LB 
 
 875 
 
 .W45 
 
 THE WAK AND 
 EDUCATION 
 
 By 
 
 ANDREW F. WEST 
 
 .*^' 
 
 
 .,^ 
 
 
 
 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
Rnnk \Ia fT 
 .Tight N " / 9 / f 
 
 CGFUBlGm DEPOSm 
 
THE WAR AND EDUCATION 
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 BY 
 
 ANDREW F. WEST 
 
 DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOIi, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 
 
 Together with a Translation of the War Address of 
 
 M. Lafferre, Minister of the French Republic 
 
 for Public Instruction and the Fine Arts 
 
 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 PRINCETON 
 
 LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 1919 
 

 Copyright, 1919, by 
 Princeton University Press 
 
 Princeton, N. J. 
 
 "Published 1919 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 JU! -M NiM 
 
 ra)r.!,A529062 
 
NOTE 
 
 Four of the addresses, here printed with slight 
 additions, were previously published in the Edu- 
 cational Review, in School and Society or in the 
 The Evening Post, 
 
PREFACE 
 
 These addresses are collected in the hope they 
 may help to keep the educational lessons of the 
 war in vivid remembrance. It seems incredible 
 that men should ever forget them. Yet many will 
 do so as soon as the storm drifts awav. Our 
 American schooling has been weaker on the side 
 of memory than in some other directions, so that 
 it has become only too easy to forget. If through 
 failure to perceive and remember, we fail to 
 embody the teaching of the war in our education, 
 the loss to our nation will be enormous, because 
 we shall lose the one new impulse which can both 
 save and strengthen our entire schooling from 
 beginning to end. That new impulse is the pow- 
 erful revival of the belief in discipline and duty, 
 as opposed to all sordid or sentimental theories. 
 If it is forgotten or ignored, our schools and col- 
 leges will sink lower. 
 
 It was a profound truth which Anatole France 
 put in those perfect words which picture the little 
 deserted village thinking of her absent sons fight- 
 ing for France : ''lis passent; mats je reste pour 
 
vi Preface 
 
 garder leur souvenir, Je suis leur memoire, C'est 
 pourquoi Us me doivent tout, car VJiomme riest 
 Vhomme que parce quil se souvient,"^ 
 
 ^ Sur la voie glorieuse, Paris, 1915, p. 52, 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. In the War 
 
 1. Our Educational Birthright 1 
 
 Delivered January 29, 1918, before the 
 Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania 
 State Teachers' Association at Johns- 
 town. 
 
 2. The Immortal Conflict id 
 
 Delivered July 4, 1918, before the General 
 Session of the National Education Asso- 
 ciation at Pittsburgh. 
 
 3. France and The Classics 35 
 
 Delivered July 12, 1918, by M. LaFerre, 
 Minister of Public Instruction and the 
 Fine Arts at the University of Mont- 
 pellier. 
 
 II. The Close of the War 
 
 4. The Humanities After the War 49 
 
 Delivered December 5, 1918, before the 
 Association of American Universities 
 and the British Educational Mission at 
 Harvard University. 
 
viii Contents 
 
 5. Vocational and General Education 73 
 
 Delivered January 16, 1919, at the An- 
 nual Meeting of the Vocational Associa- 
 tion of the Middle West at Chicago. 
 
OUR EDUCATIONAL BIRTHRIGHT 
 
OUR EDUCATIONAL BIRTHRIGHT 
 
 While we are here to-day, thinking and talking 
 of education, perhaps we are only half aware how 
 nearly, in the vast world outside, the best things 
 of civilization, the dearest hopes of mankind, are 
 face to face with the deadly peril of quick and 
 overwhelming disaster. And that disaster, if ac- 
 complished, puts back the clock a thousand years. 
 In the whirl of that cataclysm Magna Charta and 
 the Declaration of Independence would be blown 
 away as merely two more "scraps of paper." 
 
 In this crisis, it is no time, either in the great 
 outer world of war or in the lesser and inner for- 
 mative world of educational preparation for life, 
 for any wild theorizing, any panic-stricken 
 clutching at this or that novelty, makeshift or 
 panacea to help us, or for confused and unsteady 
 thinking of any sort. It is the time for steady 
 vision, straight thinking, search for the really 
 durable things, deep deliberation, and then, as 
 soon as we see the truth in new clearness, for a 
 prompt, vigorous and universal obedience to it 
 in action. For only those who are willing to be 
 ruled by the actual, living, indestructible truth 
 
 3 
 
4 The War and Education 
 
 can ever be made fit to be free or to be of real 
 use in this or any other time of the world's need. 
 
 The war is changing much and changing it rap- 
 idly. We are being hurried along. Whither? Al- 
 ready we are aware that we are in a new age. 
 The End of the World happened over three 
 years ago. A New World is here. A Judgment 
 of the Nations has begun. The supposedly edu- 
 cated man who does not know this is mentally 
 and morally defective. So far as he has influ- 
 ence he does harm. He belongs with the "sub- 
 normals." 
 
 What are the things we can already see are 
 changing? and into what are they changing? 
 What are the things, if any, that are not chang- 
 ing? These are the three momentous questions 
 we must know how to answer if we are to be fit 
 for our present duty as civilized men, especially 
 if we are to be fit to take part in guiding the edu- 
 cation of our youth so that they may be ready 
 for their part when the load falls on their should- 
 ers. This, it seems to me, is now the one supreme 
 duty of all who care that our education shall be of 
 help to our land in this time of fierce trial, soon 
 to grow fiercer, and in the happier days we hope 
 to see when the storm has passed. Here is "our 
 
Our Educational Birthright 5 
 
 bit," and a big "bit" to do, and to do now in the 
 cause of national preparedness. The new army 
 of the young recruits of knowledge, few of them 
 now well-trained, some half -trained, most of them 
 untrained, must be all trained and well-trained — 
 and without more ado or delay. Are we ready 
 for this? Do we see the truth, the whole truth, 
 and nothing but the truth? see it clearly? see it 
 soon enough ? and see it together ? If not, we shall 
 deserve to be cursed. But if we do, we may give 
 quick and powerful help at a time when such 
 help, though late, is still in time to save. 
 
 What are the things that are changing? O so 
 many of them ! and changing so fast ! None of us 
 can see them all now. Perhaps none of us can 
 ever see them all. But with the fourth year of 
 the war on, and its end not yet in sight, there 
 has been time to see the chief lines and directions 
 of the changes which are still shaping themselves 
 before our eyes. Let us look at those which affect 
 or ought to affect our education most powerfully. 
 
 The first is a change in our attitude, a new 
 aversion to self-indulgence, indifference, idleness, 
 caprice and pleasure. We had been drifting too 
 long amidst these things, like beings with juven- 
 ile minds in adult bodies. 
 
6 The War and Education 
 
 Behold the child ! by nature's kindly law 
 Pleased with a feather, tickled with a straw. 
 
 "Nature's law" — for infants, but not for men. 
 All Americans of intelligence who love their 
 country more than their own ease, many of whom 
 had been easy-going or inert before, are awake 
 now. They see, in truer light, that these things 
 are enemies of our land. We can stand outer as- 
 sault, but not the inner softness of decay. The 
 only question remaining is : Will they act now on 
 what they see? If so, a great and lasting change 
 for good in our education is assured. The idler, 
 the slacker, the sloucher, the careless, the listless, 
 the reckless, those who have been trooping in 
 multitudes along the "line of least resistance" 
 away from irksome duty, scattering among the 
 various primrose paths on the way down-hill, will 
 then halt and stand erect once more, listening for 
 the call that shall tell them where they ought to 
 go. "Do what you like" and "do what you 
 please," in studies as in conduct, will then be dis- 
 carded as a Devil's motto. How this will hit the 
 officers and leaders of education who have en- 
 couraged the weaker instincts of the ignorant, 
 have played the politician, have thought more of 
 their jobs than of their duty, and have commer- 
 
Our Educational Birthright 7 
 
 cialized and sold like traffickers the sacred things 
 of truth! It is time to drive the moneychangers 
 from the Temple of Knowledge. Whenever par- 
 ents really want this done, it will be done. And 
 the sooner the better. 
 
 The second change is a slowly forming change 
 of positive purpose. The first change of aversion 
 to the weaker tendencies of immature minds, old 
 or young, is wholly good, but being primarily a 
 negative reaction, is not enough to build on. 
 Something more is needed, and something more 
 is beginning to happen. When we turn away 
 from the things that harm, it is of course the first 
 needed step. As Horace wrote long ago of Vir- 
 tue: "The first step is to avoid Vice." But only 
 the first step. The second step, without which 
 the first step leads us nowhere and may leave us 
 ready to turn back the wrong w^ay again, is to 
 start toward and keep on toward the things that 
 help and strengthen. The first means "About 
 face!"; the second means "Forward march!" 
 We are taking the first step — facing right — in 
 greater numbers every day and month. Can we 
 take the second? If so, we shall win — win in 
 making our boys and girls into the finest men 
 and women, fit for our country's need. If not, 
 
8 The War and Education 
 
 we shall fail, and fail not only in the time of 
 greatest danger, but of the greatest opportunity 
 this generation shall ever have. It is hard, no 
 doubt — and yet supremely well worth doing. 
 And to real men and women difficulty is merely 
 another name for opportunity. If we are real 
 men and women, we shall go straight ahead on 
 this path, no matter what lions stand in the way. 
 It would be interesting, if time allowed, to name 
 some of the lions. Some of them are outside us. 
 We need not fear these. Some, strangely 
 enough, are inside — the most dangerous of all. 
 They must be tamed or killed. 
 
 What is the newly wakened positive impulse 
 which shows us that this second step is the great 
 step to take? and that, as we go on, we shall al- 
 ways be surely on the right road? For this is the 
 whole matter. Settle this, and questions of stud- 
 ies will settle themselves. It is not so much: 
 How far are we going? or How fast are we go- 
 ing? but On what road are we going? How true 
 the great word of Descartes on education now 
 appears : 
 
 It is better to go a short distance on the right road, 
 than a long distance on the wrong road. 
 
 Let us go as far as we can, of course. But let 
 
Our Educational Birthiight 9 
 
 all who are in any way discouraged by their lack 
 of travelling strength take heart if they are really 
 going, even slowly, even with stumbling, even 
 for only a short distance — yet on the right road. 
 How I wish every boy and girl in Pennsylvania 
 and outside might pluck up courage at this 
 thought. Initium dimidium facti — "the begin- 
 ning is half of the whole," "well begun, half 
 done" — and the harder half too; these are the 
 ever-old, ever-new words of cheer and good sense 
 for the weakest boy or girl in school who at least 
 wants to go right. 
 
