^the unlighted to-morrow. Deprived of all t h e knowledge of the past, we should stumble and scuffle, and, in utter blindness and frightful panic, slay each other until our mistakes had kindled another lamp to light u s on our way. Deprived of any part of that knowledge, we lose so much light, and our progress is so much more difficult. Napoleon is quoted as saying, "If there were no God, we should have to make a God." I can paraphrase that j u s t a s truly, and say, if there were no past, we should have to make a past. What, then, are we to think of the madness of socialistic education, which seeks to unmake a past? What are we to make of a system that seeks to establish a false thing by shutting off the light which shows it to be false? No just man can object to a n assertion of Socialism if it can stand t h e light of experience. But what we object to is the projection of Socialism without that light. No j u s t man will object to the speech of Atheism. What we object to is the silencing of the living words that came from a living God. If Atheism can stand against t h e evidence of revelation, t h e n let it stand. But if it cannot stand against that, it must fail; the world will refuse to exclude that evidence because its admission embarrasses the defendant. The rudimentary education is all that most of us get from the public schools. The number of students who go through t h e system is comparatively inconsiderable. In the primary classes the schools teach geography, spelling and later grammar, the basis of arithmetic, and the first lessons in history. Until recently these studies were not limited, and therefore not mutilated. They were considered originally in their proper place a n d their proper relationships. History, in particular, a s the study of racial experience, was wide in its sweep. It took in the ancient ii mythology, it dealt with the Egyptian religion, with the belief of the American aborigine in the Great Spirit. It explained Christmas, it told of the significance of Easter. I t may still deal with the faith of the Egyptian, with the Olympian deities of the Greek, with the Mánitou of the Indians, but Christmas is taboo, Easter is a subject prohibited. No man believes there was ever a Mercury with wings on his heels, b u t that may b e taught in the schools. Every one knows there was a Jesus of Nazareth, but that must not b e mentioned. It is not hard to see whither all this tends. It means the exclusion ultimately from all the histories of the mention of Christ and the suggestion of God. The mere assertion that "all natural wealth is due to t h e beneficence of God" was enough to kill a text-book for use in the public schools of Chicago. T h e logical thing to do, if that b e right, is to cut the name of God out of the Declaration of Independence, to publish without it the Farewell Address of the Father of H i s Country, to leave some significant blanks in the sublime sentences of Lincoln over the dead of Gettysburg. W e must b e taught that a strange faith sprang up in the bosom of Rome and spread over the area of Roman conquest, but we must not b e taught whence it came or why it spread. W e must b e taught that the followers of Mahomet raised their crescent flag against the cross, but we must not b e taught what the cross signified. W e must b e taught that the Crusades poured out t h e blood and treasure of Europe to take from the Moslem the tomb of a carpenter, b u t we must not b e taught what was the torch that lighted their fiery faith. We must not know of the -patristic literature, nor of t h e wave of scholasticism that rolled over Europe, because if we play with fire we shall b e burned, and those old controversies were red-hot. We must b e taught history, but not t h e meaning of his- tory. Some of t h e facts of human experience are to b e allowed u s , but the central fact of human history is to b e barred. W e may b e taught that there were great currents of human thought, but of t h e greatest stimulant of human thought we must not b e taught. T h e intolerance of Socialism in education results, then, not in truth, b u t in falsehood, or that which is not true. It results, not in more light, but in less light. It takes from the intellect the truth which nourishes it, and gives it instead the ignorance which must choke it. Therefore my first protest against socialistic education, based not upon my Christianity but upon the fact that I am a citizen and a ii taxpayer, i s against t h e expenditure of t h e public f u n d s for a teach- ing which is incomplete a n d untrue. I object to the u s e of the public f u n d s for the propagation of a social apd economic religion in which I do not believe; I object to the teaching of the history of the United States with a mutilated Declaration of Independence, to t h e teaching of the world history with t h e fact of Christianity 0 I T h e r e is a second aspect, a s I have indicated,—the moral. And in considering this I shall not do so a s a Christian, b u t as a taxpayer simply. I shall b a s e my protest again upon the improper u s e of blic f u n d s * ^ W h a t i s t h e idea behind the public school? I t is t h a t the public school shall benefit t h e S t a t e ; for t h a t reason the State p a y s t h e cost. Upon this ground can t h e payment of the cost by the State b e H o w S r e t h e public schools to benefit the S t a t e ? By their effect upon t h e constituents of t h e State. For t h e State is m a d e up of m e n a n d women a n d children, a n d if t h e State is to prosper a n d fulfil its purpose, t h e m e n a n d women m u s t