'• #°+ % ~?WM: J*** **lllv /\ '^ A-rj-.V y*jtfte% *^vk-° ** TOY- / V^V 1 .•!!£/♦ > # - ***** :- "W .• •* 9 aV^ < cs y o « o „ **>* • rf^tv^*. O j* ^ s •©. * » „ » » av" *•#■ + *. THE DAME SCHOOL OF EXPERIENCE AND OTHER PAPERS BY SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS Author of "The Gentle Reader" "The Pardoner's Wallet," "The Pleasures of an Absentee Landlord" etc. BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1920 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY SAMUEL M. CROTHERS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1-0 o g)CU60l712 NOV 26 S320 CONTENTS An Interview with an Educator i The Teacher's Dilemma 25 Every Man's Natural Desire to be Some- body Else 51 The Perils of the Literate 71 Natural Enemies and How to Make the Best of Them ioi The Spiritual Adviser of Efficiency Ex- perts 135 The Pilgrims and their Contemporaries 160 Education in Pursuit of Henry Adams 186 The Hibernation of Genius 214 The Unpreparedness of Liberalism 232 On the Evening of the New Day 258 THE DAME SCHOOL , OF EXPERIENCE • AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR In my journey through the world, I chanced one day on the School of Experience. I had heard of this institution, but it had never been my good fortune to visit it. The schoolhouse was an an- cient building, and the withered dame who had presided there for many millenniums stood at the door. She was watching the departure of some of her brighter pupils who had learned the day's lesson, which had been an unusually hard one even for the School of Experience. "May I come in, dame?" I asked. "Do you come to learn?" "I come to learn about your school. I have heard it highly spoken of. I am much interested in educational methods." "Is that all? I thought you might be inter- ested in education. But that is too much to 1 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR expect. Nowadays everybody is interested in methods." Here she laughed, as if she were recalling some bitter prehistoric joke. I found the equipment of the school-room very primitive. The rude benches were fantastically carved by generations of pupils who had made their mark in the world. I noticed the name of Genghis Khan, and Pompey the Great, and Attila, and Jesse James, and other celebrities. There were also the initials of statesmen and saints who had here obtained the rudiments of education. The ancient blackboard was covered with moral maxims, all of the simplest character. It was evident that the dame did n't go in for the fancy branches of ethics. Behind the teach- er's desk was a large assortment of rods. "I see you believe in corporal punishment." "I did n't say I believed in it, did I? I don't use those rods. I only keep them handy. 'There they are,' I say to my pupils. 'Do as you like with them.' Then they beat each other with them until they learn better." "Doesn't it injure the pupils?" I asked. "Of course it does. I should think that even 2 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR you would know that. But if after a while they learn that it does injure them, is n't that some- thing worth knowing? That's what I call get- ting results. As to methods, I have n't any to speak of. I let them do as they please, as long as they please; and when it doesn't please them any longer, I wait for them to ask why? Then I don't tell them. After they have asked a long time, it begins to dawn on them that they never will get an answer till they use their minds. Some of them do. They are the ones I can educate." "It must be a long and expensive process." "I never claimed that my school was cheap." I realized that the dame had a peppery tem- per and the interview must be carried on with discretion. "I understand that you have been educating the human race for a long time." "Do I look it?" "No, you look remarkably fresh." "Don't tell lies. You get found out. That's the first lesson in my school. It's a long time since I first set up my school in a cave, and tried to educate a lot of lively young troglodytes who did n't want to be educated." 3 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR "That must have been an interesting experi- ment. What kind of a mind did the troglodyte have?" "About the same kind of a mind that you have. The moment I set eyes on you I was struck by the family resemblance." I must have betrayed a momentary embar- rassment, for she continued in a conciliatory tone, "No offense intended. The troglodyte had very much the same sort of a mind you have, though you doubtless use what mind you have better than he did, for you have the advantage of the lessons your ancestors learned in my school. They made a good many mistakes for you. You don't need to make them over again unless you want to. When I saw you looking at the door, as if to say, 'I wonder what that old lady is do- ing there,' I thought of the first homo sapiens I tried to teach. I said, 'He's a chip of the old block. He does n't know much, but he has curi- osity. He will ask questions.' "I knew that when I induced the first homo sapiens to ask questions I'd got him. I said, 'If I can keep him asking Why? and How? and Whence? and Whither? I can draw him out.' " 4 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR "Don't you ever in your school tell the an- swers to the questions ? " "What would be the use? They don't pay at- tention to what I say. If I tell them a bit of wis- dom before they find it out for themselves, they think it is a joke. When they find it out for them- selves, they take it seriously." "Oh! I understand your method. You have really modern ideas after all. You believe in learning by doing." "Not exactly. At least, not by doing what they are told to do. My pupils are always doing something or other — and it's generally wrong. They have more activity than good sense. The world is full of creatures that are doing things without asking why. You can't educate a grass- hopper. He's too busy hopping. The peculiar- ity of man is that sometimes you can induce him to stop and think." "I presume, dame, that you use object-lessons in your teaching." "No, I don't use them. The pupils use them. There they are, good, bad, and indifferent. A pupil sees an object and likes the looks of it. He calls out, 'Teacher, may I have that? I want 5 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR it.' 'Very well,' I say, 'take it or leave it! But if you leave it you can't take it, and if you take it you must take the consequences that go with it.' "'But,' he says, 'I don't see any conse- quences!' 'You '11 see them soon enough if you take it. Pretty soon there won't be anything but consequences.' "They never pay any attention to moral re- marks like that, and they seize the thing they want, regardless of the consequences. But the consequences stick to them like burrs. After a time they see that the two things always go to- gether. That's a big lesson." "A good many people," I said, "never learn it." "Quite so: every school has its failures." "What do you consider the most important branch of learning in your curriculum?" "Gumption." "Is that a required study? They did n't teach it in my school." "I presume not. Some don't." She pointed to a group of pupils who were bending over their tasks. "That," she said, "is the beginners' class AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR in common gumption. They have failed in the first lesson, and I'm keeping them after school." "But they look unusually intellectual." "Very." she said; "they look that way, and they feel that way. They are good on all the ad- vanced lessons, but they have n't got gumption." Just then one of the pupils jumped up, snapped his fingers to attract attention, and cried, "Teacher! I got it! May I go home?" "What's gumption?" "It's what we have n't got enough of yet to know what's the matter with us." "Good," she said, "you are coming on. You have learned enough for one day. You may go now. To-morrow we will have another lesson." She turned to me triumphantly. "You see he's learning something. It's the first time he has got the idea that there is some- thing the matter with him. He does n't know what it is, but he's on the right track." "I should like to know, dame, what are your ideas on educational values?" "The chief educational value," she said, "is something to eat. When you don't know where you are going to get it, it stimulates the ques- 7 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR tions, Why? Where? How? When? How are you to get your breakfast? This is a question you can't put off till to-morrow. It quickens your wits. Examination comes every day. If you fail to get your breakfast, you know it. This tends to thoroughness." "But that seems to me to be a materialistic basis for education. A person may get plenty to eat and yet not be what you would call an edu- cated man — at least, not liberally educated." "I did n't say he was. Getting enough to eat is only the first lesson. Getting it honestly takes you pretty far on in ethics. It introduces a good many hows. Many of these problems are not yet solved in my school. To begin with, the table-manners of my pupils were awful. In my first cave the answers to the food-questions were very crude. "When a healthy young troglodyte was hun- gry, he snatched his food from somebody who was weaker. This was very convenient for the snatcher, and the snatchee did n't count. But the time came when the snatcher came with a good healthy appetite and there was no one to ^snatch from. 8 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR "After a while it dawned upon the brighter snatchers that, if they were to make their busi- ness profitable, they must leave the snatchee enough to keep him alive. This was the first lesson in political economy. Then, after a while, a revolutionary doctrine was broached which you see on the blackboard: 'Thou shalt not steal.' The idealists who accepted this theory were confronted with the question, 'If you are not allowed to live by stealing, how can you live?' That's a puzzler." "I'm surprised, dame, that you have n't got beyond the Eighth Commandment." "Have you ? Maybe you are among those who think they have solved the problem when they let other people do their stealing. Here are some exercises of my pupils in the seventeenth century. They were printed in the 'West- minster Larger Catechism.' Ever hear of it?" "I learned the 'Shorter Catechism' as far as 'What is Effectual Calling?'" "This is the 'Larger Catechism.' It is more thorough." | She opened her desk and brought out an old volume and read, — 9 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR "'What is the Eighth Commandment?' "'The Eighth Commandment is, Thou shalt not steal.' "'What are the duties required in the Eighth Commandment ? ' '"The duties required in the Eighth Com- mandment are truth, faithfulness, and justice in contracts and commerce between man and man; rendering to every man his due; restitu- tion of goods unlawfully detained from the right owners thereof; giving and lending freely accord- ing to our abilities and the necessities of others; moderation of our judgments, wills, and appe- tites concerning worldly goods; a prudent care and study to get, keep, use, and dispose of those things that are necessary for the susten- tation of our nature and suitable to our condi- tion; a lawful calling and diligence in it; frugal- ity, and an endeavor by all just and lawful means to procure and preserve and further the wealth and outward estate of all others as well as ourselves.' "That's a pretty big contract, is n't it? You have to do all that just.to prevent stealing. It's a lesson in preventive honesty. It's a big, co- 10 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR operative undertaking. You are not really hon- est unless you 'endeavor by all just and lawful means to procure and preserve and further the wealth and outward estate of all others as well as ourselves.'" "I'm afraid we haven't got very far yet," I said. "Good for you," said the dame. "We'll have an honest world yet when ordinary men like you see how much has to be done." "What kind of ability do you value most in your .school ? " . "Adaptability. I have pupils who have a great deal of, ability, but they stand around helplessly waiting for some one to tell them how to use it. They look for a job that can fit them. It never occurs to them that they are being measured by the job, and must submit to a few necessary alterations before they can be accepted." "You are educating the aggregate mind," I said. "What difference do you find between it and the individual mind — mine for example?" "There's more of it," she said, "but it works in much the same way. The hard thing is to fix 11 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR its attention on anything long enough to have something happen. The chief necessity is drill. It's line upon line, precept upon precept. I have to drill perpetually on the fundamentals. I have to teach the parts of speech over and over again. I don't care much for nouns, but I'm great on verbs — active verbs in the present tense. "I put most of my time on two big verbs — the verb 'to hurt' and the verb 'to help.' I call these two my civilizers. "I began with 'to hurt.' This is the first thing that makes my pupils sit up and take notice. At first they take it only in a vaguely impersonal way. They say, 'It hurts.' They don't stop to ask what 'it' is. That lesson has n't a great deal of educational value. But when they begin to ask why, we get results. When one is hurt and asks why, the answer is quite per- sonal. He sees the other fellow and lays all the blame on him. 'He hurt me.' Then without need of prompting he goes on with, 'I hurt him.' This makes a lively lesson. These retali- atory exercises make a large part of human history. "It takes some time before I can get them to 12 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR take up the plural in the passive. But at last they come to see the consequences of their efforts — and say, l We are hurt.' They sud- denly realize that they are partners in suffer- ing. When they realize that, they have learned a mighty good lesson. They have to share the consequences." "That," I said, "is what the Greeks had in mind when they gave us the word sympathy — feeling together." "Yes, the Greeks found out a great deal. You see they did n't have to spend so much time learning ancient languages. So they learned from experience. The first thing people feel to- gether is pain. It takes longer to feel joy to- gether. They are more selfish about that and try to keep it to themselves. "When the pupils have mastered the verb 'to hurt,' I put them on the verb 'to help.' That's hard too. " The first lesson is the one each one likes best. 'I — help — myself.' The verb is in the reflex- ive form and reflects pleasantly on the actor. 'When I help myself, I feel that I am doing good to a person who deserves it.' This puts the 13 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR scholar in a good humor, and he 's ready for the next lesson. 'I — help — him. 5 In the first class in philanthropy, the pupil insists on being very pernickety about the object. The pupil says, 'I'll help him, if I know who he is, and if I 'm sure he is worthy of my help, and if he will be grateful.' This condescending attitude of the benefactor enrages the beneficiary, who does n't want to be helped that way, and looks upon it as but a variation of the exercises in the verb 'to hurt.' Sometimes these philanthropic les- sons go on for centuries, till I find that both sides are repeating the verb 'to hate.' " "It's too bad," I said, "that the beneficiaries are so ungrateful. When most people are so self- ish, it's good to find those who are ready to take up other people's burdens without so much as saying, 'By your leave.' I'm thrilled by the white man's burden." "Yes, I noticed that you were a white man. But if you were a black man, or a yellowish man, or a flight-brownish man you would n't feel that way?" "No, then I suppose I should make trouble." "Of course you would. A person who tried to 14 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR help you by hurting your self-respect would hurt you more than he helped you. You would know that you were hurt, and he would n't." "It's only after a great deal of misunderstood suffering that a higher lesson is learned and the verb is taken up in the plural: 'We — help — another.' Here there is no permanent distinc- tion between the benefactors and beneficiaries. It is a simple matter of give and take. When human beings get this far, they are beginning to be civilized. "But after the verb, the most important part of speech is the adverb. An adverb qualifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb. A great num- ber of practical failures are adverbial. An un- lucky adverb can queer the best verb in the dictionary. It's a regular hoodoo. I say to my scholars, 'Mind your adverbs.' "It is not enough to do the right thing — you must do it rightly. It is not enough to do a gen- erous thing — you must do it generously. To do a right thing wrongly is as bad as to do a wrong thing rightly. It mixes up the results. "You can say anything you please if you say it pleasantly. There are people who can't say 15 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR 1 How do you do?' without having it sound like an insult. They say it so inquisitorially. "They tell me that there are clubs where, in order to keep the peace, the members are not allowed to talk about the two most interesting subjects in the world — politics and religion. Now this is not because either of these subjects is in its nature quarrelsome — it's the people who discuss these things quarrelsomely. Noth- ing is more delightful and illuminating than to talk politics with one who disagrees with you. What you object to is to have him disagree with you disagreeably. To talk religion sanctimoni- ously is intolerable, but the most worldly- minded man will enjoy the conversation of one who without pretense talks religiously." "I've noticed that recently," I said. "Dur- ing the war we have been drilling ourselves in a set of necessary adverbs. In order to meet the crisis, we had to eat sparingly, and dress eco- nomically, and speak guardedly, and endure stoically, and obey conscientiously, and look at our neighbor suspiciously. "Then suddenly victory came on such a stupendous scale that our imagination could not 16 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR conceive what had taken place. Somebody with a loud voice ought to go through the car of war calling out, 'End of this route. Change ad- verbs ! ' "I like the song of Miriam at the Red Sea. Then 'Miriam the prophetess . . . took a tim- brel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously. The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.' That has the right sound. Don't triumph economically or conscientiously — triumph gloriously." "I remember the circumstance well," said the dame. "But Miriam's conduct caused adverse criticism among some of the more sober-minded Israelites. They wondered where she got so many timbrels. Instead of giving them a song, she would have shown more seriousness if she had given them another talk on the plagues they had been through in Egypt. "This negligence about the adverb causes many excellent people to draw the false lesson from their failures. They think that what they did was wrong, and get discouraged. What their 17 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR failure really taught was that the thing could n't be done that way, and they should try again. "There was Aristides, who was called 'the Just' till it got on the nerves of the Athenians. He could n't understand it. Now the trouble was n't that he was too just, but that he did justice too monotonously. "I used to say, 'Aristides, I don't mean to suggest, but can't you let your justice break out in a new spot? You have been doing justice to the free-born citizens till they can't stand it any more. Their consciences have reached the satu- ration point. Why don't you practice justice on a new set who are not used to it ? Why not try it on the slaves ? It would be a real treat to them. The Athenians would n't know what to make of it and would quit calling you the Just.' "'What would they call me then?' '"I'm sure I don't know, but it would be in- teresting for you to find out.' " "What you say about adverbs reminds me of a saying of Lord Bacon's. He said something to the effect that when people who had tried to do a desirable thing and failed told him that their experiment proved that it could n't be done, 18 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR it only proved that it could n't be done that way." "Yes, Francis was one of my star pupils. He used to say that my school was the only one in which he learned anything. I suppose I fa- vored him, for they used to call him Teacher's Pet. He was always doing things with his mind. When anything occurred that was suspiciously intellectual, they always laid it on Francis. "Excuse me, sir, I must listen to the spelling- class in words of one syllable." She rapped for attention and said, "Spell war." There was a long roar, increasing as one after another took up the sound, and it kept up as if it would never end. " Say it ! and then stop it. This is not a long- drawn-out, polysyllabic word like 'hypochon- driachal.' It's a word of one syllable. Say it sharply and decisively. Don't keep on snarling and growling as if you were worrying the dic- tionary. Stop rolling your r's. I don't object to those who don't know when they are beaten, but not to know when you are victorious sounds weak-minded. When you've got all you fought for, why do you want to keep on fighting? It's 19 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR a bad habit your ancestors got into, snarling over bones in the cave. When they got into a fight, they never knew when it was ended. When you have to say war, say it sharply and decisively — and cut it short." "Teacher! We can't help it. We've got go- ing!" "Very well, then! Get going on something else. Spell peace!" There was a soft purring murmur, ending in an apologetic whisper. "That's worse than the other. Don't say peace timidly, or petulantly, or apprehensively. That's what makes people throw things at you. Say it manfully, and boldly, and as if you ex- pected something to happen. And if you can say it intelligently — why all the better." I thought it was time to change the subject. "Dame! What class of pupils gives you the most trouble?" " Some of the advanced thinkers are about as troublesome as any. Their minds get going so fast on some slippery subjects that they skid. Before they know it they are advancing back- ward. They have a delightful sensation of going 20 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR as they please till they collide with some fact they did n't know was there. "When a new idea gets control of an unfur- nished mind, it has the time of its life. There is nothing inside to molest it or make it afraid. I have pupils who are bubbling over with mod- ernness. They are effervescing with contempo- raneousness. But they are continually repeat- ing the blunders of their great-great-grand- fathers. They call old sins by new names, and they pride themselves on their up-to-date prim- itiveness. They have learned a few things that other people don't know; and they have never found out some things that the race found out long ago. They are pleased to think that they are original. So they are — aboriginal. These arti- ficial aborigines are harder to civilize than the natural aborigines, because they think that civili- zation is a stage that they have gone through." "They have been through it, have n't they? They were civilized to begin with." "Their parents were — more or less." "Still, it's a good thing to go back to first principles." "Of course it is. But they don't go back to 21 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR first principles. Principles aren't in their line. All they care for is sensations. They go back to a state of mind where there are n't any principles to speak of. When they come to a 'Thou shalt not/ they go and do it. They call every pro- hibition a taboo. They think their first duty is to break every taboo they come across. It gives them a creepy feeling of not doing their duty. They like to feel that way." "But there are a great many taboos that ought to be broken," I said. "Of course there are. But there's a difference between a taboo and something which people have found out in the hard school of experience. What's an education good for if it does n't en- able people to make just such distinctions as that? A crow sees an object in the field that may turn out to be only a harmless scarecrow. But if he is a sensible crow, he will make an in- vestigation before committing himself. He has seen too many men who look like scarecrows to take chances." I saw that the old dame's nerves were on edge, and I thought it was time to draw the interview to a close. 22 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR "I have greatly enjoyed my visit," I said. "Your school seems to be thorough. There is just one criticism I might make, and that is about the length of time it takes to learn any- thing in particular. The curriculum seems adapted to persons whose longevity is abnormal. There was Methuselah, for example. By the time he was five or six hundred years old he must have accumulated a good deal of valuable experience. He had still several centuries in which to apply the lessons he had learned. But in a beggarly four-score years you can't get on far. The world is getting frightfully compli- cated, and it's going faster all the time. There should be some way of expediting the educa- tional process. We are confused: when a new idea gets into our heads, it drives out those that were already there." "Your heads are n't very roomy; that's a fact. But what can I do about it? I suppose you want me to put up a sign — 'Painless Educator, Prejudices Removed Without Your Knowing It.' Perhaps you want me to start a corre- spondence school, and advertise: 'The lessons of Experience furnished without the Experi- 23 AN INTERVIEW WITH AN EDUCATOR ence.' You want some kind of a get-wise-quick scheme." "Why not?" I said. "If you can't get wise quickly, what's the use of getting wise at all?" "Now you've asked a worth-while question. Why not? Hold on to that question. If you in- tend to get wise, you must lose no time. What did I tell you about the parts of speech? Expe- rience is n't a noun. You can't accumulate ex- periences as if they were thrift stamps to be pasted in a book. Why not treat me as a verb? If you get the right adverb, you will find that I'm not so slow as you think. You can experi- ence a good deal if you use your mind. But you must make up your mind to step lively if you are to experience anything much. But this is my busy day. Good afternoon, sir. Mind your adverbs!" As I walked down the ancient path, I heard her repeating, "I experience, thou experiencest, he experiences. We experience, you experience, they experience. I wonder if they will ever learn to do it quickly enough to do them any good." THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA "But after all," said the chairman, "the way out is perfectly plain. It's merely a matter of education." The meeting had been devoted to the subject of Americanization. The speakers had told of the many dangers which threaten the Republic. Allusion had been made to the melting-pot the- ory, and it was pointed out that instead of a gradual fusion of all the various elements there might be a violent explosion. The remedy was not to be found in the restriction of immigra- tion. The dangerous classes were not altogether composed of aliens. We must raise the level of American life. There must be more idealism, more intelligence, and keener sense of responsi- bility. The old type of citizen was not sufficient; we must have a new and better American. To all this the chairman agreed most heartily; he recognized the manifold dangers and the need of doing something. But when he uttered the magic word "education" all his difficulties van- 25 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA ished. Like the successful business man that he was he referred the new demand to the proper department, with perfect confidence that it would be attended to by the persons in charge. It appears from what has been said that there is need of a large number of well-trained citizens. They must be more quick-witted, more mag- nanimous, more disinterested than those of the past generation. Moreover, they must have a lot of up-to-date ideas and the courage to carry them out. Very well, let our teachers get busy and turn out these new citizens in the quantity needed. That's what our schools and colleges are meant for. We support them and have a right to insist that they shall respond to the emergency. If we have to pay more than we have been accustomed to pay, we will put our hands in our pockets cheerfully. If the teachers will raise the whole level of American life, they will have earned their salaries. That which was most irritating in the chair- man was his appearance of perfect sanity. He made his preposterous demands in such a mat- ter-of-fact way that the audience took them as a matter of course. And yet they would have 26 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA seen the absurdity of asking a company of en- gineers to raise the level of the sea. This general level of intelligence constitutes to the idealistic teacher the great difficulty in the practice of his art. For the present level is very low, and yet it is enormously difficult to raise any individual above it. It represents the average that has already been attained. To educate a person up to this point is compara- tively easy. All social attractions are favorable. But to educate one a little beyond is a very different matter. Up to a certain point we all believe in the process of leveling up. We would raise the grade of the highway till it gives a convenient ap- proach to our front door. Any uplifting of the road beyond that would leave us in a hole. We cease to regard the public improvement as a betterment and bring suit for damages. Such opposition is encountered by any one who undertakes to teach any truth which is higher than the community has heretofore believed in. It is not sufficient to demonstrate its reality. It must be repeated in one form or another until at last it finds access to minds that are predis- 27 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA posed to reject it. And when it has at last been accepted in words it may be completely misap- prehended. The old notions of an earlier age still remain and obscure the new teaching. And this from no fault of the teacher, but from the sheer inability of the learner to make a funda- mental change in his way of thinking. It is a slow and difficult process that of edu- cation, but there are teachers who are not dis- couraged and seek to do more than confirm what has already been established. They seek to en- large the scope of the mind and to enable it to deal effectively with new conditions. They con- ceive of their function as that of the intellectual pioneer. All they can do is to make a beginning in the vast wilderness. In the "Dame School of Experience" I have tried to indicate the slow and painful process by which we learn to respect the actual and to adapt ourselves to our environment. There are many hard knocks before we come to have a decent respect for facts. There must be "line upon line and precept upon precept." As each generation begins at the beginning our systems of education must be largely concerned with 28 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA the task of preserving what has been already gained. But education means something more than interpreting past experiences. It means also the creation of minds capable of experiencing deeper emotions and responding to finer incentives. Here the educator is not a copyist of something already existing; he is an artist creating some- thing which heretofore was without form. Out of human materials under actual conditions, and with such tools as are at his disposal, he endeav- ors to produce a better kind of man. It is a dar- ing attempt and involves difficulties unforeseen by those who lightly or unadvisedly venture upon the path of progress. But it is an ambition that inspires the great teacher, and makes his function supremely important. To teach people what they want to know and to show them how to do something whose use- fulness is already obvious to them requires pa- tience, but not insight. But it is quite a different thing to teach them what they do not want to know, and to induce them to exercise faculties which they have never before used; to enjoy what had been distasteful to them; to turn THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA drudgery into recreation; and to cooperate cheerfully with people whom they had despised in behalf of some good which is as yet dimly seen and confusedly proclaimed. It is one thing to teach a person to conform to a conventional standard of respectability. It is quite another thing to make him capable of a daring stroke of rectitude by which he may, like the ancient servant of Jehovah, be "numbered among the transgressors." It is one thing to teach the raw recruit in the army of humanity to keep step with his comrades. It is quite another thing to teach him to take a single step in advance — alone and in the dark. Yet we are all agreed that what is most needed is a larger number of human beings who are capable of moral and intellectual initiative. Out of the multitude of drillmasters in the educational world whose useful but unexciting work it is to explain the actual and to make us as contented with it as is possible under the cir- cumstances, there arise a certain number of creative teachers. Like all creators their work is complicated by the nature of the materials which they use. To 30 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA create something out of nothing would be very simple — if it could be done. For the original nothingness could be conveniently ignored as a mere cipher. But when one tries to create something out of something else, he must under- stand the something else, and make allowance for its peculiarities. If he does not, instead of pro- ducing something better, he may find that the result of his ambitious attempt is something worse, or perhaps nothing at all. The real teacher is a radical reformer who habitually uses the most conservative means to attain revolutionary ends. By indirection he seeks to bring about fundamental changes which the more violent direct action could not accomplish. Education is a vast conspiracy against the exist- ing order. If it succeeded we should have a state of things quite different from anything which has ever been known. If within a year the average intelligence of the population of. the earth were raised ten per cent, what a commotion there would be ! There is not an institution which would not feel the shock as of an earthquake. What authorities would be set at naught, what dignitaries would be disgraced, 31 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA what a vast number of respected leaders would find their occupation gone ! If with this intellec- tual change of level there should occur a corre- sponding moral uplift, the result would be, as the newspaper reporter would say, indescrib- able. I cannot imagine the confusion of values that would follow. That the best directed efforts of creative teachers do not result in such beneficent catas- trophes is due to the nature of the educational processes. Our native stupidities are so amply and variously protected that there is little danger that they will all give way at once. The zeal of the teacher is always moderated by the re- luctance of the pupil to entertain any idea with which he is not already familiar. The way of the uplifter is hard; and he does not need the scoffs of the Philistine to teach him modesty. Nowhere is the struggle for existence more fierce and the conflict between the Haves and the Have-nots more unrelenting than in a school- room. It may be disguised under the most gra- cious forms, and there may be all the appearance of a cooperative commonwealth, but as a matter of fact it is a revolutionary war. The real aim of 32 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA the teacher is one which the pupil is not yet pre- pared to accept. The teacher wishes to improve the pupil's mind. But the unimproved mind is the only kind the pupil has, and when he uses it he must use it in his own way. It is with this un- improved mind that he passes judgment upon the improvements, which on the whole seem chimerical. The ulterior end of the teacher is culture, and as a means to this he devises various lessons, and proficiency is tested by periodical examinations. The pupil, being a severely practical person, bows to necessity and humors the powers that be by working hard enough to comply with their tests. His attitude is that of Hercules. He will per- form the labors which are required of him each day, but with a defiance of the will of him who arbitrarily imposes them. By and by when his taskmaster can think of nothing more, he will enjoy himself with large Herculean ease. In the meantime the teacher with the patience of hope continues the enforcement of jf'discif)lip£ whose purpose must necessarily be only imper- fectly understood. He watches the successive 33 \ THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA phases of a developing intelligence. He rejoices in the intensity of interests which he knows must be temporary, and in faint glimmerings of appreciation of what is 'permanent. The boy is on the way to becoming a man. It is the teacher's desire to help him to be a better kind of a man than he would be without such assist- ance. But only when the days of tutelage are over can the minds of the teacher and the learner really meet. In each step in the educational process the teacher must take into account the limitations of the pupil's mind. The new thought can only be entertained when it is connected with some- thing already known. Interest can only be aroused by taking advantage of interests al- ready existing. The effective teacher is always a symbolist. He has a genius for analogy. He teaches in parables. "This," he says, "is like that. The advanced lesson I am giving you to- day is based on the lesson you learned yesterday. It carries the principle, with which you are familiar, «y little farther." All this the pupil readily accepts. He takes the, rtzw idea as the teller takes the check of the < 34 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA stranger who has been introduced by a regular customer of the bank. He is all right having been properly vouched for. He understands the lesson sufficiently when he identifies it with what he knows already. The intellectual operation is complete. But to the teacher the operation was not com- plete. The analogy was meant to be suggestive and not satisfying. He meant to lure the learner on to receive something new. But nothing happened. He feels the disappointment of the angler when the wary fish nibbles off the bait without taking the hook. He has learned every- thing but that which the lesson was intended to teach. In the New Testament we are told how the young Galilean teacher charmed the multitude by clothing the highest spiritual truths in lan- guage drawn from their most familiar experi- ence. He told them stories, he gave them vivid pictures of the land they lived in. Without a parable spake he not unto them. The Kingdom of Heaven which he proclaimed he never defined in the abstract language of the schools. He never told them what it was in itself; he told 35 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA them what it was like. It was like the things which farmers and fishermen encountered in their work, and which children were familiar with in their play. The Kingdom of Heaven was like all these things. It was all this and some- thing more. The people listened to such marvelous teach- ing and were stirred by it. But what did they learn? They learned what they were prepared to learn. They interpreted the words, each ac- cording to his own nature. It could be no other- wise. It was like, said the teacher, the broad sowing of the wheat. No matter who the sower might be, and how good the seed, a great deal depended on the soil and what was already in it. There were not only rocky places to be consid- ered where there was no depth of earth, but there were also birds of the air and a multitude of rank weeds to choke the wheat. Teaching by means of parables has its risks. "The legs of the lame," said the shrewd Hebrew proverb, "are not equal, so is a parable in the mouth of fools." And parables are not intended for the altogether wise. A fool-proof parable is an impossibility. 