.0 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 : • o > 
 
 c: 
 
 .0' 
 
 >'!-4."i-.\ Z^^>"" v^'.r°'V"'j 
 
 ^ ^ '-. ^^ ^^ ^> 
 
 
 
 <!>, -..o' 
 
 

 
 <*•. V 
 
 
 .0^ ,oJ^% "^C 
 
 ^o 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^oK 
 
 onO^ .-^ 
 
 .^^ 
 
 r^T* /, 
 
 
 
 
 q. * • , 1 • Ap "= ^ V ^ - .V .^ ^, 
 
 
 * .^ %. 
 
 ^ ^ -4^^^l* y -^ 
 
 .^ ^„ ^ i 
 
 ^T* A 
 
IDEALS OF AMERICA 
 
Ideals of America 
 
 Analyses of the guiding motives of contem- 
 porary American life by leaders in 
 various fields of thought 
 and action. 
 
 PREPARED FOR THE 
 
 CITY CLUB OF CHICAGO 
 1916-1919 
 
 CHICAGO 
 A. C McCLURG & CO. 
 
 1919 
 
.6 6- 
 
 Copyright 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
 
 1919 
 
 Published October, 1919 
 
 OCT 20 1919 
 
 W. F. HALL PRINTrNG COMPANY, CHICAGO 
 
 ©CI.A53f^275 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 I Can America's Ideal Be Consciously Shaped ? 
 
 by George Ellsworth Hooker .... I 
 II Ideals in Politics by Frederick D. Bramhall 1 1 
 
 III Ideals in Law by John Bradley Winslow . 39 
 
 IV Ideals in Labor by John P. Frey .... 85 
 V Ideals of Science by John Merle Coulter . 107 
 
 VI Ideals in Education by Ernest Carroll Moore 131 
 VII Ideals in Business by Arthur E. Swanson . 165 
 VIII Ideals in " Society" by Elsie Clews Parsons 181 
 IX Ideals in Music by Edward Dickinson . . 207 
 X Ideals in Religion by George Albert Coe . . 239 
 XI Ideals in Philosophy by Harry Allen Over- 
 street 263 
 
 XII Ideals in Literature by Robert Morss Lovett 295 
 XIII Human Progress by Allen B. Pond . . .311 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 AN ERA ended In July, 19 14. A civilization 
 ^ reached its conclusion. We are now far 
 enough away to begin to see its affairs in per- 
 spective. Nineteen hundred and fourteen is de- 
 tached from the present. The year so recent has 
 begun to take Its place with 1896, 1861, and 
 even with 1775. This almost immediate past Is 
 already becoming as alien to us as are the epochs 
 we have learned through the written chronicles 
 of the past. What Is ahead we cannot say with 
 assuredness, although the rude outlines of the 
 future are visible now to the clear-eyed as objects 
 perceived in the semllight of approaching dawn. 
 At such a season of transition it Is, accordingly, 
 especially valuable to attempt to take stock so 
 that thereby we may cooperate with destiny In 
 achieving a more satisfactory society. 
 
 With this purpose In mind during the early 
 months of the Great War, George E. Hooker, 
 then civic secretary of the City Club of Chicago, 
 conceived the Idea of bringing together leaders 
 distinguished In many fields and of obtaining 
 from them statements of the dominant Ideals In 
 
 vii 
 
VIU 
 
 Introduction 
 
 their respective spheres of attention. At different 
 times, from 191 6 to 19 19, these various contribu- 
 tions have been produced. The goal constantly 
 in view has been the cutting of cross-sections 
 through several departments of life so that the 
 truly significant motives might be exposed to 
 useful consideration. Representative individuals 
 have united thus in the endeavor to interpret the 
 America which saw the initiation of the supreme 
 conflict. They have spoken calmly — with detach- 
 ment — for, with three exceptions, the chapters 
 in this book were produced before Germany com- 
 pelled the United States to enter the struggle. 
 The horror of militarist-materialist imperialism 
 was even then overshadowing the spirit of man, 
 but the friendly objectivity of the scientific ob- 
 server was still an attainable attitude In America. 
 
 As the originator of the idea of this congerie 
 of efforts to picture the America that was, it is 
 wholly fit that Mr. Hooker should himself pro- 
 duce the first general chapter. He has done this 
 briefly and with felicity. Himself the civic re- 
 former par excellence^ he has centered his thought 
 on the ideals, "the paramount wishes," of yes- 
 terday in the constructive effort toward the better 
 shaping of America's true and fitting Ideal. 
 
 Professor Bramhall of the Department of Po- 
 litical Science, University of Chicago, has Illumi- 
 nated In his essay the field of American political 
 
Introductio?i ix 
 
 ideals as he finds them arrayed at the beginning 
 of the postwar era. He expresses the frank dis- 
 appointment of many thoughtful Americans with 
 the functioning of the " democratic" system in the 
 industrial society of today, the disparity between 
 the ideals of democracy and the facts of American 
 life. " Democracy is an assurance neither of wis- 
 dom nor virtue in our day; but it is the best hope 
 that we have of their gradual emergence." Pro- 
 fessor Bramhall analyzes the forces which have 
 made the American citizen essentially a " rou- 
 tineer" In politics and a worshiper of political 
 dogma. On the other hand, he points out the 
 many tendencies away from the earlier tradition. 
 Tentativeness and plasticity, he says, are the 
 characteristics of present-day American polit- 
 ical thinking. " If we have courage," he con- 
 cludes, " to trust the democratic method of 
 growth and change toward democratic ideals, 
 the patriot and the humanitarian may still be 
 optimists." 
 
 Chief Justice Winslow of the Supreme Court 
 of Wisconsin in his chapter has traced the opposi- 
 tion, as registered in the law, between the old 
 Idea of Individualistic liberty and the new concept 
 of social freedom. With mastery he has re- 
 counted the meaningful readjustments which help 
 to explain our ante-bellum civilization. Real 
 equality of citizenship, not the hypothetical equal- 
 
Introduction 
 
 ity before the law proclaimed in an age of less 
 complicated economics was, to Judge Winslow, 
 the ideal coming into sovereignty during the years 
 comprehended by his scrutiny. 
 
 John P. Frey, editor of the International Mol- 
 ders^ Journal^ and conspicuous in the intellectual 
 leadership of the American labor movement, is 
 responsible for the exceedingly able account of 
 the ideals leading the workers' unions during the 
 generation under observation. The drift toward 
 equality which Judge Winslow saw in the de- 
 cisions of courts, becomes in the field of toil the 
 concrete human longing for liberty, equality, fra- 
 ternity. 
 
 Dean Swanson of the Northwestern University 
 School of Commerce took up the narrative from 
 the standpoint of domestic business. He traced 
 the intermingling of antagonistic motives in the 
 commercial world with the gradual obsolescence 
 of the caveat-emptor standard in favor of the 
 ideal of social responsibility. Thus he outlined 
 the obverse side of the human situation handled 
 by Mr. Frey. 
 
 Mrs. Parsons also is in contrast to Mr. Frey. 
 She held up for inspection that phenomenon of 
 American life suggested by the term '' society." 
 In a scintillant analysis, Mrs. Parsons pointed to 
 the new democratization, new fearlessness, and 
 new freedom which tend to transform that old 
 
Introduction xi 
 
 exclusive group which arrogated to its own pur- 
 poses the very word which binds all the race — 
 society. 
 
 As the application of the scientific method has 
 supplied the data which are disintegrating the 
 older aristocracies, so an examination of the ideals 
 of science itself is of assistance in appraising the 
 past as well as in the proper effort to determine 
 the probable future. Professor John M. Coulter 
 does this from the vantage ground of botany. 
 Science, or the scientific method, it may be noted, 
 is one of the human products whose worth has 
 not been influenced by the war. Its position, de- 
 spite the revolution which is smashing civilization 
 and building a new order, is still commanding. 
 The ideas, which In themselves constitute the 
 scientific method, are, moreover, to be grasped 
 in many various places. 
 
 Along that pathway of mankind called " educa- 
 tion,'* Professor Ernest C. Moore, following 
 Mr. Coulter's more general statement, made his 
 unifying collection. Professor Moore Is very 
 definitely a modern teacher. He Is a prophet in 
 that school, one of whose acknowledged leaders 
 is Professor John Dewey. Professor Moore as- 
 sembled the ideals of the diverse bands of teachers 
 and threw the energy of his approval behind those 
 purposes which through the classroom make for 
 the same socialized liberty, the same democracy 
 
xii Introduction 
 
 of free men and free women glimpsed by other 
 contributors through their sundry special avenues 
 of approach. To Professor Moore there is but 
 one authentic ideal of education. It is the process 
 by which each child of the race, guided by his own 
 interest, employing his own attention and using 
 his own mind in comprehending the process of 
 human living, becomes a person who thinks, de- 
 sires, and acts as the embodiment of social laws. 
 
 Music in many phases manifests within itself 
 the same aspirations for a more complete partici- 
 pation by the great majority in the pleasant activi- 
 ties of civilization. Music, furthermore, In 
 education and in the wider community, has of 
 late proved itself to be an agency of expression 
 which both set free the noble emotions of the 
 individual and supplied the impulse necessary to 
 coordinate our socially inchoate communities. 
 Professor Dickinson described persuasively the 
 role this art assumed in the erection of a new 
 and fairer democracy. 
 
 The events of the world struggle have induced 
 many to look to religion In the hope that there 
 solace might remain. Some have moved onward, 
 saying to themselves with Professor Coe, "re- 
 ligion that supposed itself to be a monotheism 
 of universal human significance turns out to be 
 a collection of national religions each with Its 
 own god of war." That realization comes some- 
 
Introduction 
 
 times as an occasion of despair. But Professor 
 Coe's eloquent and open-minded consideration 
 of the state of religion affords grounds for a 
 courageous trust in what is to be. The dogma of 
 the brotherhood of man, so Influential In political 
 and social theory of the last generations, Is a 
 direct quotation from religion. Evidences that 
 religion will fuse this revolutionary principle Into 
 human relations — social and International — are 
 not wanting. Professor Coe for himself says 
 bravely, " I bow my spirit before the spirit of the 
 world democracy that Is to be." 
 
 The humble posture assumed by the open- 
 minded prophets of religion as they gaze upon 
 humanity Is paralleled by a similar reverence In 
 philosophy. Professor Harry Allen Overstreet 
 of New York thus maps the wanderings of philos- 
 ophy in America and Indicates the lines of devel- 
 opment. Philosophy, keeping pace with the 
 mutations of the world which produced and 
 cherished It, has, like the arts and sciences, dis- 
 covered the dignity of man In the mass and sought 
 to lend Its great stimulus to the furtherance of 
 the democratic process. 
 