b e intelligent a n d m u s t b e moral. Particularly they m u s t b e moral. S t a t e s which have b e e n composed of intelligent m e n and women have fallen apart, collapsed because of their own rottenness a t t h e core; no State whose people were moral ever did so. Some of t h e most depraved m e n have been at t h e same time m e n of great intellectual power a n d education. Common honesty would solve nine t e n t h s of t h e eco- nomic and political questions which vex u s to-day. I t may seem unnecessary to state all this, b u t it is sometimes t h e plainest f a c t s of life t h a t we overlook. Your Socialist is working on t h e theory t h a t t h e State m a k e s t h e m a n . Yet t h e State h a s never produced a single child. A child is born of a woman, begotten bv a m a n , t h e product-of t h e family, which preceded t h e State a n d constructed t h e State. Your Socialist seeks to destroy the family, to substitute t h e State f o r t h e family. But t h e family, having produced the child; gives the child to t n e State- it builds up t h e State with children. And t h e State very properly insists t h a t t h e material which is to go into its structure shall b e molded a n d tempered for t h e work it h a s to do. For t h e State is an active structure, not a n inert structure. I t is a machine, not a house. . . . . W h a t effect, then, must the schools have to carry out the purpose of t h e S t a t e ' I s it an effect upon the mind or. upon the moral n a t u r e ? M u s t they turn out graduates intellectually acute o r morally upright? The answer to this question is the answer to another—What is the purpose of the State? W e are dealing with this State, t h e American Union; what, then, is the purpose of this State? Where shall we seek t h e double answer, t h e enveloping answer? It h a s been written for us. Fortunately, we need have no doubt about it. It speaks in t h e opening lines of t h e supreme law of the land, t h e Constitution of t h e United States. H e r e it i s : " W e t h e people of t h e United States, in order to form a more perfect union» establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for t h e common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." To provide for t h e common defence and promote the general welfare may b e regarded a s political and material purposes, both of them necessary to the insurance of domestic tranquillity, and that in t u r n necessary, as a material fact, to the formation of any- thing like a perfect union. - But there a r e the two purposes plainly stated, the establishment of justice and the securing of the blessings of liberty for the present and for the future. These things have to do with the moral province, they reach into the domain of ethics. If history teaches any lesson, it is that a n immoral people is never a f r e e people. "Eternal vigi- lance is t h e price of liberty." Eternal self-sacrifice is the essential of eternal vigilance. Continence is t h e guardian of . mental and physical strength. T h e self-indulgent are the slaves of the world. Greece, believing with a real belief in false gods, was a conquering and a f r e e Greece, a Greece of Spartans, a Greece of heroes. Greece, believing in poetry and philosophy, talking virtue and practismg self-indulgence, became a slave Greece, a Greece of effeminate babblers, a Greece in which nameless crimes were wrapped in the silken robes of literature. It is unnecessary to seek other illustrations. No system of ethics that had behind it no living faith, was ever effective in curbing the evil inclination of human flesh. We know of no written statute that will enforce itself. There is on earth no automatic law. Behind every statute with which t h e courts deal there must b e t h e living authority of t h e government. It may b e a popular government, but it must b e a real government, it must b e alive and not dead. Like- wise there h a s been no ethical code that h a s ever been worth its paper which did not have behind it t h e authority of a living faith. The good of the race never made a man live a blameless life y e t . The good of his soul h a s made millions live such lives. i i "Selfish!" your Socialist will cry. Perhaps. But do not too hastily condemn selfishness. The patriot who spills h i s heart's blood for his country's sake spills it, after all, for h i s country and not for some one else's. T h e martyr who goes to t h e stake for his faith endures t h e torture for his faith and not for t h e faith t h a t is not his. Selfishness may b e base, but selfishness may b e sublime. I t is the root of self-indulgence, but also a root of self-sacrifice. In a world into which each human being is born to work out his own destiny, selfishness must b e the basis of every motive that impels a man. . . . Are the American people, as a result of socialistic education, morally better than they were some years ago? T h a t is a question each man must answer according to his own experience. If he is inclined to b e gloomy about it, to b e discouraged by the number- less disclosures that have followed t h e investigations of public and private business, if h e h a s reached t h e conclusion that dis- honesty is the rule in private business a s well a s in public business, who can blame him ? If h e finds popular applause controlled by what a man h a s and not by how h e obtained i t ; if h e knows that a day's illness will lose a two-dollar-a-day laborer in the city's employ his day's wages, while a highly paid official may b e ill for months, and as a result absent from his desk, and