36 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA There are minds which are easily satisfied. They grasp eagerly at an analogy and treat it as a complete and final definition. They accept a symbol, but refuse to go on to an understanding of the thing symbolized. "Seeing they see and do not perceive, hearing they hear but do not understand." Most popular errors have behind them the authority of great names. They are based on the misapprehended and misreported words of the wise. Here is the teacher's dilemma. If he teaches by parables he is liable to be grievously misun- derstood by the literal-minded. If he does not use parables he has no point of contact with the minds he seeks to influence. This dilemma of the teacher needs to be under- stood by any one who would do justice to historic religion. The Christian Church is a great edu- cational institution. It attempts to develop a certain spiritual temper and high moral idealism. It seeks to hand down through the generations, not merely a doctrine, but a peculiar kind of life. The critic asks, why does it not do this ? Why 37 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA should there be such a vast discrepancy between the Christian theory and practice? When Latimer and his fellow-martyrs suf- fered in front of the ancient colleges in Oxford there was the customary sermon. The preacher chose his text from the first epistle to the Corin- thians, "Though he give his body to be burned and have not charity it profiteth nothing." His argument from this text of Scripture was satis- factory to his congregation. These bishops were brought here to be burned and it was evident that as heretics they could not possibly exercise the mysterious Christian virtue called charity. It followed that these uncharitable folks could not get any profit from their own burning. That would all go to the people who looked on and learned the lesson. Did it occur to any one that this was a bitter travesty on the Christian reli- gion ? Not to the preacher, nor to those who set fire to the fagots. Even to the martyrs the ques- tion was a confused one; they also had preached sermons at the burning of heretics. There was, of course, the possibility of a general religious toleration, but that involved a number of ideas for which none of the more earnest Christians of 38 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA the day were prepared. That nobody should be burned in the name of Christian charity was a radical notion which the spirit of the age did not approve. To such glaring contradictions to the spirit of humanity the critic of Christianity points with ill-concealed scorn. "What does this talk about Christian charity amount to? How glaring is the contrast between theory and practice! A great organization has for more than eighteen centu- ries been engaged in a propaganda in behalf of the doctrine that we should love one another. Vast corporations have been created; incredible sums of money have been collected and dis- pensed; a publicity campaign has been carried on of such magnitude that in every city and hamlet people are gathered once in seven days to hear the proposition explained. All sorts of rewards have been promised to those who follow the in- structions of the propagandists, and in many parts of the world governmental authority has been invoked so that the education in the Chris- tian faith is not only free but compulsory. "Now look at the result in Christian Europe. This represents what has been accomplished up THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA to date. Is it not time to discover or to invent a new religion?" To all which the Christian teacher, chastened by his hard experience, is prepared to answer meekly: "I acknowledge the truth that lies back of your accusations. The results of such pro- longed effort do seem meager. Men do not love each other as our religion teaches that they should. But remember that we are teachers rather than miracle-workers, and must wait on the development of the human mind. " Suppose you try your hand at it. You need not talk about Christian charity which is for you a discredited term. Altruism suits you bet- ter and sounds scientific. Suppose you try to teach altruism on a large scale and to all sorts and conditions of men. And mind you play fair. Don't take a few selected specimens of genus homo like yourself who are by nature altruistic. That's too easy. We Christians have done that all along. We have had in the worst days a class of people named saints. We did not have to teach them altruism; they knew all about that already. We had to teach them common sense which was more difficult for them. 40 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA "What would you do with a person who was naturally and enthusiastically selfish ? There was only one thing he cared for and that was to have his own way. All the other people were so many obstacles to be brushed aside. All his powers were enlisted in the effort to grab everything in sight. How would you make him understand the meaning of altruism, and induce him to pre- fer it ? If you talked to him as you have talked to me your breath would be wasted. It would do no good to ask him to renounce himself; that is the way many of our Christian saints talked. They tried to magnify the idea of selflessness and make it attractive to the natural man, but they could not do it. The only thing he knew about was himself and to give up that was to choose nothingness." Our Christian teaching has taken another turn. We have appealed to something the man already has, self-love; and we have used that as a symbol and measure of something which we wish him to attain. "Love thy neighbor as thy- self." This is an appeal to something that seems understandable. There is a possibility of making a beginning — but it is only a beginning. For 41 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA the question arises, Who is my neighbor, and how can I love him as I love myself? The pas- sage from egoism to altruism is not an easy one. There must be many desert wanderings, with perhaps only a Pisgah sight at last. A favorite mediaeval story was that of Robert the Devil and his conversion. Robert had been a notorious robber and the all-around villain in whom the story-tellers delighted. He gathered around him a band of outlaws who murdered priests and desecrated churches and filled the countryside with the terror of his name. Sud- denly he saw his sins and repented and resolved to become a saint. His first step as a Christian man was to call his band together in his castle. When the doors were locked, he turned the revels into an experience meeting and told what the Lord had done for his soul. With moving elo- quence he asked his followers to do at once as he had done, renounce utterly their sins and go with him to Rome to ask the Holy Father to give them some pious task to perform. It was all very sudden to this godless crew and they hesi- tated. But Robert was very much in earnest and felt that the King's business required haste. 42 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA So not waiting for further discussion he fell upon them with his sword and killed every man, whereupon, with penitent heart and contrite prayers, he proceeded to Rome to inquire what he should do next. Robert's conversion left much to be desired, but was its imperfectness the fault of the priest whose words had touched his heart? Suppose he had been fortunate enough to have been a lec- turer of the Society for Ethical Culture, and had been stirred to undertake a new life. His first impulse would have been to slay all who were not willing at once to join the society. To re- frain from such an act would imply a degree of ethical culture which Robert had not yet had time either to comprehend or to desire. Let us suppose that Paul in his praise of char- ity had sought to avoid the misuse of his refer- ence to fire, and used water instead. His text would then have been used on occasions when heretics were drowned. I cannot see that teachers of science have been any more successful than have been the teachers of religion when they have attempted to intro- duce a new idea. They also are symbolists and 43 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA their symbols are continually misapprehended and their doctrines misapplied. The very term "law of nature" is a highly poetical figure of speech. It is taken from a fa- miliar experience of a purely human relationship. When the natural philosopher tries to make us understand that there are sequences which so far as our observation goes are invariable, he uses this method of teaching. "You know about law, don't you? When the traffic policeman says stop, you obey him be- cause he represents the law. It's something more than his momentary will. It's something that's the same to-day and yesterday and to- morrow. Stand near the crossing for an hour, and you will see that everybody acts just as you do. If somebody is slow in obeying, the police- man runs him in. Now in nature we observe something like that. The little drops of water and the little grains of sand act according to laws. The chemist comes to recognize each dif- ferent kind of a molecule by its behavior, for it always behaves in the same way. It's the same with folks. We are under the reign of law. There are the laws of health. If we obey them we are 44 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA well. There is the law of supply and demand, and the law of survival of the fittest and all the rest that you should know about." And the docile hearer of the scientific word says, "Oh, yes, I understand. We are all under the reign of law. If we obey the law we have done our duty. If we disobey we suffer the pen- alty." And then all the old familiar ideas about the legislator and judge and policeman come back. The law is all right and we ought to obey it, but after all the great thing is not to be caught. Now and then a small boy manages to take an orange from the Italian's cart and get away with it. Sometimes the policeman is n't watching and then we can break the law and nothing will hap- pen to us. But it's better on the whole to be law-abiding. There is that blessed law of Evolution. It's just the opposite of Revolution. We ought to obey the evolutionary law, for it really is for our benefit. It means that we ought to go slowly when we try to improve things. If we go too fast there 's no knowing what might happen. We might upset everything we know anything about. 45 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA And there is that law of natural selection which Darwin discovered. We know what selec- tion means; we practice it ourselves. We go to the town meeting to choose men to do the town's business for the next year. We call them " Se- lectmen." They were selected as those who were fittest to represent us. Or we want to go from New York to Chicago. There are several ways of going, but we select the Pennsylvania because we want to stop at Pittsburgh on the way. In each case we know what we want and we select what seems to us the best way to get it. Now it's the same way with Nature. Natural selection is Nature's way of doing what we do when we choose our selectmen or go on a railroad journey. Nature selects those who are fitted to survive, and she goes about it in a perfectly ruthless, but on the whole effective, manner. She takes millions of living things and does all sorts of things to them. Some of them survive. They are the fittest. The more faithfully we copy this natural method of selection the better for us. When we select a type of humanity which cannot stand this survival test, and try to develop its present 46 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA weakness into a new kind of strength, we are interfering with Nature. We are breaking the law and will inevitably come to grief. All this confusion of thought is precisely such as every teacher is familiar with in the class- room. The child picks up a phrase which he thinks he understands and does not. Then from a verbal mistake he draws conclusions. The more logical his mind the farther he is led from reality. He argues from one analogy to another till at last he is a perfect wilderness of practical errors. A law of nature has one analogy to a human law; in almost every other respect it is quite unlike. The idea of obedience or disobedience leads us far astray. I can disobey the law of Massachusetts. But when I attempt to disobey the law of gravitation I simply illustrate it. As for natural selection, it is one of those paradoxical phrases which teachers sometimes throw out to stimulate curiosity on the part of torpid pupils. There is just enough of an anal- ogy to make it interesting, but the paradox is obvious. The natural process which is described is just the opposite of the human process of 47 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA selection. In no way can it be a model for our action, unless we give up what is distinctive in rational choice. In reforming the civil service the selective method was changed. Instead of allowing the heads of departments to choose their subordi- nates arbitrarily the whole matter was arranged by law. Examinations are held by which those unfit for the position are rejected. But these tests are established with a definite purpose. The applicant must not merely be able to sur- vive, he must be fit to perform certain definite work. The examinations are to determine that particular ability. If the department should make the rule that every candidate should be thrown into the ocean and those who were able to find a raft or to swim ashore should receive the appointment, we should hardly say these men were selected. We should say that entry into government service was left to chance. If the discoverers of physical facts and their relations one to another have difficulty in im- parting their fundamental ideas, is it any won- der that those who are dealing with human 48 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA affairs are baffled? They have only words with which to communicate thought; and every word has many meanings and associations. Even if a new word were invented it would mean nothing unless defined by old words. As for the new thought it must wait for the growth of the mind capable of thinking it. However explicit he may be in his instruction the teacher must be prepared to face the fact that whatever is not congenial to the mind of the pupil will be misapprehended. This misappre- hension will persist until such time as the pupil is developed to a point where he sees the truth for himself. When that time is reached, the teacher must summon all his disinterested virtue to console him in his hour of triumph. For it means that the disciple has thrown off the authority of the master. The reality which he now sees is quite different from the lessons he had learned by rote. In the exuberance of his freshly achieved independence he looks back scornfully on the years of his tutelage. The teacher wistfully watches him as he goes 49 THE TEACHER'S DILEMMA on his way with the unthankful confidence of youth. "I wonder," he says, "if he will ever understand that it was only that part of my teaching that he misapprehended that he has rejected; and that what he has just found out for himself is what during these long years I have been vainly trying to teach." EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE TO BE SOMEBODY ELSE Several years ago a young man came to my study with a manuscript which he wished me to criticize. "It is only a little bit of my work," he said modestly, "and it will not take you long to look it over. In fact it is only the first chapter, in which I explain the Universe." I suppose that we have all had moments of sudden illumination when it occurred to us that we had explained the Universe, and it was so easy for us that we wondered why we had not done it before. Some thought drifted into our mind and filled us with vague forebodings of omniscience. It was not an ordinary thought, that explained only a fragment of existence. It explained everything. It proved one thing and it proved the opposite just as well. It explained why things are as they are, and if it should turn out that they are not that way at all, it would prove that fact also. In the light of our great thought chaos seemed rational. 51 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE Such thoughts usually occur about four o'clock in the morning. Having explained the Universe, we relapse into satisfied slumber. When, a few hours later, we rise, we wonder what the explanation was. Now and then, however, one of these highly- explanatory ideas remains to comfort us in our waking hours. Such a thought is that which I here throw out, and which has doubtless at some early hour occurred to most of my readers. It is that every man has a natural desire to be some- body else. This does not explain the Universe, but it ex- plains that perplexing part of it which we call Human Nature. It explains why so many intel- ligent people, who deal skillfully with matters of fact, make such a mess of it when they deal with their fellow creatures. It explains why we get on as well as we do with strangers, and why we do not get on better with our friends. It explains why people are so often offended when we say nice things about them, and why it is that, when we say harsh things about them, they take it as a compliment. It explains why people marry their opposites and why they live happily ever 52 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE afterwards. It also explains why some people don't. It explains the meaning of tact and its opposite. The tactless person treats a person according to a scientific method as if he were a thing. Now, in dealing with a thing, you must first find out what it is, and then act accordingly. But with a person, you must first find out what he is and then carefully conceal from him the fact that you have made the discovery. The tactless person can never be made to understand this. He prides himself on taking people as they are without being aware that that is not the way they want to be taken. He has a keen eye for the obvious, and calls attention to it. Age, sex, color, nationality, previous condition of servitude, and all the facts that are interesting to the census-taker, are ap- parent to him and are made the basis of his con- versation. When he meets one who is older than he, he is conscious of the fact, and emphasizes by every polite attention the disparity in years. He has an idea that at a certain period in life the highest tribute of respect is to be urged to rise out of one chair and take another that is presum- 53 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE ably more comfortable. It does not occur to him that there may remain any tastes that are not sedentary. On the other hand, he sees a callow youth and addresses himself to the obvious cal- lowness, and thereby makes himself thoroughly disliked. For, strange to say, the youth prefers to be addressed as a person of precocious maturity. The literalist, observing that most people talk shop, takes it for granted that they like to talk shop. This is a mistake. They do it because it is the easiest thing to do, but they resent having attention called to their limitations. A man's profession does not necessarily coincide with his natural aptitude or with his predominant desire. When you meet a member of the Supreme Court you may assume that he is gifted with a judicial mind. But it does not follow that that is the only quality of mind he has; nor that when, out of court, he gives you a piece of his mind, it will be a piece of his judicial mind that he gives. My acquaintance with royalty is limited to photographs of royal groups, which exhibit a high degree of domesticity. It would seem that the business of royalty when pursued as a steady job becomes tiresome, and that when they have 54 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE their pictures taken they endeavor to look as much like ordinary folks as possible — and they usually succeed. The member of one profession is always flat- tered by being taken for a skilled practitioner of another. Try it on your minister. Instead of saying, "That was an excellent sermon of yours this morning," say, "As I listened to your cogent argument, I thought what a successful lawyer you would have made." Then he will say, "I did think of taking to the law." If you had belonged to the court of Frederick the Great you would have proved a poor court- ier indeed if you had praised His Majesty's campaigns. Frederick knew that he was a Prus- sian general, but he wanted to be a French liter- ary man. If you wished to gain his favor you should have told him that in your opinion he excelled Voltaire. We do not like to have too much attention drawn to our present circumstances. They may be well enough in their way, but we can think of something which would be more fitting for us. We have either seen better days or we expect them. 55 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE Suppose you had visited Napoleon in Elba and had sought to ingratiate yourself with him. "Sire," you would have said, "this is a beau- tiful little empire of yours, so snug and cozy and quiet. It is just such a domain as is suited to a man in your condition. The climate is excel- lent. Everything is peaceful. It must be delight- ful to rule where everything is arranged for you and the details are taken care of by others. As I came to your dominion I saw a line of British frigates guarding your shores. The evidences of such thoughtfulness are everywhere." Your praise of his present condition would not have endeared you to Napoleon. You were addressing him as the Emperor of Elba. In his own eyes he was Emperor, though in Elba. It is such a misapprehension which irritates any mature human being when his environment is taken as the measure of his personality. The man with a literal mind moves in a per- petual comedy of errors. It is not a question of two Dromios. There are half a dozen Dromios under one hat. How casually introductions are made, as if it were the easiest thing in the world to make two 56 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE human beings acquainted! Your friend says, "I want you to know Mr. Stifflekin," and you say that you are happy to know him. But does either of you know the enigma that goes under the name of Stifflekin? You may know what he looks like and where he resides and what he does for a living. But that is all in the present tense. To really know him you must not only know what he is but what he used to be; what he used to think he was; what he used to think he ought to be and might be if he worked hard enough. You must know what he might have been if cer- tain things had happened otherwise, and you must know what might have happened otherwise if he had been otherwise. All these complexities are a part of his own dim apprehension of him- self. They are what make him so much more interesting to himself than he is to any one else. It is this consciousness of the inadequacy of our knowledge which makes us so embarrassed when we offer any service to another. Will he take it in the spirit in which it is given? That was an awkward moment when Stanley, after all his hardships in his search for Dr. Liv- ingstone, at last found the Doctor by a lake in 57 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE Central Africa. Stanley held out his hand and said stiffly, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Stanley had heroically plunged through the equatorial forests to find Livingstone and to bring him back to civilization. But Livingstone was not particularly anxious to be found, and had a decided objection to being brought back to civilization. What he wanted was a new ad- venture. Stanley did not find the real Living- stone till he discovered that the old man was as young at heart as himself. The two men became acquainted only when they began to plan a new expedition to find the source of the Nile. The natural desire of every man to be some- body else explains many of the minor irritations of life. It prevents that perfect organization of society in which every one should know his place and keep it. The desire to be somebody else leads us to practice on work that does not strictly belong to us. We all have aptitudes and talents that overflow the narrow bounds of our trade or profession. Every man feels that he is bigger than his job, and he is all the time doing what theologians called "works of supererogation." 58 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE The serious-minded housemaid is not content to do what she is told to do. She has an unex- pended balance of energy. She wants to be a general household reformer. So she goes to the desk of the titular master of the house and gives it a thorough reformation. She arranges the papers according to her idea of neatness. When the poor gentleman returns and finds his familiar chaos transformed into a hateful order, he be- comes a reactionary. The serious manager of a street railway com- pany is not content with the simple duty of transporting passengers cheaply and comfort- ably. He wants to exercise the functions of a lecturer in an ethical culture society. While the transported victim is swaying precariously from the end of a strap he reads a notice urging him to practice Christian courtesy and not to push. While the poor wretch pores over this counsel of perfection, he feels like answering as did Junius to the Duke of Grafton, "My Lord, injuries may be atoned for and forgiven, but insults admit of no compensation." A man enters a barber shop with the simple desire of being shaved. But he meets with the 59 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE more ambitious desires of the barber. The seri- ous barber is not content with any slight con- tribution to human welfare. He insists that his client shall be shampooed, manicured, massaged, steamed beneath boiling towels, cooled off by electric fans, and, while all this is going on, that he shall have his boots blacked. Have you never marveled at the patience of people in having so many things done to them that they don't want, just to avoid hurting the feelings of professional people who want to do more than is expected of them ? You watch the stoical countenance of the passenger in a Pull- man car as he stands up to be brushed. The chances are that he does n't want to be brushed. He would prefer to leave the dust on his coat rather than to be compelled to swallow it. But he knows what is expected of him. It is a part of the solemn ritual of traveling. It precedes the offering. The fact that every man desires to be some- body else explains many of the aberrations of artists and literary men. The painters, drama- tists, musicians, poets, and novelists are just as human as housemaids and railway managers and 60 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE porters. They want to do "all the good they can to all the people they can in all the ways they can." They get tired of the ways they are used to and like to try new combinations. So they are continually mixing things. The prac- titioner of one art tries to produce effects that are proper to another art. A musician wants to be a painter and use his violin as if it were a brush. He would have us see the sunset glories that he is painting for us. A painter wants to be a musician and paint sym- phonies, and he is grieved because the unin- structed cannot hear his pictures, although the colors do swear at each other. Another painter wants to be an architect and build up his picture as if it were made of cubes of brick. It looks like brick-work, but to the natural eye it does n't look like a picture. A prose-writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he be- gins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose. You go to the theater with the simple-minded Shakespearean idea that the play's the thing. But the playwright wants to be a pathologist. So you discover that you have dropped into a EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE gruesome clinic. You sought innocent relaxa- tion, but you are one of the non-elect and have gone to the place prepared for you. You must see the thing through. The fact that you have troubles of your own is not a sufficient claim for exemption. Or you take up a novel expecting it to be a work of fiction. But the novelist has other views. He wants to be your spiritual adviser. He must do something to your mind, he must rearrange your fundamental ideas, he must massage your soul, and generally brush you off. All this in spite of the fact that you don't want to be brushed off and set to rights. You don't want him to do anything to your mind. It's the only mind you have and you need it in your own busi- ness. But if the desire of every man to be somebody else accounts for many whimsicalities of human conduct and for many aberrations in the arts, it cannot be lightly dismissed as belonging only to the realm of comedy. It has its origin in the nature of things. The reason why every man wants to be somebody -else is that he can remem- ber the time when he was somebody else. What 62 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE we call personal identity is a very changeable thing, as all of us realize when we look over old photographs and read old letters. The oldest man now living is but a few years removed from the undifferentiated germ-plasm, which might have developed into almost any- thing. In the beginning he was a bundle of pos- sibilities. Every actuality that is developed means a decrease in the rich variety of possibil- ities. In becoming one thing it becomes impos- sible to be something else. The delight in being a boy lies in the fact that the possibilities are still manifold. The boy feels that he can be anything that he desires. He is conscious that he has capacities that would make him a successful banker. On the other hand, there are attractions in a life of adventure in the South Seas. It would be pleasant to lie under a bread-fruit tree and let the fruit drop into his mouth, to the admiration of the gentle savages who would gather about him. Or he might be a saint — not a commonplace modern saint who does chores and attends tiresome com- mittee meetings, but a saint such as one reads about, who gives away his rich robes and his 63 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE purse of gold to the first beggar he meets, and then goes on his carefree way through the forest to convert interesting robbers. He feels that he might practice that kind of unscientific charity, if his father would furnish him with the money to give away. But by and by he learns that making a suc- cess in the banking business is not consistent with excursions to the South Seas or with the more picturesque and unusual forms of saintli- ness. If he is to be in a bank he must do as the bankers do. Parents and teachers conspire together to make a man of him, which means making a par- ticular kind of man of him. All mental processes which are not useful must be suppressed. The sum of their admonitions is that he must pay attention. That is precisely what he is doing. He is paying attention to a variety of things that escape the adult mind. As he wriggles on the bench in the schoolroom, he pays attention to all that is going on. He attends to what is going on out-of-doors; he sees the weak points of his fellow pupils, against whom he is planning puni- tive expeditions; and he is delightfully conscious 64 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE of the idiosyncrasies of the teacher. Moreover, he is a youthful artist and his sketches from life give acute joy to his contemporaries when they are furtively passed around. But the schoolmaster says sternly, "My boy, you must learn to pay attention; that is to say, you must not pay attention to so many things, but you must pay attention to one thing, namely the second declension." Now the second declension is the least inter- esting thing in the room, but unless he confines his attention to it he will never learn it. Educa- tion demands narrowing of attention in the inter- est of efficiency. A man may, by dint of application to a par- ticular subject, become a successful merchant or real-estate man or chemist or overseer of the poor. But he cannot be all these things at the same time. He must make his choice. Having in the presence of witnesses taken himself for better for worse, he must, forsaking all others, cleave to that alone. The consequence is that, by the time he is forty, he has become one kind of a man, and is able to do one kind of work. He has acquired a stock, of ideas true enough for his purposes, but 65 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE not so transcendentally true as to interfere with his business. His neighbors know where to find him, and they do not need to take a spiritual ele- vator. He does business on the ground floor. He has gained in practicality, but has lost in the quality of interestingness. The old prophet declared that the young men dream dreams and the old men see visions, but he did not say anything about the middle-aged men. They have to look after the business end. But has the man whose working hours are so full of responsibilities changed so much as he seems to have done? When he is talking shop is he "all there"? I think not. There are elusive personalities that are in hiding. As the ram- bling mansions of the old Catholic families had secret panels opening into the "priest's hole," to which the family resorted for spiritual com- fort, so in the mind of the most successful man there are secret chambers where are hidden his unsuccessful ventures, his romantic ambitions, his unfulfilled promises. All that he dreamed of as possible is somewhere concealed in the man's heart. He would not for the world have the public know how much he cares for the selves 66 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE that have not had a fair chance to come into the light of day. You do not know a man until you know his lost Atlantis, and his Utopia for which he still hopes to set sail. When Dogberry asserted that he was "as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina" and "one that hath two gowns and everything hand- some about him," he was pointing out what he deemed to be quite obvious. It was in a more intimate tone that he boasted, "and a fellow that hath had losses." When Julius Caesar rode through the streets of Rome in his chariot, his laurel crown seemed to the populace a symbol of his present greatness. But gossip has it that Caesar at that time de- sired to be younger than he was, and that before appearing in public he carefully arranged his laurel wreath so as to conceal the fact that he had had losses. Much that passes for pride in the behavior of the great comes from the fear of the betrayal of emotions that belong to a simpler manner of life. When the sons of Jacob saw the great Egyptian officer to whom they appealed turn away from them, they little knew what was going on. 67 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE "And Joseph made haste, for his bowels did yearn upon his brother : and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there. And he washed his face, and went out, and refrained himself." Joseph did n't want to be a great man. He wanted to be human. It was hard to refrain himself. What of the lost arts of childhood, the lost audacities and ambitions and romantic admira- tions of adolescence? What becomes of the sympathies which make us feel our kinship to all sorts of people ? What becomes of the early curi- osity in regard to things which were none of our business ? We ask as Saint Paul asked of the Ga- latians, "Ye began well; who did hinder you?" The answer is not wholly to our discredit. We do not develop all parts of our nature be- cause we are not allowed to do so. Walt Whit- man might exult over the Spontaneous Me. But nobody is paid for being spontaneous. A spontaneous switchman on the railway would be a menace to the traveling public. We prefer some one less temperamental. As civilization advances and work becomes 68 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE more specialized, it becomes impossible for any one to find free and full development for all his natural powers in any recognized occupation. What then becomes of the other selves? The answer must be that playgrounds must be provided for them outside the confines of daily business. As work becomes more engrossing and narrowing the need is more urgent for recognized and carefully guarded periods of leisure. The old Hebrew sage declared, "Wisdom cometh from the opportunity of leisure." It does not mean that a wise man must belong to what we call the leisure classes. It means that if one has only a little free time at his disposal, he must use that time for the refreshment of his hidden selves. If he cannot have a sabbath rest of twenty-four hours, he must learn to sanctify little sabbaths, it may be of ten minutes' length. In them he shall do no manner of work. It is not enough that the self that works and receives wages shall be recognized and protected; the world must be made safe for our other selves. Does not the Declaration of Independence say that every man has an inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness ? 