 In his brilliant and wise essay Robert Morss 
 Lovett reveals the play of the democratic tend- 
 ency in literature. The dominant Ideals of 
 literature are of the stuff of the forces trans- 
 forming education or revolutionizing Industry 
 
xiv Introduction 
 
 and government. " The so-called degradation of 
 literature, and the loss of Its Ideals," said Dean 
 Lovett, "are due to the democratic demand that 
 It shall serve the uses, not of the few, but of the 
 many." Literature has lost "the obsession of 
 eternity " and has been vulgarized while our cul- 
 ture, with universal education, has become literary. 
 Yet literature Is still a fine art. In truth it may 
 be questioned whether literature as a superior 
 aesthetic achievement " was not always, except In 
 cases of sheer Imitation, the unsought result of 
 an unfathomable combination of the Maker's soul 
 with that of His fellow-men — only whereas In 
 the past It was only the souls of the few who 
 counted, today It Is the soul of democracy." Dean 
 Lovett sees no loss In this. The writer is still the 
 artist. "Naturalism, impressionism, symbolism, 
 Imagism, mysticism, come and go — a dust of sys- 
 tems and of creeds. It is hard to predict which 
 devices among so many will survive the day 
 which called them forth. Only this is certain, 
 the true aesthetic cannot be Imposed from without 
 by individual caprice or vision, nor can It be re- 
 covered from the past by study. The laws of 
 beauty were not given along with the Ten Com- 
 mandments. The true aesthetic Is the result of 
 human need, human aspiration, human agony. 
 It cannot be complete unless It takes account of 
 the human experience of the entire race, In which 
 
Introduction 
 
 today for the first time in the world's story the 
 soul of man is tragically one." 
 
 Fuially after all these confessions the question 
 still remains: Is there such a thing as human 
 progress? 
 
 Allen B. Pond, a former president of the City 
 Club, under whose auspices this assemblage of 
 essays was prepared, has made answer to that 
 ancient problem. With his forceful reasoning 
 this volume is ended. 
 
 William L. Chenery. 
 
L 
 
 Can America's Ideal Be Consciously Shaped? 
 
Ideals of America 
 
 CAN AMERICA'S IDEAL BE 
 CONSCIOUSLY SHAPED? 
 
 By George Ellsworth Hooker, Civic Secretary City 
 Club of Chicago, igo8-iQ 
 
 A PEOPLE, like an Individual, needs a con- 
 scious and dominant ideal to evoke its 
 powers, to Integrate its efforts and to sustain Its 
 course against lethargy, illusion, and gusts of tem- 
 porary emotion. A people should be ever striving 
 to perceive more and more clearly and define for 
 Itself more and more perfectly what Its true ideal 
 Is, In order thus to press more and more success- 
 fully toward its realization. To satisfy the human 
 mind this guiding motive must be not only a 
 broad and inclusive one, but a great upbuilding 
 conception making for human development. 
 
 The terrible European drama, and events 
 leading up to It, illustrates as does perhaps no 
 other situation in history, the organizing and 
 
Ideals of America 
 
 energizing power over entire peoples of a domi- 
 nant purpose. It is hardly an overstatement to 
 say that in half a dozen European nations the 
 idea of trial at arms has for years or generations 
 dictated social legislation and commercial, indus- 
 trial, and civic policies, as well as military and 
 naval budgets. It has beckoned international 
 finance, guided diplomacy, and marshaled the so- 
 called balance of power. It has integrated both 
 national and international policy. Its story marks 
 in a striking way the power of a ruling aim. 
 
 The notion of physical mastery as between 
 nations has never been a dominant idea and thus 
 a consolidating influence among our people. Our 
 social life has not been shaped and energized by 
 a military program. But what equivalent have 
 we as an actuating and molding popular force? 
 Are we as a nation moved by or committed to 
 any creative and absorbing conception of social 
 advance capable of vitalizing and really organiz- 
 ing us for human progress? It is not suggested 
 that we have had no conspicuous American ideas, 
 shaping important lines of individual and social 
 conduct; but have we today as a nation any great 
 human policy giving conscious direction and co- 
 hesion to our life as a whole, so that it could 
 truthfully be called our ideal? In so far as we 
 are for "preparedness" have we in mind any 
 
Can America's Ideal Be Shaped? 3 
 
 ultimate human attainment which we plan to se- 
 cure thereby? In so far as we object to militarism 
 are we essentially objectors — playing a negative 
 and thus a necessarily weak role? Have we a 
 yardstick by which to measure and compare both 
 policies? In this confused world situation, out 
 of which will come the watchwords of tomorrow, 
 have we any positive and dominating idealism, 
 verified in our experience or even delineated in 
 our faith, which, as an affirmative aim, we can 
 offer to others or invoke for our own guidance? 
 
 There certainly exists in many minds a distinct, 
 not to say alarmed, feeling that as a people we 
 have no such mastering aim; that Instead our 
 active life Is marked by disorder and drift, rather 
 than by organization and design; that we lack 
 coordinated and directed movement; that the 
 events of our social existence happen as a vast 
 medley, rather than as consecutive parts of an 
 intelligently laid plan, moving forward In stages 
 of Intended and far-sighted advance. This dis- 
 organization In action — wasting effort and re- 
 tarding progress — betrays a prior moral drift, 
 to which It is due. We lack clear convictions as 
 to what the proper ends of society are — and this 
 lack necessarily precludes a unified and progres- 
 sive social life directed toward the attainment 
 of such ends. This Is true also not merely In the 
 degree to which life's ends always tend to elude 
 
Ideals of America 
 
 definition, but in an unusual degree. There is an 
 unusual sense of society's being without compass 
 or goal. There Is a peculiar feeling of bafflement 
 at events as they crowd upon and against each 
 other. There is a special sense of need for some 
 adequate and up-to-date summation of our domi- 
 nant conclusions about life, which summation 
 might unify and enlist us for its logical program 
 of action. 
 
 The urgency of this need Is deepened by the 
 unparalleled forces now awaiting release for 
 social welfare. The powers of mind and matter 
 ready in this age to be organized toward high 
 and worthy objects are of unprecedented scope 
 and content. The present-day economic and in- 
 tellectual revolution has opened the door of human 
 possibility wider than it ever was opened before. 
 The resources of modern enterprise imply a 
 rewriting of the aims of human society with the 
 use of a new scale and a new faith. 
 
 The present is a fit time for this constructive 
 effort by reason of the stage now reached In the 
 modern transition period. May we not regard 
 the current revolution In thought and belief, which 
 has resulted from that In science and Industry, as 
 having run Its necessarily negative and destructive 
 course sufficiently far so that the rebuilding proc- 
 ess may now safely proceed, and proceed in a 
 
Can America s Ideal Be Shaped? 5 
 
 strong and efficient manner? Has not the ground 
 been sufficiently cleared, has not adequate con- 
 structive material been accumulated, have not our 
 minds been sufficiently liberated, have we not 
 suffered enough the ills of divisive negation, so 
 that the task of erecting the new symbols of posi- 
 tive social purpose may now be wisely and advan- 
 tageously begun in a systematic manner? 
 
 The war too, argues for such new guideposts. 
 The economic upheaval overspreading the world, 
 the shattering of conventions which has taken 
 place, the break-up of religious and political no- 
 tions, the disclosure of concealed forces directing 
 great world movements, the adoption of new 
 social machinery for social ends, the demonstra- 
 tion of unsuspected powers of human Inventive- 
 ness and endurance — these new conditions and 
 dynamic events are an unparalleled challenge to 
 the moral enterprise of society to mark out Its 
 future career on revised estimates of social con- 
 viction and human capacity. 
 
 In this loosening of moorings and this expansion 
 of outlook can some semblance at least of the true 
 spiritual and creative purpose befitting America 
 today be defined, through attention, and become 
 our rallying and dynamic aim? By conscious 
 efforts toward clarifying and organizing our 
 thought and feelings can the high, but hazy. Ill- 
 defined and ill-adjusted moral conceptions which 
 
Ideals of America 
 
 admittedly feature our life, be composed into the 
 symbol of a fit creative purpose for tomorrow? 
 Can we pick out from our common knowledge 
 and real convictions enough threads of agreement 
 to weave therefrom a positive, constructive, and 
 truly great program of human development, 
 which can hold us together and hold us to its 
 course? Can we as Americans justify our occu- 
 pation of a continent by unfolding and pursuing 
 a bei;^eficent, an upbuilding ideal, outbidding dis- 
 ruptive motives and matching the inciting chal- 
 lenge and resources of our day? 
 
 One may scoff at or write down endeavors 
 toward comprehensive appraisement and guidance 
 of social life. But society will continue its age- 
 long strivings toward such premeditated self- 
 direction. Men have always been trying to 
 straighten the path of progress and strengthen 
 conviction by undertaking, periodically, in Holy 
 Writ, constitutions, charters, creeds, to define as 
 clearly as they could the great objects of life, so 
 that such definition might serve to guide action. 
 This effort may be intermittent, but It will not 
 cease. Despite Its stumblings, we might almost 
 call it the chief social effort of mankind, this 
 strife for a better-piloted future. Without such 
 determination of a long-range and paramount aim 
 it is impossible to determine proper local and 
 minor policies for the daily affairs of life. With 
 
Can America's Ideal Be Shaped? 7 
 
 such determination the various branches of social 
 endeavor tend to fall Into orderly and cumulative 
 sequence. 
 
 If the task thus crudely hinted at can be suc- 
 cessfully prosecuted, If a more worthy, adequate, 
 and dynamic objective for our social life, an 
 objective responding to and Illumined by current 
 science and faith, can by conscious effort be set 
 forth and made effective, this better objective 
 must arise out of those which already exist. It 
 must be a development, a refinement, a higher 
 Integration of the motives and alms operating 
 within our present social life. Our Ideal as a 
 people must blend and bring to consummate 
 flower the Ideals of the constituent parts of exist- 
 ing society. 
 
 The first step In the task Is then to learn what 
 are the ideals, the paramount wishes of today, 
 as found In the great divisions of contemporary 
 activity. Wise answers will be given In this sym- 
 posium, telling forsooth not what might or should 
 be, but what In actual fact are the ideals of 
 life held by those engaged In the main branches 
 of current action, or expressed in that action, 
 what the people themselves — whose conscious- 
 ness Is perhaps more richly furnished In this 
 direction than we think — want life to be for 
 themselves and for society, and what, in their own 
 
Ideals of America 
 
 strivings and work, they are trying to make it. 
 These answers, aside from their profound in- 
 herent interest, will constitute the material to be 
 used in the next step, the constructive effort to- 
 ward the better shaping of America's true and 
 fitting ideal. 
 