lose nothing; if h e finds that there is throughout society a fear of mere money which could not exist if justice were established and t h e purpose of the Constitution carried out, is h e to b e condemned for concluding that the money the State spends on its public schools is not bringing a n adequate return,, that the instrument t h e State employs, and the only instru- ment it can employ, to establish justice is not doing its work? Thoughtful men have realized this for years. T h e Roman Cath- olic Church h a s realized it and h a s withdrawn its children from a godless school. The other churches have slowly come to t h e same conclusion—one Protestant Episcopal church alone maintains nine day-schools in t h e city of New Yprk. Great students and educators like Dr. Hodge of Princeton have seen the danger a n d have pleaded with the people to meet it in some way. Even men outside the church, champions of the godless school, are realizing it and are suggesting the teaching of ethics a s separate from religion in the public schools. But here again we meet the old difficulty. It isn't instruction we need in this m a t t e r ; it is inspiration. It isn't to learn what is right and what is wrong; it is to b e inspired to do what is right and not to do what is wrong. 12 And if ethics are taught as a science and not as a n inspiration, how are they to b e taught except by the precepts of the m a s t e r s ? The teacher must have his authority from somewhere—it cannot b e left to each instructor to determine what is right and what is wrong. H e must teach what the ancient moralists, t h e ancient philosophers said; h e must marshal the thinkers of t h e p a s t - Confucius, Diogenes, Plato, Cicero, Shakespeare, Erasmus, Moses, Tolstoi, and all those who sought to make a moral system for man- kind. And is h e to leave Christ o u t ? I s h e to teach what Plato says of morals, and leave out what Jesus of Nazareth said? I s h e to quote from the Vedas, b u t leave out t h e Sermon on t h e M o u n t ? I s h e to summon to his aid aU the teachers b u t the Great Teacher, to enforce his precepts with all authority but the Supreme Authority? And if h e does, what t h e n ? T h e dead code, t h e code of morals of t h e Greek philosophers, was like their statuary, beautiful but cold, excitative of admiration but not of emulation, designed for ornamentation b u t not for life. ' . . . . Perhaps this is not t h e place to state just what we need in t h i s country, but we shall state it nevertheless. We need good citizens. If we have those we shall have good public officials and good govern- ment and good business. A good citizen must first b e a good man. If h e is a Jew h e must b e a good Jew. If he is a Christian h e m u s t b e a Good Christian. . ' What is the public school, paid for by public funds, doing to make good citizens? It isn't teaching God, because Socialism doesn't want God. Marx sensed the weakness of his theory; h e knew that death, the final fact of this world for each human being, gave the lie to a promise of a heaven on earth, and that if h e would take t h e minds of men off the more important life beyond the grave h e must convince t h e m that there is no such life; that if man is to have any heaven h e is to have it here. The attack upon the family is due to the same cause. M a n cannot b e happy upon earth if h e knows h e is to lose some loved one, therefore he must have no loved ones; there must b e no family. ' . The public school isn't teaching any ethics that are compelling, because unauthoritative ethics are never compelling. But it is teaching something. Every once in a while the news- papers give u s a hint of the logical developments of t h e socialistic tendency in education. A few weeks ago, for instance, t h e r e was some indignation expressed by one of the old-fashioned[ministers of the old-fashioned faith because of a discussion by t h e teacher before a class of girls of fourteen. The subject was t h e relationship between Lewes and George Eliot. T h e teacher sought to explain it according to h e r view of it. She gilded it with the genius of t h e novelist whose sin it was, she tried to spiritualize it because t h e sinner was a n intellectual, even if the sin was just a plain sin. If the Superintendent of Education had any objection to such a discus- sion in such a place, I have not heard of it. If ther teacher h a s been dismissed from the service, I have not seen the fact published anywhere. In fact, that incident seemed to cause little disturbance of any kind. The pastor of one of the girls was indignant, but the public seems to have become too much accustomed to the modern "liberal- i s m " of our schools to let so slight a thing shock. The tendency of socialistic education is toward such discussions, and if there were no other symptom of t h e rottenness of the philosophy that should b e sufficient. For it is m o r e than a coincidence, that most of t h e great apostles of Socialism have a kink on t h e subject of s e x - Ferrer, Gorky t h e Russian, a Professor Herron who put away his wife a few years ago in order that h e might preach what h e was pleased to call Christian Socialism while living upon the wealth of a "soul-mate." There is a long procession of them, who made a parade of their left-handed relationships of this kind, who made rather a boast of them, who so worked them that they became proof of " f r e e thought," of defiance of slavish conventionalism. Not, understand me, t h a t all Socialists believe in this—I qm quite con- vinced that the mass of them are decent men and