69 EVERY MAN'S NATURAL DESIRE To realize that men are not satisfied with them- selves requires imagination, and we have had a terrible example of what misfortunes come from the lack of imagination. The Prussian militarists had a painstaking knowledge of facts, but they had a contempt for human nature. Their tact- lessness was almost beyond belief. They treated persons as if they were things. They treated facts with deadly seriousness, but had no regard for feelings. They had spies all over the world to report all that could be seen, but they took no account of what could not be seen. So, whilethey were dealing scientifically with the obvious facts and forces, all the hidden powers of the human soul were being turned against them. Prussian- ism insisted on highly specialized men who have no sympathies to interfere with their efficiency. Having adopted a standard, all variation must be suppressed. It was against this effort to sup- press the human variations that the world fought. We did not want all men to be reduced to one pattern. And against the effort to produce a monotonous uniformity we must keep on fight- ing. It was of little use to dethrone the Kaiser if we submit to other tyrants of our own making. THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE About a hundred years ago the Reverend Isaac Taylor published a book entitled "Scenes in America for the Amusement and Instruction of Tarry-at-Home Travellers." One of the illustra- tions was a highly colored picture of Pizarro in gorgeous garments. A formidable person, this Pizarro, but he had one fatal flaw which was pointed out to the youthful reader, who there- upon falls into poetry and cries out tauntingly: "Ah, Mr. Pizarro, your coat's very fine, Pearl, purple, and gold well refined; But certain it is, all these fine garments may But cover an ignorant mind. Your fin'ry and grandeur are splendid, indeed, But then you 're a dunce, sir, you know you can't read. "Now, thanks to my friends, if I'm not very fine, My clothes are sufficient, you see. I am but a child, I can call nothing mine, My parents and friends command me. In pretty books tho' I have treasures indeed, Because, tho' a child, I am able to read." Here we have an illustration of one of those mortal antipathies which are transmitted from one generation to another. It is the ancient feud 71 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE between the literate and the illiterate. The tarry-at-home travelers look down upon Mr. Pizarro with scorn, in which they are encouraged by their elders. To look a gift horse in the mouth is justly considered the height of ungraciousness. Among the greatest gifts to humanity has been that of reading and writing; and though it may have its drawbacks, its value is not to be disputed. The invention of the alphabet was a great achieve- ment, and we now find it difficult to imagine how we could get on without it. The later invention of printing from movable types added vastly to the conveniences of human intercourse. What had been intellectual luxuries were brought within the reach of all. Literacy, in the sense of ability to read, is no longer an unusual condition. Society is still sharply divided into the two great classes, the. literate and the illiterate; but the latter are being slowly driven to the wall. In most civilized countries the powers of the laws are invoked against them, and their numbers are continually reduced, in spite of the fact that the birth-rate is in their favor. 72 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE All this is very gratifying. In our day and country, where education in the alphabet is free and compulsory, it is a disgrace to be illiterate. The adult who refuses to learn his letters has doubtless refused to learn a great many other things that would be good for him. He is gener- ally of a stubbornly unteachable disposition and he is more or less a menace to the community. But though in our day the illiterates have fallen into a low estate, and are distinctly be- hind the times, it was not always thus. There was a time when the illiterate intellectuals did their own thinking without the aid of labor-sav- ing machinery, and they often did it surprisingly well. Among some groups this has continued to recent times. In a newspaper of the fifties of the last cen- tury I came across an account of a meeting of the Presbytery of Cincinnati, devoted to the cause of missions. The moderator made a long address, which was printed in full. It was rather dull and complacent. At the end he intro- duced a Sioux chieftain as representing a people sadly in need of missionary attention. The In- dian's reply contrasted sharply with the address 73 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE to which he had politely listened. He said, "My people are not like your people. You have books. You listen to what men said who lived long ago and far away. You see what they saw; you do what they did ; you hear what they heard ; you think what they thought. My people can- not do this. We cannot read. We can only see with our own eyes, and hear with our own ears, and think with our own minds." I suspect that the Indian chief was not unaware that he was the mental superior of the person he was addressing, and that he attributed this superiority to his illiteracy. His irony was that of a gentleman of the old school humoring the foibles of the newly rich. In this I think he was mistaken. It does not follow that a person loses the power of direct observation because he has learned to read, any more than that the possession of an automobile deprives one of the use of his own legs. It is quite possible to follow the words of a book with as keen an eye for reality as that of the Indian on the warpath. Nevertheless, the remarks of the illiterate critic are worth considering. As fingers were be- 74 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE fore forks, so culture was before books. Reading, while an admirable exercise, is no substitute for direct observation of nature or for the ancient art of meditation. It has dangers of its own. All the arts had their origin, and reached a high degree of development, among people who were unable to read or write. These gifted il- literates, while they had their limitations, had one great advantage over us — they always knew what they were about. When they were doing one thing they were not under the im- pression that they were doing something else. Each art was distinct, and the work of art was not confused with somebody's description of it. We literates have been taught to read poetry, and taught also that it is highly commendable to enjoy it. In order to know what kind of poetry ought to be especially enjoyed, we read other books, written by critics. In order tounder- stand what the poetry that ought to be admired means, we read other books by professional gram- marians. By the time we have finished this prepar- atory reading, we are somewhat confused. We are in doubt as to what poetry actually is, and how it differs from prose. In this predicament we fall 75 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE back on the printer. If every line begins with a capital letter, we assume that it is poetry. In the old illiterate days there were no such difficulties. There were no books of poems to be criticized. People got their poetry direct from the poet and saw him in the act of making it. There was no possibility of mistake. Poetry was the form of speech used by a poet. When a person who was not a poet tried to say the same thing he said it differently: that was prose. The poet was a care-free person who went about uttering what was in his heart. You never knew what he was going to say till he said it, but you were quite sure he would say it poetically, that is, according to his own nature. That was the license that you gave him. It was not because he was wiser than other men that you listened to him, but because he gave you a peculiar pleasure. There was a lilt in his voice and a fire in his eye that strangely moved you. You never got tired listening to him as you did to the droning elders of your tribe. It was like playing truant from the humdrum world. We literates have upon our shelves ponderous 76 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE historical works written by learned men for our edification. These volumes await some hours of leisure which are long delayed. But when one speaks of History as an art, we are often con- fused. We think of a book, and not of an artist at work upon living materials. In the days of unabashed illiteracy every community had its historian. He was the story-teller of the tribe. The sources on which he drew were not dusty parchments, but the memories of men who could tell him of the stirring events in which they had taken part, and of the traditions handed down to them by their fathers. One who practiced this art had to have a good memory, but he must not allow it to be overloaded. To try to salvage too much from the past was to invite disaster: all would be swallowed up in the black waters of oblivion. He must have a good judgment in selecting the incidents to be preserved. His history must be composed of memorable things; they were the only things that could be remembered. There must always be a vital connection between the incidents, so that the Past may live again in the Present. A tale that is printed may be cluttered 77 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE up with all sorts of learned irrelevancies, but a tale that is told must hold the listeners' atten- tion. The illiterate historian had no way of reaching posterity except by telling his story in such a vivid and dramatic way that some of his listeners would tell it again to their children. That is what made him such a consummate artist. A story might be told in a dozen different ways and each time be forgotten. At last, in a happy moment, is achieved immortality. In these primitive tales we have an art which the skilled literary man cannot improve. The invention of printing has produced a change like that which has taken place in mod- ern manufacture. There has been a vast in- crease in quantity, but with danger to the quality of the product. There has been also a tendency to standardization, with a threat to the individuality of the producer. Once the craftsman worked in his little shop open to the view of all interested persons. They could watch him at work and see each personal touch. Now there is less room for improvisation. The literate person gets his ideas from two sources. There is the field of personal experience, 78 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE which is essentially the same as that of his il- literate ancestors. His senses are continually informing him of what happens in his immediate vicinity. He exchanges thoughts with his neigh- bors; he reasons with himself in regard to the expediency of certain actions; he learns many homely and wholesome truths by experience. But he is also acted upon by a literary environ- ment. He cannot remember the time when he did not know how to read; and it is very hard for him to distinguish between the ideas which came to him directly and those which came in- directly. Often it is the book which has made the most powerful influence on his mind. A New Testament writer compares the for- getful hearer of the word to a man who, seeing his natural face in a glass, goes his way and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he is. He might have gone further, and said that the person who looks ever so carefully at his re- flection in a mirror gets only a misleading im- pression of what manner of person he is. He never really sees his own face as his neighbor sees it. It is the boast of the literary artist that he 79 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE holds the mirror up to Nature. But the mirror is nothing more or less than his own mind, and the reflection must depend upon the qualities of that mind. The mirror may be cracked, it may have all sorts of convexities and concavities, its original brightness may have been lost. All kinds of distortions and flatteries are possible. Some minds are capable only of caricature, and every object reflected becomes amusing. Others invest the most trifling circumstance with mys- tery and dignity. The most perfect artist in words cannot ex- press a higher or larger truth than he is capable of feeling. Only so much of reality as he can comprehend can he offer to the reader. This being so, it might be supposed that we would read warily, and be skeptical in regard to those who sought to influence us. We have eyes to see as well as they, and our vision of reality is to be preferred to their report. This is what we do in conversation, and it is what gives conversation its charm. Among in- tellectual equals there is no dogmatizing, and yet the fullest expression of individual opinion. The pleasure and profit come from the fact that 80 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE each mind has approached the fact from a dif- ferent angle, and one view may be used to cor- rect another. But we are superstitious creatures, and we are easily imposed upon by print. Curiously enough we are apt to attribute a greater validity to what we have read than to what we have seen or heard. We are more likely to believe what we have read in the daily newspaper than what our neighbor tells us. This is because we know our neighbor, and we do not know the young man who wrote the paragraph for the paper. The fact that thousands of our fellow citizens are reading the same words makes an impression on the imagination. If it is not true that "every- body says so," yet it is probable that everybody will say so when they have read the article. We have a comfortably gregarious feeling in being subjected to the same influence which moves so many of our fellow beings. It is pleasant to think that our minds synchronize with theirs. There is safety in numbers. It used to be said of the pulpit that it was the "coward's castle." The man who invented that phrase did not mean to bring a railing accusa- 81 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE tion against the clergy. He did not say that the occupant of a pulpit was more apt to be a coward than other men. What he had in mind was the opportunity for defense. If a man hap- pened to be a coward, and at the same time wished to say unpleasant things about his neigh- bors, a pulpit seemed to be a safe place to say it from. People are accustomed to listen to the pulpiteer without answering back. But if a person is a real coward, a pulpit is not such a safe vantage-ground after all; for it stands in a very exposed position. Even if the congre- gation does not talk back, it has an excellent opportunity to look at the pulpiteer and size him up. This to a timid person is very discon- certing, as he stands behind a barricade which does not protect the most vulnerable part of his person, his tell-tale countenance. What avail his mighty words if his chin is weak and his eyes are shifty? With a hundred pairs of eyes di- rected upon him it requires a good deal of bravery to enable him to "carry on." The true coward's castle is the printed page. Here, secure from observation, free from prying eves, the writer may make his attacks without 82 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE fear of reprisal. Nobody sees him in the act of composition, nobody knows what he looks like. Even if they know his name, his readers do not make any searching inquiry into his personal characteristics. When a strange voice is heard over the telephone, we inquire as politely as possible: "Who is speaking, please?" But when we take up a newspaper or magazine, we do not take the trouble to find out who is addressing us. Even with a book, unless it is by a very noted writer, we are incurious as to the personality behind the words. We think of the author as the eighteenth-century Deists thought of the Great First Cause. He is a logical necessity. He set things going, and then returns into the Un- known, where it would be a kind of sacrilege to attempt to follow him. His attributes are suf- ficiently, though vaguely, revealed through his works. The person with literary skill has the same kind of advantage which the Government has over private capitalists in being able to print money and force it into circulation. Dean Swift took a sardonic delight in an exhibit of this power. The almanac-maker S3 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE Partridge had made an honest living by pub- lishing an annual in which the events of the com- ing year were predicted with sufficient vague- ness to fit the circumstances as they might arise. Swift, under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff, set forth a rival almanac which should be more definite in its prognostications. Instead of prophesying in general terms, he put down the exact day of the month in which the death of Partridge the almanac-maker would take place. The day came, and Swift saw to it that on the morrow the announcement of the sad event appeared in all the London newspapers. At- tention was called to the fact that the death occurred in exact accordance with the Bicker- staffian chronology. Of course, Partridge was annoyed and attempted to set himself right. But Bickerstaff was the better writer and had caught the public eye. His cause was presented with such fullness of detail that there was no resisting it. Against the mass of documentary evidence the unsupported word of one man who was evidently prejudiced in his own behalf could not avail. Poor Partridge might gain credence among the few people to whom he could exhibit 84 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE himself in the flesh, but the reading public pre- ferred the printing obituary. I had occasion recently to observe the help- lessness of those who attempt to contend against a first-rate literary tradition. For several years the nineteenth of April has, in the vicinity of Boston, been celebrated in dramatic fashion by reproducing the historic ride of Paul Revere. It happens that the historic route does not go through Cambridge, so this year our citizens arranged a rival, or rather supplementary, cele- bration. It seems that Paul Revere was not the only patriot who rode forth on that fateful night in 1775 to warn the farmers of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. One William Dawes galloped on the same errand and, as good luck would have it, took the road that led past the college at Harvard Square. So this year a citi- zen impersonating William Dawes rode through Cambridge, and the mayor and local dignitaries gathered to see him do it. But alas, the public imagination was not stirred. William Dawes was not a name to conjure with. Every school child resented the substitition. It would be in vain to say, "Listen, my children, and you shall hear 85 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE of the midnight ride of William Dawes." They would not listen to what seemed a contradiction to what they had read. Our most familiar experience teaches us how our contacts with nature are interpreted by what we have read. The amateur gardener never tires of calling attention to the fact that the vegetables he raises taste differently from those he buys in the market. He attributes this to the circumstance that they come to the table in a fresher condition. But do they? I suspect that the indescribable something which he enjoys is derived largely from literary associations. While the ground was yet frozen, he had gloated over the pages of a seed-cata- logue, and his mouth had watered over the de- lectable fruits which were there described. In imagination he saw his future garden "without spot or blemish or any such thing." There he saw radishes and super-radishes, not tough and stringy, but with the dew of their youth yet upon them. There were, on each side of the garden walk, twelve manner of peas, some dwarf and some of gigantic growth, but each excelling the other in earliness and deliciousness. 86 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE There were dwarf-giants combining the excel- lencies of dwarfishness and gianthood in a man- ner wonderful to relate. Each dwarf bore pods so full and heavy that a giant might be proud to lift them. The cauliflowers never refused to head; the lettuce never exhibited signs of pre- mature senility; the cucumbers were all beauti- ful within. All the tomatoes were smooth and of a ruddy countenance, solid of flesh and won- derfully prolific. Even the modest spinach merited the adjective "superb," which was freely given it. The pole-beans were veritable sky-scrapers of the vegetable world. When the literate gardener had read all this he straightway bought the little packets of seed which contained these marvelous potentialities. This done, he considered his work half accom- plished, for had he not read that the secret of success is in buying the right kind of seed from thoroughly reliable dealers? The rest is a mere detail. When in midsummer he invites you to par- take of vegetables that not only are the fruit of toil, but come as the fulfillment of early dreams, you should be in a sympathetic mood. He has a 87 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE satisfaction unknown to one who has not read the seed-catalogue. His palate has been trained by long anticipation to taste that of which it has had a literary foretaste. Accidents may have happened not set down in the books, but the essentials are there. All that the garden aspired to be, and is not, comforts him. He welcomes to his table the wizened survivors of the cam- paign against insect enemies and an unusual season. They have been traveling through an unfriendly world, but they have arrived. How many comrades they have left behind them on the field, he does not inquire. It is not a time for retrospection. Any appearance of meagerness is overlooked. He sees upon the table the sym- bols of the marvelous prodigality of nature. The consideration which gives mystical significance to this feast of first fruits is that he is now ac- tually eating the vegetables he has read about. In regard to what lies outside the field of our personal experience the power of literary sug- gestion has no natural check. We generalize more easily from what we have read than from what we have tested by our own senses. We have fixed ideas as to what happened in distant 88 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE times and places, and we spend little time in inquiring as to the source of our opinions. In general we accept the authority of the books we have read without inquiring in regard to the personal bias of the writer. Suppose we were to put the ideas of the docile reader in the form of a catechism. Question. At what time was society in the Roman Empire most corrupt? Answer. In the age of Juvenal. Question. When was the life of the lower classes in London most picturesque and amusing? Answer. In the time of Charles Dickens. Question. At what precise period were the manners of Americans at the lowest ebb ? Answer. At the time when Dickens wrote his "American Notes." Question. When did they begin to improve? Answer. About the time when James Bryce published the "American Commonwealth." Question. When did the English Puritans lose their original sincerity and become canting hypocrites ? Answer. When Samuel Butler wrote "Hu- dibras." 89 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE Question. Who was the most brilliant sov- ereign of England ? Answer. Queen Elizabeth. Question. How do you prove this? Answer. From the writings of the brilliant Elizabethans. Question. When was Spain a happy country, and all classes of people easily moved to laughter? Answer. In the age of Cervantes. Question. When did England most deserve to be called "Merry England"? Answer. In the age of Chaucer. Question. When did the Scotch peasant lose his dourness and become genial? Answer. In the days of Robert Burns. Question. When was French family life most sordid and mean? Answer. In the days of Zola. Question. What historical period is indicated by the term "Ages of Faith"? Answer. The period during which the only liter- ature which has survived was written by monks. Question. Who was the most influential preacher of the early church — Paul or Apollos ? Answer. Paul. 90 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE Question. What makes you think so? Answer. Because Paul wrote letters which have been preserved, while Apollos probably preached without notes. The moment we stop to analyze our im- pressions of the events of the past, or the per- sonages of human history, we realize how de- pendent we are on the literary medium through which our ideas are obtained. The merest liter- ary accident — the 'preservation or the loss of a scrap of paper — may make or mar the greatest reputation. An illusion to which the reader is subject arises from the selective nature of all literary art. The writer, even when he thinks he is most realistic, is compelled to choose both his subject and his way of treating it. This means that he must ruthlessly reject all phases of reality which are irrelevant to his purpose. He is a creator making a new world, and all that cannot be re- moulded by his intelligence is to him but a part of the primal chaos. That which to him is un- intelligible is treated as if it were non-existent. On the other hand, that which interests him is exhibited as if it were the only reality. 91 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE When the reader is literal-minded and of a too docile disposition, he accepts the writer's representation of the world at its face-value. It is a very crowded little world, and full of terri- fying objects; and the reader has moods of de- pression unknown to his illiterate brethren, who, however hard their lot, are accustomed to take one trouble at a time. In the old-fashioned geography book there was a full page devoted to a pictorial view of the animal life of the Western Hemisphere. It was a terrifying collection of wild beasts and birds. Wild cats, jaguars, lynxes, and alligators, grizzly bears, polar bears, rattlesnakes, eagles, and condors abounded. They were all visible at the same time, and each creature was exhibited in its most threatening attitude. The Western Hemisphere was evidently a perilous place for a small boy. Even if armed with a shot-gun, he had a small chance for his life; for if one wild beast did not eat him up, another would. As for the Eastern Hemisphere, that was no safer, for it was crowded with lions, elephants, tigers, leopards, and orang-outangs. The anxieties of the small boy might have 92 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE been allayed by the consideration that the Western Hemisphere was larger in reality than might be imagined from the wood-cut. There were great spaces between the wild beasts. One did not encounter them all at once. In that part of the hemisphere that is infested by polar bears there is immunity from alligators. A person may travel over wide stretches of country where the only specimen of wild life might be an inquisitive chipmunk. The dangers are so diluted by the distances as to be almost negligible to any one who does not insist on traveling all the time. The literate person needs to be continually reminded that the things he is reading about do not all happen to the same people or in the same place. The risks are well distributed. Nor need he think that the things he reads about are the most important, either in themselves or in their effects. It is in his ability to concentrate the report of a large number of facts of the same kind into a small space, and then fix the reader's attention upon them, that the writer has his strategic ad- vantage. He can with a really inferior force produce the impression of overwhelming power. 93 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE It is a repetition of the military tactics of Gid- eon. The resourceful Israelite, by the use of trumpets and pitchers, was able with three hundred men to put to flight the Midianites and Amalekites whose army "lay along the valley like locusts for multitude, and their camels were without number as the sands upon the seashore for multitude." There was perhaps not a single able-bodied Amalekite who would have been scared if Gideon had appeared before him in broad day- light and broken a pitcher and blown ever so loudly with his trumpet. But when all the Amalekites heard a loud sound at the same time, they frightened each other terribly. "And when they heard the shout, 'The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon,' they fled as far as Beth-Shittah toward Zererath, as far as the border of Abel- meholah, by Tabbath." Gideon and his three hundred, "faint but pursuing," had really nothing to do after he had started the stam- pede. Among illiterates the mob-spirit is something fierce, cruel, irrational, but it is apt to be short- lived. Something happens that arouses the 94 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE passions of anger and fear, and a victim is found. The mob tears him to pieces and then dis- perses. But among literates the mob-spirit may be preserved for generations, sometimes smoulder- ing but always liable to be fanned into a flame. A hatred preserved in print and multiplied through literary art assumes the dignity of a first principle and the force of an instinct. Anti-Semitism is of this nature. When one attempts to analyze it, he becomes conscious that he is not dealing with the modern Jew, but with an almost endless array of literary allusions. There are taunts that have become classic. The Irish Question is similarly complicated. So much has been written about it during the last five hundred years that it seems unscholarly not to keep it up. Any amicable settlement would be at the mercy of the next literary revival. There are aversions that may last for thou- sands of years, and then be suddenly intensified. In Palestine to-day there must be thousands of persons who are descended from the an- cient inhabitants who dwelt in the land before Joshua descended upon it with his militant 95 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE Israelites. Many of these are peaceful persons against whose conduct there is no reasonable complaint. But if they should reassume the name of Canaanites in their plea for the self- determination of nations, they would find the lit- erate world against them. A Canaanitish resto- ration would be stoutly resisted by all persons who have not forgotten their Sunday-School lessons. The old text "cursed by Canaan" would raise a vague feeling of revenge which might easily be mistaken for religion. The feuds and panics which have been largely confined to the reading classes seem to have very little to do with what is actually taking place at any given time. They represent the state of mind into which a company of imagina- tive young people can throw themselves when they sit around a dying fire and tell ghost-stories. Some dreadful thing has happened in the past. Long after the danger is over, the story can be told so as to produce a tremor. The Spanish Inquisition, the religious perse- cutions in the Netherlands, the martyr-fires of Smithfield, the descent of the Armada, were real facts of the sixteenth century. But this period 96 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE came to an end. Men's minds turned to new issues, and priestcraft lost its power. But for two centuries in England innumerable pamphlets were printed by alarmists who were righting the old battles of the sixteenth century over again. The literate mob was continually inflamed by stories of Jesuit plots. Every one who was not in good and regular standing in the Church of England was subject to suspicion. Richard Baxter, author of the "Saint's Ever- lasting Rest," had to deny the charge of a secret leaning toward the Scarlet Woman. William Penn, on returning from Philadelphia, found himself described as a Jesuit in disguise, who had been educated in the college of St. Omer in France and who had celebrated mass in the palace of St. James. To be sure, William Penn did not look like a Jesuit or talk like a Jesuit, but that only proved the completeness of his dis- guise. In the next century John Wesley had the same charge hurled against him. What more subtle way of advancing the Catholic conquest of Britain could be devised than to entice the working-people of England into Methodist meeting-houses. King James I, uniting two 97 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE prejudices in one, coined the term "Papist- Puritan." In its comprehensiveness it reminds one of the way in which many people in our day are able to think of anarchists and socialists as members of the same party. The Reign of Terror in France had a similar effect upon the imagination of the reading pub- lic in England and America. For a whole gener- ation the press told of the ferocious Jacobins who were about to set up the guillotine in Lon- don and Philadelphia. Who were the Anglo- Saxon Jacobins? Joseph Priestly, man of science and scholarly minister, was one. Home Tooke, the eccentric scholar who advocated parlia- mentary reform, was another. He was put on trial for his life and barely escaped the gallows. In America the most feared of all Jacobins was Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. At a later period the literate mob had a classical revival. When General Grant was pro- posed for a second term as President of the United States, the cry of "Caesarism" was raised. There was something in it that brought back lessons learned in early youth. Everybody knew about Caesar. The analogy between past 98 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE and present was obvious to the humblest under- standing: indeed, the humbler the understand- ing, the more satisfactory it was. Caesar was a great general, so was Grant. Caesar, after the Civil War, went into politics, so did Grant. Both men attained the highest honors within the gift of the people. Then Caesar destroyed the Republic. Could any one doubt that Grant would do the same? After an interval historic doubts are tolerated. We are able to see that William Penn was not a Jesuit, and Thomas Jefferson was not a Jacobin, and Ulysses Simpson Grant was not a reincarna- tion of Julius Caesar. But when at the breakfast- table we read of a strike in a Massachusetts tex- tile factory, of a convention of Western farmers who are organizing against their enemies the middlemen, and of the remarks of a teacher in the public schools whose opinions are more rad- ical than ou^s, it is quite natural to connect them all together, and think of them as manifes- tations of Russian Bolshevism.' Things which appear under the same headlines must have some sinister connection, though we may not know what it is. 99 THE PERILS OF THE LITERATE In calling attention to some of the perils of the literate, I do not mean to discourage the reading habit. Indeed, the persons who are most superstitious in regard to printed matter are those who have most recently crossed the boundary line from illiteracy. On the other hand, some of the most level-headed people I have known have been constant and even omnivorous readers. But I have noticed that they have always used their own minds when they were reading. NATURAL ENEMIES AND HOW TO MAKE THE BEST OF THEM The orator was just about to make his point, and it was a good one. For a quarter of an hour he had been leading up to it. He had begun in a lighter vein, and made friends with his audience. They knew by this time that he was no high- brow, no partisan, no Pharisee. He was one of them and was expressing their sentiments. All the inhibitions were withdrawn and they were ready to follow him when he gave the word. In one ringing devil-may-care sentence he would express their thought and his own. Then look out for the roof of the house. But just as the orator was approaching his climax his eye fell upon the gentlemen of the press. They also had the fire of professional expectancy in their eyes. They knew from long experience that something was coming. Their pencils were ready for the unexpected and in- evitable word. But the word did not come. Such a change came over the orator as might 101 NATURAL ENEMIES come over an Indian warrior when, just as he is about to bring down a deer, he sees the shadow of an hereditary foe who is crouching among the rocks. The tables are turned. He is no longer the hunter. He is the hunted, and all his facul- ties are absorbed in the instant work of self- preservation. The orator has had long practice in his art and knows that he must not manifest the fear he feels. So he expands his chest, and assumes a threatening aspect as he hurls forth a torrent of commonplaces. His one aim is to say as loudly as possible something which nobody would be likely to remember and repeat to his disadvan- tage. What has caused the trouble? The orator has espied his natural enemy, the reporter, and has realized an imminent danger. It is not that the reporter is unfriendly, but only that he is a re- porter. The orator had his audience with him. They understood what he was driving at. When he made his point there would be uproarious ap- plause. But now, as he catches sight of the reporter, he sees his magic sentence in print, 102 NATURAL ENEMIES with a headline drawing attention to its enor- mity. He sees it standing stark and dreary as if on a pillory. There is no pleasant introduction, no alleviating circumstance. Instantly he sees that what he was about to say, while it might sound well, would not read well. Indeed, it would read very badly and be a comfort to his enemies and a disaster to his friends. When it came out in print, he would have to explain that sentence, and the public looks upon explana- tions as evasions. The feud between the orator and the jour- nalist arises out of the very nature of their call- ings. The orator is the man of thrilling moments. His whole soul flashes in an instant and kindles emotions in those who hear. If he persuades he must do it at once. The exchange of ideas must be instantaneous. He is ruined if he overstays his market. The ancient orator could let himself go and carry his audience with him. When Demosthe- nes thundered against Philip he was addressing the men of Athens, and he could gauge with his eye the effect which he produced. He did not have to consider how it would appear when re- 103 NATURAL ENEMIES printed in the Pro-Macedonian press. But the American candidate when he is addressing the miners in Butte must consider how next morning it will impress the voters in Calais, Maine. It might be wise to tone down a sentence which would certainly be misapprehended in Orlando, Florida. The orator who faces a howling mob with magnificent courage and conquers its fierce passion, is stage-struck when he thinks of the un- seen multitudes whom he is addressing. He has n't a fair chance at them and he knows it. He is at the mercy of those who report him. This is an example of those persistent pro- fessional antagonisms which belong to civilized life, and which are pitfalls on the way of the inno- cent lover of peace. Not only is one man's meat another man's poison, but one man's way of making an honest living is often an interference with another man's livelihood. All this reminds us of the doctrine of class warfare resulting from the law of economic de- terminism. There are optimistic economists who meet the Marxian with a flat contradiction. There is no necessary class conflict they say. Mankind is 104 NATURAL ENEMIES a happy family if it only knew it. The interests of rich and poor, capitalist and laborer, are iden- tical. By a blessed law of nature we share in the total product of toil, if not every man according to his needs, at least every man according to his ability, which is a satisfactory arrangement for the able who are the only ones who really count. I confess that I am not quite satisfied with this doctrine of compensation, and I do not think that it works automatically to bring about substantial justice. It does not even work in the interest of increased ability, except of a certain kind. I should prefer to start with Marx and admit his idea of a class conflict. The conflict is not imaginary but real. But instead of being con- fined to the conflict between two such obvious classes as the rich and the poor, or the employers and the employed, it extends to all the divisions and subdivisions of human society. Instead of thinking of our various interests as originally identical, and then blaming every- body for the stupidity of not recognizing it, I find it more comforting and more reasonable to start with the assumption of original diversity 105 NATURAL ENEMIES and antagonism of interests. The progress of civilization, then, consists in the invention of ways by which their antagonism can be over- come and cooperation be rendered possible. In- stead of looking at ourselves as degenerate Uto- pians, I think it is better to look at ourselves as Reformed Ishmaelites. Originally our hand was against every man and every man's hand was against us, but the fierceness of this class con- flict has been gradually abating, and we are learning to lend a hand to many of our natural enemies. Many classes which at one time had war to the knife now manage to live together in comparative amity. There was the bloody class warfare between the shepherd and the agriculturist. It appears in the most ancient tradition as something inherently irreconcilable. "And Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain was a tiller of the ground." When Abel's sheep got into Cain's field the trouble began. It was easy for this economic conflict to take on an acutely religious character. When Abel insisted that his sacri- fice of "the firstlings of the flock and the fat thereof" was more acceptable to Deity than 106 NATURAL ENEMIES Cain's simple offering of fruit and grain, it was no wonder that "Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell." Class warfare had developed into the deadly hostility of rival cults. There seemed to be only one way out, either Abel must kill Cain or Cain would kill Abel. The class warfare between hunters and shep- herds was equally unrelenting. Esau and Jacob quarreled continually. The countryside was not wide enough for their divergent activities. These ancient feuds have subsisted because they arose from a real conflict of interests. The history of the American frontier is full of bloody episodes in which Cain and Abel fought over the same old question. There has been no formal solution of their problem, though there has been a growing preference for a more peaceable ap- proach to it. During the ages the opinion of mankind has been slowly swinging around to the conclusion that Cain's method of settling the question by direct action is inadmissible. One man may raise sheep, another man may raise wheat. It is obvious that they cannot do it at the same time and on the same ground. They must compromise. 