 Again we ask: What is the newly wakened 
 positive impulse which is the basis for all our new 
 educational hopes? It is the revival in might of 
 the ideas of discipline and duty, the growing 
 conviction that education is not the strolling here 
 and there of multitudes of stragglers, but the 
 orderly advance of great armies to a known ob- 
 jective. Have we not seen it beginning? almost 
 as soon as the first bugles blew? — as our sons 
 rose up to judge us, standing erect and enduring 
 sharp discipline, all over the land — offering their 
 young strength and lives to save us — bravely, 
 gaily, gloriously. Have we not seen it as our 
 daughters turned in myriads to "stand and wait" 
 
10 The War and Education 
 
 in the hospitals and prepared to carry their 
 self-effacing heroism to tend our sons in the 
 battle-lines? Have we not seen it in the self- 
 imposed discipline now spreading all over the 
 land? saving food and clothing and all necessary 
 things, giving up all we can in time and work 
 and money, doing it steadily and gladly, and all 
 on one combined exacting plan. We are coming 
 together at last. E plurihns unum again rings 
 true. 
 
 It is the old American spirit at last awakening 
 again, the spirit which made and saved our free- 
 dom — never, please God, again to go to sleep. 
 Obedience, not to what we like or do not like to 
 do, but to what we ought to do, be it hard or 
 easy, this is what is now awaking in full might. 
 If we heed it, it will purify, unify and invigorate 
 our schools for generations to come. It will give 
 us the power to base all our education on the one 
 indestructible truth on which alone education can 
 be built. So great is the opportunity our present 
 difficulty brings us. Can we take it? 
 
 Yes, these changes, if they spread far enough 
 and go deep enough, will, of course, bring many 
 other changes in their train. They will compel 
 us to restudy our schools and colleges. In our 
 
Our Educational Birthright 11 
 
 theory of studies, as well as of life, we shall have 
 to abandon, once for all, many specious theories 
 and alluring practices to which we have recently 
 been indulgent. The captivating notion, happily 
 now going out of vogue, that the student in 
 school or college should study what he likes, when 
 he likes, as he likes, if he likes, must be "interned 
 or interred." To all so-called "free elective sys- 
 tems," which are not systems at all, we must 
 promptly say "good-bye" and "good riddance." 
 In place of all this must come the conviction that 
 so far as practicable in view of each student's age, 
 capacities and future life-work, the few funda- 
 mentals of universal value for training — ^not for 
 tickling — the human mind should be the basis for 
 all courses of study until the student is both suffi- 
 ciently trained in power and is also made aware 
 of his ascertained aptitudes. Then he should be 
 left to choose for himself. In this way, as in no 
 other, may our youth be advanced at least a suffi- 
 cient distance on the right road to make it their 
 own sole responsibility, and not ours, if they 
 then choose to go a long way, a short way, 
 or any way on any wrong road. This also means 
 that if schools and colleges do not know enough 
 to come to a fair agreement on the fundamental 
 
12 The War and Education 
 
 studies (no room for politics here! inside or out) 
 and to distribute them so that no essential is lost 
 in any curriculum, meanwhile giving everything 
 its true label — ^thus making every course of study 
 sound in itself as well as easily recognizable, and 
 all of them together, from bottom to top in every 
 kind of education, standing for the harmonious 
 unity in variety of the knowledge most valuable 
 for training and informing the human mind — if 
 they can not effect this with a fair amount of 
 clearness, they can not make their case clear to 
 the country, and will give evidence that they do 
 not know their own business. And in arranging 
 studies it must never be forgotten that to put 
 intellectually inferior or loosely disjointed forms 
 of education on a par in competition with the 
 nobler forms is to drive out the best education. 
 Such a course will reduce our land in this respect 
 to a condition of dependent provincial mediocrity, 
 by cutting off from the boys and girls of unusual 
 promise a good chance to proceed — not a little 
 way, nor half way, but all the way on the right 
 road. A democracy without this chance well 
 safeguarded and cherished is not a true democ- 
 racy in education. This is the heart of the mat- 
 ter. Can we give our education vital unity and 
 
Our Educational Birthright 13 
 
 thereby gain immensely increased power for the 
 cause of knowledge, truth, justice and the best 
 things of human life? Not without clear agree- 
 ment, not without the cooperation which springs 
 from the unifying impulse of discipline and duty, 
 not without the power to overcome chaotic dis- 
 integration by a definite organization in which the 
 individual will be willing to sacrifice or postpone 
 some of his immature inclinations, harmless or 
 perhaps even useful to him if he were the only one 
 to consider, for the sake of the lasting good he 
 will gain by common training in the essentials of 
 knowledge. We do not need more studies, but 
 fewer studies and more study. This is the one 
 way to be thorough in our intellectual "prepared- 
 ness." What we need is simplicity rather than 
 a miscellany; the sustaining diet of the home 
 table, rather than the confusing variety of the 
 whole market; the things of central value first, 
 and such of the rest as we like — afterwards. 
 
 This means a lot of work to do — a great house 
 cleaning in which loads and loads of trash shall 
 be swept out and carted away as junk. For most 
 of our people it means we must provide genuine, 
 not foolish, vocational training, together with and 
 not apart from real elementary schooling. The 
 
14 The War and Education 
 
 secondary education in our high schools and acad- 
 emies should begin two years earlier. Here, at 
 the present time, is the place of greatest waste. 
 We are the only important western nation with 
 so short a period as four years for this stage of 
 instruction. Make it six, and the good results will 
 be doubled. That is, they will be doubled if the 
 programmes are organized, in a very few types, 
 on the basis of training the mind in essentials, 
 rather than in the loose and confusing way which 
 is still so common. And all loose, vague and 
 shifting plans of college studies must "go." It 
 also means that good teaching is something more 
 than talking. Never mind what some of the 
 psychologists tell us about "interest" and the ab- 
 surdity of "formal discipline." Intellectual dis- 
 cipline, if worth anything at all, can not be "in- 
 formal" or casual or happy-go-lucky. However, 
 if we are awake to the meaning of the war, we 
 need not worry much about "formal" discipline. 
 It will take care of itself and discipline its critics 
 too. And if we are not awake, nothing can save 
 us. History will then prepare to write our epi- 
 taph among those who failed — failed to take their 
 one great chance, 
 
Our Educational Birthright 15 
 
 The tide in the affairs of men 
 
 Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. 
 
 The tide is flooding fast to-day. 
 
 I have tried to show sharply, first, what things 
 are changing among us and, second, into what 
 they are changing. Lastly, then, what things, if 
 any, are not changing? Are there any? Yes. 
 The laws of nature still hold sway. The law of 
 gravitation is good for some time to come and so 
 far as man can see, for all time to come. The 
 tides still swing. The seasons pass in their an- 
 cient order. "Day unto day, night unto night" 
 — follow on the same as ever. The sun sets, the 
 dews fall, the stars shine. The animals seem 
 much the same. The bee still fills its honey-cup, 
 the lark has not lost her song, the leopard keeps 
 his spots. It is we, not they, who are seen to be 
 changing — changing in our recent attitude and 
 purpose. Otherwise, we too, though no doubt de- 
 veloping, remain of the same nature as we were ; 
 human in our good and evil, naturally doing now 
 right and now wrong, ever rising or falling as we 
 follow or fail to follow the best light we have — 
 the light of truth, which alone shows the way to 
 freedom. Truth is still at heart simple, clear, 
 convincing, and error is still at heart tortuous, 
 
16 The War and Education 
 
 malign, confusing. A lie is still mean. Treach- 
 ery is still base. Lust and cruelty, the twin vices, 
 are still detestable. Wisdom is still "better than 
 riches" or pleasure or station or fame. Its price 
 is still "above rubies" and all the lesser values of 
 life. These are things that do not and can not 
 change, or be disbelieved, unless moral chaos is to 
 follow. 
 
 What else does not change? The law of the 
 mind. To know truth and especially the truths 
 that underlie all knowledge and form the base 
 for all sound opinion, to express that knowledge 
 well, and to use all with wisdom in the guidance 
 of life — these are still the marks of the best in- 
 tellectual excellence. Experience alone still con- 
 vincingly reveals the relative worth of studies. 
 Follow it. Is reason worth having? Is memory 
 worth having? Are the treasures of knowledge 
 worth having? Is a well-trained mind worth hav- 
 ing? Then train it well and use it in full power. 
 Is the newly wakened conviction of discipline and 
 duty one we are willing to follow? Then believe 
 it, believe it and follow it — no matter how hard 
 the effort, no matter if we get on only a short 
 way at first, at least satisfied to find our feet are 
 on the right road. The going will be better soon. 
 
Our Educational Birthright 17 
 
 Here is where faith and knowledge join — faith 
 leading the way. The light may be dim and dis- 
 tant now — but it will brighten as we go on. No 
 doubt it is a day of trouble and alarm, Der Tag 
 indeed, but not the Day the atheist cynics feign. 
 It is a "great and notable Day of the Lord," in 
 whose sight are all days and ages. We do not 
 know its inmost meaning. If we knew it all, we 
 should be more than men. But we know enough 
 to help us to believe more than we know, and thus 
 at least to do what we believe to be our part. 
 Who of us can fail now to learn our lesson? It 
 is time, high time, to realize in matters of edu- 
 cation the stern responsibilitj^ that rests on us 
 for what our students study, how they study and 
 why they study, to substitute the disciplined for 
 the undisciplined mind, the trained for the un- 
 trained, self-sacrifice for self-indulgence, so that 
 all for whom we must give account shall be well 
 prepared to play their part. The law of the mind, 
 like the moral law, is the true glory of man. For 
 a man to obey that law is to earn his freedom and 
 to help save the freedom of the world. This is 
 something higher than all "practical efficiency." 
 In it alone is the guiding wisdom which must con- 
 trol and purify everything, "efficiency" included. 
 
18 The War and Education 
 
 the one force that can win a lasting victory for 
 truth and freedom. 
 
 Three roots hold up Dominion ; — 
 Knowledge, Power. These twain are strong, 
 But stronger still the third — Obedience. 
 'Tis the tap-root still. 
 
 Wrapped round the rock of Duty far below, 
 That bids defy to all the winds that blow. 
 