II 
 
 Ideals in Politics 
 
II 
 
 IDEALS IN POLITICS 
 
 By Frederick D. Bramhall, Instructor in Political Science, 
 University of Chicago 
 
 M 
 
 R. JAMES MUIRHEAD, In his Land of 
 Contrasts, written In 1893, says: 
 
 The American note includes a sense of inimitable ex- 
 pansion and possibility, an almost childlike confidence in 
 human ability and fearlessness of both the present and the 
 future, a wider realization of human brotherhood than 
 yet has existed, a greater theoretical willingness to judge 
 by the individual than by the class, a breezy indifference 
 to authority and a positive predilection for innovation, a 
 marked alertness of mind, and a manifold variety of in- 
 terest — above all, an inextinguishable hopefulness and 
 courage. It is easy to lay one's finger in America on 
 almost every one of the great defects of civilization — even 
 those defects which are specially characteristic of the 
 civilization of the Old World. The United States cannot 
 claim to be exempt from manifestations of economic 
 slavery, of grinding the faces of the poor, of exploitation 
 of the weak, of unfair distribution of wealth, of unjust 
 monopoly, of unequal laws, of industrial and commercial 
 chicanery, of disgraceful ignorance, of economic fallacies, 
 of public corruption, of interested legislation, of want of 
 public spirit, of vulgar boasting and chauvinism, of snob- 
 bery, of class prejudice, of respect of persons, and of a 
 preference of the material over the spiritual. In a word, 
 America has not attained, or nearly attained, perfection. 
 
12 Ideals of America 
 
 But below and behind and beyond all its weakness and 
 evils there is the grand fact of a noble national theory, 
 founded on reason and conscience. 
 
 And Mr. Herbert Croly, in his Promise of 
 American Life, written in 1909, after quoting this 
 passage, goes on to comment : 
 
 .... The trouble is that the sins with which 
 America is charged by Mr. Muirhead are flagrant viola- 
 tions of our noble national theory. So far as his charges 
 are true, they are a denial that the American political and 
 economic organization is accomplishing the results which 
 
 its traditional claims require If the substance of 
 
 the foregoing indictment is really true, why, the less that 
 
 is said about a noble national theory, the better 
 
 His indictment is practically equivalent to the assertion 
 that the American system is not, or at least is no longer, 
 achieving as much as has been claimed on its behalf. A 
 democratic system may permit undefiled the existence of 
 many sins and abuses, but it cannot permit the exploitation 
 of the ordinary man by means of unjust laws and institu- 
 tions. Neither can the indictment be dismissed without 
 argument A considerable portion of the Ameri- 
 can people is beginning to exhibit economic and political, 
 as well as personal discontent. A generation ago the im- 
 plication was that, if a man remained poor and needy, his 
 poverty was his own fault, because the American system 
 was giving all its citizens a fair chance. Now, however, 
 the discontented poor are beginning to charge their poverty 
 to an unjust political and economic organization, and re- 
 forming agitators do not hesitate to support them in this 
 contention, 
 
 I quote from another critic, Mr. Walter Weyl, 
 in his New Democracy, published In 19 12: 
 
Ideals in Politics 13 
 
 America today is in a somber, soul-questioning mood. 
 We are in a period of clamor, of bewilderment, of an al- 
 most tremulous unrest. We are hastily revising all our 
 social conceptions. We are hastily testing all our political 
 ideals. We are profoundly disenchanted with the fruits of 
 
 a century of independence The shrill political 
 
 cries which today fill the air are in vivid contrast with the 
 stately sounding phrases of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. Men speak (with an exaggeration which is as 
 symptomatic as are the evils it describes) of sensational 
 inequalities of wealth, insane extravagances, strident osten- 
 tations; and, in the same breath, of vast boss-ridden cities, 
 with wretched slums peopled by all the world, with pau- 
 perism, vice, crime, insanity, and degeneration rampant. 
 We disregard, it is claimed, the lives of our workingmen. 
 We muster women into dangerous factories. We enroll 
 in our industrial army, by an infinitely cruel conscription, 
 the anaemic children of the poor. We create hosts of 
 unemployed men, whose sullen tramp ominously echoes 
 through the streets of our relentless cities Revo- 
 lutionary and reactionary agitators are alike disillusioned. 
 They no longer place their faith upon our traditional 
 democracy. 
 
 Even the mass of men — that experimental, inventive, 
 but curiously conservative group of average Americans — 
 though voting instinctively, is beginning to feel that in 
 essential respects the nation " conceived in liberty " has 
 not borne its expected fruits. No one believes after this 
 century of progress that the children of America are en- 
 dowed with equal opportunities of life, health, education, 
 and fructifying leisure, nor that success depends wholly on 
 individual deserts. The " unalienable rights " have not 
 availed against unemployment or the competition of the 
 stronger. Our liberty is not yet absolute nor universally 
 beneficent; our right to bear arms, our right to trial by 
 jury, our rights of free speech and free assembly have been 
 sensibly abridged. The slums are here; they cannot be 
 
14 Ideals of America 
 
 conjured away by any spell of our old democracy 
 
 It is in this moment of misgiving, when men are beginning 
 to doubt the all-efficiency of our old-time democrac>% that 
 a new democracy is born. It is a new spirit, critical, con- 
 crete, insurgent. A clear-eyed discontent is abroad in 
 the land. There is a low-voiced, earnest questioning. 
 There is a not unreverential breaking of the tablets of 
 tradition. 
 
 I know of no better point of departure for an 
 attempt to set down the contemporary political 
 ideals of America than these contemporary wit- 
 nesses. We have indeed lost some of the firm 
 conviction of our national youth that we are the 
 recipients of an ultimate political revelation. Not 
 every feature of our political landscape seems 
 now appareled in celestial light, nor have we so 
 long trailed our clouds of glory without an in- 
 creasing sense that they are being darkened with 
 the soot of an industrial era. This land of ours 
 trembles and waits. 
 
 To attempt to say what the ideals of America 
 are today, then, is especially presumptuous. In 
 doing so, one can hardly avoid the charge of 
 being more dogmatic than the facts warrant; 
 there are many currents and multitudinous dis- 
 sents. I shall try to describe only what seem to 
 me to be the ideals of the average thoughtful, 
 public-spirited American. How many such per- 
 sons there are I should be quite unable to guess : 
 perhaps a million, perhaps two, out of a hundred; 
 
Ideals in Politics i5 
 
 and even they are by no means alike. But al- 
 though this Is so, the common denominator of 
 their ideals Is the common denominator of the 
 Ideals of America, and whether they be regarded 
 as prime movers or as resultants of forces (for 
 they are both), they are equally significant as an 
 Index of the movements of our great Inarticulate 
 national spirit. 
 
 This account, then, will be false In at least two 
 ways. First, the run of men (and women) are 
 not such creatures of reason as this description 
 would make them appear; their responses are in 
 general much more emotional and much less 
 rational. And, second, because that Is so, the 
 American people, as a whole. Is much less con- 
 sciously touched with change, much more con- 
 servative In the matter of political ideals, than 
 this picture would make them out. That is be- 
 cause (at least so I believe) contented people are, 
 by and large, not thoughtful people, and, by the 
 same token, thoughtful people are usually discon- 
 tented people In this world of ours; and therefore 
 when one Is describing the Ideals of people, 
 thoughtful enough to have Ideals of their own, 
 one Inevitably puts exaggerated emphasis on the 
 critical rather than the complacent, on the in- 
 ventor rather than the routineer, to adopt Mr. 
 Walter LIppmann's terms. The great mass of 
 us are routineers In politics. 
 
1 6 Ideals of America 
 
 Moreover, the maintenance of the routineer 
 cast of mind is served by two of the most power- 
 ful engines of general Influence: the larger dally 
 newspapers and the public school. The magni- 
 tude of the fixed capital In a large modern news- 
 paper plant and the consequent Importance of Its 
 advertising and business connections make It un- 
 likely that any great dally will be at all per- 
 sistently a force for the reshaping of political 
 Ideals. Orthodoxy on the whole Is their Inevitable 
 line. 
 
 Even more significantly Is this true of the public 
 school. Faced with the unprecedented task of 
 assimilating copious and heterogeneous streams 
 of foreigners, the American school has devoted 
 Itself to the Inculcation of traditional patriotism 
 and political orthodoxy more consciously and 
 effectively than any other educational system, ex- 
 cept that of Germany since 1870. That this was 
 a necessary and an Inestimable service Is not here 
 questioned; but the fact nevertheless remains and 
 must be reckoned with. In the lower grades, 
 through the celebration of holidays and dally ex- 
 ercises, the cult of the flag, the rather esoteric 
 sentiments of My Country ^Tis of Thee, and the 
 virtues of the pioneer era with Illustrations from 
 the early life of George and Abe, are efficaciously 
 practised; In the upper grades this Is reinforced 
 by the teaching of American history, seldom later 
 
Ideals in Politics 17 
 
 than the Civil War, in which the doctrines of 
 1776 and 1789 (assumed to be identical) are 
 usually presented as absolutes both of time and 
 space. Nor is this intended as a condemnation of 
 the responsible managers and teachers of our 
 schools; overworked and underpaid, no other 
 attitude has been possible to them. But there is 
 unquestionably developing, and will now rapidly 
 develop, if the account here given of contempo- 
 rary ideals is true, such a sense of false dualism, 
 of divorce between piety and life, as already exists 
 among the more independent-minded pupils in 
 most Sunday schools, unless these ideals are able 
 to react soon upon the temper of the schools. 
 That there are signs of such a reaction is not to 
 be overlooked; but under any circumstances the 
 force of the common schools will surely continue 
 to be, and ought in measure to be, on the side of 
 political inertia. Accordingly, such movements 
 as the Short Ballot, the central control of local 
 administration, and the closer union of legislative 
 and executive branches have to reckon with the 
 rooted orthodoxy of common school teaching as 
 a very practical matter. Any departure from The 
 Fathers or The Word has to meet not only the 
 interested opposition of vested rights but the dis- 
 interested hostility which is the result of youth- 
 ful indoctrination. 
 
 Usually the representatives of these two forces 
 
1 8 Ideals of America 
 
 against change work effectively enough together, 
 although, as Mr. Dooley remarked of the Su- 
 preme Court justices, they often concur for totally 
 different reasons. There was, however, a certain 
 irony in their conflict over the proposed New 
 York constitution of 19 12. The leaders of the 
 convention were men who had devoted them- 
 selves to the preaching of the principles of the 
 Fathers and the iniquity of a departure from 
 them; but as men interested in modern efficiency 
 they proposed a fairly radical departure from 
 them in the relations of the governor and the 
 legislature in the matter of the budget. Imme- 
 diately, they found themselves confronted (along 
 with other opposition) with a deep-seated sus- 
 picion from the generality. Those so Inclined 
 may find a certain poetic justice In the fact that 
 these leaders proved to be the most Ineffective 
 proponents of reform that could have been dis- 
 covered. They were estopped by their own 
 reiterated political Ideals. 
 