107 NATURAL ENEMIES Various laws have been devised by which the conflicts between the rival interests are reduced to a minimum. If Cain and Abel obey these regulations there is no reason why each may not be reasonably prosperous; they may even meet as friends. If they refuse to adhere to these regulations and insist on fighting out the feud in the crude old way, they are firmly dealt with as enemies of society. The ancient feud between the buyer and the seller has had the same general history. Once the functions of the merchant and the pirate were indistinguishable. When the swift ships of the Grecian traders outmaneuvered the Tyrians on the Mediterranean there was very little distinc- tion made between war and commerce; the object of both was booty. The successful trade was one in which the enemy was badly beaten and his spoil left in the hands of the victor. It would be rank Phariseeism to say that we have reached a point of vast superiority from which we can look down upon the custom of the ancients. It is still true as the Hebrew proverb reminds us that sin finds a particularly easy lodgment be- tween buying and selling. Nevertheless it is 108 NATURAL ENEMIES true that the animosity between these two classes is, in normal times, greatly abated. Though they may still look at each other with suspicion, they recognize that they have com- mon interests. A good bargain may be one that is good for both parties to the transaction. Among the natural enemies whose animosi- ties are skillfully concealed or politely ignored is that between teachers and parents. To the un- willing schoolboy these two classes seem to be closely confederated in a conspiracy in restraint of his natural right to the pursuit of happiness. When he sees them with their heads close to- gether discussing his fate he imagines that they have a complete understanding with one another. As a matter of fact they are as divided in opinion as if they were members of the Peace Council. Did you ever hear a teacher say a good word for the parent as such. With particular mem- bers of that despised order he might be on terms of amity and even of intimate affection, but for the class as a whole he has nothing but condem- nation. It is painfully backward, and its educa- tional influence is pernicious. He himself stands, 109 NATURAL ENEMIES as the saying is, "in loco parentis"; that is, in the place of the parent who was notoriously unfit for the position. He has a natural scorn for the inefficiency of his dispossessed rival. The great advantage of the boarding-school is that it takes the callow youth, in his most sus- ceptible years, away from the enervating pa- rental influence. Here there is some chance of making a man of him. But I have heard head masters lament bitterly the tendency of parents to intrude at the most unwelcome times. Just as the educational process was at its most in- teresting and critical stage there would be a disastrous visit prompted by affectionate curi- osity to see how it was getting on. One would imagine that the parent was the arch tempter creeping into the well-guarded paradise to tempt the innocent inhabitant not to eat of the tree of knowledge. The most disparaging stories are told of these intruders. If I had not known some members of the class who were of normal intelligence, I should think of them all as defec- tives for whom some reformatory work should be begun at once. On the other hand, one cannot frequent the 110 NATURAL ENEMIES society of parents without being conscious of veiled hostility mingled with fear. The parent is usually less clear and interesting in his com- ments. His remarks partake more of the queru- lousness of those who are conscious of their own inferiority. But they agree that their children have talents which have not been sufficiently developed. The school while excellent in its way, is not adapted to the more unusual and sensitive pupil. A curious feud is that between the successful business man and the professor. I do not think it extends to the humbler members of the two classes. The struggling shopkeeper has a respect for the professor which is unmixed with envy. On the other hand, the business man has noth- ing to say against the ordinary teacher, who is looked upon as a very necessary person. But the college professor is looked upon with suspicion when he ventures to take part in public affairs. Have you never been at a meeting when a member of this class expressed his views I He was followed by a speaker who announced himself to be a plain business man. His plain- ness and his business likeness were defiantly 111 NATURAL ENEMIES emphasized in every word and gesture. He wished to make every one understand that he had nothing in common with the erudite person to whom they had been listening. When he repeated at intervals the phrase, "As the pro- fessor said, " every one responded to the irony of his tone. Why should it be considered amusing to twit a man for being a professor any more than for being a carriage-maker or a wholesale grocery- man? Why should he be supposed to take an unrealistic view of a particular subject just be- cause he knows enough about it to teach it to others ? The source of the prejudice may lie in the obscure region of youthful experience. The successful business man may have suffered indignities at the hand of schoolmasters which influence him without his own knowledge. But beyond all this is the fact that the professor is an intruder in the field which the practical man claims as his own. In these days the scholastic world is not a region shut off from contacts with business and politics. There is not a department of human activity which is not now studied and 112 NATURAL ENEMIES expounded by the professor. He is the man who professes to know your job better than you do. Now if you have been doing your job to your own satisfaction, you do not like to have him come around making remarks and criticizing your methods. Even if he does not do this, you suspect him of wishing to do so, and you resent his appearance on the scene We have had as Secretary of Agriculture a gentleman who has been a professor in an agri- cultural college. One might suppose that the ability to hold such a position would be no dis- qualification for the post to which he was ap- pointed. But it appears that much antagonism has been aroused, and the demand is for a "dirt farmer." A complete knowledge of soils is not enough. One must dig in the dirt, not merely analyze it. As the dirt farmer feels to the Professor of Agriculture so does the banker feel toward the Professor of Political Economy and the practical politician toward the Professor of Government. It is the same attitude as that of the members of the Mothers' Club when the maiden teacher of the Home-Making School lectures to them on 113 NATURAL ENEMIES the way to bring up children. There is the con- cealed animosity of the woman in the tenements who receives instruction in household economics from the emissary of the School of Philanthropy. 1 So far as I have been able to observe, profes- sors are unusually modest persons. So far from flaunting their learning in the face of the com- munity, they carefully conceal it in ordinary conversation. The hostility to them arises from an apprehension that their theory may upset our practice. A somewhat different phase of this ancient feud is found in the church, between the regular clergymen and the revivalist. You have probably attended the services of that remarkable reviver of religion, Reverend Billy Sunday. The lurid denunciation of saloon- keepers and other obviously objectionable sin- ners you understood, and you also comprehended his attacks upon persons who trusted in mere morality. But you may have been puzzled by his onslaughts upon his friends and assistants — the clergy. Upon the platform are all the cooperating ministers of the city who are taking part in the 114 NATURAL ENEMIES work of grace. The eyes of the great multitude are upon them. Then the evangelist begins to berate them for their sins of omission. They are men who do not know their business; they do not really earn their salaries however small the salaries may be. They do not know how to preach; they are cold, lifeless, indifferent. Their manifest shortcomings are illustrated by anec- dotes which delight the vast congregation. Peo- ple who have been accustomed to go to church feel virtuous when they think what they have en- dured. The non-church-goer realizes how much dreariness he has escaped by delaying his con- version till the preachers have been stirred to more interesting and exciting methods of work. In the meantime the persons who are ex- coriated sit, if not in smiling ease, at least with the appearance of commendable humility. They even join in the laughter which is at their own expense. Do they like it ? Do they really intend to give up the slow, steady, unspectacular work by which they have been building up their churches, and copy the sensational methods of the evange- list? 115 NATURAL ENEMIES Not at all — at least not as a class. Come around in six months after the revival is over, and hear their remarks in the ministers' meeting.. The revivalist has had his say; they have co- operated as largely as possible. But now he is gone, and they remain. In the ministers' meeting they are quite willing to say to one another that they know their own business better than he did. When Whitefield came to Massachusetts, my predecessor, the Reverend Thomas Appleton, D.D., led the opposition, and refused to allow the eloquent intruder to enter the pulpit of the First Parish Church. He put the case in a ser- mon before the convention of Congregational ministers. He took for his text the words, "Ye are the salt of the earth, ye are the light of the world," and applied them to the parish minis- ters. Ye are the salt of the earth. Salt has two purposes : First, to preserve what otherwise would decay. The minister's function is to preserve ancient things. But he should remember, Sec- ond, salt as a seasoning to our food should be used discreetly. Religion is salt. The itinerant enthusiast is likely to overdo the matter and 116 NATURAL ENEMIES make the spiritual food distasteful to the sober- minded. Ye are also the light of the world. In the Scriptures we are told of seven candles and seven candlesticks — one candle for each candlestick and no more. This is as it should be and conduces to order in the church. The minis- ter is the candle, the church is the candlestick. "Let no man jostle you out of your candlestick." Whitefield came and went. Taking his stand under a great elm in the Cambridge Common, near that under which Washington afterwards stood, he preached to more people than ever Appleton faced. But then Thomas Appleton ministered in a quiet and effective way to the people whom he knew for sixty years, and no man jostled him out of his candlestick. Which was the more successful? All through the Middle Ages there was the conflict between the regular clergy and the itinerant friars who were invading their parishes and incidentally criticizing their methods. In the choir of an English cathedral I was inter- ested in the carving on the stalls. Here was carved a fox preaching to a congregation of gaping geese. Did the artist offend the holy men n7 NATURAL ENEMIES who sat in the stalls by his broad caricature? Not at all. He was expressing their sentiments with a humor they enjoyed. The fox was a friar of the order of Saint Francis, and the geese were the people who preferred his ministrations to those of the regular clergy. But the friar also was a servant of the Church and his work was sanctioned by the Holy Father? That might be, and the Holy Father doubtless had his own good reasons for tolerating that kind of a servant. Still the fact remains that he is not of our kind. Trollope's Vicar of Bullhampton was a kindly man tolerant of all kinds of sinners. But when the Methodist minister built his chapel opposite the vicarage gate it was a sore trial to his Chris- tianity. That anything so ugly could be for the glory of God it was difficult for him to believe. The structure was an affront. When good taste and religion unite in a decree of reprobation there is no room for arbitration. The only thing to do is to change the subject. There are antagonisms that develop when two professions which have fundamentally different aims and methods are, in the Biblical phrase, 118 NATURAL ENEMIES "unequally yoked together." There was the ancient Guild of the Barber-Surgeons. I can- not think that even in its palmy days it ever worked well. It was based on a superficial analogy. The idea that the mere fact of blood- letting constituted a community of interest was fallacious. I imagine that from the beginning there was bickering in the guild. When a ton- sorial member of the twin professions developed a finer technique and advertised himself as a bloodless barber, it was looked upon as a reflec- tion upon those who were on the surgical side. When later on the surgeons began to look down on the barbers and made advances to the physi- cians, the rupture was complete. The physicians had been through the same kind of experience a long time before — indeed, so long before that they had largely forgotten it. The medical man was originally a medicine man. He was a kind of magician and had made great use of charms and amulets and the beating of tom-toms, and other methods of exorcising de- mons. When he began to think of himself as a man of science, he had to break with his old as- sociates and also to disappoint many of those 119 NATURAL ENEMIES who most eagerly sought his help. He tried to avoid the conflict as long as he could and make a mystery of his art, but he finally had to make his choice. In the most genial and tolerant modern physi- cian you will see a sudden hardening of the coun- tenance when he speaks of a quack. And yet what is a quack? He is a survival of the ancient medicine man. He represents the pre-scientific profession. This form of class conflict is of the nature of civil war. There is usually no way out but through secession. When there is absolute in- compatibility both of temper and of methods divorce is the lesser evil. I fear that the class of college presidents will experience some of the difficulties of the barber- surgeons. It is just beginning to be class con- scious, and therefore unrestful. A generatioi ago the president was only a professor who ha< been promoted to the headship of the institutioi which he had faithfully served. He was prima- rily a scholar and could be trusted to look aftei the interests of his class. Now he is looked upoi as belonging to a different class. He is not onlj 120 NATURAL ENEMIES a kind of educator, but a kind of money-raiser. He is the business manager of a huge corpora- tion, and a publicity man who must keep the institution in the public eye. If he is connected with a state university, he must also be a good politician. It is quite possible for a man to be all of these things, but such versatility is unusual. If a man is primarily an educator, it seems too much to ask that he should also be a business promoter. In the interest of peace and efficiency the functions should be differentiated. There is too much expected of the president-promoter. It is true that these divisions may be carried too far. People who are working on the same job often spend a great deal of time waiting for each other, which is bad for the temper. The plumbers and the carpenters manage to repress their impatience at each other's dilatoriness, but this comes from long practice. One learns to admire the good humor of the plumber who must lay down the tools of his own trade rather than take up those of another. With perfect resig- nation to class etiquette he awaits the arrival of the carpenter to drive a nail or saw a board. He could perform these simple operations as 121 NATURAL ENEMIES well himself if he were allowed to do so. But he seldom allows himself to be troubled by the delay. The same predicament is met less philo- sophically in the higher regions of politics. It is well known that any President is able and willing to negotiate a treaty. He takes it as a part of the day's work. But the Constitution ordains that he must do it with the advice and consent of the Senate. In instituting the two classes of adviser and advisee an ancient feud was revived. When did an advisee get on well with his adviser? Certainly the course of true love between the President and the Senate never did run smooth. The same thing can be said of the historic conflicts between our legislatures and our courts. We have one set of men to make our laws and another to tell what they mean. Naturally they do not like one another. The judicial interpreter is amazed at the legislator's capacity for using ambiguous language. Why cannot they tell what they mean? Or perhaps they have no meaning and so leave it to me to put some sense into it. It's their way of "passing the buck." Then he proceeds to apply the rule of reason to the stat- ute. The decision amounts to this. The words 122 NATURAL ENEMIES may mean a great many different things as has been demonstrated by the learned members of the bar. But taking for granted that the legis- lators were wise and level-headed men who were well acquainted with the Constitution and deeply versed in the spirit of the laws, this is what we may assume that they meant their words to mean when applied to this particular case. Now the lawmaker who had in mind some- thing quite different looks upon the Justices of the Supreme Court as his adversaries. They rep- resent, not indeed "spiritual wickedness in high places," but spiritual righteousness in high places which is sometimes just as troublesome. They have a way of spoiling his best work. So it happens that whenever one of these dignitaries descends from his position to take part in poli- tics, he finds himself beset by powerful foes. If they can find nothing else against him they twit him with the fact that he has a "judicial mind." It is almost as bad as being called a professor. In the early days of the Republic this feud took a dramatic form. Jefferson and Marshall each had ardent adherents. It was only after a 123 NATURAL ENEMIES bitter struggle that the judges gained their place of power as one of the governing classes. A different form of natural antipathy is that between the literary man and his neighbors. This does not extend to all writers and represents a different antagonism from that to which I called attention in my remarks on the "Perils of the Literate." A writer on abstract philosophy may live on terms of amity with his most illiterate neighbors. They find no harm in him, and treat his foibles with charity. Historians or es- sayists of the more discursive type are not looked upon with suspicion. But a novelist, especially of the realistic school, is persona non grata. It will be noticed that most novelists after their first success, in which they have used the home town for literary material, move away, thus escaping their most severe critics. I am conscious in myself of the suspicion of a novelist, though fortunately I have it only in a mild form. I should not object to his liv- ing in the same block with me, but I should be disquieted if he were to be for any length of time at the same table in a boarding-house. We do not like to be made game of, and to be made copy 124 NATURAL ENEMIES of is almost as bad. Under his keen, analytic eye there would be no sense of privacy. Most of one's familiar acts and sayings are of no conse- quence whatever. We resent having some one around who specializes on such unconsidered trifles and writes them up. If there is anything that is strictly our own it is our idiosyncrasies. To have them made public property causes irritation. The writer has an unfair advantage of us. This prejudice extends even to poets when they cease to journey in the realms of gold and settle down in one place and attempt to de- scribe it. The more descriptive they are and the more local in their allusions, the less they are liked; that is, if they get the reputation of being superior persons. An ardent Wordsworthian wished to know what his old neighbors in the Lake Country thought of the poet. Interviewing an old dales- man he asked him whether Wordsworth had many friends among the shepherds. "Naay, naay, he cared nowt about folk, nor sheep, nor dogs; he only cared about po'try." "But he was a great walker, was he not?" 125 NATURAL ENEMIES "Aye, he was a gay good walker, but he was never a mountain man. That Wordsworth was not loveable in the face. He was not a man folks could crack at, nor a man as could crack at folks. He was a distant man, though well spoke of for his po'try. He was fond of goin' out with his family, and sayin' nowt to none of 'em. Many a time I've seen him takin' his family out in a string and never sayin' a thing, but walkin' by himself, with his jaws workin' the whole time, but never no crackin' with 'em nor no pleasure in 'em. A desolate-minded man was that Wordsworth." Life in the Lake District as Wordsworth saw it was not at all like life as the old shepherd saw it. And Wordsworth, just because he had the uncanny gift of "po'try," had caught the public eye and ear. All one could do was to grumble over the misrepresentation of plain facts. I suppose that Wordsworth's pedler, could he have been interviewed, would have made many sarcastic remarks about the account given of him in the "Excursion." As for Chaucer I doubt whether he was ever invited to go on a pilgrimage after the publica- 126 NATURAL ENEMIES tion of the "Canterbury Tales." For there were people in those days who took their pilgrimages very seriously, and when they returned home wished their neighbors to be impressed by the austerities they had undergone. It would never do to have a light-minded literary man in the company who would report in such a way as to give the impression that they had been off on a pleasure trip. To the college student the gathering of the professors of the various arts and sciences in one faculty seems perfectly natural. These learned men seem to him equally venerable, and the differences between them seem negligible. As a matter of fact a university represents as remarkable an aggregation of natural enemies as a menagerie. As long as each animal is in his cage he is harmless, but let him get into the neighboring cage and trouble begins. The learned professor of the Old Testament remembers the havoc which geologists made when they were let loose in his field. Anthropol- ogists are all the time destroying the conclusions of the classicists. Psychologists, red in tooth 127 NATURAL ENEMIES and claw, are ready to rend in pieces the absent- minded philosopher who wanders among them. Chemists and physicists overturn each other's theories and contend for the territory that lies between them. The grammarian growls over his bone which the saucy student of folklore tries to snatch from him. Once these antagonisms led to physical combats, but now they are moderated by other considerations. Sometimes among the well-bred scholars the antipathies are expressed only by an intonation or by a charm phrase. I remember hearing a great engineer speak in praise of his profession. Quite incidentally he spoke of architecture as "the millinery of engineering." Dean Inge, in a lecture in criticism of the ordinary belief in progress, declared dogmati- cally, "the historian is a snob." He was allud- ing, not to any particular historian, but to the class. It was a hard saying, and yet from the standpoint of the historian's natural enemy, the teacher of pure ethics, there is much to be said in behalf of the accusation. The historian is always telling anecdotes of people who have made a name for themselves 128 NATURAL ENEMIES and who have been, so to speak, "in the swim." He manages to make us aware of his acquaint- ance with famous personages. There does seem something snobbish in this preference for nota- bilities, and his neglect of those who have not arrived. But if the historian is called a snob, he may retort by calling the professional moralist a prig. All this sounds very dreadful, and one might imagine that the class conflicts in a modern University would destroy personal friendship. On the contrary, a finer kind of friendship thrives on it. Men of antagonistic views, whose methods are opposed, meet on a common ground and come to like each other. What is more they learn to profit by each other's criticisms. They utilize natural enmities to produce a finer co- operation. This is what we are trying to do everywhere, not to bring about uniformity, but to make the best use of natural diversities. The thought that it is our duty to exterminate our enemies is so simple that it appeals to every unsophisticated mind. It seems to do away with all difficulties in one swoop. The idea that we cannot extermi- 129 NATURAL ENEMIES nate all our natural enemies, and that we would be worse off if we did, comes slowly. We learn all sorts of accommodations and compromises by which former foes are gradually transformed into members of a more or less cooperative com- monwealth. The problem is not, How many people of the same kind can live in the same territory? It is not as simple as that. We must ask, How many kinds of people who have quite different tastes and ambitions can exist upon a given territory without feeling the necessity of exterminating one another? How many varieties of human nature can be tolerated? This question of toleration depends on our ability to come to a rational understanding with persons who are quite different from ourselves, and who frankly confess that they are proud of the differences. Having acknowledged that theoretically they have as much right to be here as we have, we must work out practicable ways for the joint use of the world. When Saint Francis of Assisi made peace with the Wolf of Gubbio he had first a friendly talk with that ferocious animal and convinced him of 130 NATURAL ENEMIES the folly of his predatory ways. After that he convinced the people of Gubbio that it was to their interest to furnish the wolf with sufficient food to allow him to maintain a peaceful exist- ence. That was all there was of it. The wolf and the villagers became fast friends. That which impresses us in the story is not the saintliness or wisdom of Francis, but the rationality of the wolf. That constituted the miracle. There is plenty of room in the world for all kinds of creatures if they would all adopt the motto, "Live and let live." But it takes more intelligence than most creatures have to under- stand the ways and means of living and letting live. We have to invent ways of avoiding the direct clash of vital interests. As I write in my study at the edge of the woods I am conscious of the different uses to which the same territory may be put. A delight- ful little chipmunk is gazing at me from a chink between two rough stones which serve as a door- step. That is, I consider them as a doorstep, but for him they are the roof of a dwelling which he calls his own. There are two entrances which he freely uses. He is sitting now at the front door 131 NATURAL ENEMIES where he has a full view of my less snug and picturesque apartment. When I first came up in the early summer my presence made him nervous, but now he knows that I have no ul- terior designs. I am a harmless eccentric to be tolerated during good behavior. He looks at me without fear and without reproachfulness. The world is wide enough for us both. Live and let live is the law. But there is a rabbit who lives in the vicinity. I am sure that if wooed in the friendly spirit he would be ready to establish the same neighborly relations. When I first met him he seemed to be of an innocent and confiding disposition. But I cannot feel toward the rabbit as I do toward the chipmunk. It is not our differences, but our agreements, which make us enemies. What the chipmunk eats is no concern of mine. I gener- ously rejoice to think that he gets his food in due season. I do not envy his abundance. But the rabbit and I have the same vegetation tastes, and he is the earlier riser. When I go into the garden I have so painfully prepared in the clear- ing, he has been there before me. He has browsed upon my lettuce. If the rabbit would stay in the 132 NATURAL ENEMIES woods and not frequent the vegetable garden we would be fast friends. If he would come to my study door I would not molest him. I might even feed him with lettuce leaves that I did not need for my own family. If I were able to address the rabbit as Saint Francis reasoned with the Wolf of Gubbio, and he had the sweet reasonableness of the wolf, our difficulties could be easily adjusted. The con- flict of our real interests is absurdly small. There is plenty of room for both if only we under- stood each other and acted rationally. I should be willing to plant a little corner of the garden in vegetables for his delectation. A proper consid- eration for our respective rights would prevent all hostility. But how is the rabbit to be made aware of these fine possibilities ? He has a will to live; his intellect is not sufficient to direct that will amid the complexities produced by human neighborhood. Fortunately in dealing with conflicts of inter- est among human beings we have the advantage which came to Saint Francis only through a miracle. Those who have been most successful in bringing about an agreement have addressed 133 NATURAL ENEMIES those who were opposed to them as if they were rational beings. And it is surprising how rational most people turn out to be when they are ap- proached in that way. THE SPIRITUAL ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS "What does that sign mean, Bagster?" "It means just what it says. I am a consult- ant. I've opened up an office in connection with my church where the efficiency experts can come for spiritual advice. I meet my clients only by appointment." It had been several years since I had seen my old friend Reverend Augustus Bagster. Some of my readers may remember that I once gave an account of some of his plans for improving his fellow-men. He at one time opened up an office in his church where he established a Bibliopathic Institute for the benefit of persons whose ailments could be cured by the right use of books. The war broke up this activity and he went to France, where' his services were invaluable. Since his return he had been busy in all sorts of welfare work. Now he had taken up his parish work with new enthusiasm. This evening he was 135 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS in a talkative mood and went on for almost an hour with few interruptions from me. I will therefore allow him to tell his own story. "I expected that my church would have suffered a good deal during my absence, but I was surprised to find everything going on as usual. The usualness of the usual is very sur- prising after a person has for several years been experiencing the unusual. It comes as a shock. The old familiar routine is a nine-days' wonder. "Now that the nine days are over, and I am getting back into peace-time harness, I am starting some new activities. "There is one class that needs looking after. It is that which is composed of persons of expert knowledge who have been looking after other people. Now that many of these other people are looking after themselves, many efficient altruists are temporarily out of a job. Somebody ought to look after them. They have been ac- customed to get results, but they are a trifle mixed in their minds as to just what results are worth getting. "They used to be successful to a fault, but it 136 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS never occurred to them to ask, Successful at what? Success was its own excuse for being. But it is n't so now. They are asking questions which have no easy answers attached to them, and they are trying to do things which are much more difficult than making money. These effi- cient people are the ones that most need cheer- ing up and straightening out; but they might well say no man careth for their souls. They have been educated to do one kind of work, but now they need a good deal of reeducation. "It is with these people in mind that I have established my office. It's a sort of Lost Articles Department. There are lost incentives and lost purposes which busy people are apt to overlook. There are lost values which are most distressing of all. A person is efficiently working for some- thing. He thinks he has got it, but finds that he has got something else. A mistake has been made, but he can't quite locate it. He comes to me to talk it over. I am not an expert myself. That's the reason he comes to me. I may sug- gest something which he would have thought of himself if his mind had n't been so full of other things. 137 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS "One of my clients is a publicity man, one of the ablest in the country. He is a splendid fellow. He is a born booster, and is chockful of bright ideas. He can boost anything he turns his mind to. He can take a little business and turn it into a big business, just by arousing curiosity about it. He does n't misrepresent anything; he does n't need to. He admits that it is a little busi- ness; all he asks is that people should watch it grow. And it does grow because they are watch- ing it. It is the public interest that does it, and he knows how to keep the public interested. He's a master hand at getting unpaid publicity, and he says that it is unpaid publicity that pays. "He has always been very conscientious and will never undertake to push an article that has no merit in it. But he will take Modest Merit and dress it up and put it in the limelight, so that everybody will see its excellence. "He has been very successful, but now he is not content with making money. That is too sordid. He wants to apply his talents for the good of humanity. Lately he has taken up religion. It is a very genuine enthusiasm with him. He is convinced of the great need of vital 138 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS piety in the present crisis in the affairs of the world. He is accustomed to divide mankind into two classes, the boosters and the kickers. There are too many kickers and not enough boosters. He is going to recruit the number of the boosters of religion. After looking into the ways of the churches he finds that they are not more than thirty-seven per cent efficient. "He has organized groups of active men and has been teaching them better ways of doing religious business. In this he has been very suc- cessful up to a certain point. "The other day, however, he came to me in considerable distress of mind. He was afraid he was getting stale. He had, he said, been making the same appeals and using the same illustra- tions, for he was a great believer in the power of repetition. He had seen it work well in every department of publicity work in which he had been engaged. That is the great use of a slogan. People repeat it and get used to it, and by and by their curiosity is aroused and they ask what it means. At least seventeen per cent do, and that means success when you are dealing with large numbers. 