THE IMMORTAL CONFLICT 
 
THE IMMORTAL CONFLICT 
 
 I 
 
 A boy without a memory can not be educated. 
 A man without a memory needs some one to look 
 after him, or he will go on repeating his mistakes, 
 because he is always forgetting what he needs to 
 remember, namely, that it is not the man who 
 makes a mistake, but the man who repeats his 
 mistakes, who is known for a fool. And a nation 
 without a memory is in the same deplorable 
 plight. To remember well the things that ought 
 to be remembered and to profit by them is the rule 
 for a safe, strong and wise life for every man and 
 for every nation. 
 
 The past is not something dead and gone. 
 Whether men care to have anything to do with it 
 or not, it remains a fact that the past has a great 
 deal to do with us. Our parents and our parents' 
 parents may be physically dead and gone; but 
 without them we would not have been what we are 
 and, indeed, would not be here today. Whatever 
 has happened is a fact as inevitable as what now 
 happens or as what will happen. The past is the 
 
 21 
 
22 The War and Education 
 
 parent, the producing cause of the present. Sci- 
 ence has taught us by a thousand proofs that the 
 universe is what it is because of what it was and 
 that men are what they are now because of what 
 men were before. And the big book of history, 
 which is the world's memory, points the one 
 "moral of all human tales" in revealing the truth 
 that, no matter what else has changed, the human 
 heart is still swayed by the same passions as ever. 
 To learn well this lesson and never to forget it in 
 the conduct of life, personal and national, is the 
 one foundation for a sane education. 
 
 And now, when the world seems turned up- 
 side down, men need to remember these elemen- 
 tary and elemental unchanging realities. For 
 there are voices of confusion telling us that every- 
 thing is changing, saying that little, if anything, 
 of what we have held as true can be depended on 
 for the future, and bidding us clutch at this or 
 that panacea as the only thing to cure our ills. 
 The past, they say, has little to teach us ; for we 
 are Americans of the twentieth century and 
 should promptly cut loose from bygone times, 
 methods and ideas and set up a brand-new nation- 
 al culture of our own. In their rejection of what 
 they call "tradition," they are forgetting some- 
 
The Immortal Conflict 23 
 
 thing; they are forgetting that the value of any- 
 thing does not depend on whether it is old or new, 
 but on whether it is trivial or important and on 
 whether it is false or true. 
 
 They are proposing to run American educa- 
 tion, not on a record, but on a prospectus. They 
 are, in fact, telling us to lose our memories and to 
 forget what we shall forget at our peril, namel}^ 
 that the past has our main lesson to teach us and 
 that the man who does not see behind the lurid, 
 blinding light of this world-war its deep-lying 
 causes for decades and generations past, and on 
 back to the origins, can not understand why this 
 war happened, nor how to prevent its happening 
 again, nor even what it is that is now happening. 
 For he who does not remember what has gone 
 before has little means of judging what is hap- 
 pening now or of forecasting what will come 
 after. It is no time to forget. It is the time 
 to remember everything and to forget nothing. 
 
 II 
 
 Listen to a voice from long ago; yet so clear 
 and near in its tones, it seems to be speaking now. 
 "There is, we affirm," says Plato, "an immortal 
 conflict now going on, and calling for marvellous 
 
24 The War and Education 
 
 vigilance. In it our allies are the gods and all 
 good spirits." He is speaking of the age-long 
 conflict of truth and error. It is a clarion call 
 of ancient freedom across the centuries to us, not 
 only to the battle line in France, but to the armies 
 of education in America. Listen to its echoes 
 and you shall hear the story of Marathon and 
 Salamis, of Leonidas at Thermopylae, of Hora- 
 tius at the bridge, of Magna Charta, of the des- 
 perate siege of Leyden, of Cromwell's Ironsides, 
 of the Declaration of Independence and of the 
 glorious defence of Verdun. Listen and you 
 shall hear Lincoln's answering voice: "The fiery 
 trial through which we pass will light us down, 
 in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. 
 We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best 
 hope of earth." 
 
 Let us listen again in the quiet of our schools 
 and we shall hear the echoing thunders of the 
 long-fought war, not ended yet, between the free- 
 dom of knowledge and the debasing slavery of 
 ignorance. And that warfare is the one business 
 of education, the one reason why we need schools 
 at all. What is the past for us ? It is Experience 
 teaching — and teaching now. You recall the 
 scene at the end of Goethe's Faust, where Faust 
 
The Immortal Conflict 25 
 
 exclaims of the fleeting moment of his achieve- 
 ment — " 'Tis past." Do you also recall who it 
 was said in reply: 
 
 " 'Tis past? a foolish word! 
 That is to say 
 As it had never been." 
 
 It was the Devil. 
 
 So our struggle in the schools, as it should be 
 in our homes, is against ignorance, the old, an- 
 cient, inveterate ignorance with which every 
 generation is born into this world, the ignorance 
 which must be first overcome and then enlight- 
 ened by effort, hard effort, repeated effort, wisely 
 guided effort, not alone by the exertion of the 
 teacher, but on the part of the student as well, 
 that our young recruits may be trained, trained, 
 trained into an alert, disciplined, irresistible army 
 of knowledge. 
 
 It is not an easy task, for we are wrestling not 
 against flesh and blood, but against the unseen 
 powers of darkness, darkness intellectual and 
 darkness moral. It is, then, our part in the "im- 
 mortal conflict," ceaseless and strenuous, "now 
 going on and calling for marvelous vigilance" 
 more loudly than ever. It is no place for undis- 
 ciplined minds or wild theorists, still less for 
 
26 The War and Education 
 
 idlers, slouchers and slackers, and even less for 
 false prophets dressed up in the uniform of the 
 army of knowledge. 
 
 Ill 
 
 What is the way to win? This is the question 
 that must be answered rightly if we are to keep 
 faith with our countiy. There is just one way. 
 It is to make the proved truths of experience the 
 one basis for our efforts and the one test of all 
 theories offered for our acceptance. It it the 
 test of common sense. It is also the one scien- 
 tific test, for science, as Huxley put it, is nothing 
 else than "highly trained common sense" applied 
 to scientific questions. Let us try by this test 
 some of the plausible assertions which are being 
 made. 
 
 1. One is that there should be no "formal disci- 
 pline" in studies. If this means that there should 
 be no strict and regular training of the human 
 mind, as the words naturally imply, the test is 
 easily made. If it means something else, we have 
 no need to consider it. All we need to do is to re- 
 member the record of facts. This record tells us 
 that in the world's contests the undisciplined mind 
 has generally been beaten. 
 
The Immortal Conflict 27 
 
 It has been one of the outstanding lessons of 
 the war, notably so in the defense of Verdun. It 
 is notable to-day all over our land in the newly- 
 wakened spirit of discipline, of unquestioning 
 obedience to duty, both in military training and 
 in civil life. Why? In order to win — so that 
 freedom may not perish from the earth. So we 
 may trust the war to refute the critics of "formal 
 discipline" and to discipline them too. 
 
 2. Another assertion is that no student should 
 be required to take any study which is not "in- 
 teresting" to him, because if he does not like it, 
 he will get little good from it. It is hard to take 
 this seriously. What in the world is to be done, 
 on this basis, with the many who find all studies 
 and especially all study uninteresting? This be- 
 guiling half-truth breaks on the hard rocks of 
 facts. For it is not a matter of guess or supposi- 
 tion, but of fact, that many things we have to do 
 and know we ought to do are not pleasant in 
 themselves. It is not "interesting" to do drudg- 
 ery or to bear hunger or to keep the night-watch, 
 chilled to the bone, in the battle-trenches. Duty 
 is not always "interesting," but it is always duty. 
 Life is not a series of pleasant elective choices, but 
 
28 The War and Education 
 
 has in it the element of stem compulsion, and 
 most of all 
 
 When Duty whispers low, Thou must, 
 
 And it is another fact, not fancy, that obedience 
 to duty, however hard and distasteful at first, 
 yields a most "interesting" joy of human life, the 
 joy of the hard- won fight, and leads to the high- 
 est freedom, the freedom of assured self-con- 
 quest. Is there anything our country needs 
 more? 
 
 3. Some are telling us that vocational and tech- 
 nical education is the one thing needful, because 
 every one should be taught to earn his living. So 
 he should. And nine-tenths of our youth must 
 begin to earn their living early. We grant it. 
 But this utilitarian proposal errs in forgetting 
 some hard facts. For if this is practically all 
 our youth are to have, then most of them are con- 
 demned in advance to a form of industrial slav- 
 ery, because they would thus be trained to be 
 little more than animate tools for special tasks 
 and would be largely cut off from their just 
 chance to rise. This view overlooks the fact they 
 are more than animate tools. They are human 
 beings, our brothers and sisters, with minds and 
 
The Immortal Conflict 29 
 
 hearts as well as hands. If in our just desire to 
 prepare them for making their living we also 
 unjustly fail to prepare them by good general 
 schooling to make their lives better worth living, 
 we shall create a huge proletariat of discontent 
 to curse us, a grave menace to themselves and to 
 the safety of our democracy. 
 
 4. One more theory needs notice. It is that we 
 are an independent nation living in the twentieth 
 century and should therefore have a purely 
 American national education without reference to 
 the past. I know no loyal American who wants 
 anything else than that our national history 
 should be well studied by every boy and girl in 
 the land and that Enghsh shall be the only lan- 
 guage used in our elementary schools. Is this all 
 there is in the proposal? Then we can all ac- 
 cept it with enthusiasm. But it needs definition. 
 For we have the right to ask whether it is meant 
 that all elementary studies are to be exclusively 
 national. Is geography to be confined to the 
 geography of our land? How about arithmetic? 
 Is there an American multiplication table? And 
 what of "nature study" ? Are only American ani- 
 mals to be noticed? Here is where the theory be- 
 gins to crack. Our own language and history for 
 
30 The War and Education 
 
 the sake of our national unity? Yes, in plenty, 
 and then also the elements of universal knowl- 
 edge — as much as we can get. 
 
 Above the elementary education the theory ut- 
 terly fails, and fails because its advocates forget 
 or ignore the hard facts of history. We are part 
 of the family of nations and heir to a great part 
 of the world's heritage of freedom. They are 
 forgetting that the struggle now in progress 
 against an exclusive nationalism in culture is be- 
 ing conducted by the allied freedom of the world. 
 They are forgetting that an exclusively Ameri- 
 can culture must tend either to absorb other sys- 
 tems by incorporation or domination or, failing 
 in that, to impair the vital unity of our interna- 
 tional civilized freedom. 
 