 Let us come, then, to the thoughtful minority. 
 If a hundred average Americans were asked what 
 was the chief of American political Ideals, ninety- 
 nine would probably answer: Democracy, the Sov- 
 ereignty of the People. As yet there has been no 
 significant dissent from the doctrine of the Dec- 
 laration that governments derive their just powers 
 from the consent of the governed. So much is 
 
Ideals in Politics i9 
 
 axiomatic. But if you were to ask why they were 
 devoted to this ideal, the voices of response 
 would grow more uncertain and various. You 
 would undoubtedly catch references to a natural 
 right to vote (and some of these would un- 
 doubtedly be in feminine tones) ; someone would 
 aver that taxation without representation was 
 tyranny; and someone, in senatorial accents, would 
 declare that the voice of the people is the voice 
 of God. But many would at first be silent. They 
 have seen the sovereign people ruling at many 
 primaries and elections. They know how many 
 in the long procession at any polling place have 
 never in their lives weighed rationally the pros 
 and cons of a single policy or the candidates for a 
 single office; how many never cast a vote in their 
 lives for the general good, but always for a real 
 or fancied special interest of their own — how 
 many. Indeed, are quite Incapable of the Idea of a 
 general good; they know how pitifully many there 
 are who in election after election are cajoled or 
 bamboozled, played with to their own hurt by 
 people who are shrewder and more unscrupulous 
 than they. No, the voice of the people Is not the 
 voice of God, and your average American Is not 
 at all sure of a natural right to do wrong with 
 other people's business. 
 
 Slowly, however, out of the confusion might 
 come some such reply as this : Democracy Is an 
 
20 Ideals of America 
 
 assurance neither of wisdom nor of virtue in our 
 day; but it is the best hope we have of their 
 gradual but slow emergence. This is mainly for 
 three reasons. First, the broader the popular 
 base on which your government rests, the more 
 stable it is and the more stable is progress under 
 it. All will have some reason to believe that the 
 will they obey is their own will, and that the com- 
 mands of law are self-imposed. All feel them- 
 selves more or less committed to the playing of 
 the game according to the rules. Violent breaks 
 with the past are less to be feared. It follows 
 then that progress, though it may be slower in 
 any given time than under the enlightened few, 
 is likely to be more secure. Since no significant 
 step can be taken until the assent of the many has 
 been won, it is likely that a step once taken will 
 not have to be retraced. The vanguard may have 
 to pause for the stragglers to come up, but it will 
 not probably be forced to give up hard-won posi- 
 tions, to fall back with heavy losses upon an army 
 with which it has lost touch. Second, democracy 
 seems to be the only promising device for keep- 
 ing government aimed straight. Since we have 
 definitely given up the Platonic notion of a clas- 
 sification of human beings in respect of essential 
 worth, and come to the conclusion that the chance 
 for a good life for everyone must weigh equally 
 in the scales of state, then a wide distribution of 
 
Ideals in Politics 21 
 
 power is the best safeguard against the distor- 
 tion of the purpose of equal service. Let a gov- 
 ernment be stupid or inept, and we may forgive; 
 but if it persistently devote its powers to the serv- 
 ice of some at the expense of others, that is the 
 unpardonable sin. From that sin, democracy 
 offers the best promise yet made of saving us. No 
 critic or opponent of democracy has offered any 
 practical alternative whatever. And third, de- 
 mocracy is the most powerful engine of general 
 education. Learning by doing, improvement by 
 trial and error or success, training for responsi- 
 bility by the sharing of responsibility — these are 
 phases that nowadays carry pretty general con- 
 viction. And if it is true that diverse as we are, 
 we are nevertheless a common humanity; if, in the 
 long run, it is impossible in any civilization for 
 any lesser part to go permanently forward while 
 the greater part remains permanently behind, then 
 this enterprise of the common adventure may still 
 command our vision. Democracy with all its dis- 
 appointments and dangers, but at the same time 
 with its recognition of human dignity and its faith 
 in human improvability, is still the experiment for 
 America to pursue. 
 
 So, I think, would your thoughtful American 
 regard the democratic ideal; and if his attitude 
 seems to have lost some of its youthful confidence 
 and finality and to have become more tentiative. 
 
22 Ideals of America 
 
 more empirical, more pragmatic, then, I think, as 
 has been suggested at the outset, it will be fairly 
 typical of contemporary political thought. 
 
 The second phase of present-day political 
 ideals which, I believe, deserves attention has 
 to do not with the method but the purpose of the 
 democratic state. To a degree which still shocks 
 the survivors of a generation brought up on Her- 
 bert Spencer and Manchester economics we have 
 accepted the social responsibility of the state. The 
 reign of laissez faire seems to be over for good 
 and all. No longer does the notion that the good 
 of all can be arrived at by a simple addition of the 
 separate self-interest of each command assent; 
 nor its concomitant notion that the chief business 
 of the state is to keep hands off and allow the un- 
 restrained enterprise of individuals as nearly free 
 rein as is compatible with elementary protection 
 of life and property. There has disappeared, 
 therefore, most of the interest which used to be 
 exhibited in the discussion of the Sphere of the 
 State. It is only in utterances quite divorced from 
 action that the Jeffersonian of today insists on his 
 doctrine of a minimum of government. Today 
 we are inclined to avoid dogmatism on this matter, 
 and to insist that the assumption or avoidance of 
 a new governmental activity should be decided on 
 the merits of the particular issue, without avoid- 
 able reference to "principles." The cry of 
 
Ideals in Politics 23 
 
 socialism, too, though not infrequently raised, has 
 lost most of its terror to non-socialists. 
 
 Does this spell an abandonment of cherished 
 ideals? In an obvious way it does; but as super- 
 ficial as it is obvious. So far as the American 
 ideal has always been for a land where, as Lincoln 
 put it, all had " equal opportunities in the race of 
 life with all its desirable human aspirations," we 
 are not only not abandoning it, but showing a 
 desire to put forth efforts too long delayed and 
 to take new risks for its truer realization. Physi- 
 cally and industrially we live in a new world. 
 When there were still vast unappropriated natural 
 resources and the call of the West still echoed 
 In every young man's ears, we were probably 
 more nearly In a situation In which the facts of 
 life corresponded to the laissez-faire theory than 
 any other people ever has been, and when, there- 
 fore, the equality of opportunity to which our 
 ideal dedicated us could really be allowed in the 
 main to take care of itself. The unmerited hard- 
 ships which went Inevitably with a rigorous hands- 
 off policy were easily Ignored In the clamor attend- 
 ing great and general successes. That the devil 
 took the hindmost was genially included In the 
 scheme. About the time, hov/ever, that the gov- 
 ernment officially announced the disappearance 
 of the frontier, we began to waken to the fact 
 that a whole concatenation of circumstances was 
 
24 Ideals of America 
 
 closing the avenues of individual adventure. Un- 
 mitigated freedom from state interference was 
 beginning, to increasing millions of us, to seem to 
 mean the constriction of actual self-determination 
 within very narrow limits set by the growing 
 power of private economic and industrial author- 
 ity. The succession of the Populist movement, 
 the Free Silver gospel and the Bryan Democracy, 
 the Muckrakers and the Square Deal, the Insur- 
 gent movement, and the Progressive party, to- 
 gether with an impressive increase of the Socialist 
 vote, was not " the blind fumbling of atheistic 
 chance." That it was the duty of organized so- 
 ciety to see to it that the equality of opportunity 
 was a reality, not a theory; that we must collec- 
 tively guarantee that the social environment gave 
 a fair chance, at least, for a free and self-respect- 
 ing life for every man, and every man's child; 
 that the hindrances to the good life that a worka- 
 day world presented to the ordinary well-meaning 
 man beyond his power to avoid, must, in justice, 
 be avoided for him by the alertness and vigor of 
 the agents of the common business — these were 
 the new ideas that worked themselves into the in- 
 veterate laissez-fairism of our national thought. 
 But a warning is necessary. It must by no 
 means be thought that this trend is universal, nor 
 that all thoughtful people would admit it as any- 
 thing more than a temporary departure from the 
 
Ideals in Politics 25 
 
 path of rectitude. It Is beyond much question 
 that we Americans are still more rootedly individ- 
 ualistic, that we react more instinctively to the 
 appeal against government interference than any 
 other people. The "state-blindness" that so im- 
 pressed Mr. H. G. Wells when he wrote his re- 
 markably keen impressions of us a dozen years 
 ago Is still with us, whether you call it by that or 
 by a sweeter name; Individualism is still the pre- 
 vailing creed with us, even though it be worn with 
 a difference. All that is here insisted on is the 
 fact of the trend. 
 
 Associated with this change Is another. The 
 natural-rights theory Is an accompaniment of the 
 negative notion of government and Is gradually 
 sharing Its eclipse. Just In proportion as the im- 
 pression grows that the real threats to the equality 
 of opportunity come not from the state Itself, but 
 from forces that we look to the state to restrain, 
 our Interest In hedging the government round with 
 "Thou shalt nots" Inevitably slackens. Bills of 
 rights are receding from the forefront of popular 
 interest partly for this reason, and partly for an- 
 other: because of experience which goes to show 
 that paper safeguards are In themselves fre- 
 quently futile In guaranteeing the Immunity we 
 have used them to sanctify. The workman who sees 
 the Injunction deprive him, as he believes, of trial 
 by jury, the accused man v/ho receives " the third 
 
26 Ideals of America 
 
 degree/* the radical writer who finds himself 
 silenced by the postmaster-general, are inclined to 
 lose faith in the traditional constitutional protec- 
 tions. The effective control of the forces that 
 actuate, the spirit which moves, government are 
 coming to be of more concern than the writing 
 of negatives into instruments. Yet here again, 
 we must reckon with a strong conservative ten- 
 dency which clings to the old fortifications. The 
 New York State Federation of Labor based its 
 opposition to the draft constitution above re- 
 ferred to principally on the avowed ground that 
 the convention had refused to insert a new article 
 in the Bill of Rights. Their logical position 
 should have been: "Give us a government that 
 we can control, and we don't care whether you 
 put in negative commands or not." But tradi- 
 tion was stronger than logic, and the fact that 
 most of their members were at the same time as- 
 serting that the articles already there were not 
 accomplishing the results for which they had been 
 put in did not seem materially to affect their in- 
 terest in putting more in. Here, as before, we 
 may insist only on the trend toward a more lively 
 interest in having a government which will not 
 want to, rather than one which is forbidden to 
 violate what are regarded as rights. 
 
 At the same time there has begun to come into 
 existence an impressive amount of questioning of 
 
Ideals in Politics 27 
 
 the traditional use of constitutions not only to 
 bind governmental agents In the Interest of com- 
 mon men, but to bind majorities In the Interest 
 of established and traditional principles. It is 
 only recently that it has been at all decent for 
 historians to call attention to the fact that the 
 Fathers of the Constitution did their work in a 
 period and a mood of anti-democratic reaction; 
 that, with great ability, they persuaded the giant 
 of Democracy to distrust his own strength and to 
 place himself under guardianship, to restrain not 
 only the agents of Democracy and prevent them 
 from betraying their master, the People, but to 
 restrain also that very master from departing 
 from the limits of a bond, which was, at least so it 
 turned out, to be invoked, interpreted, and en- 
 forced by the courts. A popular majority dis- 
 posed to the active use of its collective authority 
 would naturally begin In time to find these re- 
 straints galling, the more so as by the lapse of 
 time they come to appear not as self-imposed, but 
 as the legacy of the dead. Now it is an unfortu- 
 nate fact that even men who were Innovators 
 when alive become opponents of change, deaf to 
 all argument when dead. A disposition, there- 
 fore, to be Impatient of the dead hand, to demand 
 the more complete enfranchisement of contempo- 
 rary intelligence, whether for better or worse, 
 seems to be certainly a growing factor in Ameri- 
 
28 Ideals of America 
 
 can political ideals. This means, primarily, a 
 reexamination of the amending clauses of our 
 constitutions; and secondly, a reexamination of 
 the position of the courts as the trustees and 
 executors of the political estate. 
 