139 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS "But something seemed to be slowing up his work and he asked me to attend his next con- ference with his workers and see what was the matter. "The next day after the meeting he called to get my report. "'What did you think of it?' he asked. " 'I think you meant well,' I answered. " ' Then you think I did n't get results ? Was I too unconventional for the church folks in my line of talk?' " ' No. You were too conventional. That was the trouble. I noticed that a good many people listened respectfully as if they had heard it be- fore. They listened too easily, as they do to Dr. Goodspeed when he reads a sermon taken out of his barrel.' "'But I had only spoken to them once or twice before.' " ' Yes, the first time was a great success. They saw that you were dead in earnest and that you were talking about a subject that you had never thought much about before. There was some- thing fresh in your method of approach. Instead of starting like Dr. Goodspeed with the Amale- 140 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS kites and Perizzites and drawing a doubtful moral from their distant sins, you drew your illustrations from your own business. They were not very good illustrations, but they served your purpose, for every one saw what you were driving at. You said that you had been teaching men how to sell automobiles and dress goods. Now we ought to put as much energy and per- suasiveness into the work of bringing religion before the public. We have a good thing; we should push it. Then in a very natural and tell- ing way you said, "We are here to sell religion. Let me show you how to do it." '"That was all right when you said it the first time. But last night when you repeated briskly, "We are here to sell religion," I saw that you had lost your audience. You were falling into the conventionalities of the salesman, and were not speaking the language of the religious sentiment. You were doing what Dr. Good- speed so often does. You were running your illustration into the ground. It went into the ground with a dull thud. "'For the fact is that the analogy to sales-* manship breaks down almost at the start. The 141 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS salesman has something which his customers have not, but which they need or can be made to think they need. He must make his goods attractive in order to get them off his hands. " 'But you do not want to get your religion off your hands. If you happen to be of a religious turn of mind you realize that you have n't any surplus for export, and that your neighbor is just as near to the source of supplies as you are. His religion is better for him than yours would be if it were dumped on his home market. All your attempts to recommend your wares are from the religious point of view an impertinence. Religion is something to be shared, it is not something to be sold. "'Did you realize that you were playing into the hands of the enemy when you tried to show that religion is the best way of safeguarding business interests and maintaining political stability? Do you remember Gibbon's remark, "All religions are to the vulgar alike true, to the philosopher alike false, and to the statesman alike useful " ? You don't believe that any more than I do, but your way of putting things might lead to the conclusion that you valued religion 142 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS chiefly for its usefulness to the class to which you belong. "'The fact is that in the past religion has often manifested itself as a force that turns the world upside down, and it may do it again. The great religious teachers have never concealed this fact. They have not always presented it as an attractively safe investment. You remem- ber the young man who came prepared to buy religion if it could be shown to be a profitable venture, and who "went away very sorrowful, because he had great possessions." "'As to your argument addressed to the hard- headed business man to convince him that if he gives generously to foreign missions he will get his money back, because it is good for trade — I would cut that out. If he is really hard-headed he won't wait for such slow returns. He knows that he can turn his money over half a dozen times while the missionary is learning the lan- guage. He will let somebody else give to mis- sions while he takes a more direct way to the profits. '"If I wanted to be effective in persuading people to give to foreign missions I should tell 143 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS the plain truth about the motive that sends the missionary out. It's because he believes in his mission. If you can get other people to believe in it they will be glad to help. But you can't do it by talking about something else, even if that something else is as interesting as foreign trade. There are, indeed, some people, as the New Testament tells us, who believe that "gain is godliness." But you can't do much with that kind of folks. I would n't waste time trying to conciliate them. Go after the people who know the difference. '"When you come to that point in your speech where you say, "And even if there were no higher motive it would be worth your while," etc., etc. — cut that out too. You have a higher motive. Stick to that! Why do you suggest a lower motive that is n't half so appealing. You lose spiritual momentum while you are chang- ing gears. Besides, the higher motive is reli- gious, and it is religion you are trying to "get across."' "My client is very quick and saw the point at once — and half a dozen other points I had not seen. Within five minutes he was outlining a 144 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS plan to get the ideas that had just occurred to him before the public. "It is not always," continued Bagster, "that my clients are so open to suggestion. Sometimes they are very set in their own ways. The other day a gentleman called who was an expert in business management. He had been engaged by the trustees of a University to report on methods and to suggest economies. He had pleased them so much that they had given him authority to carry out his plans for reconstruction. " 'It is a chance,' he said, 'that does not come often to one in my profession. People come to me for advice, and then act only on so much of it as pleases them. When I took up this job I resolved to put it through in good shape. I over- hauled the educational machinery and scrapped everything that was not up-to-date. It 's the only true economy. "'I was astonished at the condition of things. There was no system. You could n't have run a cotton mill as that University was run, and I know what I am talking about, for I have had a great deal of experience in cotton mills. 145 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS "'Take the matter of research for one thing. There is nothing more important. The Univer- sity owes it to the community to make a certain number of important discoveries every year. The Advancement of Science is expensive, but it pays in the long run. Certain members of the Faculty should always be put on these jobs when they are not needed at their routine work. It takes some planning to keep the advancing steady. "'But when I looked into it I found an utter lack of business method. Some of the most dis- tinguished researchers had very vague ideas as to what they were going to discover — and they had no idea of time whatever. A research that under any up-to-date administration ought to have been finished in thirty days would linger on for several years and then turn out to be some- thing quite different from what it was intended to be. "'I learned that the discoveries were generally haphazard affairs, often quite accidental. A great many hours were spent in fruitless specu- lation. "'And when they did make a profitable dis- 146 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS covery the habit of procrastination kept them from making the best use of it. Anybody with business sense can see that the psychological moment for publishing a discovery is the moment when you make it. Then it has some news value. But these professors would let time slip away while they were engaged in tedious processes of verification. "'I had a plain talk with the men of the de- partment. I said, "We will no longer tolerate dilatory methods. You must make good or get out. Verification is all right, but it must not be allowed to interfere with publication. That, for the reputation of the University, must be on the minute. If it is n't our competitors will get away with us every time." "'I introduced a definite system throughout the University, aiming to arouse a spirit of proper pride in the professors, and making every one feel that he must earn his salary by showing results. I showed them the evil of unrelated intellectual activities. We want activities that build up the University and make it an institu- tion to which all good citizens can point with pride. It is team play we are after. 147 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS "'The great thing I have insisted upon is standardization. That is the secret of big busi- ness. And Education is a big business if you look at it in the right way. I have tables prepared showing the exact cost of educating the Ameri- can boy, so that he shall be a thoroughly stand- ardized American citizen. Using our plant to its utmost capacity we ought to double our output and guarantee its uniformity. When the public recognizes our diploma as a reliable trademark we can count on its patronage. It's square dealing that wins. We don't want any crooked sticks, any men with unclassified opinions or un- usable talents in the Faculty. No man should publicly express an opinion that the University as a whole would not stand for. "'It is not only necessary to standardize the product, but also the methods of production. This is extremely difficult, but it is necessary if we are to have a high standard of efficiency. It is necessary to know just exactly what each man is capable of producing in a given length of time, and then we must hold him strictly responsible for his output. This is a fundamen- tal principle which I am hammering into the 148 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS minds of our employees. I think they are be- ginning to cooperate. '"I have posted a notice in the Faculty room, giving all the principles of shop manage- ment that I have introduced into the institution. "'Each day's work shall be definitely allotted to each member of the Faculty, by the head of his department. "'An accurate time study is made by means of a stop-watch with record blanks to determine how fast the work should be done. '"At the end of each day each member will be informed as to whether he is keeping up with his task or how far he has fallen short. An assistant will be sent to encourage those who are falling behind and help them to catch up. "'In order to keep the professors at the maxi- mum production consistent with their own health there will be high pay in case the tasks are successfully done and low pay in case of par- tial failure. '"These rules I carefully explained to the members of the Faculty showing them that they were made in their interest. In order to further encourage them I announced that those who 149 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS were successful in their teaching jobs would be transferred to the business end of the establish- ment. I believe this method is already adopted in many of our most successful institutions.' "At this point," said Bagster, "my client showed me a blank which he used. For the sake of economy he used one originally prepared for the shoveling department, but which, by a few slight changes made by the pen, served to check the work of the professors. [See page 151.] "Other tables were shown 'indicating time spent in getting ready to shovel,' and in ' return- ing empty'; also time spent in 'loosening clay which was about to be shoveled.' The analogies to the educational process were so exact that the percentages worked out perfectly. Of course allowance was made for the time difference be- tween shoveling clay and transferring a definite amount of knowledge from one mind to another. "'If,' he said, 'by scientific management the amount of clay shoveled in an hour may be so largely increased, what may we not expect when the same methods are used in the higher educa- tion ? In the mere matter of reading there is an enormous waste. The reader, instead of con- 150 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS >. 60 o i 3 Jt a a a I* +J CO o 13 13 3 .8 Ih •n a CO o u, -a a do a 4-> t-c 0> U 13 a ■> O ,cN «s a *a £ S u o cci 1 6 nS I -a **• a 8 a N O +■> CC P P W fa .5? 13 W <3 > j^. 4> a & at O so "53 a O Q -s3 £ o 4> J3 -3 +■> ^o *S C +J 60 "0 ^te. -° ■^ 3 a, a c« t\3 o U +J o CD a, nt u u u ID .a 13 a ^ <2 « c i "k -a OS c» S^3 _N J3 U 4-> 3 1 OS CCT W ^ +J ^2 i i 3 >, CO (U 5 > v n2 "3 13 3 a ni « S CO ,2 8 c« Q .3 H »N sb >> S3 I s 4 13 o 3 is o o E o O -M 60 00 c .a -C ^ is CO .© ^ u "So fet o CO «S 3 w 151 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS fining himself to the subject which he had chosen, reads the book because it interests him, following the author's mind in its wanderings. In this way he gets a good many ideas which he has no im- mediate use for, and which interfere with ideas he already has. This is the cause of much men- tal confusion. '"It is the same in teaching philosophy. The expert philosopher knows what he is after and gets it. He proves his point with the minimum of intellectual effort. There are careless thinkers who are always taking into consideration facts which interfere with the precision of their own conclusions. By calling attention of the foremen of the philosophical department to such wasteful methods great economies could be effected.' "I saw that my client was getting so enthu- siastic over his system that he was in danger of forgetting the object of his visit. I asked him how his plan was working. "'I had some difficulty at first,' said he, 'but since the old members of the Faculty resigned, everything runs like clockwork.' "'I congratulate you on your success,' I said. "'But there is one thing that troubles me,' 152 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS answered my client. 'That's what J came to ask you about. The University is running smoothly, just as I planned it. Everybody does and says what is expected. But what is it that makes the whole thing so uninteresting?' "'Oh,' I said, 'we are coming to the point at last. I had supposed your aim was uniformity and that you wanted everybody's mind to work like yours. I thought you were very efficient in carrying out that plan. But if you want them to be interesting, that is another matter. You see you will have to reorganize your University so that it will interest interesting people. '"But you are on the right track now. You see a worth-while end to work for. You want the University to make the intellectual life in- teresting, so interesting that the youth who resort to it will of their own accord keep up the habit of thinking. This, of course, cannot be accomplished if the professors are mere task- masters, or pedants under the direction of taskmasters. They must be men whose minds have the breadth and charm that comes only with perfect freedom. There is the joy of dis- covery, there is the sharpening of wits that 153 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS comes from conflict of opinion. You must create the atmosphere in which scholars thrive and do their best. That's a big job you have before you. You must not waste any more time in irrelevant effort. Just now I fear that your University is under the dictatorship of the intellectual pro- letariat. "'There's time yet to change your plans. If you want your University to secure the services of interesting people, you must make life pleas- ant for them. Let me read you a bit from a recently published letter of William James to his colleague Palmer. They are the kind of men you want to understand, for you can't afford to do without them. ""'The great event in my life recently has been reading Santayana's book. Although I ab- solutely reject the Platonism of it, I have liter- ally squealed with delight at the imperturbable perfection with which the position is laid down page after page, and grunted with delight at such thickening of our Harvard atmosphere. If our students now could begin really to under- stand what Royce means with his voluntaristic- pluralistic monism; what Miinsterberg means 154 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS with his dualistic scientificism, and what San- tayana means with his pessimistic Platonism, and what I mean by my crass pluralism, and what you mean by your ethical idealism, that there are so many religions, ways of fronting life, and worth fighting for, we should have a genuine philosophic universe at Harvard." "'What do you think of that?' "'Philosophic universe!' growled my client. 'It seems to me more like Donnybrook Fair. I can't think of anything more calculated to un- settle the minds of the students.' "'Precisely,' I said, 'that is just what these men were conspiring to do. They did n't believe in having the mind settled as securely as yours is. I know you don't agree with them; but the point is that if you had had the management of Harvard you could n't have kept James and Royce and Palmer and Santayana in the Fac- ulty. They would have struck.' "My client's countenance darkened. 'There we are again,' he said. 'There's something con- tagious about the strike. Every class of workers is against efficiency. The philosophers are just as bad as the rest of them, I suppose.' 155 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS "'Worse,' I said, 'ever so much worse. If you don't humor them and let them think philosophically, they won't think at all. The artists are pretty near as bad. You want them to do some great original work and tell them just what is to be done and just how to do it. They strike. Or if they take your order and go through the motions, they don't do their best.' "'It's sabotage!' muttered my client. " ' No, it is n't,' I said. ' It 's because they can't work that way. It's against their nature. Un- less you understand what their nature is you can't get results, for there are n't any. Did you ever try to draw out a person in conversation? Unless you did it in the right way you shut him up. Perhaps in the pause in the general con- versation you looked at him and asked, "Won't you tell that funny story you told the other day?" In order to encourage him you explain elaborately how funny the story was and how admirably it was told. Then you leave the poor wretch in the conversational pit you have digged for him. He glares and stammers and apologizes for his forgetfulness. And yet he knows and you know that he is not as stupid as 156 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS he seems. He has only been betrayed by a false friend. That's what happens when you try in the wrong way to make people do original work. They can't do anything till they get away from your influence.' "I then read to him a paragraph from Tay- lor's ' Scientific Management': 'The history of scientific management up to date calls for a word of warning. The mechanism of manage- ment must not be mistaken for its essence or underlying philosophy. Precisely the same mechanism will in one case produce disastrous results and in another be beneficent. The same mechanism which will produce the finest results when made to serve the underlying principles of scientific management, will lead to failure and disaster if accompanied by the wrong spirit in those who are using it. Hundreds of people have already mistaken the mechanism of this system for its spirit.' "'Mr. Taylor,' I said, 'insists that before any one can get the most and best work done he must know the "value of a scientific study of the motives which influence workmen in their daily work." That's where you have fallen down. 157 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS Your work at your University is not properly motivated. It can't be efficient till the right motives come into play. You must decommer- cialize your institution.' "'Where shall I begin?' he asked. "'Begin with your own mind,' I answered. 'Come again next Friday and we will take up the Taylor system from the spiritual end. Sup- pose we begin with Jeremy Taylor's "Liberty of Prophesying." Read the last chapter of the book. It has a good story about Abraham, which is n't in the Bible. Abraham sat in the evening at his tent door meditating on the most efficient methods of converting the heathen. An old idolater came and asked hospitality for the night. Abraham turned him away with a curse. In the night the Lord said to Abraham, "I have borne with this man for a hundred years. Canst thou not bear with him for one night?" "'The lesson of toleration for all varieties of human beings is not an easy one. But whether in shop management or the management of a University, it must be learned. Before you can do much in your new undertaking you must learn to tolerate the idiosyncrasies of scholars." 5 158 ADVISER OF EFFICIENCY EXPERTS Bagster gave me a number of illustrations of the work of his office. When I rose to go I said, "As we are told that a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth, so I suppose we might say that a man's efficiency consisteth not in the abundance of the things he doeth?" "Perhaps so," said Bagster, "though I am not much afraid of overdoing. I should say that a man's spiritual efficiency as a general encour- ager of human effort consists in his knowledge of the abundance of things worth doing, and in his abundant sympathy with those who are try- ing to do these things, even if they do not do them very well." THE PILGRIMS AND THEIR CONTEMPORARIES The Church of the Latter-Day Saints has an interesting ceremonial called "baptizing for the dead." The living saint is able to make his faith retroactive, and effective for the spiritual benefit of persons who were unfortunate enough to live before they had an opportunity to know what it was. He stands, as it were, godfather to his ancestors. He vouches for them as members of the true Church. This gives the Church an antiquity which it would not otherwise have had. Latter-day patriots are not behind Latter- Day Saints in their tendency to impute their own ideals to generations that have passed away. They magnify the virtues of their forefathers, but they take for granted that they were the same virtues that are now admired. Those who assert that the former days were better than these are not willing to admit that they may have been essentially different from these. Just now when we are celebrating the tercen- 160 THE PILGRIMS tenary of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plym- outh, one may be allowed to make a modest plea for the individuality of these worthies. Their essential ideals and purposes are in danger of being obscured by the mists of ancestor worship. We are in the midst of an earnest effort to Americanize the aliens who dwell among us. It is a laudable endeavor, though it is sometimes undertaken with a suddenness which alarms the innocent foreigner, who does not know why we are taking such an interest in his behalf. It is difficult for him to understand that he must be regenerated before he takes out his naturaliza- tion papers. What more natural than that we Americanize the men of the Mayflower who came to these shores in the year 1620? Have we not for a long time adopted them as in a peculiar manner our forefathers, and have we not a right to attribute to them our political views? If they are not illustrative of what the great Republic has be- come, they have been receiving praise under false pretenses. Our American faith was formulated in the Declaration of Independence and in the Con- 161 THE PILGRIMS stitution of the United States. If we wish to define it further we point proudly to Washing- ton's Farewell Address and the Monroe Doc- trine. He that doth not believe these things, let him be anathema. The true American is ready to maintain these principles against the alien world. That all men have certain inalienable rights, that there should be a complete separation be- tween the functions of the Church and State, that there should be no taxation without rep- resentation, that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed — these are the principles of 1776. That which gives the fighting edge to these principles is the stubborn determination that the American con- tinent shall be free from the control of European monarchs. By antedating the Declaration by a hundred and fifty years we double the period to which we point with pride. There is a chronological ex- pansion which is very gratifying. By one swoop we take into our national fold several genera- tions of respectable people whose characters do us honor. They doubtless felt as we do, or would 162 THE PILGRIMS have done so if they had had the opportunity. They were the makers of America; that goes without question. Why, then, should we not attribute to them American principles as we understand them? This attempt to Americanize several genera- tions of colonial Englishmen has led to two re- sults. One is to minimize the significance of the American Revolution, and the other is to devital- ize the history of the period which preceded it. The American War of Independence is treated as merely the throwing off of the yoke that had long been irksome. The forefathers came to these shores to escape the tyranny of James I. They set up independent governments as far as they were able. At last their descendants com- pleted their task and drove out the minions of George III. This simplifies history, but it ignores the fact that a great revolution took place in the latter part of the eighteenth century. In this revolu- tion something more was involved than inde- pendence from the mother country. Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine were not simply taking up the unfinished business of the fore- 163 THE PILGRIMS fathers; they were announcing new ideas that produced a violent explosion in America and afterward in France. It is to be noted that Washington always spoke of the Revolution, and it was a real one. The effect of the effort to read into the history of the colonial period the spirit of 1776 is to produce a curious sense of unreality. We are reminded of the stage directions of an old miracle play where Adam crosses the stage "on the way to be created." The pre-revolutionary Americans do not seem like real persons with definite purposes of their own. They are shadowy types of what their descendants are subsequently to become. The historian is careful to point out every act that has a symbolic suggestion of something that afterward came to pass, just as the commen- tator on the Old Testament has his eye on the New. The phrase continually comes to mind, "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet." The patriotism of the sons is im- puted to the fathers, who come trailing clouds of genealogical glory which obscure their own proper features. 164 THE PILGRIMS The Covenant of the Mayflower is treated as if it were the first draft of the Declaration of In- dependence, the New England town meeting be- comes a prophecy of the Continental Congress, and we are told that a controversy over a stray pig led to the discovery of great principles which were afterward embodied in the Constitution of the United States. As to the Monroe Doctrine, that was indigenous to Rhode Island. Our romancers have done their part in making the early New Englanders appear to be peculiar people cut off from all contacts with their con- temporaries. There is a sense not only of geo- graphical remoteness, but of spiritual aloofness. The Salem of Hawthorne might be on another planet from London or Bristol. We do not think of the grave citizens as having gossipy letters from cousins and aunts on the other side of the sea. It would be a fitting celebration of the tercen- tenary to restore the Pilgrims of the Mayflower to their proper place in history. They and the Puritans who quickly followed them had a very vivid life of their own. They had opinions which they held with great tenacity and had purposes 165 THE PILGRIMS which gave unity to their lives. They were good haters, and they hated some things which we tolerate. They had their limitations and, like all earnest people, they prized them highly. They were men of their own time and were interested in what were then living issues. In order to get a realistic view of them, we must think of them as belonging to the history of England in one of the most stirring periods, and not merely to the prenatal history of the United States. They were seventeenth-century Englishmen and not faint foreshadowings of eighteenth-century Ameri- cans. Still less did their enthusiasms correspond with those of the great cosmopolitan America of our own day. Perhaps there is no element that could less easily fuse in our melting-pot. They were a part of a movement which was just as distinct as that of modern Zionism. To be a Zionist, one must be first of all a Jew. In going to Palestine the Jew of Warsaw does not cut himself off from his own people. Their prayers follow him, and they are eager to hear of his success. He is where their hearts are. So the early New Englander was first of all an English- man. He had come to the New World impelled 166 THE PILGRIMS by ideas which he held in common with thou- sands of his countrymen. He was enthusias- tically devoted to a great revolutionary cause which, beginning with a few obscure people, gathered strength until at last it swept away the long-established order. In the early part of the struggle New England was on the fighting-line. It was the Puritan Revolution which culmi- nated in the establishment of the English Com- monwealth with which these men were related. Here they found the realization of their ideals. They were stirred by its passions and they re- joiced in its success. It is worth our while to note the difference between the seventeenth- century revolution and that of the eighteenth century. To understand the Puritan of the seventeenth century, we must remember that though he was a very independent person, his fundamental in- terest was not in the individual man, but in a new social order. He did not make our distinction between Church and State. Religion was to him a public matter. That every State should have a religion was something on which all parties in that day were 167 THE PILGRIMS agreed. But the Puritan contention was that the religion of the State should not be formal, but real. The nation should be held to the same strict rules of conscience which bound the pri- vate man. There was no excuse for public un- righteousness. Milton was setting forth a politi- cal creed when he wrote, "A Commonwealth ought to be a huge Christian personage, one mighty growth and stature of an honest man, as compact of virtue as of body." When the passengers of the Mayflower formed themselves into a body politic "for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian religion," they were clearly expressing their purpose. Civil government was not an end in itself; it was a means for advancing true religion. An early New England minister asks the question, "What is our errand in the wilder- ness?" His answer is that it is not religion as a private interest. Personal religion could be practiced anywhere. "New England's design in this vast under- taking is to set up the Kingdom of Christ in whole communities. His Kingdom must come and his will must be done. Only in so far as his 168 THE PILGRIMS Kingdom comes can his will be done. This Kingdom must be set up in a public and openly- prevailing manner. It is in the commonwealth that it must be established." To set up the "Kingdom of Christ" in an "openly prevailing manner" meant something more than to establish the kind of church with which we are familiar. It was a purpose which was at once political and religious. It involved the question over which people fight, "Who shall rule?" The English people fought to determine the answer, and the Puritan won. Thirty-three years after the Mayflower sailed, "the Instru- ment of Government of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland and the domin- ions thereto belonging" was adopted. In the thirty-fifth article of this constitution it is declared: "That the Christian Religion, as con- tained in the Scriptures be held forth and recom- mended as the public profession of these na- tions." The English Commonwealth in making this profession stood before the world as a huge Christian personage. The most indomitable 169 THE PILGRIMS fighters of that generation were behind this profession. Those who had scoffed at the Puri- tan remained, if not to pray, at least to consider. Organized religion was a political power which men of the world had to reckon with. During the first generation the New England Puritans were not spiritually isolated. They were in the very thick of a most exciting con- flict. Massachusetts was the experiment station in which a great political theory was being tried out. Mrs. Hemans writes of the time "When a band of exiles moored their bark On the wild New England shore." I do not think that the Pilgrims, even in the loneliness of the first winter, felt themselves to be exiles. That experience they had passed through ten years before when they were driven out of their own land and took refuge in Holland. Then they were, indeed, living as aliens among people who had another language. But when the Speedwell sailed from Delfts- haven, its passengers were being repatriated. They were coming once more to live under Eng- lish laws and to take part in the work of re- 170 THE PILGRIMS generating their own country. Religion and pa- triotism could once more be united. In England they had been separatists, separated not merely from the reactionary elements, but from the liberal Puritans who had retained their mem- bership in the Established Church which they were endeavoring to reform. Francis Bacon expressed the common opinion about them: "As for those whom we called Brownists, being, when they were at the most, a very small number of very silly and base peo- ple here and there in corners dispersed, they are now (thanks be to God) by the good remedies that have been used, suppressed and worn out, so there is scarce any news of them." By the time they emerged from their exile the movement of which they were a part had al- ready broadened. They were aware of the ties that bound them to the multitudes of English- men who belonged to the new order. To religiously minded people at that time America was not looked upon as a land of exile, but as a land of opportunity. It was that part of the king's dominion toward which those who were eager for spiritual adventure naturally 171 THE PILGRIMS turned. So conservative a churchman as George Herbert wrote : "Religion stands on tiptoe in our land Ready to pass to the American strand." The official censor hesitated to allow the book containing these lines, so dangerous to those who suffered from religious unrest, to be pub- lished. Professor Palmer has told us that Her- bert was thinking of Virginia and not of New England, but his lines are suggestive of the direction of men's thought. The field of spiritual adventure lay on the western shores of the Atlantic. We know what the "Western fever" meant to the Americans of the nineteenth century. It was in the blood of all men who were eager to make a larger place for themselves than was possible in the long-settled parts of the country. Seventeenth-century Englishmen felt the same impulse, and yielded to it in much the same way. And in yielding they were not cutting themselves off from their own country; they were taking part in its expansion. The congregation in Leyden, said Governor Bradford, "had a great hope and inward zeal of 172 THE PILGRIMS laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for the propagating and advancing the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world." When the proposition to remove to one of the unpeopled regions of America was made public "it raised many variable opinions amongst men, and caused many fears and doubts among them- selves." There were stories of atrocious In- dians who, "Not being contente only to kill, and take away life, but delight to tormente men in the most bloodie maner that may be flesing some alive with the shells of fishes, cutting off the members and joynts of others by peasmeale and broiling on the coles, eate the collips of their flesh in their sight while they live: with other cruelties horrible to be related." But none of these things moved the more courageous members of the community. "It was answered that all great and honourable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome by answerable courages. It was granted that the dangers were great but not desperate; the difficulties were many but not invincible. For 173 THE PILGRIMS though there were many of them likely they were not certaine; it might be that sundrie of the things feared might never befall, others by providente care and the use of good means might in a great measure be prevented; and all of them, through the help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne or overcome." They were reminded that they lived in Holland "as men in exile," and that there was but one way of escape. "After many other particular things answered and aledged on both sides it was fully concluded by the major parte to put this design in execution, and to prosecute it by the best means they could." Years before, while still in England, they had, "as the Lords free people, joyned themselves (by a covenant of the Lord) into a church estate, in the fellowship of the gospell, to walke in all his wayes made known unto them or to be made known unto them, according to their best en- deavors, whatsoever it would cost them, the Lord assisting them." But their church had been a voluntary organization without power to determine community life. They wanted to do what Calvin had done in Geneva, and Knox in 174 THE PILGRIMS Scotland, to give full political expression to their religious convictions. It was because he had suspected they were at heart revolutionists of a dangerous type that King James had driven them out of England. While he was still only king in Scotland he had learned that Calvinism was something more than a system of theology; it