 It is curious, but not strange, that this question 
 hinges so largely on the studies of language and 
 history. The theory of a self-centered exclusive 
 national culture inevitably leads to disparage- 
 ment of foreign languages and foreign history, 
 and especially of ancient history and the classics. 
 This nationalistic theory, however, has a power- 
 ful ally. Here are his words from the famous 
 address of December 17, 1890: 
 
The Immortal Conflict 31 
 
 Whoever has been through the gymnasium and has 
 gone behind the scenes, knows where the trouble is. The 
 trouble is, first of all, that we lack a truly national 
 basis. We must take German as the foundation of the 
 gymnasium, we must educate national young Germans 
 and not young Greeks and Romans. We must depart 
 from the basis which has stood for centuries, the old 
 monastic education of the Middle Ages, in which Latin 
 was the standard, and a little Greek. This is no longer 
 the standard; we must make German the basis. 
 
 This is the Kaiser's own statement, the avowed 
 basis of his whole educational policy, the theory 
 which has been at work wrecking German educa- 
 tion for the last thirty years. Note in passing the 
 reference to the "old monastic education." He 
 knew, as everyone here knows, that this did not 
 exist in the modern Gymnasium. Thus his ex- 
 clusive Kultur excluded a truthful statement of 
 historic fact. Do we want it, or anything like it? 
 Not so long as the tree is judged by its fruit. 
 Not so long as we have memories to remember 
 what that Kultur has done. It is well we should 
 also hear a statement on the other side, made 
 September 10, 1915, by the Minister of Public 
 Instruction of the French Republic: "The class- 
 ical culture should remain the object of our ar- 
 dent study, even if it were only for the reason 
 
32 The War and Education 
 
 that it has transmitted to French thought the 
 greater part of the great ideas for which we are 
 now fighting." 
 
 It is not a httle question. It is this : Shall the 
 native tongues and literatures of ancient freedom, 
 ancestral to our own, be abandoned? The Kaiser 
 says Yes. France says No. There they stand. 
 We too must stand on one side or the other. 
 There is no escape except to hide in a paltering 
 "neutrality." There is no "negotiated peace" 
 here. There is no third theory to choose — ^noth- 
 ing but a set of compromising, pitiable make- 
 shifts. One of the two rivals must win and the 
 other go imder. Which shall it be? 
 
 IV 
 
 It is great to be a true American ; it is greater 
 to be a true man or woman here or anywhere. 
 "That all men everywhere may be free" was 
 Lincoln's prayer. Can we not lay aside all 
 prejudice and then read our lesson in the fiery 
 light around us ? That lesson is that no freedom 
 is won or held without struggle and without self 
 denial. That lesson is that mental and moral 
 freedom is not won or held by any human being 
 in any land without whole-minded training in the 
 
The Immortal Conflict 33 
 
 fundametals of knowledge, be they pleasant or 
 unpleasant at first, whole-souled obedience to 
 duty, "interesting" or uninteresting, and whole- 
 hearted devotion to the truth won and held by 
 hard effort, not for money, place or power, but 
 for the sake of living decently in a decent world, 
 made fit to be free. 
 
 In our education, as in the war, the "immortal 
 conflict" is now on. In both the same cause is 
 working. And in both may God defend the 
 right ! 
 
FRANCE AND THE CLASSICS 
 
FRANCE AND THE CLASSICS 
 
 [A French officer, visiting the United States during 
 the war, was asked what France was fighting for. He 
 answered: ''Pour hwmanite et les humanites." What 
 he expressed with such graphic brevity was the spirit 
 of France in education, the spirit of humane civilization 
 as opposed to the spirit of gross and brutal material- 
 ism. 
 
 A remarkable utterance of the same spirit is found 
 in the address printed below. A few days before Foch 
 started his greater counter-offensive in July, when 
 France was still at bay — with the Germans so close to 
 Paris — the Minister of Public Instruction, the highest 
 officer of education in the French Republic, spoke at 
 the University of Montpellier to a class of young grad- 
 uates of the Lycee on the spirit of French higher educa- 
 tion in the present war. The authority of the speaker, 
 the critical time at which he spoke, and the intimate 
 connection of his theme with our own problems make 
 the subjoined translation of his eloquent advocacy of 
 the classical humanities very timely and valuable read- 
 ing.] 
 
 My dear friends: I feel a surprise mingled 
 with deep emotion to find myself, after thirty 
 3"ears, again in the enclosure of this ancient and 
 glorious University of Montpellier and to realize 
 that nothing has grown old of what there was 
 
 37 
 
38 The War and Education 
 
 here of permanent nature in its intellectual and 
 moral life and of substantial character in its 
 methods of teaching. 
 
 There is here now the same tradition, repre- 
 sented by other masters, of whom some are the 
 sons of the teachers we have known formerly. 
 Such a one is the eminent professor whom you 
 have just heard, whose father I once more see 
 enjoying the esteem and veneration of the pupils 
 of our old Lycee. 
 
 With what zeal and with what talent he has 
 defended the humanities! And in this tragic 
 hour such defence seems an anachronism. "Why 
 do you talk of proportion and harmony," they 
 say, "when the world is upside down? What con- 
 nection is there between classic thought, so calm 
 and serene, and the madness of warlike prepara- 
 tion in which the world seems to wish to obliter- 
 ate what remains of its wisdom? What connec- 
 tion is there especially between this purely for- 
 mal culture, between these ancient languages, 
 which assure us of the supremacy of general ideas, 
 and the scientific modern culture which is now 
 turned toward the most formidable military pro- 
 duction, and which will turn to-morrow toward 
 that industrial equipment and practical applica- 
 
France and the Classics 39 
 
 tion, which alone is capable of aiding us to main- 
 tain competition on economic ground where we 
 will have to defend ourselves and to triumph." 
 
 Those who formulate these objections are su- 
 perficial observers. They draw from certain ap- 
 pearances hasty conclusions which the examina- 
 tion of facts is far from demonstrating. Of 
 course, the question may be raised whether or 
 not Latin and Greek culture should continue to 
 hold the first place in our studies. In other words, 
 is the teaching of ancient languages to be consid- 
 ered as the base of every complete education, with 
 the other studies as accessories imposed by the 
 necessities of modern life? 
 
 With regard to this point, the conclusions of 
 your teacher are absolutely clear: he thinks that 
 French and foreign (modern) classic authors, 
 even those the most imbued with antiquity, have 
 not the same educative value as the Greek and 
 Roman writers. Only an acquaintance with the 
 ancient masters in their own language, only the 
 habit of thinking in Latin and Greek, only re- 
 search into ancient thought, seem to constitute the 
 true exercise of the mind, the true method of 
 assimilating the moral ideas and the noble senti- 
 ments which form the man truly worthy of the 
 name. 
 
40 The War and Education 
 
 There are, therefore, no other true humanities 
 than those that result from the habit of thinking 
 in Greek and Latin, in order to write better in 
 French. And it is very evident that, in spite of 
 the very energetic effort to modernize teaching, 
 this positive doctrine has not been entirely aban- 
 doned. We know that the secondary education 
 of girls — the most recent development of the 
 State — still seeks out its way by endeavoring not 
 to lose contact with the ancient languages, wheth- 
 er that be in preparing partially for the bacca- 
 laureate or by approximating a classical plan of 
 study. We know that the same thought is mak- 
 ing itself felt in the upper normal schools, where 
 a modest place has just been made for the teaching 
 of Latin. I do not say that these are solutions 
 free from every criticism. But it is as it were a 
 recognition that there has been a lack of our clas- 
 sic methods and, at the same time, a silent com- 
 pliment rendered to our old humanities. 
 
 One thing remains beyond question: it is that 
 for the formation of thought and of character, 
 for the moral and civic education of the present 
 age, we have to draw upon the old sources of 
 Latin and Greek education. Your teacher has 
 given the chief reason : Latin and Greek culture 
 
France and the Classics 41 
 
 is not an ornament or a luxury, but even among 
 those who least realize it, it is the basis of the for- 
 mation of modern intellect. 
 
 It is possible that classical education, carried 
 to the very sources, must be reserved for the few — 
 we may, indeed, say that with certainty. The 
 conception of national public instruction for all 
 children, together with a higher course purely 
 classical intended for those pupils whom an intel- 
 ligent selection designates, is not illogical. And 
 at all events we must choose our authors and our 
 books in order to train the citizens of a free 
 democracy ; we must at least inculcate in them the 
 principles of reason, of clearness, of energy in 
 action, which form the basis of the ancient liter- 
 atures and which will always be the best initia- 
 tion of children and of men into the harsh neces- 
 sities of contemporary life. 
 
 But history testifies that these quahties are the 
 possession of the Greeks and Romans, whose 
 natural heirs we are — and history shows that for 
 us they are the examples of vigor we must fol- 
 low. It seems but yesterday that inmiortal dis- 
 course On the Crown was written, wherein De- 
 mosthenes, though conquered at Chasronea, dem- 
 onstrated to an excited audience that the princi- 
 
42 The War and Education 
 
 pies and obligations of a great people are inde- 
 pendent of the chance fortune of battles, and that 
 eternal duty is not always to be measured by the 
 success of a day. After two thousand years an- 
 other great Greek patriot, Venizelos, Prime Min- 
 ister to a King unfaithful to the Allies, who tried 
 to intimidate him by the thought of a possible de- 
 feat of the Entente, replied proudly before giv- 
 ing in his resignation, that he did not measure 
 his support by the surety of the Allies' success. 
 He, at least, more happy than Demosthenes, 
 saved the honor of his country, and will be able 
 to claim his part in the common victory for which 
 we all pray. . . . 
 
 Let us not commit the error, in this age of 
 science and industry, of separating the humani- 
 ties from scientific study. The services they can 
 render each other cannot be overestimated. Our 
 greatest classic writers have also been scientists 
 — a Pascal astonishes us by his taste for scientific 
 precision and by his observance of proportion and 
 harmony, as well as by his vigorous logic and 
 intensity of feeling. So it happens that if our 
 great scientists are immortal, it is because they 
 have at the same time been great writers. A 
 Claude Bernard is known by a book which en- 
 
France and the Classics 43 
 
 dures. And, without desiring to decry the scien- 
 tific effort of the Germans, we can say that their 
 diffuse researches for the purpose of enlightening 
 human knowledge are not equal in value to the 
 bright logic and admirable clearness which sum 
 up and coordinate all the genius of an epoch. 
 