 These general changes in our attitude toward 
 the nature and the business of the state cannot 
 help bringing changes in the attitude toward the 
 structure of it. If the state is to be an instrument 
 of social purpose, then inevitably it will be instru- 
 mentally regarded, not in the older posture of 
 rapt contemplation and worship, but with a dis- 
 position to analyze and criticize the machinery of 
 government and its aptness to use in much the 
 same way that other human contrivances are criti- 
 cized: irreverently and prosaically. The golden 
 age of the worship of the Constitution is past. 
 It is no longer a final and completed thing, the 
 letter of which is to be religiously accepted by one 
 generation from its predecessor, and as religiously 
 handed on in scriptural integrity to its successor. 
 In things political, the American people cannot be 
 charged (or credited) with a predilection for 
 change; but whether we like It or not, there is 
 abroad in the land a disposition to regard the in- 
 herited structure of government as a set of de- 
 vices, good so far as they work, and subject to 
 alteration like other human creations under the 
 teachings of experience. Let us hasten to add, 
 
Ideals in Politics 29 
 
 for reassurance, that as yet there Is no likelihood 
 that the burden of proof will be shifted from the 
 proponents of change, where it may be admitted 
 to belong, to the defenders of things as they are. 
 All that the former seem likely In the predictable 
 future to secure is the right, hitherto not In 
 America generally conceded, to come into the 
 court of public opinion on the merits of the case. 
 
 There are three movements In Ideals having to 
 do with the structure of government upon which 
 I want to touch. They are: first, the desire for 
 more direct action of the electorate; second, a de- 
 cline In confidence in legislative bodies and a ques- 
 tioning of the whole representative theory on 
 which they rest; and third, a weakening of the 
 doctrine of the separation of powers and a corre- 
 sponding movement toward the simplification of 
 government. 
 
 First. This does not now take the form of a de- 
 sire for the election of more officers, though inbred 
 predispositions make us still likely to resist a re- 
 duction of them. It takes rather the form of a 
 demand for the direct Interposition of the voters, 
 acting by ballot, to supplant. Instruct, or correct 
 their elected representatives — the direct primary, 
 the Initiative, the referendum, the recall. Of 
 course, all this Is steadfastly resisted; but It must 
 be confessed that perfectly sound appeals to Mill 
 and to the reconcilement of popular suffrage with 
 
30 Ideals of America 
 
 government by the best, through the beneficent 
 operation of the representative principle, have, to 
 many who have watched unrepresentative govern- 
 ment at work in the United States, an unfortu- 
 nately hollow ring. The more thoughtful of the 
 advocates of these innovations declare that their 
 purpose is not to destroy the representative prin- 
 ciple, but to restore it to its once fair estate as an 
 agency of the democratic purpose; and to quiet 
 the alarm of their opponents, they point to the 
 underestimated force of popular inertia, to the 
 pretty steadily conservative bent of the American 
 electorate, and the rare occurrence and compara- 
 tively low pitch of those "waves of popular pas- 
 sion'' which the Fathers feared. These demands 
 are however important rather as symptoms than 
 as substantial transformations of our political 
 forms. It is apparent that their basis is in part 
 the same as that of the next movement. 
 
 Second. The dissatisfaction with legislatures 
 is notorious. We are usually told that the reason 
 for it is that we do not elect good enough men; 
 but what truth there is in this easy statement is 
 truism. The fact that this feeling applies not to 
 the two houses of Congress only, but to state 
 legislatures (and both houses of them), and to 
 city councils as well, and not for one year, but 
 for a generation, leads the thoughtful to a search 
 for more fundamental explanations. Once pop- 
 
Ideals in Politics 3i 
 
 ular legislatures were the visible embodiment of 
 the democratic ideal; now there is almost none 
 so poor to do them reverence. That practically 
 all advanced countries deplore a similar decline in 
 legislatures has not yet struck the American con- 
 sciousness; if it had, we might find a doleful con- 
 solation in it. In truth, the reasons are probably 
 spread large on the surface of national life. The 
 legislature a hundred years ago was the one meet- 
 ing of minds touched with a public consciousness; 
 public opinion was practically within Its four 
 walls. Now, with the spread of general educa- 
 tion, the coming of rapid transportation and com- 
 munication, the telegraph, the cheap newspaper, 
 and the great news services, that is no longer so. 
 The dignity and prestige of the legislative func- 
 tion, and Its attractiveness to ambitious men, have 
 suffered a relative depression. But there has also 
 been an absolute depression, due partly to the 
 reaction of these things just mentioned, but 
 largely, I venture to say, to the coming in of the 
 era of capitalist enterprise and the opportunities 
 both for offense and defense which the traditional 
 legislative structure and the circumstances of pop- 
 ular election offered. 
 
 Whether these explanations be accepted or not, 
 the situation is here. When a man so far re- 
 moved from destructive radicalism as Mr. Root 
 is reputed to be, declared in 19 12 that the govern- 
 
32 Ideals of America 
 
 ment of New York had been for a generation about 
 as representative as that of Venezuela, such dis- 
 sent as there was must have been expressed in 
 the newspapers of Venezuela. What the con- 
 temporary ideals for reconstruction are, however, 
 is by no means so clear. We may notice one new 
 current, the volume of which Is likely to grow, 
 viz. : that away from an exclusively geographical 
 basis of representation. An increasing number of 
 reflective people is asking why it should be that 
 the one criterion for the formation of a consti- 
 tuency should be a greater or less propinquity of 
 the dwelling houses of its members. Is the fact 
 that people live somewhere near one another (or, 
 in cities, that they sleep, rather, in the same 
 quarter of town) the only or even the most sig- 
 nificant fact on which to base community of repre- 
 sentation? What of community of thought and 
 purpose? Of interest? Of calling? Can we 
 hope on a purely geographic basis ever to get a 
 legislature which is a true picture of the public 
 mind? In the past, these questions have been 
 raised chiefly by the rather academic advocates of 
 "proportional representation;" but recently there 
 have been added to these, from the industrial side, 
 the advocates of group representation, of guild- 
 socialism, of economic federalism. It is too early 
 yet to say whether these ideas will grow powerful 
 enough in this country to modify our legislative, if 
 
Ideals in Politics 33 
 
 not indeed our whole state structure. Give a 
 continuance of present dissatisfaction, and we may 
 guess that they will. 
 
 Third. Dogmas have had a tenacious grip on 
 the American political mind. Of this there is no 
 more striking illustration than the persistence of 
 the theory of the separation of powers. Origi- 
 nating in a faulty description of the English con- 
 stitution by a Frenchman, it suited the current 
 run of political thought in the authors of the con- 
 stitution. The separation of government into 
 three distinct bodies, the placing of each in a dis- 
 tinct orbit, the establishment of checks and bal- 
 ances, the nice adjustment of centripetal and 
 centrifugal forces, so that once started the stately 
 processions of political bodies might go unalter- 
 ably on under the compulsion of forces not unlike 
 that which doth preserve the stars from wrong — 
 all this was, as Professor Wilson of Princeton 
 said, some years ago, a typically eighteenth cen- 
 tury, mechanical, Newtonian theory. But we 
 have passed over into the age of Darwin, of 
 organic evolution, and biological science; and at 
 the same time, as already has been observed, into 
 the positive and active, rather than the negative 
 and passive state. The doctrine of separation of 
 powers was never a working doctrine and it has 
 never worked; and although it is still frequently 
 invoked, it is undoubtedly losing power. The 
 
34 Ideals of America 
 
 agitation for a budget system, the commission 
 system for cities, are both indications of its 
 weakening hold. 
 
 Especially is the decay of the separation of 
 powers theory opening the way for a frank recog- 
 nition of the changed position of the executive. 
 We are beginning to cease apologizing for the 
 exercise of executive leadership, and to accept that 
 leadership as a part of our working ideals. It is 
 fairly safe to predict that, with some safeguards 
 against the use of illegitimate weapons, the execu- 
 tive will be definitely accepted as a voice of the 
 public purpose and a formulator of public policies. 
 The shape this is likely to take — whether it will 
 approximate to the forms in which executive 
 leadership already is recognized in practically 
 every other significant government than our own, 
 or find new forms more indigenous — need not 
 detain us here. 
 
 Finally, let us return to the characterization 
 of our contemporary political ideals with which 
 this paper began. The impression which I have 
 intended to keep in mind throughout has been that 
 of tentativeness and plasticity. We have the 
 sense of having left an era behind, and of facing 
 an era whose main forces we cannot at all 
 measure. The one thing, I think, that we are sure 
 of Is that there is no sureness in anything political 
 except the fundamental purpose to realize a truer 
 
Ideals in Politics 35 
 
 justice, a fairer equality of opportunity for every 
 child born into the country; and a faith in the 
 realization of that purpose through the active co- 
 operation of all. In that deepest sense of democ- 
 racy, the indefinite improvability of all manner of 
 men, we have so far kept the faith. If there is a 
 disposition to discard old ideals, then, it is the 
 minor ones that we abandon, and only for the 
 purpose of pushing on more resolutely toward the 
 greater ideal we have always professed. 
 
 That there are dangers ahead, no lover of his 
 country, no one who " finds in her a bulwark for 
 the cause of men," can or would deny. And the 
 greatest of these dangers is that we may, through 
 lethargy or selfish blindness allow that fatal 
 cleavage to develop between the noble profession 
 of the great ideal which has always been 
 America's pride, and the concrete realization of 
 it. If we blindly allow a political system theo- 
 retically democratic to be thwarted by the pres- 
 sure of an economic system not democratic; if we 
 permit inherited forms to be not channels for 
 political progress but obstacles to it, then we shall 
 really have jeopardized American political ideals. 
 The only rock on which we are in great danger 
 of splitting is a growing sense of the futility of 
 the democratic method, in its visible forms, for 
 reaching the democratic goal; that distrust of 
 political action and disposition toward substitut- 
 
36 Ideals of America 
 
 ing "direct action" for It which too complacent 
 a clinging to old ideals of form and function alone 
 is capable of producing in any considerable part 
 of the American people. If we have courage to 
 trust the democratic method of growth and change 
 toward democratic Ideals, the patriot and the 
 humanitarian may still be optimists. 
 
m 
 
 Ideals in Law 
 
Ill 
 
 IDEALS IN LAW 
 
 By John Bradley Winslow, Chief Justice 
 Supreme Court of Wisconsin 
 
 IT HAS been said that "ideals are like stars; 
 you will not succeed in touching them with 
 your hands, but, like the seafaring man on the 
 waste of waters, you choose them as your guides, 
 and following them you reach your destiny." A 
 civilization destitute of high ideals is at best only 
 a gilded barbarism; a people which sets up for 
 worship the trinity of wealth, luxury, and frivo- 
 lous amusement has its doom already pronounced. 
 Industry, commerce, science, art, education, 
 social intercourse, in fact all the organized human 
 activities which make up what we call civilization 
 depend for their existence upon social order, and 
 social order in turn is dependent upon the effective 
 protection of life, liberty, and property by law. 
 Hence it is hardly too much to say that civiliza- 
 tion is really law, or at least that it cannot exist 
 in the absence of law; and if this be true then it 
 must also be true that the civilization of any 
 
 39 
 
40 Ideals of America 
 
 people or any age must find accurate expression 
 in the laws of that people or age. 
 