involved a theory that was hostile to the divine right of kings to rule. In Germany the Reformation had first excited the hopes of the people and then disappointed them. The peasants' revolt, with its threat of a great social revolution, had frightened Luther. Henceforth he put his trust in princes and sup- ported their claims to authority. But in France the Reformation took a different turn. A young Frenchman, John Calvin, issued a book on "The Institutes of the Christian Religion" which had an effect on the revolutionary forces of the seven- teenth century like that which the works of Rousseau had on the revolution of the eighteenth century. Both men began with the statement of abstract ideas, but these abstractions were taken up by thousands of their contemporaries and applied to the political problems of the day. It 175 THE PILGRIMS is interesting that both these men found their home in the free city of Geneva. Calvin's entrance into Geneva was dramatic, and his career a stormy one. With all the self- confidence of youth he "took over" the govern- ment of the city. The doctrine of the direct sovereignty of God was applied to municipal affairs. Geneva was ruled in the name of the Invisible King. The Scotch Calvinist Andrew Melville con- fronted the absolutism of King James with a doctrine which was equally uncompromising: "There are two kings in Scotland, King James and Jesus Christ whose subject King James is and in whose kingdom he is not a king nor a lord over head but a member." As a pious theory, James would have assented to the sovereignty of God. What he objected to was the Calvinistic claim that the ordinary man with the Bible in his hand was competent to decide between the conflicting claims of the two sovereigns. When he came to the throne of England he determined to make an open fight for the royal prerogative. It was in 1604, in the famous conference at Hampton Court, that James in pithy sentences 176 THE PILGRIMS declared that he was prepared to fight Puri- tans, Presbyterians, and Separatists to the death. They might differ among themselves, but they were all one to him. They all agreed in under- mining the royal authority. "If you aim at a Scottish presbytery it agreeth as well with monarchy as God and the devil. Then Jack and Tom and Will shall meet and censure me and my council." As for toleration of such sedition, he would have none of it. "Stay I pray you for one seven years before you demand : and then if I grow pursy and fat I may purchance hearken unto you; for that govern- ment will keep me in breath and give me work enough." Rising in his wrath the king cried, "I will make them conform, or else I will harry them out of the land, or else I will do worse." The story of the attempt to carry out that threat involves the fortunes of the English peo- ple on both sides of the Atlantic. The conflict did not end till the head of the son of King James was laid upon the block. When Laud and Straf- ford began the policy of "thorough," indignant Puritans swarmed across the sea. The passions stirred by persecution found fierce expression 177 THE PILGRIMS in the new land, and there was the very human desire for retaliation. King James had declared, "No Bishop, no King." In Massachusetts men boldly said that the Commonwealth could get along without either. In England people were beginning to say the same things. In the great controversy the English people on both sides of the ocean were equally interested. They read the same vitriolic pamphlets and discussed them with the acrimony which is possible only among fellow-countrymen. Roger Williams recommends a book of Milton to a London lady of conservative principles. She replies that she has too much respect for the memory of her dear father to read anything written by such a wicked revolutionist. "As for Milton's book which you desire that I should read, that is he that wrote a book on the lawful- ness of divorce, and if report says true he had at that time two or three wives. This perhaps were good doctrine in New England, but it were abominable in Old England." Then she adds: "But you should have seen the answer to it. If you can get it I assure you it is worth read- ing." To this good lady New England was a 178 THE PILGRIMS dangerous region, just the place for wild radicals of polygamous habits like John Milton. In the meantime sermons preached in Massa- chusetts before approving magistrates, by minis- ters who were known to the English police, were reprinted in London. The more controversial they were, the more eagerly they were read. That the doctrines were revolutionary was noth- ing against them in the eyes of those who believed that radical changes were necessary. The English preachers were becoming equally bold despite all repressive laws. "It was the Puritan pulpit," said Dr. South, "that supplied the field with swordsmen and the Parliament with incendiaries." The pathos of the early story of the Pilgrims must not blind us to the fact that they were on the winning side. The party that they repre- sented grew in power until it at length imposed its will upon England and all her dominions. That the triumph was temporary did not make it less complete in the eyes of those who witnessed it. To those who had taken part in it it seemed the beginning of a new era which should endure. When Strafford and Laud had perished and 179 THE PILGRIMS the power of King Charles had been overthrown, they seemed to hear the angel of the Book of the Revelation: "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the king- doms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever. And the four and twenty angels which sat before God on their seats fell upon their faces and worshipped God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art and wast and art to come, because thou hast taken to thee thy great power and hast reigned." Governor Bradford, in 1646, on rereading his history of the Plymouth Plantation, adds a note on the reverse of a page in which he had told the pathetic story of the early trials of the Pilgrims : " Full little did I thinke that the downfall of the Bishops with their courts, cannons and cere- monies had been so neare when I first begane these scribled writings (which was aboute the year 1630, and so peeced up at times of leasure afterward) or that I should have lived to have seene or heard of the same but it is the Lord's doing and ought to be marvellous in our eyes. 180 THE PILGRIMS 'Every plante which our heavenly father hath not planted (saith our Saviour) shall be rooted out. I have snared thee and thou are taken, O Babell [Bishops] and thou wast not aware, thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the Lord.' . . . Do you not now see the fruits of your labours all yee servants of the Lord, that have suffered for his truth, and have been faithfull witnesses of the same, and ye little [handfull among the rest, the least among the thousands of Israel ? For yee not only had a seede time, but many of you have seen the joy- full harvest. Should you not then rejoyse, yea and again rejoyse, and say Hallelujah, salvation and glory and honour and power be to the Lord our God; for true and righteous are his judg- ments." Bradford's postscript, with its cry of triumph, is worth considering, for it gives dramatic unity to the lives of the Pilgrims. They had a definite programme, and it was accomplished. Within a single lifetime it was possible to see the seed- sowing and the harvest. And the harvest was greater than any of the little company had imagined to be possible. 181 THE PILGRIMS There had come to Bradford the news of the Battle of Naseby, the storming of Bristol, and the surrender of Charles to the Scots. And with the political and military success there was the triumph of the religious ideas of the Puritans. Parliament had on the advice of the assembly of divines revolutionized the discipline of the Church. No more should the sign of the cross be used in baptism, the communion table should be set in the body of the church, the ring should not be used in marriage, there should be no wearing of vestments, no prescribed forms of prayer, no keeping of saints' days. All the points for which Plymouth and Salem in the days of adversity had contended had been accepted by those who ruled all England. The story has a dramatic completeness like that of the anti- slavery movement or the unification of Italy. Let us not blur the outlines of the picture by confusing it with ideas that belong to another era. One who watched at the death-bed of Oliver Cromwell, and who heard him praying, said "a public spirit to God's cause did breathe in him to the very last." In these words are expressed 182 THE PILGRIMS the soul of the Puritan Revolution. The men who struggled in behalf of the English Common- wealth believed that they knew what God's cause was. It was not a private virtue; it was large and public, and to be expressed in civil institutions for whose maintenance they were directly responsible. They were ardent patriots and believed that to their own nation, in their own time, was given the honor of setting up a government in accordance with the revealed will of God. Let us think of them in the moments when they were filled with the glowing sense of the immediate realization of their ideal. Milton expressed their mood: "Now once again by all concurrence of signs, and by the general instinct of holy and devout men, as they daily and solemnly express their thoughts, God is decree- ing some new and great period in the Church, even to the reforming of Reformation itself: what does he then but reveal himself to his servants, and, as his manner is, first to his Eng- lishmen." In insisting that we can understand the New England Puritans only when we think of them as Englishmen profoundly interested in the 183 THE PILGRIMS great movement of their own day, we are not denying their influence in the development of American character. We are only saying that in order to trace that influence we must follow the main current of history rather than any parochial side channels. We have as our in- heritance, which we share with our British brethren, the whole Puritan movement on both sides of the Atlantic. Physical geography has little to do in the transmission of thought. Ideas are not, like cats, attached to places. They fol- low persons. The man of the Pilgrim company best beloved and longest remembered was the pastor, John Robinson, who crossed the sea only in spirit. Hampden and Pym and Eliot and Baxter and Milton and Cromwell have left a deeper impress upon America than all the Mathers. To-day we are better able to appreciate the efforts of the Puritan than were our immediate predecessors. We cannot accept his answers, but we are beginning to ask the same kind of ques- tions. We are less sure than we used to be that reli- gion and politics can be kept in separate com- 184 THE PILGRIMS partments. We are not altogether satisfied with purely secular solutions of social problems. We hear people talking again about a community church. In an amendment to the Constitution enforcing prohibition we have gone further than the Puritan Commonwealth did in looking after the morals of the people. The individual conscience is more and more reinforced by a social conscience that finds its expression in law. Our philosophers have been telling us that reli- gion is loyalty to a beloved community. All this does not indicate a return to the Puritan- ism of the seventeenth century, but it makes seventeenth-century Puritanism more intelli- gible to us. EDUCATION IN PURSUIT OF HENRY ADAMS "The Education of Henry Adams" can be read with pleasure and profit in half a dozen different ways. Each reader will find something to his own mind and much from which he will vig- orously dissent. But each one will lay down the book with a shamefaced sense of a privilege neglected. "Why did n't I know more about Henry Adams while he was still living?" The way in which the book was intended by the author to be read is the last way in which the reader is likely to consider it. It is intended to be a sequel to another book on a totally differ- ent subject, and written in an altogether differ- ent style, "Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres." It is probable that the serious-minded reader will read the alleged introduction only because his curiosity has been excited by allusions in the sequel. He will find in the account of mediaeval art and artists a charm of its own, but he will see no connection between the lives and thoughts 186 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS of the cathedral-builders and the education of the New Englander, Henry Adams. In this he will be in complete accord with Mr. Adams him- self, who again and again asserts that he can see no historical or other relation between the two. They are quite disconnected; that is the reason he brings them together. His purpose is to ex- hibit their incompatibility of temper. It is a part of his theory of history, the explanation of which he postpones to the last chapters. This theory is worth considering, but it need not interfere with the pleasure of the reader who prefers to approach the autobiography in a more simple way. My own first reading is free from any shadow of speculative philosophy. I find here a delight- ful work of humor. It is humor in the old Eng- lish sense. We see a really solid mind displaying itself capriciously and with a whimsical willful- ness. The author might have taken as a Shake- spearean motto Nym's pugnacious declaration, "I have a humor to knock you indifferently well." As the knocking is done without any regard for persons, and includes himself, it has no de- 187 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS pressing effect. Once accepting his point of view, we enjoy his keen thrusts at the respecta- bilities of his time; and we really think no worse of them because of his disclosures of their weak- nesses. At the time when the English Puritans were beginning to come to New England, an observ- ing Scotchman, Robert Baillie, said of them: "The humor of this people is very various and inclinable to singularities, to differ from all the world, and from one another and shortly from themselves. No people have so much need of a Presbytery." These sturdy non-conformists might need a Presbytery, but it was certain that they never would submit to its decrees. Henry Adams, like all his clan, was "inclin- able to singularities." That made him interest- ing. He had a keen eye for the shortcomings both of himself and his friends. He was in no danger of falling into the habit of indiscriminate eulogy. He had the materials for a voluminous auto- biography of the familiar sort. He might have written as a fortunate man who had lived a pleasant life and who had achieved a fair meas- 188 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS ure of success. He was born into what was per- haps the most distinguished family in America, one which had produced a remarkable succession of able men. He had the best advantages in school and college; was private secretary to his father, the Minister to Great Britain during the Civil War; was intimate with the most impor- tant men in the political life of London and Wash- ington; taught history in Harvard University, winning high praise from competent judges; spent profitable years on a work on United States history; was editor of "The North Amer- ican Review"; was the author of an admirable work on mediaeval thought as expressed in ar- chitecture; and throughout his active career was influential in some of the most important move- ments for political reform. He did many things and he did most of them very well. It was his humor to treat these positive achievements as if they were accidental inter- ruptions in the pursuit of the will-o'-the-wisp which he calls education. Or to "be more exact, it was education that was pursuing the will-o'- the-wisp Henry Adams. He refuses till the very end of the book to tell 189 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS us what he means either by education or by Henry Adams. "That's the humor of it." In the background we see the shadowy form of a Henry Adams that might have been created by a proper kind of education. This ideal character was never produced, and the author attempts to show us the reason. We are shown in detail the circumstances which warped his mind and pre- vented him from being something different from what he actually became. Saint Paul propounded the whimsical ques- tion, "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou formed me thus?" The conception of the clay talking back at the potter, and criticizing him for its own imperfect shape, introduces many complexities of think- ing. The clay must have a gift of quick repartee, for the potter has the advantage of it; for while it is complaining of being made into one shape, it may be moulded into another. The clay con- sidered as a critic of its maker is always at a disadvantage, as it cannot be sure as to how it is coming out. Never has such a controversy been carried on with more pertinacity and skill than in "The 190 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS Education of Henry Adams." There have been many books of autobiography and more books on education. Henry Adams determined to write a book of educational autobiography, in which he should exhibit not his achievements, but his limitations. Assuming toward himself the attitude of a candid friend, he would use himself as an example of the present deplorable state of education. He points out his own shortcomings with the suppressed glee which characterizes the critic who detects a flaw in a much-praised work of art. But never for a moment does he take the blame for the imperfection of his education. He is the clay and he will put the whole respon- sibility on his maker or makers. He is a very critical piece of clay, and very much dissatisfied with his shape. The influences which have made him what he is have made a poor job of it. Usually when an elderly gentleman sits down to write about himself, the sharp angles of his life are obscured by the atmosphere of general benevolence. Even if he chooses to use the third person, there is always a kindly feeling for "the subject of this sketch." We are made to feel 191 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS that there was more to him than the general public had suspected. And his friends also stand out in the reflected glory of his presence. Reminiscence has a charity of its own which covers a multitude of sins. Henry Adams chose to write of himself in a different way. His book is neither an apologia nor a confession. It is simply a bit of criticism of a fragment of humanity with which he hap- pened to be intimately acquainted. He says in effect : "Here am I, one Henry Adams, a curious creature formed by a particular environment. What you choose to call my individuality is simply a name for a number of limitations which differentiate me from other members of the genus to which I belong. I am absurdly limited in my capacity to understand reality, and in my sympathy with other human beings. I have always had an intense curiosity to know why I am not different from what I am. This curiosity has been only partially gratified. In regard to my character, my personal preferences have not been gratified. " I was born in New England, which as every 192 i EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS one knows has a chilly climate which not only gets into the bones, but into the temper. When I go among people of more tropical natures, I notice the difference. The warm expression of emotion is not natural to me. At times I doubt whether I have the emotion. There is a certain reserve of manner which some New Englanders are rather proud of. I dislike it very much. This is not to say that I admire people from other sections of the country who lack this re- serve. Far from it! They seem to me a little vulgar. But my shrinking from them is, I am aware, a provincial peculiarity, arising doubt- less from premature exposure to the east wind. "I was born a member of a chilly family. The political and social prejudices of the family formed an essential part of the education that was imposed upon me. I have never really re- covered from it, nor have I endeavored to do so. That is the worst of it. For the Adamses have always been sturdy individualists of the eight- eenth-century type. They have always been strong and independent, they have never been good mixers; neither have I. I am quite aware that many of my political opinions have been 193 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS warped by my family inheritance. But what would you do, dear reader, if you had been born an Adams, and had John Quincy Adams for your grandfather, and the memory of uncom- promising John Adams behind him, besides no one knows how many Quincys? You might have been no more open-minded than I have been. In looking back over the successive stages in my mental development, I remember that my vision of reality was constantly obscured by some member of my family who got between me and the truth." But no paraphrase can do justice to the en- gaging frankness with which Henry Adams re- lates the story of his own mis-education. \jVe are asked to observe the processes — some- times direct and brutal, often extremely subtle — by which his mind was moulded quite against his will. At every turn some unwelcome form of education was thrust upon him. Something or somebody was always interfering with his men- tal development and giving it a queer twist. There is a delightful account of the first con- sciousness on the part of Henry Adams that the educators were upon him and were about to do 194 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS something to his mind. He was about six years old and was engaged in what promised to be a successful resistance to his mother's attempt to take him to school. It was then that the re- doubtable figure of John Quincy Adams ap- peared upon the scene, and took the boy by the hand. "The boy reflected that an old gentleman close on eighty would never trouble himself to walk near a mile on a hot summer morning over a shadeless road to take a boy to school, and that it would be strange if a lad imbued with the passion of freedom could not find a corner to dodge around, somewhere before reaching the school door. Then and always, the boy in- sisted that this reasoning justified his apparent submission; but the old man did not stop, and the boy saw all his strategical points turned, one after another, until he found himself seated inside the school, and obviously the centre of curious if not malevolent criticism. Not till then did the President release his hand and depart." Throughout the book this attitude of the un- willing schoolboy silently enduring an educa- 195 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS tional process against which he inwardly rebels is preserved. "Resistance to something was the law of New England nature; the boy looked out on the world with the instinct of resistance; for num- berless generations his predecessors had viewed the world chiefly as a thing to be reformed, filled with evil forces to be abolished, and they saw no reason to suppose that they had wholly succeeded in the abolition; the duty was un- changed. That duty implied not only resistance to evil but hatred of it. Boys naturally look on all force as an enemy, and generally find it so, but the New Englander, whether boy or man, in his long struggle with a stingy or hostile universe, had learned also to love the pleasure of hating; his joys were few." Persons who enjoy airing their antipathies are apt to choose some particular character on which they visit their wrath. One person has a consti- tutional dislike of priests or parsons; there are dramatic critics who look at the "tired business man" as the natural enemy; and there are fas- tidious intellectuals who object violently to that commonplace individual "the man in the street." 1% EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS The natural enemy of Henry Adams was the schoolmaster. He was a hypocrite who pre- tended to educate, something which was quite beyond his power. As boy and man Adams maintained his attitude of whimsical antago- nism to all who attempted to improve his mind. When the time came to go to Harvard College he went. But he knew that no particular good would come of it. "The four years passed at college were, for his purposes, wasted. Harvard College was a good school, but at bottom what the boy disliked most was any school at all. He did not want to be one in a hundred — one per cent of an educa- tion. He regarded himself as the only person for whom his education had value, and he wanted the whole of it. He got barely half of an average." "He never knew what other students thought of it, or what they thought they gained from it; nor would their opinion have much affected his. From the first, he wanted to be done with it." It was beginning to be the fashion in those days to go to Germany to finish the education 197 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS begun in America. So to the University of Ber- lin young Adams went. "Dropped into Berlin one morning without guide or direction, the young man in search of education floundered in a mere mess of misun- derstandings. He could never recall what he ex- pected to find, but whatever he expected, it had no relation with what it turned out to be." It was soon evident that the German univer- sity had nothing for him. "The shock that up- set him was the discovery of the university it- self. He had thought Harvard College a torpid school, but it was instinct with life compared with all that he could see of the University of Berlin." When years afterward Harvard College, for- getful of his scorn, or perhaps blandly uncon- scious of it, invited him to be a professor of history, there arose a contest like that which we read of in the early Church, where it was the custom to lay violent hands on a person and make him a bishop against his will. Adams "could see no relation whatever be- tween himself and a professorship. He sought education; he did not sell it. He knew no his- 198 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS tory; he knew only a few historians; his igno- rance was mischievous, because it was literary, accidental, indifferent." He saw the shadow of the prison-house creep- ing over him. He who hated schoolmasters and all their ways must become one. He who knew no history and was beginning to doubt whether there ever was such a thing, must teach it to boys who might be deceived into taking him for an authority. And Adams had to deal with President Eliot, who had been convinced that he was the man for the job. The interview is related with the air of a man who had yielded to superior force. "'But, Mr. President,' urged Adams, 'I know nothing about Mediaeval History.' With the courteous and bland smile so familiar for the next generation of Americans, Mr. Eliot mildly but firmly replied, 'If you will point out to me any one who knows more, Mr. Adams, I will appoint him.' " Herein President Eliot showed his astute- ness, for however certain Adams was of his own limitations, he was equally sure of the limita- tions of his contemporaries, and as he remarks, 199 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS "He could not say that under the circumstances the appointment of any professor seemed un- necessary." So the unwilling schoolboy had become the unwilling professor. "At twenty-four hours' notice, he broke his life in halves again in order to begin a new education, on lines he had not chosen, in sub- jects for which he cared less than nothing; in a place he did not love, and before a future which repelled. Thousands of men have to do the same thing, but his case was peculiar because he had no need to do it. . . . He thought it a mistake; but his opinion did not prove that it was one; since, in all probability, whatever he did would be more or less a mistake." This crowning indignity of being a Harvard professor Adams endured for seven years. The worst of it was that his colleagues and students seemed to have thought he was a success. "The boys worked like rabbits, and dug holes all over the field of archaic society; no difficulty stopped them; unknown languages yielded be- fore their attack, and customary law became familiar as the police court; undoubtedly they 200 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS learned after a fashion to chase an idea like a hare through as dense a thicket of obscure facts as they were likely to meet at the bar; but their teacher knew, from his own experience, that his wonderful method led nowhere. . . . What was the use of training an active mind to waste its energy? The experiments might in time train Adams as a professor, but this result was still less to his taste." This last consideration led Adams to shake the dust of Cambridge from his feet. If he re- mained longer he might be not only a professor, but an unusually good one. But the Harvard professorship was only an episode. During the Civil War Education had pursued him relentlessly. He had been the pri- vate secretary of his father, the American Min- ister to Great Britain. He was enabled to look behind the scenes and study international poli- tics at first hand. "The most costly tutors in the world were provided for him at public expense — Lord Palmerston, Lord Russell, Lord Westbury, Lord Selborne, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Granville, and their associates, paid by the British Govern- 201 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS ment; William H. Seward, Charles Francis Adams, William Maxwell Evarts, Thurlow Weed, and other considerable professors em- ployed by the American Government; but there was only one student to profit by this immense staff of teachers. The private secretary alone sought education." The result of this expensive course was that Henry Adams acquired a knowledge of the seamy side of English politics which destroyed many of his earlier illusions. Among the great men with whom he had been brought in contact there were only one or two whom he could trust. "Perhaps this was the sufficient result of his diplomatic education; it seemed to be the whole." He confesses that one result which came from the snubs he received in the school of politics was "to make him a harsh judge of his masters." To any one interested in the political life of England and America from i860 to the end of the century, the book of Henry Adams will be read for its historical interest. Adams revived a literary art which reached its perfection in the seventeenth century, when men like Clarendon 202 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS and Bishop Burnet and Thomas Fuller de- lighted to sum up in a few sentences the "char- acter" of some worthy. Henry Adams had not Clarendon's skill in such verbal portraiture, and he lacked the genial sympathy of Fuller, but for the most part his touch was sure. If we do not see his charac- ters as they actually were, we are enabled to see them as he saw them. If he indicates his dislike for certain persons, he at the same time indicates the specific reasons for his dislikes. The English statesmen who were in power during our Civil War fare badly at his hands. We see Gladstone plotting against the American Union and then clumsily trying to disclaim responsibility. Earl Russell, whom we have been taught to look upon as the type of bluff, honest, obstinate Englishman, is described as "thoroughly dishonest," while Palmerston, our American Diogenes, is found to be the one man of rectitude. "Palmerston told no falsehoods; made no professions; concealed no opinions; was detected in no double-dealing." Adams's estimate of Grant is distinctly a shock to the American hero-worshiper; but it 203 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS should be remembered that it is President Grant and not General Grant of whom he is writing. Grant represented "a type that was p re-intellectual, archaic, and would have seemed so even to the cave dwellers." The scandals which shocked right-minded people during his administrations Adams attributes to the Pres- ident's strange "lapses of intelligence." He was a man of "intermittent energy, immensely powerful when awake, but passive and plastic in repose." Because of this he was easily im- posed upon by those who knew both his strength and his weakness. Grant worried and irritated Adams because he seemed to be an anachronism. "He had no right to exist. He should have been extinct long ago." If Henry Adams had his antipathies he had his admirations as well. His characterization of Evarts reminds one of the gentlemen who ap- pear on the pages of Clarendon. "Generous by nature, prodigal in hospitality, fond of young people, and a born man-of-the- world, Evarts gave and took liberally, without scruple, and accepted the world without fear- ing or abusing it. . . . His talk was broad and 204 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS free. He laughed where he could; he joked if a joke was possible; he was true to his friends, and never lost his temper." In a few sentences we are made to see Andrew Johnson sitting at his desk in the White House, an old-fashioned Southern statesman with a look of self-esteem that had its value, and his face "inspired by a moral certainty of right- eousness." "This self-assurance not only gave Andrew Johnson the look of a true President, but actually made him one. When Adams came to look back on it afterwards he was surprised to realize how strong the Executive was in 1868 — perhaps the strongest he was ever to see." We see Seward in 1861. "A slouching, slen- der figure; a head like a wise macaw; a beaked nose; shaggy eyebrows; unorderly hair and clothes; hoarse voice; offhand manner; free talk, and perpetual cigar." The same realism gives value to his account of Lincoln as he saw him. "He saw Mr. Lincoln but once; at the melancholy function called an Inaugural Ball. Of course he looked anxiously for a sign of character. He saw a long, awkward 205 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS figure; a plain, ploughed face; a mind, absent in part, and in part evidently worried by white kid gloves; features that expressed neither self- satisfaction nor any other familiar American- ism; . . . above all a lack of apparent force." It is a realistic picture also that he draws of the Americans after the war, all so busy that they had no time to consider the direction in which they were going. "They had no time for thought; they saw and could see nothing beyond their day's work; their attitude to the universe outside them was that of the deep-sea fish. Above all they naturally and intensely disliked to be told what to do, and how to do it, by men who took their ideas and their methods from the abstract theories of history, philosophy, or theology." Adams's most discriminating portraits are those of his friends, whose limitations he points out with engaging candor. His analysis of the character of Henry Cabot Lodge, who writes the preface to the book, could scarcely be sur- passed for this quality. Only in Clarence King and John Hay does he find criticism impossible. Here his language is that of romantic affection. 206 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS There has been no writer who has given us such a lifelike impression of the "reformers" who undertook to make headway against the unabashed corruption of American politics and business in the two decades after the Civil War. We are made to see the group of men who ad- vocated causes like Civil Service Reform. They were conscious of good intentions, but they had lost contact with the masses of the people. The fact was they represented a social system that the war had destroyed. They had not yet made connection with the new forces which were just coming into play. They were for the most part critics rather than creators. There is a pleasant cynicism in Adams's ac- count of his fellow- reformers. "As usual Adams found himself fifty years behind his time, but a number of belated wanderers kept him com- pany, and they produced on each other the effect or illusion of a public opinion. They straggled apart, at longer and longer intervals, through the procession, but they were still within hearing distance of each other." The result of this experience in fighting the bosses is summed up in a few words. "One 207 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS seldom can see much education in the kick of a broncho; even less in the kick of a mule. The lesson it teaches is only that of getting out of the animal's way. This was the lesson that Henry Adams had learned over and over again in politics since i860." As one reads one thinks of the different lesson Theodore Roosevelt learned in his experience both with bronchos and political bosses. It never occurred to Theodore Roosevelt to get out of the way of either. The reader who is interested in personal rem- iniscences may leave the last chapters unread. "A Dynamic Theory of History" seems to be only a philosophical dissertation appended to a work of a different kind. But the reader who is interested in philosophy will begin with the last chapter and read backward. Here Henry Adams for the first time clearly states what he means by "education" and what he means by "Henry Adams." One is the illustration of the other. The world as he sees it is a constant play of forces which are continually being accelerated. This is not a real universe whose coherence cai be rationally understood. It is a multiverse. 