 The fact is that the classic culture enfolds and 
 animates all the manifestations of our national 
 thought and activity. It is a perpetual lesson in 
 good sense and vigor. It teaches the love of the 
 good, the true, the beautiful, and of progress by 
 means of method; it applies to all effort and all 
 work; it enhances all the acts and deeds of men 
 by the priceless gifts of grace and harmony; it 
 makes them valued by reason of its appreciation 
 of dignity, and by its own self-respect as well as 
 by the respect of others. 
 
 I know well that the world is now preoccupied 
 with utilitarian ideas. Our universities, our 
 scientific colleges especially, are endeavoring to 
 put science in the service of the regions in which 
 they are placed, and to extend themselves every- 
 where, according to the needs and the resources 
 of each place, in institutes of applied art. There 
 is thus special adaptation in each region and var- 
 iety in national unity. And these are conditions 
 
4i4i The War and Education 
 
 highly favorable for the contest against German 
 methods, whose all-pervading discipline consti- 
 tutes the strength of their formidable competi- 
 tion. But let us not lose sight of our own quali- 
 ties, which make us loved for ourselves, and let us 
 oppose to the perverse research into the enormous 
 and the colossal that good taste and sense of 
 proportion which are the characteristics of our 
 genius, and which cannot be acquired by the sim- 
 ple effort of mere imitation. 
 
 French genius puts art in life everywhere. It 
 gives a personal character to the most ordinary 
 needs, to the most mechanical manual labor. 
 There is an art of mixing mortar as well as of 
 guiding a machine. Each one brings to the task 
 his own manner and initiative. There is a saying 
 that man must love his trade. It is not brutal 
 discipline and mechanical organization which lead 
 to that; it is individual taste and the stamp of 
 personality on things. It is in that that we find 
 united in the most obscure corners of workshops 
 and fields the humanism and the manual trade 
 that were considered opposites, while actually 
 they lend the most admirable and happy support 
 to each other. 
 
 "But," you may say, "war has upset this har- 
 
France and the Classics 45 
 
 mony, and we are a prey to the inevitable brutal- 
 ity of force." Those who endanger their Uves 
 and threaten the Hves of others, have they the 
 leisure to think of the ideal, to count the blows 
 that they give and take, to measure the value of 
 their military action by the beauty and holiness 
 of their cause?" 
 
 Gentlemen, that is blasphemy against your kin, 
 and mine, who are inscribed in the Golden Book 
 of this University. Do you think that those of 
 your teachers and of your great comrades who 
 have faced death have not had two reasons for 
 sacrificing themselves — one, patriotism, which is 
 theirs in common with all Frenchmen; the 
 other, an exact knowledge of the object of their 
 sacrifice? Do you think that when death comes 
 upon them in action, more than one does not have 
 upon his lips some verses of Corneille he read the 
 evening before, or the memory of a passage of 
 Homer in which Hector, sacrificing himself to 
 duty, and knowing that he must perish, never- 
 theless welcomes his destiny with pride, and re- 
 solves to die without complaint? 
 
 May I recall here the word of a man of this 
 University, a lieutenant in the infantry, who 
 listened one evening in the trenches to the reflec- 
 
46 The War and Education 
 
 tions of his men? "I," said one, "fight for my 
 fields of grain." And another, "I for my wife and 
 children"; and another, "I for my mountains." 
 And the officer said gravely: "I fight for La 
 Fontaine and Moliere: La Fontaine, the immor- 
 tal heir of iEsop and of Phaedrus; Moliere, the 
 immortal heir of Plautus and of Terence, and still 
 further of Aristophanes and of Menander." Yes, 
 my friends, acquaintance with art and beauty is 
 an element of bravery in the teachers and pupils 
 of the University. They know better than the 
 others why they die, and if they know how to 
 hand the torch which illumines them to the sol- 
 diers whom they lead to the assault, it is because 
 they have before their eyes an ideal, the secret of 
 which has been a long time revealed to them 
 through their study of the humanities. . . . 
 
 Yes, let us keep all our advantages, and let us 
 deny nothing of our university tradition. That 
 is our strength for to-day and to-morrow. Let 
 us keep our old inheritance of Gallic strength 
 and daring, but let us not put aside the intellec- 
 tual and moral discipline we owe to the ancient 
 humanities. It is that which makes us to-day 
 more French — that is to say, more human. It is 
 that which has prepared us for victory by render- 
 
France and the Classics 47 
 
 ing us worthy of it. It is that which to-morrow 
 will cause our triumph to be acclaimed by all the 
 peoples who see in our cause that of humanity, 
 conscious alike of its duties and its rights. It is 
 finally that which, when beneficent peace shall 
 reign upon the earth, will conserve to our country, 
 loved and admired by the world, the place of 
 honor to which its past gives it all its titles, the 
 place it will know well how to keep in the future, 
 the first place. 
 
THE HUMANITIES AFTER THE WAR 
 
THE HUMANITIES AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Napoleon wrote the epitaph of the eighteenth 
 century, the age of artifieiahty. The war now 
 ending is writing the epitaph of the nineteenth, 
 the age of boasting. This period of vast achieve- 
 ment was, as Frederic Harrison described it, the 
 age of confident self -laudation par excellence. 
 With characteristic aggressiveness it pushed over 
 a bit into the twentieth, and perhaps for its pre- 
 sumption has been violently stopped by a war 
 waged with the very implements it had forged 
 and had labelled with the stamp of Progress. 
 
 Amid its manifold activities the most vigorous 
 intellectual impulse was science, at first mainly 
 in the form of knowledge as such and later more 
 notably in its myriad applications to himian use. 
 Through this practical development, which grew 
 in strength as the century advanced, the mater- 
 ial side of human life was enriched as never be- 
 fore, and science, whether pure or applied, so 
 long as controlled for human welfare conferred 
 enormous benefits, and if morally uncontrolled, 
 
 51 
 
52 The War and Education 
 
 as of late, wrought fearful evil. In the latest 
 perversion of its true use all the three major 
 sciences have been dragged into the service of 
 death. Physics, with chemistry helping, gave 
 us the submarine assassin, chemistry the murder- 
 ous gases, and biology furnished germs to poison 
 man and beast in Roumania. Yet these things, 
 devilish as the uses to which they were put, were 
 not in themselves necessarily evil. Conceivably 
 they might have been used for commendable ends ; 
 the anthrax germ as an antitoxin, the murderous 
 gases to destroy vermin and the submarine even 
 to transport missionaries. It is clearly seen that 
 the imminent danger of their misuse lies, not in 
 the nature of science, but in the motive which 
 prompted the misuse by making such devices 
 easily available in the hands of unscrupulous men 
 or nations. The execration of mankind has fallen 
 justly on those who thus misapplied applied sci- 
 ence, and a clamorous demand is justly made that 
 it shall henceforth be applied only to humane 
 ends, for the reason that when applied to inhuman 
 ends it becomes the hired accompHce of immoral- 
 ity. It is a dreadful fact that while the guilt of 
 introducing this misuse in the world- war rests on 
 Germany, the leader in applied science, our side 
 
The Humanities After the War 53 
 
 has been driven to use some of these agencies in 
 retaliation. Apphed science has thus freely fur- 
 nished mercenaries to either side. Its devices 
 have been for sale to any buyer. But as honor 
 and decency are things not for sale, it is not sur- 
 prising that men are now incredulous in regard 
 to the dependability of science taken by itself, 
 especially of applied science, as a safe moral fac- 
 tor in education and in the resultant civilization 
 for which education prepares. 
 
 Is high intelligence separable from honor and 
 decency? The Greek thinkers said No. Recent 
 German thought says Yes.^ There is no need to 
 argue in this presence that although there are 
 notable instances of high intellectuality combined 
 with low morality and although exemption from 
 moral restraint has been at times supposed to be 
 a necessary condition of intellectual freedom, 
 men of high intelligence and low morals are 
 nevertheless dangerous to human society, per- 
 sons to be watched rather than trusted, persons 
 whose dangerousness is intensified by their degree 
 of intelligence, and who should therefore be so- 
 cially and educationally reprobated or at least 
 
 ^ For a lucid review of this question see Emile Boutroux's 
 Oxford lecture on "The Relation between Thought and 
 Action," Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1918. 
 
54s The War and Education 
 
 "interned." And in this time of the world's trial 
 there is no need to argue that governments or na- 
 tions of this high-low type cannot be trusted in 
 the family of nations. All the proof we need is to 
 be found in the undeniable fact that when trust 
 vanishes, civilized relations collapse. And we 
 must have a civilization which is not collapsible. 
 Whether or no decent morals are essential to high 
 intellectuality is therefore a question of little 
 importance compared with the fact that human 
 behavior resting on decent morals is essential to 
 the world's safety. 
 
 Can education in science, considered by itself 
 alone, and especially in applied science, be surely 
 depended on to foster this humane behavior in 
 men and to ground it, not on considerations of 
 mere convention or expediency, but on honor and 
 decency? The war has answered this momentous 
 question in the negative. While not at all a con- 
 demnation of science, but of its abuses in applica- 
 tion, it is nevertheless a demand that in all its uses 
 it shall henceforth stand always as the ally and 
 never as the enemy of man's moral welfare. 
 
 There is some hard travelling to do before this 
 end is reached. To begin with, science will need 
 to be taught purely as science, without admixture 
 
The Humanities After the War 55 
 
 of other things. Otherwise its true nature is ob- 
 scured and men will be misled as to its meaning. 
 For example, applied science has lately been en- 
 tangled at times in serving sordid purposes, so 
 that its own freedom as science has been hampered 
 and its beneficial influence impaired. To make 
 industrial processes scientific is a most worthy 
 end, but to commercialize science is to degrade it. 
 The two have not always been distinguished.. 
 They must be distinguished if applied science is 
 to be the best applied science or is to remain 
 science at all. 
 