 A fundamental ideal which is not ultimately 
 reflected with greater or less fidelity in the law 
 can hardly be called an ideal of the age but rather 
 the ideal of a few individuals or of a class. Yet 
 the ideal must, of course, precede the law and fre- 
 quently exists for a long time before it crystallizes 
 into law. The reasons are obvious. Ethical and 
 moral standards change from century to century 
 but the change is only gradual. The law repre- 
 sents the prevailing thought at the time of its 
 adoption. Manifestly there will be no change in 
 the law until the new thought has become domi- 
 nant and very markedly dominant. It must have 
 passed the stage of mere agitation, however 
 vigorous the agitation may be, and reached the 
 point where it is accepted by the majority of the 
 electorate before it can hope to find expression 
 in law. 
 
 Especially is this true under a government 
 which, like our own, is based upon an unyielding 
 written constitution. Here the ideas and ideals 
 dominant at the time of the adoption of the Con- 
 stitution have been enacted into fundamental law 
 which can be changed only after a long and 
 laborious process, generally including the ap- 
 proval of two legislatures and a referendum vote 
 by the people. It Is very manifest that substan- 
 
Ideals in Law 41 
 
 tial changes cannot be expected in constitutional 
 provisions until the new idea has been long de- 
 bated and has become overwhelmingly strong. 
 
 This is not to say that written constitutions are 
 undesirable, nor even that the amendment of such 
 constitutions should be made easier of accomplish- 
 ment. I believe in the written constitution and 
 also believe that it should not be subject to quick 
 and easy change to suit the popular whim of the 
 moment, but I have no brief on those propositions 
 to present. After all is said that may be said, the 
 fact remains that the existence of such a constitu- 
 tion unquestionably postpones and makes more 
 difficult the incorporation of new and fundamental 
 Ideas into the law and this is the point which I 
 wished to emphasize. 
 
 No more striking example can be found of the 
 crystallization of governmental and political 
 ideals Into fundamental law than that furnished 
 by the constitutions of the American states. What 
 may be called the constitution-making period of 
 our history (comprising the latter part of the 
 eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth 
 centuries) was a period when new Ideas and Ideals 
 of the most advanced character dominated Ameri- 
 can thought. Never was there a more favorable 
 opportunity for the incorporation of ideals into 
 basic law than the opportunity then presented. 
 
 Here were empires In the making; here was 
 
42 Ideals of America 
 
 being done what never before had been done, at 
 least on any such magnificent scale, namely, the 
 creation out of hand of sovereign states composed 
 of highly civilized, intelligent people conscious of 
 their power and confident of their ability. No 
 time-hardened precedents barred the way; no 
 hereditary privileges, secular or ecclesiastical, had 
 to be dislodged; no hoary abuses buttressed be- 
 hind the walls of centuries frowned defiance on 
 the champions of the new order of things. 
 
 We know very well that the governmental ideal 
 which was then dominant was the great ideal of 
 untrammeled, individual liberty and we also know 
 very well why this was so. Centuries of arbitrary 
 and irresponsible government had produced its 
 natural result — a result proclaimed as well by 
 the Parisian mob which stormed the Bastille as 
 by the embattled farmers of Lexington and Con- 
 cord whose shots rang around the world — and 
 that result was a conviction that the individual 
 citizen, whatever his station, was entitled to the 
 greatest liberty of action consistent with the exist- 
 ence of a stable government. 
 
 Here was unquestionably the dominant govern- 
 mental ideal of our fathers and it needs only the 
 most superficial examination of our constitutions, 
 state and federal, to see that they crystallized that 
 ideal in sweeping and unmistakable language in 
 the fundamental law of every American state. 
 
Ideals in Law 43 
 
 Every demand and every guaranty in the bill of 
 rights (which is preserved at length in nearly or 
 quite all of the American constitutions) breathes 
 forth this idea in one form or another. Examine 
 these guarantees and see if this is not so. First 
 comes the statement of the inherent or Inalienable 
 rights of man, the rights to life, liberty, and prop- 
 erty, or, as it Is sometimes put, the pursuit of 
 happiness. Then come the more concrete rights: 
 the right of free speech, of jury trial, of a uniform 
 rule of taxation, of petition, of freedom of wor- 
 ship, of a certain remedy In the law for all wrongs, 
 of an Impartial jury and a speedy trial in all 
 criminal prosecutions, as well as the right to con- 
 front the Vv^itnesses and be Informed of the charge 
 and be heard by himself and by counsel. Then 
 come what may be called the negative rights such 
 as the provisions prohibiting two prosecutions for 
 the same offense, self Incrimination, unreasonable 
 searches and seizures, cruel and unusual punish- 
 ments, the impairment of the obligations of con- 
 tracts. Imprisonment for debt, ex post facto legis- 
 lation, the taking of private property without com- 
 pensation, the suspension of the writ of habeas 
 corpus In time of peace, the establishment of re- 
 ligious tests, and the elevation of the military 
 above the civil power. 
 
 In one way or another they are all Intended to 
 put into effect the fundamental idea that the citi- 
 
44 Ideals of America 
 
 zen of a democracy is entitled to the widest liberty 
 of Individual action consistent with the existence 
 of good government. 
 
 This is doubtless the basic principle upon which 
 a democracy rests, In fact It seems that there can 
 be no real democracy unless this principle be para- 
 mount and supreme. But It Is, of course, an 
 abstract Idea; It does not carry with It any test by 
 which It may be Infallibly Interpreted In any given 
 case; It may mean one thing to one mind and an- 
 other thing to another; Indeed it may mean dif- 
 ferent things to the same mind under different 
 conditions. 
 
 The original constitution makers lived and 
 wrote at a time when life was simple, wants few, 
 and the population scattered; a time when there 
 were no great cities, no congested areas of popu- 
 lation and everyone had or might have elbow- 
 room and to spare. They knew that arbitrary 
 power In the past had confiscated property under 
 the guise of taxation, set at naught contracts and 
 contract rights, denied religious freedom, bullied 
 the courts, made the administration of justice a 
 mockery, suppressed free speech, imprisoned the 
 citizen without trial, hurried innocent men to the 
 dungeon and the headsman's block and Interfered 
 with the exercise of the most fundamental human 
 rights, and these were the things which they had 
 In mind when they framed the bill of rights. 
 
Ideals in Law 45 
 
 Moreover the wondrous Idea that all men were 
 equal filled the air, not merely equal before the 
 law but substantially equal in opportunity and 
 ability to defend their right. Any boy might as- 
 pire to the presidency. All that any citizen needed 
 or deserved was a fair field. Never was there a 
 time, probably, when this theory came so near 
 being true as in America a century ago ; neverthe- 
 less we know It was not really true then and is 
 much further from the truth now. But it was 
 unquestionably the prevalent and preponderating 
 Idea at the time the early constitutions were 
 written, and under Its Influence the sweeping com- 
 mands and prohibitions of the constitutions were 
 made. The Idea was, let every citizen have pre- 
 cisely the same abstract rights and let him defend 
 them as best he may; this makes a democracy; this 
 carries out the glorious Idea that every citizen Is 
 the master of his own destiny and carves out his 
 career with his own unaided arm. 
 
 The constitution makers were great men; we 
 shall always rightly reverence them ; yet they were 
 not omniscient. They could not look into the dis- 
 tant future and see how rapidly the beautiful 
 theory of equal opportunity was to fade. Nor 
 could they suppose that conditions might so change 
 that some of the very provisions which to them 
 seemed necessary to protect the Individual from 
 executive tyranny would be Invoked to justify a 
 
46 Ideals of America 
 
 tyranny quite different in its nature but quite as 
 disastrous in its effects upon the citizen and upon 
 the state. 
 
 They could hardly imagine that the time would 
 ever come when it would be thought by anybody 
 that public welfare would demand that a man be 
 protected from his own acts, or in other words 
 that his right to contract with regard to his own 
 labor should be limited; they could not suppose 
 that it could ever be seriously claimed that In- 
 equality In taxation might constitute the truest 
 equality, that private property or property rights 
 ought sometimes to be sacrificed for the benefit 
 of the public, that any business naturally lawful 
 ought to be controlled by the state, or that the 
 remedies afforded by the courts had become In- 
 adequate. And yet the time has come when these 
 things, and many more of like nature, are said, 
 not because there was any serious need that they 
 should be said at the time the first constitutions 
 were written, but because of the enormous change 
 in the conditions of life, both material and intel- 
 lectual, which a century has produced. 
 
 Great as this change was. Its significance was 
 long unappreciated, nor was this strange; the 
 wonders of the industrial revolution wrought by 
 nineteenth century Inventions came so rapidly that 
 there was little opportunity for any thought save 
 thoughts of amazement and exultation. Had this 
 
Ideals in Law 47 
 
 been otherwise, however, the great national prob- 
 lems involved in the Civil War — the abolition 
 of slavery and the reconstruction of civil govern- 
 ment in the South — so fully occupied the public 
 mind for more than a quarter of a century that 
 there was room for little else. In the presence of 
 problems like these, mere sociological and eco- 
 nomic questions were dwarfed into insignificance. 
 
 The great and significant legal ideal of that 
 period w^as the ideal of equal rights to a greatly 
 wronged race and this ideal was wrought into the 
 national Constitution by the Fourteenth Amend- 
 ment which forbade any state to abridge the 
 privileges or immunities of citizens of the United 
 States, to deprive any person of life, liberty, or 
 property without due process of law, or to deny to 
 any person the equal protection of the laws. 
 
 This amendment embodied in the fullest degree 
 the idea of the inviolability of property and prop- 
 erty rights; its purpose was to place the Negro 
 on the same plane in these respects as the white 
 man; the thought that individual freedom could 
 ever be too carefully protected had not yet ap- 
 peared; the amendment marked the high tide of 
 individualism; it was not long before the sub- 
 sidence of the tide began. Not that the abstract 
 ideal of the greatest individual liberty consistent 
 with good government was to be rejected, but 
 that it began to be realized that it was entirely 
 
4^ Ideals of America 
 
 possible that too much thought had been bestowed 
 upon the individual, and too little thought upon 
 the mass. 
 