women a n d clean- living men and women—but it is t h e tendency of t h e philosophy of their movement; they cannot regard marriage a s a sacrament, but as a part of the social contract, and somehow this corruption, this sexual aberration, manifests itself in the lives or the preachments of most of the exponents, of Socialism. The following is from t h e Brooklyn Daily Eagle of January 16, 1911. I quote it without comment. It tells its own story. FREE THOUGHT FOR CHILDREN "Alden Freeman Would Have Them Left to Form Their Own Religious Opinions." " T h e People's Culture Circle of the Kaplan School, 1731 Pitkin Avenue, was addressed yesterday afternoon by Alden Freeman of the Open Forum, East Orange, N. J . Mr. Freeman took for his subject 'Crimes against Childhood.' " H e contended that children should be brought up in an atmosphere of free thought and allowed to arrive finally a t their own religious conclusions. Sec- ondly, h e said, it was a crime against children that they were not carefully instructed in the sex relations, physically and morally. The third crime, he said, is child labor. The fourth crime is the system of education, which, he said, in these days should be so directed that every child should be prepared to earn his livelihood." , 14 You may ask me, What is the remedy? I t is not practicable to teach all religions in the public schools; what right h a s one religion more than another to the inculcation of truth according to its formula? Would not sectarian education a t public expense b e contrary to the spirit of American institutions ? These are some of the questions behind which Socialism hides. It is impracticable to teach »11 creeds in the public schools a s they are to-day conducted. It is not contrary to the spirit of Ameri- can institutions to teach religion. What is contrary to that spirit is the use of public f u n d s for proselyting purposes. That is the thing Constitution-makers feared and opposed. You will find it back in t h e controversies over Horace M a n n ' s " r e f o r m s " in the New England educational system. T h e makers of the national Constitution let t h e question alone. They put into the basic law the things they thought for the good of all, the things upon which compromise was possible- But religion is not and cannot b e in its nature a matter of compromise. Therefore t h e plan of Dr. Hodge for a system of Christian education upon which Catholic and Protest- ant might agree is impracticable. Besides, it is hardly just to the Jew, or to—the atheist. And a thing must b e all j u s t to be just at all, just a s it must b e all true to b e true at all. How, then, can the matter b e arranged? How can we have a God-fearing, religious people educated each according to his own faith? It is a simple thing. T h e State can take supervision of all schools, public and private, insist upon character and competence in the instructors, and then pay each school upon a per capita basis for the secular education furnished. • It can conduct examinations yearly, and upon the result of these examinations base its appropriation to each school. This would not b e using the public f u n d s for sectarian purposes, but for purely secular education. If, then, t h e churches, or t h e non-churches, desired to intermix religious teaching .with t h e secular teaching, that could b e paid for by t h e church. Thus the Roman Catholic could get his share of the taxes h e pays for t h e secular education of his child, so could t h e Jew, so could t h e Protestant, so could the Socialist. This would require some slight change, in New York State, of the State Constitution, but t h e State Constitution h a s been amended before this, and for purposes much less important. Would this b e unfair to those who believe in Socialism, or who do not believe in God? I think not. Under such an arrangement the atheists could conduct their own schools for their own people and get the same measure of support for secular education that the ii Christian and the Jew received. The only danger t o t h e m would b e the fact that they would hesitate, I think, t o send their own children to the godless school. They may consider themselves safe in their infidelity, but would they consider their children s a f e ? T h e situation a s it stands now is that t h e socialistic minority controls t h e system of public education, and t h e Roman Catholic Church h a s made a stand a n d is doing its own educational work, and is demanding that either taxation for school purposes cease a s regards Roman Catholics, or that the Catholic schools b e paid for t h e secular instruction they give. T h e Protestant churches a r e beginning t o awaken t o what it all means, a n d truly it i s high t u n e that they ceased to surrender t h e faith of their children to t h e socialistic demand for a godless school. Read SOCIALISM: T h e Nation of Fatherless Children By DAVID GOLDSTEIN and MARTHA MOORE AVER"* T H E EVANGELICAL, Harrisburgh, P a . : "Socialism: The Nation of Fatherless Children" i s a strong contribution aeainst the further aggression of this disintegrating infection in our national C d w e l l d S e r v e f a wide reading. I t will be found both entertaining and instructive, and thus especially helpful to the true C h n s t i a n a n d t h e loyal citizen, ^ ¿ w i t h s t a n d i n g and c o i b a t i n g t h e deadly, onward tramp of ^ a v o w e d foe to Christianity and American l i b e r t y . . . . It is certainly destined to accom- plish a noble mission." BOSTON SCHOOL O F POLITICAL ECONOMY 468 Massachusetts Avenue Boston, M a s s .