 Pure science also has been at times entangled 
 in extraneous things. Take an example from 
 biology. "The strong must survive," "the weak 
 must perish," "it is the law of life," "Nature heads 
 up things in an autocratic way," "war is a normal 
 condition for a nation seeking to realize its own 
 life," "war is a biological necessity," — such are 
 the utterances of recent German thinkers. But 
 this is not biology proper. It is biology infected 
 by a delusive theory of human society and leaping 
 to the inference that the law of the jungle is of 
 course the law of the home, the commimity and 
 the state. It is one of the main causes which has 
 provoked the extreme and angry answer of social- 
 
56 The War and Education 
 
 ism. For biology, then, as pure biology and the 
 mother-science of medicine, the champion of the 
 weak, serving humane ends and itself uncontami- 
 nated by any infection, a broad road is open to 
 endless beneficient progress. But if that road is 
 missed, some devious way must be travelled. 
 
 Given, then, science as science, true to its own 
 standards, debased by no sordid use and mingled 
 with no alien substance, its real function as an 
 educational subject of immense value becomes 
 clearer. It is to acquaint Man with the truths of 
 Nature and the beneficent uses these truths may 
 serve. It thus becomes a question of high im- 
 portance as to how education in science, espe- 
 cially in the earlier formative stages, may remain 
 purely scientific and may at the same time help 
 in developing its students humanely and morally. 
 This importance becomes clearer, both because of 
 certain considerations external to science and 
 because the chief object in the earlier formative 
 teaching is not the development of science, but 
 the development of the student. The other 
 comes later. It is not too much to assert that 
 when science is first studied by these younger 
 students, not as the analysis of developed mod- 
 ern results nor for immediate practical use, but 
 
The Humanities After the War 57 
 
 as the historical panorama which shows definitely 
 the successive stages of its development by human 
 discoverers who were benefactors and even mar- 
 tyrs and heroes of mankind, it is science thus 
 studied which is most likely to show them how 
 science actually came to be what it is, to yield 
 knowledge in vital form (so to speak, in a "nas- 
 cent state"), to waken livelier interest, to show 
 its importance as a part of human experience, 
 and to reveal its grandeur as an ever-growing 
 power for human welfare. If our youth start in 
 science the other way, the humanizing and moral- 
 izing value is apt to seem remote, intangible and 
 even unreal, and the importance of guiding all 
 scientific applications toward beneficent ends is 
 not so likely to be suggested, much less to be ob- 
 viously implied. 
 
 Take another point. To put the right thought 
 in the right words is admittedly a mark of the 
 best teaching. So long as language is the one 
 general instrument of thought, as it has been since 
 civilization began and promises to be so long as 
 civilization lasts, its necessity in teaching science 
 and everything else is self-evident.. In view of 
 this it is appalling that many of our teachers, 
 some of them in universities, are in a sense illiter- 
 
58 The War and Education 
 
 ate. They cannot use language well and there- 
 fore lose power to teach adequately either in the 
 class room or in their writings. Specialization 
 without a good literary training has more and 
 more restricted them in power to say well what 
 they think. Lacking literary vision or assured 
 mastery of English, they are forced to talk al- 
 most entirely in the dialect of their specialties. 
 Anyone who is acquainted with our doctoral 
 theses, especially in applied science, knows how 
 serious this illiteracy is. And it is utterly for- 
 eign to the nature of science. Of course the 
 needed technical terms must be used to tell what 
 only technical terms can state. But this should 
 be the limit of such usage. It has been fearfully 
 overdone. If it sufficed a Newton to define the 
 atom as "the least part of matter" (whether 
 rightly or wrongly is of no consequence here), 
 our writers may well follow his lead and use 
 plain English for all plain English will say. It 
 will add to their ease, freedom and human tone, 
 besides making their statements less involved 
 and more attractive. Their writings will then 
 have a better chance to be read. 
 
The Humanities After the War 59 
 
 II 
 
 What has all this to do with the educational 
 future of the humanities in our land after the 
 war? Much in every way. I have taken the in- 
 stance of science because it is so conspicuous just 
 now, because it is so important and because there 
 are many who feel that a training in science, 
 especially in applied science, is a sufficient basis, 
 perhaps even the main basis for our coming edu- 
 cation. I have tried to show that science does 
 better as a humanizing and moralizing force in 
 education when it uses the helps of history, lan- 
 guage and literature in order to make its appeal 
 to young students more fully human, and that 
 without these valuable contacts it loses much of 
 its persuasiveness in teaching and the vivid sense 
 of its neighborhood to other fields of knowledge. 
 
 What of our coming education in the humani- 
 ties themselves? and especially in language, the 
 instrument of man's thought, in literature, the 
 mirror of his moods, and in history, the record 
 of his deeds. They, too, will need to be reso- 
 lutely true to their own function, which is to ac- 
 quaint Man with himself and with all the bene- 
 fits this acquaintance brings. Some think it is 
 
60 The War and Education 
 
 a useless training, something intangible and un- 
 practical, or at best a pleasant accomplishment 
 rather than a solid attainment. Yes, it is in- 
 tangible in a way, yet not more intangible than 
 the sense of justice, truth or freedom. And it is 
 perhaps unpractical for many of the quick and 
 obvious utilities. But what of the greater utili- 
 ties? Was it "useful" to the world in this war 
 that the swiftest voluntary response to the first 
 call of freedom came from the colleges and no- 
 tably from the older homes of humanistic stud- 
 ies? Some may have thought these playful, care- 
 free fellows did not know very well how to live, 
 but at least they have shown that they knew how 
 to die. Their education, science included and the 
 old humanities included too, and not some mili- 
 tary or technical training, is what their letters 
 told us was a preparation which stood them in 
 good stead. Has the war given vis any reason to 
 doubt the worth of their training? Has it not 
 rather emphasized it? The example of such men 
 indicates anew that the value of the humanities, 
 like the true value of science, is to be tested by 
 their fidelity to their proper function and by their 
 wholesome results in human life. 
 
 As for our own language, it seems needless to 
 
The Humanities After the War 61 
 
 say it should be well understood and well used as 
 our chief instrument of thought. The war prop- 
 erly adds the demand that it shall be the sole lan- 
 guage in our primary schools, and shall thus 
 become a stronger unifying force in our nation 
 and a stronger bond of union with the whole Eng* 
 lish-speaking world. The better unification of 
 English itself would be another great help to 
 this end. And if it is impossible or for any rea- 
 son inadvisable to obhterate regional or social 
 variations, at least those who call themselves edu- 
 cated could strive to lesson the difference in their 
 own usage and thus gradually establish a better 
 common standard. For if educated English 
 speech, here and the world over, shall become 
 very nearly one, its influence will spread widely 
 through the thousand utterances of voice and 
 print, and good English may yet become the 
 common English of the world. 
 
 How shall this be promoted in the schools? 
 Some say "By studying English alone." There 
 are cases where this result has happened. But 
 they are few in number and prove nothing for 
 the mass of students. The fact that a boy does 
 not or will not study a foreign tongue does not 
 prove him another Lincoln. The war does not 
 
62 The War and Education 
 
 alter this. Nor has school-study of modern lan- 
 guages coordinate to our own produced an appre- 
 ciably better use of EngUsh. It has oftener dis- 
 figured English with strange locutions. The 
 war has not helped to remove this difficulty. The 
 fact that these highly important modem tongues 
 are coordinate and not fundamental to our own 
 is the important persistent fact which cannot be 
 ignored in this connection. Brothers and sisters 
 do not get their fundamental traits from each 
 other, but from their common ancestors. We 
 need not, then, be surprised that the teachers of 
 English and of modern languages constantly as- 
 sure us that the best way is to study the classics. 
 Our latest school and college records confirm this 
 as a fact, a fact no more likely to be changed by 
 the war than the fact that mathematics is a fine 
 preparation for physics and history a fine prepa- 
 ration for political science. In regard to the 
 modem languages themselves, there is a marked 
 change due to the war. The available facts indi- 
 cate that German has lost fully three-fourths of 
 its students, French has gained strongly and 
 Spanish substantially. That America will pre- 
 fer French, as she has preferred France, may be 
 expected. It is not likely that German, which 
 
The Humanities After the War 63 
 
 had been artificially stimulated anyway, will fully 
 regain its former importance. It is too early to 
 say whether the large gain in Spanish will last 
 or will increase much more. Of the classical lan- 
 guages Greek is gaining a little here and there 
 and Latin is gaining considerably. The main 
 trend is toward the closely related Latin, French 
 and Spanish — to name them in the order of their 
 total enrolments. It should not be forgotten that 
 Latin actually has more students than are found 
 in all the foreign modern languages, and that this 
 leading position is being strengthened by gains 
 made since the war began. 
 
 The war has also called new attention to the 
 classics as the fundamental linguistic and literary 
 bond of Western civilization. The continued 
 effort of the Kaiser throughout his reign, now 
 closed, to hack and hew this old bond in the in- 
 terest of a nationalistic Kultur released from in- 
 ternational ties has been the most marked feature 
 of his educational Thirty Years' War. This 
 war also reveals France as standing against him 
 in this. The stirring address of Lafferre,^ Minis- 
 ter of Public Instruction, delivered at Montpel- 
 
 ^ Translated in the New York Evening Post of September 
 21, 1918. See page 37. 
 
64 TJie War and Education 
 
 lier a few days before Foch launched his counter- 
 offensive, shows how ardently France cares for 
 the old humanities, and all the more when the 
 Germans are close to Paris. The situation re- 
 veals two warring tendencies ; intolerant national- 
 istic unity and tolerant international community. 
 Whichever of these is best for the world will nat- 
 urally be best for our coming education. Is there 
 any good reason why America should not stand 
 here with France? and with England? and with 
 all who believe in an educational League of Na- 
 tions to uphold humane studies? With the per- 
 sistence of separate languages and nationalities, 
 and the addition of new nations, all needing 
 strong common bonds, the need for a common 
 humanistic element of union will increase. 
 
 A word is in place here as to the need of teach- 
 ing literature as literature, not as anything else, 
 and of teaching it humanely and nobly. Thus in 
 teaching an author the real object is to introduce 
 the student to the author. If anything pedantic, 
 mechanical or extraneous interferes with this, the 
 student is ill-taught. If taught as "the criticism 
 of life" (only one of its phases), it degenerates 
 into cheap philosophizing, whereas when viewed 
 as the picture of life, it has a chance to reveal all 
 
The Humanities After the War 65 
 
 its values. When infected with the germs of 
 social decadence, it becames poisonous. Our 
 literature, thanks to the war, is now somewhat 
 cleansed. A lot of bad books are suddenly out of 
 date. The finer aspects of life, now vividly in 
 view, suggest that a better understanding of the 
 nature of literature is desirable. The demand is 
 heard that oddity or caprice shall no longer be 
 taken as evidence of genius, that literature shall 
 bear a nobler aspect and that the "golden mean" 
 of the masters in expression shall again be the 
 Golden Rule for style. It may even happen that 
 Plato's canon of the true, the beautiful and the 
 good will again become the canon of letters and of 
 art also. If so, a better age is dawning. It is 
 devoutly to be hoped that our schools will be con- 
 ducted in this spirit, and down to the last details, 
 so that, for instance, even our school readers shall 
 generally be worth reading. 
 