 I would not be understood as indicating that 
 there had been no legislation aiming to ameliorate 
 the condition of the poor and the unfortunate 
 prior to the Civil War. The quarter century 
 following the panic of 1837 was marked by much 
 legislation, both constitutional and statutory, 
 along this line. During this period imprisonment 
 for debt was almost universally abolished; ex- 
 emption of homesteads, household goods, and 
 wages from seizure for debt became general; me- 
 chanic's lien laws were perfected; free school 
 systems were established, and the protective tariff 
 system, for the avowed purpose of protecting the 
 home laborer against foreign, low-wage competi- 
 tion, became a national policy. Generally speak- 
 ing, however, these measures were supported by 
 humanitarian and philanthropic arguments and 
 not by the thought that the theory of individ- 
 ualism could be carried too far. The change of 
 thought on this subject did not become significant 
 until after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amend- 
 ment. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to enlarge upon the 
 change of conditions which was largely re- 
 sponsible for this change of thought. The de- 
 sirable public lands had been taken up, and thus 
 
Ideals in Law 49 
 
 one safety valve for a constantly crowding popu- 
 lation had disappeared; a nation principally rural 
 in its population had become more and more 
 largely urban; vast industries with armies of 
 workmen had succeeded to the village shop; the 
 laborer dealt not with an Individual employer at 
 arm's length but with mighty corporations whose 
 officers knew him only by number; an enormous 
 commerce, domestic and foreign, had brought 
 wealth and luxury undreamed of a century ago; 
 imperial cities with their magnificence and their 
 squalor, their wealth and their poverty, their 
 palaces and their slums, had come and come to 
 stay; In a word the elbowroom was gone, and men 
 jostled their neighbors at every turn; untram- 
 meled individual freedom of action became im- 
 possible If men were to live together In peace and 
 harmony. 
 
 The changes which have taken place since the 
 adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment In social, 
 economic, and governmental Ideals, and the extent 
 to which those changes have been reflected as well 
 in statute law as In the decisions of the courts 
 are the subjects to which I wish briefly to direct 
 your thought. It would not be correct to say that 
 formerly the tendency of thought was to exalt In- 
 dividual freedom without regard to the welfare of 
 the general public, and that now the tendency is 
 exactly to the contrary, yet unquestionably this 
 
50 Ideals of America 
 
 correctly states the points of greatest emphasis 
 in past and present thought. 
 
 The most superficial observer can hardly fail 
 to notice that, during the last three or four dec- 
 ades, a number of more or less definite and 
 radical general ideas have taken strong hold 
 of the public mind. Some of them are very 
 markedly humanitarian in their nature, some of 
 them have to do with a more equitable distribu- 
 tion of the rewards of toil and burdens of taxa- 
 tion, some with a better control of the great public 
 utilities, some with city building and sanitation 
 and public health and safety, some with conserva- 
 tion of our national resources, both material and 
 human, some with a more direct control by the 
 people over governmental processes, but all of 
 them in greater or less degree Involve for their 
 realization Increased governmental activity and 
 Increased regard for the general welfare of the 
 mass as distinguished from the abstract right of 
 the individual. 
 
 Among these Ideas may be specially mentioned 
 the Idea that under modern industrial conditions 
 employer and employee do not meet on an equal 
 footing when they are contracting or when their 
 Interests clash and that the law ought In some way 
 or ways to remove or minimize the inequality; the 
 Idea that housing and living conditions In cities, 
 sanitation, playgrounds, and the building of cities 
 
Ideals in Law 5i 
 
 cannot be left to the mercies of private selfishness 
 but must be controlled by the state; the idea that 
 the state should place higher education within 
 the reach of all citizens; the idea that we have 
 allowed large portions of our great national re- 
 sources to go permanently into private ownership 
 and become the foundations of private fortunes in- 
 stead of retaining the fee title in the state and 
 allowing use and exploitation only under such con- 
 ditions as would conserve them for the ultimate 
 benefit of the whole people; the Idea that both 
 state and national governments should undertake 
 reforestation and afforestation to replace the 
 forests which have been destroyed and prevent 
 the serious effects upon climate, rainfall, flow of 
 rivers, and erosion of soil which ever have fol- 
 lowed the wholesale destruction of forests in other 
 lands; the idea that combinations of capital and 
 business tending to stifle competition are hostile 
 to the best Interests of the people; the Idea that 
 public utilities must be regulated by law both as 
 to their rates and as to the quality of their service 
 if the public is to be properly served; the idea that 
 the public should be protected from the man who 
 sells adulterated food and the quack who fattens 
 on the credulity of the sick; the Idea that prop- 
 erty taxation does not result in a just distribution 
 of public burdens but that the public expenses 
 should be defrayed far more largely by graded 
 
52 Ideals of America 
 
 taxes upon privileges, occupations, incomes, and 
 inheritances; the idea that our methods of en- 
 forcement of the criminal law have not been 
 scientific or successful; the idea that the adminis- 
 tration of justice by the courts has not been 
 efficient; and lastly the idea that we need more 
 complete democracies and that to that end the 
 people should have the right to nominate candi- 
 dates for all offices at primary elections, to recall 
 at will officials who are not giving satisfaction, 
 and to legislate by direct vote without the inter- 
 vention of legislative bodies. 
 
 The order In which these ideas are here sug- 
 gested Is not to be taken to Indicate In any way 
 my idea of their relative Importance. I have 
 simply listed them as they have occurred to my 
 mind. Nor do I undertake any argument in sup- 
 port of them at this time; It is enough for my 
 present purpose to note their widespread existence 
 and to give some Idea of the extent to which the 
 law has responded to some of them. 
 
 Labor legislation of various kinds may well be 
 first considered not only on account of Its volume 
 but also on account of its intrinsic Importance. 
 Few realize the extent of the legislation, state and 
 national, In this general field during recent years. 
 
 Early In 19 14 the federal department of labor 
 published the labor laws of the states In two 
 volumes containing more than 2,400 pages. No 
 
Ideals in Law 53 
 
 complete compilation has been made since that 
 time, but the legislatures of the various states 
 have added many hundreds of new laws to the 
 list. Certainly the legislative response to the 
 popular thought has been ample in quantity, If 
 not in quality. In general these laws may be said 
 to be based upon one or both of two general ideas ; 
 jirst, that employer and employee do not stand on 
 an equal footing, and second, that It Is to the in- 
 terest not merely of the employee but of the state 
 that the inequality be corrected as far as possible, 
 because the state is vitally concerned in the physi- 
 cal and mental welfare of Its citizens. 
 
 To list these laws would be tiresome; a state- 
 ment of the principal objects sought to be accom- 
 plished by them must serve the present purpose. 
 Among these objects are, the abolition of the com- 
 pany stores and the payment of wages in cash, 
 the regulation of hours of labor especially of 
 female labor, the prohibition or great restriction 
 of child labor, the establishment of the minimum 
 wage, the compulsory adoption of safety devices, 
 the guarding or fencing of dangerous machinery, 
 the safeguarding of factories from danger by fire, 
 from Infectious diseases, from defective ventila^ 
 tion and the like, the prevention of discrimination 
 against union labor, the establishment of indus^ 
 trial accident Insurance or workmen's compensa- 
 tion systems by which compensation for industrial 
 
54 Ideals of America 
 
 accidents not self-inflicted Is at once made and 
 ultimately borne by the public, the establishment 
 of public employment agencies and mother's pen- 
 sions. 
 
 This list does not by any means Include all of 
 the governmental activities In the field of labor 
 which have become well established In some 
 European states such as Insurance against old age, 
 unemployment. Illness, chronic Invalidism, and 
 death, as well as widows' and orphans' Insurance; 
 nor does It Include laws providing Industrial courts 
 or tribunals for the settlement of disputes between 
 employer and employee, which successfully oper- 
 ate In Europe. 
 
 As Illustrative of the general character of labor 
 legislation and Its treatment by the courts, it will 
 be helpful to consider briefly the legislation re- 
 quiring wages to be paid In cash and the kindred 
 legislation which aims to abolish or remedy the 
 evils of the company store, sometimes called the 
 *' truck" store. This subject Is treated some- 
 what fully In the following paragraphs because 
 It was practically the first of the police measures 
 affecting the relations between business and labor 
 to come before the courts and because in the con- 
 test over its constitutionality the principles which 
 were destined to prevail were flrst distinctly laid 
 down. 
 
 Most of the states have laws of one kind or 
 
Ideals in Law 55 
 
 the other and some have both. The company 
 store is, of course, a store which the employer 
 owns and compels his employees to patronize, 
 paying them in orders for goods at the store and 
 thus selling his merchandise at a profit and with- 
 out competition. The abuse is an ancient one and 
 came to us from England. The statutes Intended 
 to correct the evils of the company store system 
 either forbid the employer from being interested 
 in such a store or in the furnishing of supplies to 
 his employees, or else they prohibit the issuance 
 of any check or order, in payment of wages, which 
 Is not redeemable in lawful money. Such laws 
 are necessarily based on the idea of inequality in 
 the position of employer and employee when they 
 meet to make their contract, an inequality which 
 the state ought to correct as far as possible. 
 
 They were at once attacked In the courts and 
 with considerable success. The Supreme Court 
 of Pennsylvania In 1886 said of the provisions 
 of an act requiring all workmen In manufacturing 
 establishments to be paid In cash at the end of 
 each month, they are 
 
 Unconstitutional and void inasmuch as by them an 
 attempt has been made by the legislature to do what In 
 this country cannot be done; that is, prevent persons who 
 are sui juris from making their own contracts. The act 
 is an infringement alike of the right of the employer and 
 the employee; more than this, It is an insulting attempt 
 to put the laborer under a legislative tutelage which Is 
 
56 Ideals of America 
 
 not only degrading to his manhood but subversive of his 
 rights as a citizen of the United States. He may sell his 
 labor for what he thinks best whether money or goods, just 
 as his employer may sell his iron or coal, and any and 
 every law that proposes to prevent him from so doing is 
 an infringement of his constitutional privileges and con- 
 sequently vicious and void.^ 
 
 In 1899 the Supreme Court of Kansas dealt 
 with a similar statute and, if possible, with 
 greater vigor. That court said: 
 
 Freedom of action, liberty, is the cornerstone of our 
 governmental fabric. Laws which infringe upon the free 
 exercise of the right of a workingman to trade his labor 
 for any commodity or species of property which he may 
 consider to be the most advantageous is an encroachment 
 upon his constitutional rights and an obstruction to his 
 pursuit of happiness. Such laws as the one under con- 
 sideration classify him among the incompetents and de- 
 grade his calling . . . . it is in violation of the Four- 
 teenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United 
 States in that it denies to persons within this state the 
 equal protection of the laws.^ 
 
 Nor was the Supreme Court of IHinoIs far be- 
 hind In this Herculean effort to save the working- 
 man from degradation. That court said as early 
 as 1893, 
 
 The right to contract necessarily includes the right to 
 fix the price at which labor will be performed and the 
 mode and time of payment. Each is an essential element 
 of the right to contract and whosoever is restricted in 
 
 ^ Godcharles v. Wigeman, 113 Pa. St. 431. 
 2 State V. Haun, 61 Kan. 146. 
 