20S EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS The whirling forces make us and unmake us. We think we can understand and by under- standing direct them to our own advantage. In this we deceive ourselves. Our very inven- tions do not help us to gain control of our own destinies; they only introduce new complexities into our lives. Our consciousness only regis- ters the force that from time to time impinges on us. He declares that "the fiction that society educated itself or aimed at a conscious purpose was upset by the compass and gunpowder. . . . Man commonly begs the question by taking for granted that he captures the forces. A dynamic theory, assigning attractive force to opposing bodies in proportion to the law of mass, takes for granted that the forces of nature capture man. The sum of force attracts; the feeble atom or molecule called man is attracted; he suffers education or growth; he is the sum of the forces that attract him; his body and his thought are alike their product; the movement of the forces controls the progress of his mind, since he can know nothing but the motions which impinge on his senses, whose sum makes education," 209 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS Here you have Henry Adams's philosophy in a nutshell. The reader is made to see why the autobiography is set forth as a sequel to "Mont- Saint-Michel and Chartres." The minds of the cathedral-builders represented simply the sum of the forces that had then been released. In the nineteenth century new combinations of force had come into play. Mediaeval unity had given place to modern multiplicity in all its amazing manifestations. The world was no longer at unity with itself. "An immense volume of force had detached itself from the unknown universe of energy." Human thought was "caught and whirled about in the vortex of infinite forces. . . . Man could no longer hold it off. Forces grasped his wrists and flung him about as though he had hold of a live wire or a runaway auto- mobile." This was Henry Adams's philosophical theory. According to it biography ought to be as much a matter of scientific precision as a chemical ex- periment. Know the age a man lives in, and the forces which are dominant, and you know the man. Henry Adams offers himself for the experi- ,219 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS mental test. "See me," he says, "a victim of the multitudinous forces released in the nine- teenth century. Compare me with the builders of the cathedral of Chartres. How simple and joyous they were. How distracted and inco- herent the life of Henry Adams has been. The acceleration of the physical forces and the as- tounding march of invention accounts for the difference. The old unity of mind is impossible. "The struggle is not of men, but of forces. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, massed about a central power house. The conflict is no longer between men but between the motors that drive the men." It was as an illustration of his philosophy, he tells us, that he adventured upon autobiog- raphy. "Setting himself to the task, he began a volume which he mentally knew as 'Mont- Saint-Michel and Chartres: a Study of Thir- teenth-Century Unity.' From that point he proposed to fix a position for himself which he could label: 'The Education of Henry Adams: a Study of Twentieth-Century Multiplicity.' With the help of these two points of relation, he 211 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS hoped to project his lines forward and backward indefinitely." According to his theory the forces which had destroyed the unity of his own life were be- coming every year more powerful. "If the acceleration measured by the development and economy of forces were to continue at its rate since 1800 the mathematician of 1950 should be able to plot the future orbit of the human race as accurately as that of the November meteor- oids." Did Henry Adams prove his theory by his life ? I think not. The very fact that his account of himself is so amusing indicates an incongruity between what he really was and the mere crea- ture of circumstance which he pretends to have been. The real Henry Adams took a hand in his own education, and was persistent enough to achieve very definite results. When we take up his solid historical works we are certain that these were the products of purposeful activity. Had he lived in the eleventh century or the thirteenth century, he might have directed his mind to different objects, but it would have been the same kind of mind. He would have found 212 EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS . plenty of multiplicity in the Middle Ages if he had lived at that time, and might have seen less unity than when contemplating from a distance. According to the theory which Mr. Adams expounded, his actions and opinions ought to have been predictable without any appeal to that mysterious something which we call per- sonality. As a matter of fact, personality ob- truded itself in the most obstreperous fashion. When Henry Adams appears in proper guise his theory begins to fade. And so our final reading brings us back to our first approach, and we are conscious of the element of humor. We are re- minded of his account of the way in which his remarks about Beethoven were received in his student days at Berlin. He "felt a slight sur- prise when Mr. Apthorp and the others laughed, as though they thought it humor. He saw no humor in it." THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS A moderately well-to-do man may live in almost any community in that degree of privacy which suits his convenience. His neighbors let him come and go as he pleases, and there is no tendency on the part of the public to criticize him. But let him suddenly become possessed of a large amount of money and all is changed. Every step of the newly rich is watched with interest. His wealth becomes an interrogation mark. Social reformers ask, "How did he come by it?" Philanthropists ask, "What will he do with it?" It is the same way with any unusual exhibi- tion of intellectual ability. The man of ordinary talent is allowed to use it as he sees fit and no- body feels aggrieved when he wastes a good deal of it. But it is not so with that unusual and spectacular endowment which we call "Genius." When it is rumored that any person has that rare gift, he becomes the object not merely of admiration, but of public solicitude. Books are 214 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS written about him. He is studied from every point of view. In the end the critics agree that he has been over-praised by other crit- ics, whereupon they proceed to catalogue his limitations. But the greatest complaint against genius is that it is so inconstant. Sporadic cases occur here and there, but it never becomes epidemic. It is like one of those rare diseases that doctors com- plain of, which they seldom meet in their or- dinary practice. When there is a case of genius it is very hard to diagnose it. There may be all the superficial symptoms and yet it may turn out to be some- thing else. It is never safe to trust to the feelings of the person who is supposed to be affected. He is easily deceived, especially if he has been reading a good deal on the subject. Why is genius so inconstant in its operation? Why can we not have a supply adequate to the demand ? There is a tendency to lay the blame on the community. That is what we do in everything else, and it seems reasonable to follow the same rule here. The man of genius is supposed to be 215 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS an unusually sensitive creature very dependent on a congenial environment. Society by taking thought might develop a sufficient number of geniuses of the first class. Instead of doing this it concerns itself chiefly with the education of a vast host of mediocrities. For this it is much to blame. When now and then a genius happens to be born, he ought to assert himself and make known his wants. Society should be alert to render first aid. When the genius once gets started he should allow nothing to stand in the way of his self- expression. It is the duty he owes to the com- munity he has come to rebuke and enlighten. This doctrine has recently been presented in a most interesting way by Mr. Van Wyck Brooks in his book entitled "The Ordeal of Mark Twain." It contains an indictment of the American public, and especially of the Middle West, for thwarting and bringing to naught a great genius. The author starts with the assumption that Mark Twain was a heaven-born genius dowered with all the gifts of the gods. He had it in him to produce a great work of literary art whose 216 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS austere beauty would be the delight of the dis- cerning and the despair of the vulgar. Being a genius he had that innate capacity to take infinite pains which we are taught is the characteristic of this famed class. He had a fine artistic conscience to begin with. He had the artist's scorn of conventionalities and the ar- tist's intolerance for mediocrity. He had the artist's sensitiveness which made the incon- gruous a pain. Being thus endowed he was fitted to give the supreme interpretation of American life. Did he do it? No, he did some- thing quite different. Mr. Brooks traces the successive stages in the great betrayal of genius. In the first place there was Hannibal, Mis- souri, in the first half of the last century. It was the last place in the world for a great ar- tistic genius to be born in. "A desert of human sand! The barrenest spot in all Christendom, surely, for the seeds of genius to fall in." Into that human desert Mark Twain was born. The intimations in regard to his early life seem scanty, but one sinister fact is dis- covered. In his early years the maternal influ- ence was strong. 217 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS "We can say at least at this point that Mark Twain was, quite definitely, in his mother's lead- ing strings. What was the inevitable result? I have said, not I hope with too much presump- tion, that Mark Twain had already shown him- self the born, predestined artist, that his whole nature manifested what is called a tendency toward the creative life." Here the mother interfered. When he was twelve years old his father died and his mother took this occasion to make him promise to be a good boy. The result of this was one of those repressions which according to Freud are so dangerous. To be a good boy according to the local standards was obviously incompatible with being a great artist. "One thing," says Mr. Brooks, "we feel with irresistible certitude, Mark Twain's fate was, once for all, decided there." Indeed, it was useless for him to struggle against the maternal influence. "His wish to be an artist which has encountered such an un- surmountable obstacle in the disapproval of his mother is now repressed." Of course the boy had not expressed, so far as 218 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS we are told, any desire to be an artist, and if he had his mother would probably have expressed no objection; an artist being a man who took daguerreotypes. This was a respectable and sufficiently lucrative business in Hannibal. But it is the Freudian wish which we are dealing with, and it is all the more fateful when it is un- expressed. The story that follows is a tragedy of errors. The genius who is wishing to communicate with the world is trying to use Samuel L. Clemens as the medium. If the conditions were favorable the thing could be done, but the conditions never are favorable. There are local influences at work which are very much like malicious animal magnetism. Says Mr. Brooks, "The cir- cumstances that surrounded Mark Twain were not merely passively unfavorable, but they were actively, overwhelmingly unfavorable." And the worst of it was that the victim made no determined effort to become what Nature designed him to be. The genius which Mr. Brooks discovered in Mark Twain was lofty and had a cosmopolitan breadth, but was without any glimmer of humor. Not only so, but it 219 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS seems to have been actively hostile to any mani- festation of this quality. I judge this from the way in which all manifestations of it are treated. In treating the psychogenesis of Mark Twain's humor the author remarks: "According to Freud whose investigations in this field are per- haps the most enlightening we have, the pleas- urable effect of humor consists in affording an economy of expenditure of feeling. It requires an infinitely smaller psychic effort to expel one's spleen in a verbal joke than in a practical joke or a murder, — the common methods among the pioneers, — and it is infinitely safer, too, a fact that instantly explains the function of the hu- morist in pioneer society, and the immense suc- cess of Mark Twain." Instead of going about his great work as a divinely gifted artist should, young Clemens was all the time satisfying his love of adven- ture with this tepid substitute for homicide. When he starts out for Nevada he writes in "Roughing It": "Nothing helps scenery like ham and eggs. Ham and eggs and after this a pipe — an old, rank, delicious pipe — ham and 220 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS eggs and scenery, a down grade, a flying coach, a fragrant pipe, and a contented heart — these make happiness." Mr. Brooks comments grimly — "A down grade going west; he is on the loose, you see." Who knows what that may mean? "Only one who knows the fearful retribution his own soul is going to exact of him." Hannibal, Missouri, Virginia City, Nevada, and Elmira, New York, all exerted a malign influence on Mark Twain's genius, while we are made aware of a deadly chill emanating from the literary purlieus of Boston. Then there was Mrs. Clemens whom her hus- band idolized. We learn from his own confes- sions that he frequently asked her advice and sometimes took it. But the most baleful results came from the companionship of Mr. Howells. It was not that Mr. Howells meant to do any harm. He did, nevertheless, exert an influence toward general propriety in language. It is on record that a number of picturesque swear words which Mark Twain had learned in Nevada were eliminated for friendship's sake. Mr. Howells was like a planet unconsciously pulling 221 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS another planet out of its orbit. There were other literary men who interfered in a like manner. As these companions of the more prosperous period are enumerated we feel sure that Mark Twain's artistic originality is being weakened. We feel like joining in the anxious refrain, "Where is my wandering boy to-night?" The career of Mark Twain as thus told seems singularly lacking in any attempt at self-realiza- tion. After the age of twelve there seems to have been "nothing doing." When Duty whispered low, "Go write the great interpretation of American life," the youth did not even say, "I cannot." He only absentmindedly went and did something else. Mr. Brooks quotes from his manifold confessions, which are remorselessly used against him. From these it appears that Mark Twain never seriously attempted to do the things he ought to have done and that he took a boyish pleasure in doing the things he ought not to have done. The life-story is one to make the judicious grieve. Fortunately the judicious are not the only people in the world. The injudicious, with whom I confess in this matter to be in sympathy, do 222 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS not take the tale of repressed and thwarted genius so seriously. The reason is this. We do not call that degree of artistic ability that can be so easily turned aside from its course by the name of genius. Genius must stand a quantitative as well as a qualitative test. It must be not only something good in kind, but there must be a great deal of it — in fact so much of it as to be irrepressible. The Humboldt River wanders for several hundred miles through the sagebrush, till it comes within sight of the barrier of the Sierra Nevada. Then it grows discouraged and, giving up the quest of the sea, evaporates in a dismal alkaline sink. That is because the Humboldt, though a creditable stream for an arid country, is not a great river. If it had the volume of the Amazon it would not let itself be dried up in that way. It would fill up the whole great basin and then overflow. When we speak of a great genius we have the idea of irrepressible power. The man is bigger than his environment, and instead of allowing it to master him, he masters it. It is not enough that he has certain fine qualities; he has them 223 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS in such large quantities that they overcome all opposition. There is evidence that Mark Twain had a number of natural aptitudes that were repressed. In this he was like the rest of us. We are all more or less nipped in the bud. He also, like the rest of us, frequently had the desire to be some- body else. When he allowed himself to think what he might have been if he had been other- wise, he was more or less unhappy. He was as he grew older accustomed to think of himself as a blighted being, and to speak rather bitterly of "the damned human race." In all this he was not out of the ordinary. Thousands of elderly gentlemen are at this moment grumbling in much the same way. Nobody pays much atten- tion to them, because they have done nothing remarkable to attract attention. He had one quality in such superabundance that it could not be repressed. It bubbled up and overflowed and forced its way through all obstacles. It refused to be quenched. It per- sisted in spite of Hannibal, Missouri, or Elmira, New York, or the society of millionaires. It manifested itself in his latter-day cynicisms as 224 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS unmistakably as in his earlier extravaganzas. It was a quality which one may dislike, but with which Mark Twain was abundantly en- dowed — humor. Grant that Mark Twain's genius was essentially humorous and his career becomes intelligible. I find it very much easier to think of him as a great humorist who suc- ceeded rather than as a great artist who failed. I remember when I read "Roughing It" with perfect delight. It was not that I considered it a work of great literary art or as an interpretation of anything in particular. I took it as an impro- visation, and I enjoyed it just as one enjoys charades among friends. There is no idea of comparing it with the standards of the profes- sional stage. I was a young man trying to preach the Gospel in the Miners' Union Hall in Gold Hill, which was a part of Virginia City. The Comstock Lode was not quite what it was when Mark Twain was there, but the Big Bonanza was not yet exhausted and the old life still went on. Wells Drury and Dan De Quille and the other literati of the "Virginia City Enterprise" and the "Gold Hill News" were doing their best to keep up the 225 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS Mark Twain tradition. But after all their humor was a slender stream. They could not quite overcome all that was at enmity with joy. But in "Roughing It" we found the real thing and enough of it. Here was not an artistic re- production of life on the great Comstock Lode. It was the life itself. Its crudenesses, its extrav- agancies, its moral incongruities were all there. It was the pioneer spirit exhibiting itself in unabashed good-humor. I can imagine another kind of genius making another and better kind of book, but I cannot think of any one but Mark Twain being able to write that particular book. And I cannot shed tears over the thought that he was at that time inhibited from self-revelation. He was revealing himself — and a number of other people besides. And I remember years after hearing Mark Twain in a little club in Boston uttering those cynicisms which when put down in cold print seem cheerless. He was leaning against the door, as if at any moment he might depart, but was momentarily detained by a thought which had just occurred. His words were such as might have made the literal-minded weep, but we did 226 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS not shed a tear. Instead we followed the hesi- tating confessions with smiling approval which now and then broke into laughter, and the laughter was not bitter but genial. Were we utterly undiscerning? Was Mark Twain's hu- mor a mere pose? I think not. It was the one gift which he had in an unusual degree. It intruded into his most serious moments. Even when he tried to ex- pound his pessimistic philosophy he was com- pelled by his native genius to do so humorously. And we who cared nothing for his philosophy enjoyed, as we had a perfect right to do, his manner of expounding it. There are plenty of examples of misdirected genius, but I am skeptical in regard to the theory of repressed genius. After all, the safest rule for estimating the quality and the quantity of any man's ability is the old one, "By his works shall you know him." The hypothetical work which his admiring friends insist that a man was capable of doing does not furnish an accurate standard for measurement. There was the late Lord Acton. He has been called one of the greatest historians 227 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS of modern England. Perhaps he was. But I decline to accept his monumental History of Liberty as proof of it, for the simple reason that the work was never written. Lord Acton was a prodigious scholar, and collected the materials for his work in his great library. He had an ex- cellent style, a keen mind, a broad and tolerant mind; all these qualities may be seen in what he actually accomplished. But had he the kind of genius that could fuse all the materials which he had collected, and make the History of Liberty an inspiring narra- tive? Who can tell? The suspicious part is that Lord Acton continued to collect materials and never got aroused to the work of writing his History. I prefer to admire him for what he did rather than for what he hesitated to do. There was George Washington who might have written his own Farewell Address instead of get- ting Hamilton to write it for him. If he had been as successful in putting his ideas into words as he was in putting them into deeds he might have been the Edmund Burke of America. For a man of his greatness he was singularly diffident as to his power of literary expression. Was this 228 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS due to some malign repressions in childhood? I do not know. Washington thought that Hamilton could write a better farewell address than he could, and he let him do it. I think that in this he showed his good sense. If a man is first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen that is enough. I refuse to disquiet myself over hypothetical geniuses who never arrive at the goal which they never seriously attempted to reach. There are enough people who are not geniuses to use up all my sympathies. They are slenderly endowed for the struggle of existence and need to be protected and encouraged. But when once in a while there is born some one who has some special gift in a larger degree than the rest of us, I refuse to pity him, because he has not exhibited some other gift. It may seem hard-hearted, but I cannot feel compassion for him. He is really a lucky fellow and ought not to be pitied. Let him cultivate his own gift, and if it is so unusual that he cannot classify it at once, why, all the better. It lifts him out of the common. Having something unusual is not a cause for commiseration. I 229 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS will not take up a collection for a millionaire, or subscribe for a wooden leg for the winner of the Marathon race. Nor, if I am convinced that a person has a real genius for something, would I querulously insist that he should be exhibiting it all the time. Nothing is so tiresome as "showing off." What if there should be long lapses of time in which he is as commonplace as the rest of us ? This only proves that he is healthy-minded and knows his own business better than we do. Ordinary abilities are easily regulated by our ordinary rules of behavior. We know what to expect. But the point to consider in dealing with genius is that we do not know what to ex- pect. We do not know where it will break out next. It is a happy accident which sometimes happens. Why it does n't happen oftener is something which we are not able to explain. We can only maintain an attitude of cheerful ex- pectancy. We hope to see something different from what we have seen before. I am no more disturbed over the hibernation of genius than over the hibernation of a bear. Bruin is a sensible fellow and knows what is 230 THE HIBERNATION OF GENIUS good for his own constitution. When cold weather comes he cannot like the wild geese take a voyage to the South. He does not wish to waste his time wandering through the deep snows of the woods looking for berries that are not there. He prefers a winter of content. So he seeks a spot under the rocks and curls up and goes to sleep till the temperature is more to his liking. When the time comes for taking up a more active career, he comes forth with a keen appetite and a new zest for life. When blinking in the unaccustomed sun- shine, all the critics of the woods gather about him to rebuke him for not making better use of his wintry opportunities. How many adventures he has missed! He whose shaggy coat proves that he was born to be the hero of mid-winter battles, he who is cousin to the arctic bear who reigns undisputed lord of an iceberg, has wasted his time sleeping in a six by ten cave. For shame! Bruin receives the taunts with imperturbable good-humor. He can afford to. For he is in prime condition for his day's work, while if he had followed their advice he would have been a nervous wreck. THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM "The objection to their present method of attack against the trade of their enemies lies in the practical impossibility of employing sub- marines in the destruction of commerce without disregarding those rules of fairness, reason, justice, and humanity which all modern opinion regards as imperative." If I were asked to give in a single sentence the creed of modern liberalism I would turn to these words of President Wilson in his note of May 13, 191 5, to the German Government. It is at once an affirmation of a faith commonly believed and a practical application of that faith to a con- crete situation. The belief was this. Humanity has with in- finite pains learned certain lessons, which are in these times embodied in certain rules of fairness, reason, and justice. These are recognized as being for the good of all, and universally appli- cable. Modern opinion regards these rules as 232 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM imperative. Any person or nation wantonly defying these rules becomes an enemy of man- kind. One of these rules is that even in time of war the peaceful traders upon the sea have a right to due warning before their ship is de- stroyed. To this general statement the German Gov- ernment had already given a conditional assent. The rights of traders it had said would be re- spected so far as it was consistent with the con- ditions of modern warfare upon the seas. In its note of February 4 it had declared "all mer- chant vessels encountered in these waters will be destroyed even if it may not be possible always to save their crews and passengers." Under the old methods of warfare it was possible to discriminate between enemy and neutral vessels. But Germany had a newly invented instrument of destruction. The whole advan- tage of the submarine consisted in the fact that it could suddenly launch its torpedo without being seen. If it obeyed the ordinary rules of humanity it rendered itself liable to destruction. The hazards of naval warfare are such, said the representatives of the Kaiser, that "neutral 233 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM vessels cannot always be prevented from suffer- ing from the attacks intended for enemy ships." To the statement of facts President Wilson gave assent. There was, he said, a practical impossibility of employing submarines in the destruction of commerce without violating the generally accepted rules of humanity. Then he drew the very simple conclusion, the submarine as a weapon for the destruction of commerce must be given up. "But if we do this we are likely to lose the war." To which came the answer: "If you do not do it you will lose the war, for you will have all the world fighting you. There are certain prin- ciples of human conduct which must be main- tained, no matter at what cost." We all remember the thrill which went around the world when the matter was thus put. It was felt that this was the moment of decision be- tween autocracy and liberalism. Was the hu- man conscience able to control the tools and weapons which human ingenuity had invented? Or must it be the helpless victim of its own fatal skill? Would men allow themselves to be 234 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM ruled by any madman who was able to invent a machine for wholesale destruction? It was the liberal sentiment of the world which was aroused and had accepted the challenge. It was a grim battle for the supremacy of ideals over mech- anism. Five years after the issues were so clearly stated, the man of liberal principles asks hesi- tatingly, How goes the battle? The Kaiser has been dethroned, have the moral ideals of man- kind been vindicated? The free nations have "fought a good fight," but have they "kept the faith"? How much confidence in the funda- mental principles of liberalism has survived the conflict ? I think it is better to be frank and admit that at the present moment the forces of liberalism are disorganized and the ideals of liberalism obscured. The liberal has been caught between two fires. On the one side there is a kind of radicalism that is bitterly iconoclastic and fiercely destructive. It is ready to destroy all the tools of civilization and all its intricate contrivances for preserving social order, because it believes that these can only be used for the 235 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM defense of the privileged classes. Only when the work of destruction is complete will it listen to those who wish to begin reconstruction. On the other hand there are those who, alarmed at the devastation that already has taken place, cling desperately to all the old ways of doing things. They will not hear those who plead for orderly progress, for it seems but one step nearer chaos. To the iconoclastic radical the liberal is a timid creature who in the hour of crisis weakens and retraces his steps. He is a Mr. Facing-Both- Ways, trying to make an impossible compromise. He is lacking both in foresight and insight. He has no real programme, and if he had he has not the courage to carry it through. He is a mere cumberer of the ground to be left behind by bolder spirits. To the reactionary the liberal is not only weak but wicked. The old text comes again. "Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." The curse of Meroz comes to those who assume an attitude of neutrality, when they ought to take sides with 236 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM their brethren. The bulwarks of ancient order are being undermined, the walls are being at- tacked. It is no time to talk of toleration or to suggest that there are two sides to any question. There is only one side that is right. Which side are you on? What is to become of old-fashioned liberalism in this crisis when it is beset by determined enemies who attack from both sides ? How is it to hold its middle ground between them? The fact that the question is so often put in this way is an evidence of the unpreparedness of liberalism. It indicates that many who profess and believe themselves to be liberals have allowed themselves to be maneuvered into an untenable position, where they are waging a purely defensive battle. The need of the hour is for a leadership based on a bolder kind of strategy. The real difficulty is not that liberalism has failed because some- thing better or stronger has taken its place, but that it has for the moment lost the initiative, and this initiative must be regained. The liberal has been waiting for the radical to make the next move which he will then attempt 237 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM to repel. He is afraid of going too far. In this very appearance of anxiety he acts the part of a reactionary. He does n't go forward with boldness, nor backward with determination. But let him take the initiative and he will be surrounded by a great multitude of liberal- minded people. Speaking for them he will say: "We liberals have nothing to apologize for, we have no middle ground to defend. We are not unduly attached to the past, nor are we blindly confident of the future. But we are re- sponsible for the best use of our own faculties in the present. We are also responsible for the best use of all the inventions, customs, traditions, ap- pliances, and institutions that have come down to us from the past. We look upon these things, not as treasures of which we are custodians, but as tools to be used in our day's work. They are the means which are always to be subordinated to the ends which we have in view. We insist that the true end is the welfare of all of us and not merely of a part of us. "We believe in evolution. This when applied to human affairs gives us hope for the modifica- tion of many things which at first seem hostile to 238 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM our ideals. Using them for a higher purpose they are themselves transformed. "Law in its crudest form may be, as the phil- osophical anarchist insists, only the imposition of the will of the strong upon the weak. Even to this day there are many laws which have their sanction, not in essential justice, but in force. "Nevertheless, we do not agree with the anarchist that the abolition of law would be in the interest of the weak. We prefer to take the long road that humanity has actually followed. It is to use the law for the protection of the weak against the strong. This has been done through an endless series of beneficent modifica- tions of primitive practice. We believe that we can trace a distinct line of progress, and the end is not yet. There are unjust laws to be repealed, and the liberal agitates for their repeal. There are new and more equitable laws that should be put upon the statute book. It is his business to work for such progressive legislation." Even the fundamental law of the State must be tested continually. The constitution is but a means to an end. If it forbids something which 239 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM the majority of the people think essential to their welfare, it must be amended — at least so say those who are constitutionally minded. The liberal listens to heated discussions about wage slavery. He does not take a middle ground. He goes at once to what to him is the root evil. It is slavery. Here is something which he hates with all his heart. Liberalism has been an age- long struggle for the emancipation of humanity. When the liberal uses the word "slavery" he has in his mind a picture of the slave properly so called. He is a mere chattel, a thing to be bought and sold, used for a time and when worn out flung aside to perish. He thinks of slavery as it has actually existed in Africa and America. The chains are literal and so is the driver's whip. And when he uses the word "freedom" he has a picture of the free man properly so called. He is not the man on the street who only thinks he is free because his chains are not visible. He murmurs to himself: "How happy is he born or taught Who serveth not another's will, Whose armor is his honest thought And simple truth his utmost skill." 240 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM He thinks of a commonwealth of such free men, and resolves to work for its establishment. But he knows that this achievement is too great for any one party, nor is it a matter of a day. The battle against slavery must be waged contin- ually and without compromise of the ultimate ideal. Serfdom, Feudalism, Democracy, Socialism, Communism are tested by the same question — How far do they take one on the road from primitive slavery toward ideal freedom? Each one marks a certain advance from primitive slavery. So long as it remained a mere theory each seemed to offer a final solution. As each one has been tried it is seen that it does not satisfy fully the human demand. Does Democracy of itself make men free? When Thomas Paine wrote the " Rights of Man " the ardent revolutionist thought that it did. Now men look at the United States of America and count the multitudes who have not achieved freedom, though they have a right to vote. Communism is a synonym of liberty in Utopia. But the ardent denouncer of wage slavery is on the defensive when his attention is called to the 241 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM degree of freedom enjoyed by the working-men of Russia. It is evident that there is more than one kind of slavery. Under Capitalism and under Socialism there will be those who are indifferent to the rights of the individual. Reformers talk of "the system" which crushes out liberty. By this they mean the particular system which is dominant in their particular community. "It is the fault of the system," they say in attacking the evils of the time, and the remedy is to change the system. But the liberal, if he is to retain the moral initiative, must have a more thoroughgoing philosophy than this. He must be prepared to pass judgment, not on one system, but on all systems, and to hold each strictly accountable for its actual results. He must be realistic and not sentimental both in his attachments and his repulsions. Feudalism, Capitalism, Democracy, Socialism, Communism, these are names for systems which are on trial. How far does any one of them serve the needs of men and help in developing human welfare? The liberal is will- ing that each should have a fair trial, but he is not willing to allow any one of them to tyran- 242 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM nize over him. He will not submit to the idea that the man must fit the system; he insists that the system shall be flexible, enough to fit the growing man. This he knows will require end- less readjustment. The liberal's opposition to despotism is not occasional, it is ceaseless. He is as much opposed to it when exercised in behalf of his own party or country as when exercised by his enemies. He uses the same test which President Wilson ap- plied to the submarine. He says, "Your system may be the result of much effort, it may be ever so logical, but if it hampers the free development of the mind and if it shocks the enlightened conscience, it must be modified." If it cannot be modified so as to serve our needs, it must be re- jected. We are disposed to be patient and to leave room for experiment, but we are insistent in regard to our main contention. In all this the liberal is true to his own philos- ophy which is based on the idea of evolution. He stands sharply opposed to the destructive radical and the stand-pat conservative. They both take for granted a mechanical analogy which he utterly rejects. 