 Our third study is history, a momentous sub- 
 ject by itself and more so now because of the flat 
 contradictions we have met in regard to recent 
 events of the first importance. History is the 
 recorded memory of mankind. It is Experience 
 teaching — and teaching now. What our own 
 memory means to us, history means to the civi- 
 
66 The War and Education 
 
 lized world. It is still true after the war, as be- 
 fore it, that a boy without a memory camiot be 
 educated. It is hard to believe any school-study 
 is of greater consequence. If the war teaches 
 us anything about historical teaching, it teaches 
 that we need to know the record of what has hap- 
 pened. We must therefore, first of all, learn 
 history as history, not as politics, not as philoso- 
 phy, and not as science. If the accounts are in 
 conflict or are otherwise unreliable, we must know 
 what the existing accounts are before we can 
 judge them. Their value to the young student 
 therefore lies in allowing him to read the story of 
 the past as the writers told it and not as altered by 
 editors. Such records, with the originals unalter- 
 ed, in spirit at least, when sunmiarized in text 
 books, compends and compilations, are the only 
 safe provisional basis for later judgment. The 
 necessity for this is forced upon us by the fact 
 that history has been falsified at times by writers 
 who are so anxious to "see things as they are" that 
 they cannot see things as they were. This is not 
 the limit of the evil, because some of them uncon- 
 sciously or consciously see the past mainly in the 
 light of the present and as colored by their own 
 prepossessions. This has been notorious for the 
 last generation in Germany. So let the new 
 
The Humanities After the War 67 
 
 "science of ancient history," made in Germany, 
 furnish us an example. In his Vergangenheit 
 und Gegenwart, published the year before the 
 war, Wendland thus explains what Philip of Ma- 
 cedan did to Greek democracy: 
 
 "It is now common knowledge how Philip con- 
 solidated his state, kept his dangerous northern 
 neighbors in their proper territorial limits, cre- 
 ated a citizen army of his people and an officers' 
 corps of the nobility. . . . The temperate and 
 careful character of Philip's dealing with the 
 Athenian Demos shows that he pursued no ruth- 
 less policy of aggrandizement. . . . This serves 
 admirably the purpose of training one in politi- 
 cal thinking, helps to guard one against the influ- 
 ences of trivial talk about morality and politics, 
 and makes one realize that such a conflict cannot 
 be settled by international arbitration. It should 
 be emphasized that Demosthenes was actuated in 
 his condemnation of the enemy by motives of 
 patriotic hate. Furthermore one should strongly 
 emphasize the superior merits of a thorough sys- 
 tem of monarchical government and of military 
 discipline."^ 
 
 ^ See Professor Knipfing's article on "The War and The 
 Teaching of Ancient History/' pp. 301-302, Ohio Teach- 
 ers' Journal, March, 1918. 
 
68 The War and Education 
 
 There is more; but this is enough. And this 
 "thinly disguised eulogy" of Prussian imperial- 
 ism is put forth as history! For "Philip" read 
 "Wilhelm" and for the "Athenian Demos" read 
 "France." What more cogent reason could we 
 have for insisting that in our education the rec- 
 ords of history should be allowed to speak for 
 themselves and that no one who falsifies their 
 meaning shall be known as a historian? Is it 
 "trivial" to talk of morality in connection with 
 politics? So this writer thinks, and thus rein- 
 forces our conviction that the teaching of history, 
 like the teaching of anything else, when it fails 
 to respect moral standards is dangerous to civili- 
 zation and fails to give assurance that it is genu- 
 ine history. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Language, literature and history — the three 
 primary humanities in education and the source 
 from which the other humanities spring. Science 
 also, using their light as a help in teaching, finds 
 its own distinctive truths more readily understood 
 and exerts fuller moral power without losing a 
 particle of its scientific integrity. There is one 
 more of the humanities; — behind them all and 
 
The Humanities After the War 69 
 
 connecting them all, the study Aristotle called 
 "the only liberal science"* — philosophy. Here 
 again the war has opened a new volume. The 
 divorce of thought and action, and the cynical 
 atheism built thereon, we may now hope will be 
 regarded not only as immoral, but as irrational. 
 If so, philosophy will again become a great blend- 
 ing power in our university studies. 
 
 In conclusion, then, does not the war teach 
 clearly that education in the humanities, when 
 true to its own type, is an integral part of the 
 history of human freedom? Wherever they have 
 been mechanized, their spirit has been cramped. 
 The classical education of Germany was rigor- 
 ously thorough. Yet it often missed something 
 which enlightened the schools of France, Great 
 Britain and America. That something is what 
 makes the difference between mechanical preci- 
 sion and the joy of life. A plant pressed in 
 a herbarium may keep its outline, but it will 
 not live. The indestructible value of the clas- 
 sics for American schools and colleges is not as 
 science, but as humanism. 
 
 There is no time here to go into the vital ques- 
 tion of what shall guarantee the nobility of our 
 
 * Metaphysics, I 2. 
 
70 The War and Education 
 
 teaching by making primal moral truth the basis 
 on which it shall rest. Science and the humani- 
 ties and philosophy, truly taught, are certain to 
 suggest this guarantee, but are not enough to 
 secure it. They may be made a help toward vir- 
 tue, but they are not virtue. They may also be 
 misused for inhuman ends. Is any lesson of the 
 war clearer? Will democracy of itself secure it? 
 It may help — but will it help enough? There 
 were old democracies, sometimes noble, sometimes 
 cruel as autocracies. The Athenian treatment of 
 Melos was like the German treatment of Bel- 
 gium.^ And what of Russian democracy now? 
 Will it tame the wild beast in man? Will voca- 
 tional studies suffice to save us? Some seem to 
 think so. Yet they overlook the plain fact that 
 to send our youth into vocational studies alone 
 is to cut them off from their just chance for 
 knowledge, to condemn them in advance to indus- 
 trial serfdom and to create a huge proletariat of 
 discontent. Will the newer psychology help us 
 with its insistence that mental discipline is ab- 
 surd and injurious and that no student should 
 have to study a subject he finds "uninteresting"? 
 Will this enfeebling sentimental theory be use- 
 
 ^Thucydides, V 84-112. 
 
The Humanities After the War 71 
 
 ful in the moral crises of life "when Duty 
 whispers low, Thou must"? Will money, place 
 and power, held up as goals of education and con- 
 sequent goals of social endeavor, help us? The 
 war has wrecked such theories. What else is 
 left but the Golden Rule of Christ? 
 
VOCATIONAL, AND GENERAL 
 EDUCATION 
 
VOCATIONAL AND GENERAL 
 EDUCATION 
 
 As war is an abnormal and peace the normal 
 condition of civilized man, the end of the world- 
 war brings us face to face with the problem of 
 resmning our education on normal lines with as 
 much added wisdom as the recent experience of 
 war has given us. Whatever was really true 
 in education before the war, whether perceived 
 fully or not, is true now, with the difference that 
 the war, notwithstanding all its confusion, has 
 given us a chance to perceive truth in the light of 
 new experience. We should therefore pay little 
 heed to the voices of confusion telling us that 
 everything has changed and that nothing in edu- 
 cation will hereafter be the same as before; nor 
 should we listen to the voices of stolid indifference 
 telling us that everything in education will be the 
 same as before. 
 
 Neither of these statements can be trusted, and 
 it is our task to find out clearly and promptly 
 what it is that is changing and what is not chang- 
 
 75 
 
76 The War and Education 
 
 ing. We must have something on which we can 
 depend to keep our vision and our plans clear 
 and steady. Like a wise pilot in an aeroplane, 
 we shall therefore need to know not only that our 
 machine will fly but that it is safely stabilized for 
 flight, so that we may know how to move to our 
 objective without disaster to our machine or our- 
 selves. It may be easier to fly than to steer, but 
 just now steady steering is more needed in our 
 education than is enthusiastic flying. It is time 
 for cool heads and trained common sense. Other- 
 wise the confusion around us will bewilder men 
 and make them lose confidence in education. 
 Spinoza said that in studying any problem in 
 order to get at the truth it was man's duty "not 
 to deplore and not to denounce, but to under- 
 stand," — ^not to be carried away by emotional 
 prejudices, not to shed heat but light on any 
 problem. If we add to this the unshaken purpose 
 of viewing education as a whole and also in the 
 relation of its parts to the whole and to each 
 other, it then becomes possible to see clearly how 
 our entire education in all its parts may be 
 planned on the best basis for the future. 
 
 There is no time here to argue in detail as to 
 what things are changing or into what they are 
 
Vocational and General Education 77 
 
 changing, or as to what things are not changing. 
 We may, however assert with some confidence 
 that the laws of nature and of human nature re- 
 main as they were before the war. The war has 
 not repealed the law of gravitation, the proces- 
 sion of the seasons or the continual sequence of 
 day and night. It has not changed the law of 
 the mind. Yet though it has not changed our 
 nature, it is changing our attitude from one of 
 acquiescence in the easy-going view of life into 
 something more noble. The new force evoked by 
 the war is the newly quickened sense of discipline 
 and duty. If it pervades our land, it will save 
 and strengthen our education for centuries. But 
 many men have short memories and easily forget 
 what we supposed they had learned. The war 
 once over, it is to many something to be forgotten 
 as soon as possible. Therefore the new impulse 
 must be used while it is still vivid, if it is to be 
 used successfully as the regenerating force for 
 all our education from bottom to top. It should 
 be recognized and embodied in every course of 
 study and in every act of teaching and learning. 
 This is the way to save its full power for the 
 future. To do so will add untold gain in moral 
 and material wealth to our nation. Not to do so 
 
78 The War and Education 
 
 will be to miss the greatest chance we may ever 
 hope to have. Never before has so heavy a bur- 
 den of responsibility been laid on those in charge 
 of our education. 
 
 II 
 
 Our education follows two leading aims and 
 therefore has two main divisions, education for 
 knowledge and education for action. The first 
 aims primarily to train the individual to the best 
 intelligence. The second aims primarily to 
 train the individual to the best practice of his oc- 
 cupation. The aim of the first is universal, and 
 its range is limited only by the capacity of the 
 individual. The aim of the second is particular, 
 and its range is limited both by the capacity of 
 the individual and the character of his intended 
 occupation. The first is called general or, in its 
 higher levels, liberal education. The second is 
 called vocational or, in its higher levels, technical 
 or professional education. Though each in some 
 degree shares in the aim of the other, the primary 
 aim of the first is to know and of the second 
 is to do. Each is necessary to the welfare of the 
 other, and both are therefore necessary in our 
 system of education. 
 
Vocational and General Education 79 
 
 The general education has its three successive 
 levels, — primary, secondary and higher, and the 
 vocational education is also gradually differenti- 
 ating, with some overlappings, into three succes- 
 sive levels of vocational, technical and profes- 
 sional, which as yet only partly correspond to 
 the three levels of general education. It is not 
 to be expected that they will ever closely cor- 
 respond with and emerge from the three levels of 
 general education, but it is likely that they will 
 do so to a greater extent than heretofore. All 
 these, when placed in rational relation to each 
 other, form a complete, harmonious, mutually 
 supporting system of education, to which all 
 other extraneous forms are related as derivatives 
 or combinations. It is only when their true re- 
 lation is disregarded that friction and consequent 
 antagonism arise. To organize and administer 
 both the general and vocational divisions and 
 main subdivisions in their true relation is now 
 the largest and most pressing task we have to 
 perform. Nothing should be allowed to stand 
 in the way of doing it promptly and thoroughly. 
 The interests at stake are priceless. Delay adds 
 to our dangers. Error here is fundamental and 
 multiplies itself a thousand fold, with consequent 
 
80 The War and Education 
 
 waste of money, friction in operation, failure in 
 teaching and discouragement in learning. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Nine-tenths of our boys and girls must start 
 early to earn their living. They should therefore 
 have the opportunity for enough vocational train- 
 ing to prepare them for their purpose. This, it 
 seems to me, is the solid truth on which vocational 
 training rests. It would be foolish to deny it. 
 But, like some other truths, it is not all the truth. 
 Nine-tenths of our boys and girls, yes, ten-tenths, 
 are human beings with minds and hearts as well 
 as hands. Whenever any of them must begin to 
 prepare directly to earn a living, they should have 
 the chance for good vocational training of course. 
 Is this all they are to have? Will their vocational 
 training be injured if they also have as much 
 good general education as they have the chance to 
 take? Will it not rather help their vocational 
 studies? In fact, will not many of them do bet- 
 ter on the basis of general education alone? Prac- 
 tical results seem to prove this. Just as surely as 
 general knowledge is the best preparation for 
 acquiring particular knowledge or skill, so surely 
 their general education, even though scanty, will 
 
Vocational and General Education 81 
 
 be a help in vocational education and in vocation- 
 al labor. Owing to our present imperfect co- 
 ordination of the two, much friction arises. But 
 this should and can be largely remedied. Mean- 
 while we may rest assured that good general 
 schooling is a great help in all practical studies. 
 
 There is a more serious aspect of the question. 
 If nine-tenths of our youth are to get nothing or 
 little more than vocational studies, they are cut 
 off from their just chance for as much general 
 education as they can take, and are thereby largely 
 cut off from their just chance to rise by means of 
 the help this broader education would give them. 
 They are condemned in advance to industrial 
 serfdom and are on the way to form a huge pro- 
 letariat of discontent, the gravest menace our 
 democracy can encounter. They have the same 
 right to a square deal as any other Americans, 
 even if they do not happen to have the same abili- 
 ties or home advantages. Equal educational op- 
 portunity for all who can take it is their right. 
 To do anything to reduce that opportunity is to 
 deprive them of part of their rights. I am not 
 a socialist and yet I think the socialists are right 
 in their demand that equality of provision for the 
 best general education should be available for 
 
82 The War and Education 
 
 every boy and girl in the land who can take it, and 
 that nothing in our education should look toward 
 ecenomic slavery. Do we want a race of serfs 
 and peasants in our land? If we do, a sure means 
 to this end is to reduce the chances for general 
 education. 
 
 The greatest peril to which our education is 
 now exposed is the progressive reduction and de- 
 terioration of general education, the birthright of 
 every American youth, through the intolerant 
 encroachment of so-called "practical" studies. 
 The demand that everyone should have a good 
 chance to be trained to make a living is just. But 
 so long as "the life is more than the meat," so 
 long will making a good life be greater than 
 making a good living. Man cannot live without 
 bread, but "man shall not live by bread alone." 
 Owing to our strong practical instincts and the 
 material needs of our life, there is no danger that 
 vocational studies of all grades, from elementary 
 to highest, will lack support. They will get it. 
 But we are now facing the disintegration of our 
 general education. It simply cannot live if it is 
 to be put in unrestrained hostile rivalry with 
 "practical" studies. Some may ask whether it is 
 worth maintaining. The answer is very easy. It 
 
Vocational and General Education 83 
 
 is supremely worth maintaining because it is es- 
 sential to general intelligence, because it is the 
 one sure guarantee that all appHed or practical 
 studies will be steadied by true standards of 
 knowledge, because it is the one sure means of 
 opening the way of highest opportunity to all 
 our youth who can make the journey, and be- 
 cause it is the best practical safeguard of our 
 democratic freedom. It is always harder to 
 save the invisible than the visible things ; but the 
 invisible things, like truth and freedom, are what 
 make human life worth living. What greater 
 duty, then, rests upon all who care for education 
 than to end the antagonism between vocational 
 and general education by placing them in their 
 true and beneficial relation of mutual support. 
 
 These remarks indicate some of the perils of 
 severing vocational from general education. If, 
 then, they should not be severed, except when it 
 is necessary to begin vocational studies in order 
 to make a living, how ought they to be related? 
 The question is not easy to answer off-hand nor 
 in brief fashion. Before a definitely practical 
 answer can be given, there must be a closer agree- 
 ment as to what we mean by vocational and gen- 
 eral education and a better application of the 
 
84f The War and Education 
 
 agreement in practice. There is not yet a suffi- 
 cient working agreement, so far as I am aware, 
 on these highly important points. Nevertheless, 
 some points are clear ; enough to make plain what 
 these two types of education ought to be and 
 may become. 
 
 First of all, the general education, because of 
 its universality of aim and spirit must be the one 
 and only foundation for all our education. Take, 
 for example, our primary schools. Here all the 
 youth of our nation receive or should receive their 
 first elements of general knowledge, — our na- 
 tional language, our national history and other 
 studies. The secondary and higher general edu- 
 cation should rise on this base and be developed 
 securely, definitely and to their fullest extent. 
 Second, the vocational education should always 
 presuppose as much general education as will not 
 curtail the time necessary for proper vocational 
 training. In the same way the technical and 
 professional education should rest on a still more 
 extensive basis of general education. Thus, in 
 brief, the vocational and general education at 
 every stage are most harmoniously related to each 
 other when the vocational training, intended for 
 a definite particular end in each case, emerges 
 
Vocational and General Education 85 
 
 from and rests upon as large an amount of gen- 
 eral education as is practicable to obtain. In this 
 way the general precedes and prepares for the 
 special education and the special education 
 emerges from, rests on and benefits by the gen- 
 eral ability developed through the general edu- 
 cation. Each thus helps the other. If these 
 considerations are sound, it is clear that we have 
 a great deal to do before the happy result can be 
 accomplished. Our general education must be 
 rigorously simplified and centered in the few 
 studies which experience shows are of most fun- 
 damental value for the development of all-round 
 intelligence. The students in school and college 
 will need to learn that there is no education for 
 them without their own active and regular exer- 
 tion in study. The newly wakened sense of dis- 
 cipline and duty must be their powerful helper 
 here, as it must be for all of us who teach. Given 
 a simpler course of general education, based on 
 a few required fundamental studies well and 
 amply taught, as well as diligently studied, the 
 problem of our general education is solved. It 
 will also be put in a position to furnish something 
 more definite and dependable at each stage as a 
 preparation for vocational, technical and profes- 
 
86 The War and Education 
 
 sional courses. The vocational experts must set- 
 tle what actually constitutes good vocational 
 training of each kind. So far as I know, a com- 
 mon agreement has not yet been reached. It is 
 imperative that such an agreement should be 
 reached and reached soon. Of one thing we may 
 be sure, namely, that unless these studies are 
 planned so as to allow as much general educa- 
 tion as is practicable and to arrange vocational 
 studies so that they emerge from general educa- 
 tion, instead of supplanting it, the present danger 
 both to general and vocational education will 
 increase. 
 
 I do not here enter into such important ques- 
 tions as the relation of the workshop to the school 
 or the modes of vocational teaching, whether from 
 example to rule or from rule to example, or on 
 anything else of vocational technique. But I do 
 urge on all friends of education the vital impor- 
 tance of using the new-born sense of discipline 
 and duty as the impulse which must save all our 
 schools of every sort. Why listen to the nonsense 
 that mental discipline is absurd and injurious? I 
 know some psychologists — ^not all psychologists 
 — ^hold that we know nothing of the mind or even 
 know that we have a mind, and that all we know 
 
Vocational and General Education 87 
 
 IS "animal behavior." Even if this were so, would 
 it not be well that we animals should be trained to 
 behave as well as possible? And why listen to 
 the nonsense that no student should have to study 
 any subject he finds "uninteresting"? Here the 
 truth that every study should be so taught that 
 the student shall see its value is perverted into the 
 untruth that no study should be taught before the 
 student sees its value. The answer to such theo- 
 ries is written in the world's history. The undisci- 
 plined mind has generally been beaten. The mas- 
 ter key to success in studies, general or vocational, 
 as to success in life, is hard work, steady work, 
 honest work, intelligent work. 
 
 I have said our two-fold division of education 
 rests on training for knowledge and training for 
 action. There is a third term of human life be- 
 hind knowledge and action, — the primal impulse 
 of both. Some call it Feeling. Some call it 
 Heart. If we once get hold of this motive in 
 students and teachers, we shall find the force 
 which, acting with friendliness, consideration and 
 sympathy, will show us the way to teach any 
 study and also to maintain our general education 
 in its full integrity and to unite both general 
 and vocational education in one mutually sup- 
 porting system. 
 
1 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 021 349 209 3 
 
 «>