243 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM They think of our institutions as a house which we have builded. The materials of the house are different from ourselves. They are passive under our hands. The bricks stay where we put them. They are not subject to sudden panics or enthusiasms. We do not have to pro- pitiate them in any way or consider them idio- syncrasies. And the mortar, if it is made right, sticks. When it is set, that is the end of it. The architect can calculate the strength of his ma- terials, and we hold him responsible. If the building turns out altogether different from his plans he cannot lay the blame on the timbers. They do not change their minds — because they have no minds. The discussions on social questions often take for granted a state of things as simple as that of the tearing-down of an old house and the build- ing of a new. Our inherited institutions are a house which is obviously inconvenient, and in some respects unsanitary. The family has out- grown it. Shall we tear it down and build a new one which shall be more commodious ? Or shall we patch the roof, and make an addi- tion here and there, while careful not to dis- 244 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM turb any of the associations that have gathered around it? When we put the matter in this way the fam- ily divides according to temperament. Those who love the picturesque and have strong at- tachment to the old house, prefer to suffer in- convenience rather than make a radical change. The older members of the family have the resist- ance of inertia. It will last their day and they don't want to be worried. On the other hand, those who are ambitious and vigorous insist that if we are going to do anything at all we should make a thorough job of it. Let us tear down the house at once. Then when we have cleared the ground our architect can go ahead with his plans. There is no economy in piecemeal alterations. It is better for us all to camp out for a while. The fresh air will do us good. Moreover, in order to save time let us keep the immediate work of destruction sepa- rate from the work of reconstruction. We are agreed about the first, we might quarrel about the second. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Let us sign a contract with a house- wrecking firm, and put them to work at once. 245 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM If they do a good job we might trust them to build the new house for us, or if they have n't any architect we might develop some good ideas of our own which would be useful when the time comes. Which side shall we take ? I confess that if our institutions were made and unmade like a house, I should incline to the side of the radicals. I should prefer to clear the ground and rebuild according to a rational plan, rather than patch up a dwelling whose timbers have rotted and whose foundations are inadequate. But as a liberal I utterly deny that either al- ternative is possible. Neither radicals nor con- servatives have the power which they claim. You cannot clear the ground, because you are the ground. You cannot stand off like an architect and plan a new building, for you are the building, and the processes of destruction and reconstruction are going on all the time. You cannot wait for new materials, for there are n't any new materials. Every atom has existed from the beginning. There are only new forms continually produced by the ancient causes. 246 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM We wildly exaggerate the power of particular men to destroy or to build institutions that would conform to their theory. The moment they enter into the field of affairs the logical completeness of their plans is gone. They be- come opportunists in spite of themselves. The institution which they upheld represents only so much of their thought as their followers are willing and able to accept. Lenin is as truly an opportunist as Lloyd George. He can put in force only so much of his communistic theory as the Russian people, being what they are, allow. The more Utopian part of his programme must be postponed till the time when the conditions are more favor- able* Suppose to-morrow he were to attempt to force all his theories upon the Russian peasants; his rule would be at an end. Indeed, no one can be dictator without an instinctive perception of the limitation of his own powers. He may go to the edge, but he knows enough not to go be- yond. The good sense of the Popes is seen in the fact that they never exercise their infallibility to the utmost. They wisely leave the ordinary 247 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM believer a wide margin for the exercise of private judgment. No reformer has ever yet succeeded in work- ing a clean sweep of existing institutions and in- herited propensities. And no reactionary party has ever been able after a great revolutionary war to reestablish the status quo ante helium. There may be a pretense of doing so, but it de- ceives nobody. Our problem is not so simple as that of the householder who when he pulls down one house can build another. The real analogy is not with the house, but with the householder himself. He is obviously a very imperfect creature. How can he be improved so that he may be a health- ier, happier, and wiser man than he is at present? However much fault we may find with his present condition and however radical our ideas of what he ought to be, there is one plan which we consider inadmissible, and that is to kill him and then resurrect him. We reject this plan, not because it is too bold, but because we know that it won't work. As practical persons we can see that by use of proper means we can go as far as the preliminary homicide, but we are sure we 248 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM should fail in performing the miracle necessary to complete the transaction. In order to bring about the man's regeneration it is necessary for us to keep him alive. This requires that we cooperate with the vital forces already at work, and which it is well for us to know something about. The liberal programme requires the coopera- tion of vast numbers of persons of different traditions and ways of thinking. Their reac- tions upon one another are quite essential to the carrying-out of the plan. As long as there is life there is hope of improvement. This applies to all sorts of persons and institutions. The prob- lem is to find the vital principle and to develop all its possibilities. The liberal in religion sees many religious in- stitutions which offend him. They seem carica- tures of what he considers to be true. But it is a futile waste of effort for him to attack one or the other of them unless he asks, What is the religious sentiment? Back of all superstitions and all arrogant 1 ecclesiasticism he finds certain native reverences which he sees to be good and full of promise. To keep these alive and to pro- 249 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM mote their natural growth is his final business. If they can be developed into strength, they will eventually overcome the ugly things which have usurped their place. Bigotry and fanati- cism are parasitical growths that feed upon the religious sentiment and tend to destroy it. The remedy is a larger and truer conception of what religion is. Said Jonathan Edwards, when discoursing on his favorite theme of disinterested virtue: "He that closes with religion only that it may serve his turn will close with no more of it than he imagines will serve his turn. But he that closes with religion for its own excellent and lovely nature closes with all that has that nature: he that embraces religion for its own sake embraces the whole of religion." There we have a principle that carries us far — much farther than Edwards himself was willing to go. Taken historically it means that one who embraces religion for its own excellent and lovely nature is on the lookout for its man- ifestations in the most unlikely places. One never knows beforehand where it will appear; it is just as likely to appear among our foes as 250 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM among our friends. The liberal attitude is that exhibited by the good clergyman of whom Thomas Fuller says, "He had a kindness for all such as had any goodness in themselves. He had, as I may say, a broad-chested soul, favor- able to such as differed with him." When in the field of practical statesmanship such a broad-chested soul appears he has a great advantage. Being free from egoism he can use friends and foes alike for the fulfillment of the great ends which he sees. It is not necessary that they should be of his party or even of his nationality. It is a matter of complete indiffer- ence to him whether they admire him. He is no more dependent on their applause than the great physician is dependent on the passing moods of his patient.. The physician is cooperating not so much with the conscious will of his patient as with his metabolism. So long as this is satisfac- tory he does not mind how much the convales- cent grumbles. Men of first-rate ability and great energy who have also the liberal spirit have been very rare. When they do appear they are equal to any 251 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM crisis that arises. The breadth of their vision does not interfere with the precision of their action. Self-seekers are instinctively afraid of the man who is not concerned about his own interests or his own reputation. Disinterested- ness gives a public man very much the same advantage that belongs to unscrupulousness. It increases the number of things he may pos- sibly do in an emergency. It's never safe to press him too hard. Clarendon declared that John Hampden was the most dangerous revolutionary of his time because he claimed nothing for himself. He had in mind certain fundamental changes which could only be brought about by the successive efforts of many different men. So long as affairs were moving in the direction which he approved, Hampden did not interfere. He claimed no glory for himself. He often seemed mildly sur- prised when, after a protracted debate in which all had freely expressed their views, Parliament came around to his opinion. "He was of that rare affability and temper in debate and of that seeming humility and submission of judgment, as if he brought no opinions with him, but a 252 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM desire of information, and yet he had so subtle a way of interrogating and, under the notion of doubts, insinuating his objections, that he left his opinions with those from whom he pretended to learn and receive them. . . . He possessed the most absolute spirit of popularity, that is the most absolute faculties to govern the people, of any man I ever knew." Thomas Jefferson writes: "I sat with General Washington in the Legislature of Virginia and with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor on any but the main point that was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points knowing that the little ones would take care of themselves." Many a man who has had a great point has lost it because of the rigidity of his own mind. He has not had the grace to yield little points to other men. Elasticity is a quality which belongs to the strong. I think we grant too much to the lovers of the picturesque, in acquiescing in the idea that the great and beneficent changes have been brought about by fanatics rather than by men of liberal minds. The fanatic may have his 253 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM place in the destruction of an old order, but he is powerless to bring in a better order. In these days when people are telling us that liberalism is a failure, Mr. Trevelyan has done us a good service in giving us the life of a typical liberal, who "made good." Lord Grey of the Reform Bill was one who not only fought a good fight, but kept the faith. He was born ten years before the American Declaration of Independ- ence; as a young man he boldly took the liberal side in the English discussions over the French Revolution. When the cry of Jacobinism was raised against all who proposed any changes in the British Constitution, Grey moved for Parliamentary reform. In 1792 Grey organized the association called "The Friends of the People." It was not till 1832 that as Prime Minister he carried the Reform Bill, which marked the triumph of the greatest peaceful revolution in English History. It was a long, hard struggle, but it succeeded. And Grey was not less heroic because throughout it all he was sane. The true liberal is not easily discouraged. When the battle goes against him he knows that 254 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM all the reserves have not yet come into action. Many of the forces which at the moment seem hostile may be thrown upon the right side when the hour of decision comes. Many a great re- form has at last been carried through by the party which had most violently opposed it; for the Spirit of Progress is no respecter of persons and uses all kinds of men for its instruments. These considerations give to the convinced liberal imperturbability in the hour of defeat. He is conscious that the ultimate triumph of his principles does not depend upon any chance en- counter. But in order to snatch victory from defeat he needs to have the spirit of gallantry. The gallant soldier is not only sustained by the hope of final victory, but he is moved by an in- tense desire to win the immediate contest in which he himself is engaged. He throws himself into each little skirmish with as much ardor as if it were to decide the campaign. It is a necessary action and demands all the energy that he has. The gallant liberal accepts the challenge of each day in the same spirit. Some specific step in advance is to be made. He is aware that it is 255 i THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM only one step along the way in which humanity- must go. But it is in the right direction. Taking that step confidently and courageously he is doing his part in the great onward movement. He feels the thrill of new comradeship. Each particular plan for betterment is lifted out of its littleness, and becomes a part of the worship of the Best. There is a Spirit that "None can bewilder. Whose eyes pierce The Universe, Pathfinder, road builder, Mediator, royal giver Rightly seeing, rightly seen, Of joyful and transparent mien. 'Tis a sparkle passing From each to each, from thee to me, To and fro perpetually, Sharing all, daring all, Levelling, displacing Each obstruction, it unites Equals remote and seeming opposites And ever and forever Love Delights to build a road." There are times when the men who have been our leaders grow discouraged. The old ways of doing necessary things become increasingly difficult. Ancient customs of thinking and act- 256 THE UNPREPAREDNESS OF LIBERALISM ing are discredited. We have come to the end of the road. Then we look to those who have not lost their sense of direction, and who seeing the distant city of their hopes delight to build a road to it. ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY 1 A printed page containing the most familiar words becomes unintelligible if there is no punctuation or spacing to indicate where a sen- tence or paragraph begins or ends. The eye wanders over the monotonous wilderness of let- ters, through which there is no path by which reason may travel. In trying to take all in at once, we comprehend nothing. And the sequence of events is equally unintelligible, unless we have some way of punctuating time. History is an endless maze of unrelated happenings, until we divide it up into brief portions in which we dis- cern a certain unity of purpose. He who would attempt to expound the meaning of what takes place must follow the example of the preacher, and announce plainly, "Here beginneth the first lesson"; and he must be equally circumstantial in declaring in due time, "Here endeth the first lesson." 1 This essay was written at the close of the Great War and printed in the Atlantic Monthly for January, 1919. 258 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY Of course he knows that in another and in a cosmic sense there is no ending and there is no beginning to the stream of Time. But for our purpose of understanding, we must divide time into portions which our minds can grasp. We talk of the beginning and end of an era, and adjust our minds to the peculiar task which each era presents. We are all conscious that we are living through one of those critical times which will be marked in history as epoch-making. The world will not be the same as that with which we were familiar before the war. But when does the new era begin? There are many persons waiting in a more or less skeptical attitude for its formal inauguration. During the war they refused to think of anything else but the grim contest itself. There was nothing to do but to "carry on." And now that hostilities have ended as suddenly as they began, they still see nothing but confusion. The war has ceased, but the new order has not yet arisen. These idealists who look for a new era find it difficult to believe that it has already come. Civilization seems to them to be in a bad way, and in dealing with 259 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY it they assume what the old-fashioned family physician used to call "a good bedside manner." Such people look regretfully to the past, and apprehensively at the immediate present. They do not realize that the course of events has al- ready outrun their hopes. When does a day begin? Different nations have had their own methods of punctuating time. Our calendar follows the Romans in be- ginning the day at midnight; for all practical purposes we reckon it from sunrise to sunrise. The Hebrews, however, began their new day at sunset. In the story of creation we are told, "And the evening and the morning were the first day." This Hebrew habit of beginning the day at sunset has survived even to our own time in regard to the day of rest. The whole significance of Burns's "Cotter's Saturday Night" is lost if we forget that, to the Scotch Presbyterian, Satur- day night was a part of the Sabbath. The week's cares were thrown aside when the peasant saw, in the evening shadows, the beginning of the Lord's Day. I remember hearing Henry Ward Beecher tell 269 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY of his experience as a boy, to whom the Puritan Sabbath was a tiresome interlude between days of glorious play. With his brothers he would stand on a hilltop in Litchfield to watch the sun go down. When it sank, there would go up a joyous shout, and life would begin again with all its pleasant intensity. And from the parsonage Lyman Beecher would emerge to join their sports. Small boys always begin their holidays "the night before." They know that the glorious Fourth of July is, and of right ought to be, in full blast at least twelve hours before their elders are ready for the first firecracker; and Christmas Eve is rightly conceived as an integral part of Christmas Day. The fact is that all creative days begin in the evening, and creative spirits always anticipate the course of events. They do not wait for the dawn of a new era. They resolutely begin the new era at the moment when they see that the old era has ended. The darkness gathers, but it is a time, not for vain repining over that which has passed away, but for eager planning for that which must take its place. There is a quick 261 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY transfer of interests to new problems which re- late themselves to the new period. The triumph of good health is in the merging of the preceding evening into the day for which it is the preparation. How hearty is the Shake- spearean greeting, "Good-night till it be mor- row." There is no appreciable interval between good-night and good-morrow. Milton's shepherd, in "Lycidas," sang his plaintive lay till the sun sank behind the western hills, and then "... he twitched his mantle blue To-morrow for fresh woods and pastures new." This buoyancy of spirit which dwells con- fidently in the morrow, even before the dawn has come, is natural to Americans. It is a part of the national temperament. It has been de- veloped through contact with the vast resources of a continent which has yielded its treasures to adventurous industry. It was this spirit, dominant in time of peace, which manifested itself when the nation entered into the stern business of war. It was not readily understood by those more familiar with Eu- ropean than with American habits of thought 262 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY and feeling. They feared that the masses of the people might be the victims of their too easy faith in "manifest destiny." Their will to win and their ability to endure might be impaired by their confidence that final victory was in- evitable. In their anxiety to improve the morale of the people, the directors of opinion were tempted to appeal to motives of fear or political hatred. They sometimes prophesied dire things, or scolded over national shortcomings. They betrayed a nervous anxiety lest America might not awake. In the meantime, the real America had awak- ened, but in its own way. It had awakened, not as a neurasthenic awakes to a vague and be- numbing sense of helplessness in the presence of disaster, but as a strong man awakes to the magnitude of his necessary work. When America entered the war, it was with no intention of restoring the status quo ante helium. The enormous sacrifices involved could be jus- tified only by creating conditions under which such a tragedy as the world was experiencing could not be repeated. To win the war meant more than the defeat of the Hohenzollerns. The 263 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY Kaiser stood in the same relation to the world- conflagration in which Mrs. O'Leary's cow stood to the Chicago fire. He had kicked over the lamp — that was all. When this conflagra- tion is over, said the common-sense American, we must have a fireproof or, at least, a slow- burning civilization. Whoever during the past four years has had the privilege of addressing popular audiences on the problems of war and peace must have no- ticed that the effective appeal has never been to war-lust or fear, but to the common sense of people who had accepted their responsibility for a reorganization of the world along the lines of democratic freedom. Autocracy had been tried and found wanting. The Tsar and the Kaiser were anachronisms and must get out of the way. There was also the acceptance of the fact that nationalism in the old restricted sense had had its day. The nation must acknowledge its ob- ligation to a new international order. The power of President Wilson has come from the fact that he has voiced the aspirations of great masses of the people rather than the in- terests of any political party or social group. 264 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY He has expressed what has been long in the minds of those who seek a peace that shall be just and permanent. The historian, when he tells the story of the beginning of the new era, will tell of the way in which America, caught unprepared for war, had in feverish haste to organize and equip armies on a scale before undreamed of. This great achieve- ment was rendered possible only because the Allied fleets and armies stood between her and her foes. America had to do in a year what Germany had methodically accomplished in a generation. But even if there was unpreparedness in a strictly military sense, there was a preparedness of another kind which was one of the great sur- prises of the war. Prussia had been organizing for war. America had, with equal intensity, been organizing for peace. Practical idealists, with the equipment of modern science, had been transforming commerce, agriculture, manufac- ture, education, philanthropy." New standards of efficiency had been recognized. Coopera- tion had been preached. Religion itself was be- ing reorganized, and the churches, ashamed of 265 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY being considered refuges from the evil of the world, were becoming centers of spiritual indus- try. American big business was being touched with idealism, and it was coming to be seen that the biggest business for big men was to make the world a fit place for human beings to live in. And men and women, big of brain and of heart, were undertaking the job. They were no longer open to the taunt which the furies in Shelley's peom hurled at the timid good: "They dare not devise good for all mankind, And yet they know not that they do not dare." The daring pioneers of the new era were busy devising good for the twentieth century. In the midst of their altruistic dreams, the war came. For a moment they were stunned, as it seemed that the world was reeling back into the abyss of utter barbarism. But quickly they rallied and found in the sudden crisis the opportunity to do, in a large and thorough way, and with the power of great masses, what they had been at- tempting through small experiments. They saw that the day of small things was over, and that the big things now were the practicable things. The one thing which these people of the new 266 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY era had in common was their intolerance of what are called necessary evils. They had studied these evils in their origin and growth, and had convinced themselves that most of them were preventable. They existed only because we had been too lazy and selfish to deal with them in a large, effective, public way. They began to ad- dress the conscience in a new tone of author- ity derived from first-hand information. Their definition of sin had a more than Puritanic severity. Sin is a preventable evil, cheerfully and piously accepted and acquiesced in. Right- eousness is the courageous and skillful coopera- tion with others to discover and abolish unneces- sary evils. The men of the new era had been convinced that among the unnecessary evils which must be abolished was war itself. As a mode of settling international disputes, it had been discredited. The invention of new instruments of destruction made it too horrible to endure. The only ques- tion was how to get rid of it. The appeal to reason had already been made. Then came the tremendous onslaught of Prussian militarism, with its brutal negation of all moral ideals. It 267 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY was seen at once that all talk of peace was idle so long as this menace existed. Those peace- makers who were not sentimentalists quickly realized the nature of the emergency. In the most literal sense they must engage in a war against war. While upon the battle-lines of Europe the Allied armies were pressing for a military deci- sion, there was another army at home and in the camps pressing for a moral decision. It was an army of trained social workers, equipped with modern knowledge, and determined that the true ends of the warfare should be gained. They were intelligently organized to counteract as far as possible the evils which hitherto had followed in the train of war. What have been the natural consequences of past wars, even those which have been waged for the holiest causes? Camp diseases have been accepted as acts of God. Often more soldiers have died of disease than of wounds. Gross im- morality on the part of hosts of young men re- leased from the restraints of home has been ac- quiesced in as a part of the price the nation pays for its military triumph. At home we must re- 268 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY sign ourselves to a state of general demoraliza- tion which will last for years after the war. There must inevitably be financial irregularities, shameless profiteering, a lowering of family standards, labor unrest, an increase of juvenile delinquency, and the vast, silent misery of those whose breadwinners have sacrificed themselves for their country. It has always been so. The glory of war is for the few, but the multitudes who have borne the misery have been forgotten. These maimed and ruined little people of the world stand by the wayside murmuring, " Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?" And the great ones of the earth answer coldly, " It is nothing. The country and the cause are saved; nothing else matters." Did not Napoleon, when the remnants of the Grand Army strewed the snowy roads of Russia, send back the complacent message, "The Emperor's health is good " ? But the men of the new era declared that, while necessary suffering must be accepted as the legitimate price of victory, we must not ac- quiesce in unnecessary suffering, and we must put the same degree of energy and skill into the 269 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY work of prevention that we put into every other part of the conduct of the war. To accept these evils without a struggle is to acknowledge our- selves to be defeatists. These domestic evils and this vast moral misery are no more part of the price than gangrene is the price of heroic surgery. Gangrene after the operation is only an evidence of the ignorance and incompetence of the sur- geon. The leaders of the new America were de- termined that, if there must be war, it should be a clean war carried on under antiseptic con- ditions. I have emphasized the fact that we have al- ready entered upon a new period in the world's history, for only in the appreciation of the new- ness of the organizations that need our help can we do our part effectively. It was no new thing for kind-hearted people to do what they could to alleviate the horrors of war. The new thing is that the nation itself organized this work, and demanded our full cooperation as a part of our patriotic duty. It was resolved not to wait till the end of the war before it began the work of reconstruction. It said to every one of us, "Let us begin now." In order that we might waste 270 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY no time, it provided, what had never been done before, an army of trained leaders to direct the effort of volunteers. In the New Testament parable the idlers in the market-place apologized for their idleness by saying, "No man hath hired us." The United States Government was determined that no citizen might justly offer that excuse. If you wished to be of service, you were shown some- thing useful that you could do. There was a job for every one. And the jobs that were offered us were not merely "for the duration of the war." A new phrase was used in offi- cial announcements: "for the duration of the emergency." We now see that the emergency does not necessarily end with the war. Among the lead- ers in the work of reconstruction there is a sense of responsibility for the nation's defenders. The welfare of the returned soldier and his family must not be left to chance. The com- munity to which he returns must be made fit for him to live in. Thus have "war-aims" been broadened till they become plans for a new society. 271 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY One can see all this by studying the work of a great organization like the American Red Cross. It has been dealing with the emergencies created by the Great War, but it has been content with no temporary makeshifts. One feels that he is watching the beginning of a new and ordered national life. What a multitude of new activ- ities, directed by expert intelligence! It is the effective organization of the goodwill of the community. Not the least of its functions is to save pa- triotism from going to waste in mere jingoistic sentiment. It gives definite direction to the citizen who longs to serve his country. The soldier at the front knows that he is doing his duty; but how can one who must stay at home serve the common cause ? His only idea of serv- ice is apt to be vague and imitative. I came across the works of one of the "New Poets" of a former generation, which reminds me of the state of mind into which many people fall when trying to reach an exalted state of feel- ing through the process of imitation. James Eliot, the bard of Guilford, Vermont, published in 1797 a little volume which contains lines 272 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY written in Marietta, Ohio, in praise of that in- fant settlement. The poet begins thus: "Hail, Queen of Rivers, Hail, Columbian Nile, Along thy beauteous bank I freely roam And view your cloud-capped mountains which awhile Will yet seclude me from my native home. Stupendous monument of power divine, The muse explores thy solitary height, By fancy led thy craggy cliffs to climb, And then to Orient realms extend thy flight." The reader wonders why he did not see those craggy cliffs and cloud-capped mountains when he visited Marietta. But Eliot, who was a truth- ful soul though poetic, explains in a footnote that, though these heights were not actually visible from Marietta, he felt justified in putting them in as enhancing the beauty of his verses. As the would-be poet was enraptured by the grandeur of mountains that were not there, and was oblivious to the beauties of the real Mari- etta, so it is possible for the patriot, in his con- templation of imaginative duties, to fail to per- form those that really belong to him. He is ready for heroics, and he would scale the "top- pling crags of Duty, if he could find them. In the meantime" a multitude of prosaic things 273 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY needs to be done. He is likely to be oblivious to these things unless they are pointed out to him, and he is shown their relation to a great heroic end. Now this is precisely what has been done dur- ing the Great War. The ordinary citizen has had his duty brought home to him and presented realistically. That is the meaning of Home Service. It is the organization of forces which have heretofore been wasted. It has been far- reaching in its scope and yet intimate in its ap- peal. It has brought into action a vast army of volunteer workers, who have submitted to dis- cipline under trained leaders. The individual who had hitherto been think- ing in terms of his personal interest or local pride is made to feel that he is a part of a great nation and must subordinate everything to the nation's welfare. He learns to say "we," and to give the word a larger meaning than he had ever done before. Taking up a modest task, he has felt the thrill that comes to the soldier when he enlists in the army. The necessary routine is lifted out of its pettiness by the greatness of its purpose. During this war hundreds of thousands 274 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY of persons have for the first time learned the joy and the power of cooperative effort. When we think of the new day that is at hand, we speak of the return of the young soldiers and of the effect of their experience. But we must also think of the experience gained by the mil- lions who have not crossed the seas, but who have not been idle spectators of the conflict. You may meet them in every village of the land. They are people of the new era. They have learned lessons in war-time which are to be ap- plied in the years to come. Here are no non-combatant critics, no easy- chair strategists. These people know how dif- ficult and vast the work is, and they have an instinctive sympathy with those who are in places of authority and responsibility. They measure everything by the actual results. If they are discouraged, they keep the fact to themselves. They speak and act cheerfully be- cause they know that cheerfulness is a power, and fretfulness a contagious disease. To be petulant is a kind of sabotage. It is to put sand in the delicate machinery. And there are personal jealousies, and petty 275 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY ambitions, that are tabooed by members of this fellowship of patriotic duty. They have learned that when a committee is appointed to do a work, it is criminal to spend precious time and nervous energy in ministering to the egotism of some member of the committee. There is some- thing important to be done. It is of no conse- quence who does it, or who gets the credit. Every group of war-workers has been a school for the study and practice of voluntary cooperation. Here, on the evening of the new day, people have been preparing for the larger and happier work to follow. As they have been working together, they have been thinking to- gether — thinking perhaps more than they have been talking. They have been learning from their own mistakes. One might compile a list of "Don'ts." But perhaps the most effective would be, not the didactic "don't" of warning, but the "don't" of interrogation. The appeal is to the experience of the great army of patriotic workers. Don't you see the opportunity for a new and better civilization which may take the place of that which has been so sadly shattered? 276 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY Don't you see that Anarchy is as grave a peril as that of Prussian militarism, and that, to es- cape it, the free nations must have wisdom and prudence as well as warlike courage? Don't you see that what has to be done has to be done quickly, and that the deliberation which is right in quiet days must in times of revolution give way to quick and sure decisions, loyally carried out? Don't you see that personal and local con- siderations have to be subordinated to national and international policy? Don't you see that the future is to be deter- mined, not by the wise and prudent persons who, detached from the present struggle, wait for the Future? It is to be determined by the people who bravely and cheerfully and skillfully are dealing with each crisis as it arises, in the light of great ideals. Matthew Arnold, in a mood of academic despondency, wrote of an age of transition : "Achilles ponders in his tent, The kings of modern thought are dumb. Silent they stand, but not content, And wait to see the Future come." 277 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY There may be some ex-kings of thought who to-day assume this attitude of skeptical de- tachment. They are the lost leaders, and the great army of liberated humanity sweeps by them. Achilles in his tent was not pondering over the greater issues of the war; he was sulking over a private grievance. He was no more ad- mirable than when dragging the dead body of his adversary around the walls of Troy. The fact was that, in spite of the fable of his admirers, the weak point of Achilles was not in his heel but in his head. The people who are doing the constructive thinking have not, during the war, been ponder- ing in their tents, nor are they now thirsting for revenge. They have been too busy. They are not waiting to see the Future come. A new era has already been begun, and they know it. In reading this essay two years after it was written I am conscious of a change of mood. A great opportunity to do something which had never been done before came to the American people, and through divided counsels has been lost. There has been an obvious reaction from 278 ON THE EVENING OF THE NEW DAY the mood of idealism. One feels like saying, as Paul did to the Galatians, when after accepting a new religion they fell back into the old at- titude: "How turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage. . . . Ye did run well, who did hinder you." Just now we are conscious of the hindrances. But this does not obscure the fact that the American people did run well, nor does it pre- vent us from believing that they will again take up their international responsibilities bravely and cheerfully. It is a new day though the dawn has not yet come. THE END CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . 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