Ideals in Law 57 
 
 either, as the same is enjoyed by the community at large, 
 is deprived of liberty and property. ^ 
 
 It is quite probable that few worklngmen ap- 
 preciated the anxiety shown by the courts in these 
 decisions to prevent the restriction of their liberty 
 to make contracts. Indeed, it would be a remark- 
 able man who could appreciate it. They had 
 asked for no such relief, in fact they had been 
 absolutely content to remain in their state of tu- 
 telage, but they had been rescued from it at the 
 earnest request of their employers. It was all 
 very confusing. An academic victory like this, 
 achieved against his wish under the generalship 
 of his employer and wrought out in the rarefied 
 atmosphere of abstract reasoning, must have been 
 about as satisfactory to the workingman as a 
 *' Barmecide feast " to the hungry. 
 
 In these opinions the dominance of the classic 
 ideal of individual liberty is very apparent. The 
 honesty of the judges who wrote them and the 
 courts which promulgated them is entirely beyond 
 question. They expressed ideas which for dec- 
 ades had been regarded as unassailable; especially 
 the idea that the American worker stood on an 
 even plane with his employer, that he was just as 
 free in his choice of an employer as his employer 
 in the choice of an employee, that he was a true 
 
 1 Braceville Coal Co. v. People, 147 Ills. 66. 
 
58 Ideals of America 
 
 sovereign who needed no favors but only a fair 
 field. It had not yet been perceived that there 
 was a huge fallacy in this reasoning; that the em- 
 ployee was not always, nor often, actually free in 
 his choice of an employer; that grim necessity, in 
 the shape of a family to be supported or some 
 other circumstance making change of location or 
 employer practically impossible, deprived the em- 
 ployee of any real choice. 
 
 The end of these decisions was not yet, how- 
 ever. A similar act requiring all employers to 
 redeem in cash all store orders or evidences of 
 debt given to their employees was held constitu- 
 tional by the Supreme Court of Tennessee in 
 1899. In the opinion in this case the principle 
 of the right of the state to correct inequalities 
 of position is fully recognized. The Fourteenth 
 Amendment was duly invoked, but the court said, 
 among other things : 
 
 The legislature evidently deemed the laborer at some 
 disadvantage under existing laws and customs, and by this 
 act undertook to ameliorate his condition in some measure 
 by enabling him .... to demand and receive his un- 
 paid wages in money rather than in something less valu- 
 able. Its tendency, though slight it may be, is to place 
 the employer and emplo5^ee upon equal ground in the 
 matter of wages, and, so far as calculated to accomplish 
 
 the end, deserves commendation The first right 
 
 of a state, as of a man, is self-protection, and with the 
 state that right involves the universally acknowledged 
 power and duty to enact and enforce all such laws not In 
 
Ideals in Law 59 
 
 plain conflict with some provision of the Federal Consti- 
 tution as may rightly be deemed necessary or expedient 
 for the safety, health, morals, comfort, and welfare of its 
 people. The act .... is neither prohibitory nor 
 penal; not special but general; tending towards equality 
 between employer and employee in the matter of wages; 
 intended and well calculated to promote peace and good 
 order, and to prevent strife, violence, and bloodshed. 
 Such being the character, purpose, and tendency of the act 
 we have noi hesitation in holding that it is valid both as 
 general legislation without reference to the state's reserved 
 police power, and also as a w^holesome regulation adopted 
 in the proper exercise of that power.^ 
 
 This case was carried to the Supreme Court of 
 the United States and that court in October, 1901, 
 affirmed the decision, quoting with approval a 
 considerable part of the opinion of the lower 
 court, including the extracts just quoted.^ The 
 Federal Supreme Court had, however, met and 
 determined a cognate question a little earlier as 
 we shall see. 
 
 To sum up on this subject, and without going 
 into tiresome details, there seems to be direct 
 conflict in the decisions of the state courts on the 
 subject as to whether legislation of this character 
 is constitutional but the Supreme Court of the 
 United States has settled the question that such 
 legislation is not forbidden by the Fourteenth 
 Amendment and this must go a long way toward 
 
 1 Harbison v. Knoxville Iron Co., 103 Tenn. 421. 
 
 2 Knoxville I. Co. v. Harbison, 183 U. S. 13. 
 
6o Ideals of America 
 
 removing the doubt thrown upon the question by 
 the contrariety of opinion in the state courts. The 
 strong presumption must be that future decisions 
 in the state courts will follow the federal lead. 
 
 Another and more far-reaching class of labor 
 laws are the laws limiting hours of labor and the 
 conditions under which children may labor. So 
 far as minors are concerned such laws have been 
 generally conceded to be constitutional, but so far 
 as adults are concerned the attacks upon them on 
 the ground of interference with the free right of 
 contract have been very numerous and the results 
 have been successful in some jurisdictions, but un- 
 successful in others. The story is a very long one 
 and only brief consideration can be given to it 
 here, interesting as it certainly is. 
 
 One thing perhaps may be safely affirmed: 
 Wherever It can reasonably be said that restric- 
 tion of the hours of labor as to either women or 
 men Is necessary for or conducive to the preserva- 
 tion of the health of the employees the courts will 
 sustain the statute as a valid exercise of the po- 
 lice power. This result has not been reached, 
 however, without serious opposition on the part 
 of some of the courts. 
 
 The case in this field which must ever be con- 
 sidered as a landmark, or perhaps rather as mark- 
 ing a turning point In judicial thought, is the case 
 of Holden v. Hardy decided by the Supreme 
 
Ideals in Law 6i 
 
 Court of the United States In February, 1898.^ 
 The legislature of the state of Utah had passed 
 an act limiting the hours of labor In mines and 
 smelters to eight hours a day and this act had 
 been sustained by the Supreme Court of that 
 state as a proper exercise of the police power on 
 the ground that the occupations named were dan- 
 gerous and unhealthy and hence that the state 
 could rightly step In and limit the hours of dally 
 labor In the Interest of the health of Its citizens. 
 The case went to the Federal Supreme Court and 
 the Fourteenth Amendment was strongly relied 
 on. The decision of the lower court was affirmed. 
 Mr. Justice Brown wrote the opinion and his 
 name would be entitled to be held In grateful re- 
 membrance to the latest generations had he writ- 
 ten no other. The following excerpts contain the 
 meat of It: 
 
 The legislature has also recognized the fact which the 
 experience of legislators In many states has corroborated, 
 that the proprietors of these establishments and their 
 operatives do not stand upon an equality, and that their 
 interests are, to a certain extent, conflicting. The former 
 naturally desire to obtain as much labor as possible from 
 their employees, while the latter are often induced by the 
 fear of discharge to conform to regulations which their 
 judgment fairly exercised would pronounce to be detri- 
 mental to their health or strength. In other words, the 
 proprietors lay down the rules and the laborers are prac- 
 tically constrained to obey them. In such cases .sslf- 
 
 1 169 U. S. %U. 
 
62 Ideals of America 
 
 interest is often an unsafe guide and the legislature may 
 properly interpose its authority. It may not be improper 
 to suggest in this connection that although the prosecution 
 in this case was against the employer of labor, who ap- 
 parently, under the statute, is the only one liable, his 
 defense is not so much that his right to contract has been 
 infringed on but that the act works a peculiar hardship 
 to his employees, whose right to labor as long as they 
 please is alleged to be thereby violated. The argument 
 would certainly come w^ith better grace and greater co- 
 gency from the latter class. But the fact that both 
 parties are of full age and competent to contract does not 
 necessarily deprive the state of the power to interfere where 
 the parties do not stand upon an equality, or where the 
 public health demands that one party to the contract 
 shall be protected against himself. The state still retains 
 an interest in his welfare however reckless he may be. 
 The whole is no greater than the sum of all the parts and 
 when the individual health, safety, and welfare are sac- 
 rificed or neglected, the state must suffer. 
 
 Here Is succinctly and forcibly stated the new 
 principle that the state Is entitled to protect Itself 
 by protecting a class of Its citizens against their 
 own acts. 
 
 Notwithstanding adverse decisions In some 
 states the view taken by the Federal Supreme 
 Court has already prevailed In the greater num- 
 ber of states where the question has been brought 
 before the courts, and there can be little doubt 
 that It will become more and more dominant as 
 time goes on. 
 
 What seems on Its face to be a step backward 
 was taken by the Federal Supreme Court In 1904 
 
Ideals in Law 63 
 
 in the Lochner case ^ where a law of New York 
 limiting the hours of labor in bakeries, which had 
 been held constitutional by the Supreme Court of 
 that state, was held not a legitimate exercise of 
 the police power and an unreasonable and arbi- 
 trary interference with the right of individuals to 
 contract, hence void under the Fourteenth Amend- 
 ment. The decision was by a bare majority of 
 the court and there was a very vigorous dissent. 
 Justice Peckham, who wrote the opinion of the 
 court, based the decision on the ground that the 
 law was not really a health measure because it 
 was common knowledge that working in a bakery 
 was not a specially unhealthy employment hence 
 there was no legal foundation for making a dis- 
 crimination between bakers and other trades or 
 occupations. I doubt if such a decision would be 
 made by that great court now; however, the opin- 
 ion does not overrule In any way the foundation 
 principles of the Holden case but simply decides 
 that it appeared as matter of law that baking 
 was not an unhealthful employment and conse- 
 quently there was no ground for discrimination 
 between it and other employments. 
 
 Legislation limiting the hours of labor of 
 women has been quite generally upheld on the 
 ground of the difference in their economic and so^ 
 clal duties and the importance to the state of con- 
 
 1 198 u. S. 45. 
 
64 Ideals of America 
 
 serving their strength. This view has not been 
 universal, however, as is evidenced by the decision 
 of the Supreme Court of Illinois in 1895 by which 
 it was held that an act limiting the hours of labor 
 of women in factories to eight hours a day in- 
 vaded the fundamental right of a citizen to make 
 his own contract.^ 
 
 This seems now like a voice from the distant 
 past though only a score of years has gone by. 
 Those years, however, have been eventful years. 
 In 1 9 10 a law limiting the hours of woman's la- 
 bor in factories to ten hours a day was sustained 
 by the same court on the principle that the physi- 
 cal structure and maternal functions of women jus- 
 tify the discrimination between men and women, 
 and hence that the act was a valid exercise of the 
 police power of the state.^ The earlier case was 
 not overruled in terms. It was *' distinguished" 
 (lawyers will readily understand what that 
 means) but the principle that It was an indefensi- 
 ble violation of the right to contract, announced 
 with such earnestness in that case, was uncere- 
 moniously relegated to the lumber room of the 
 law. 
 
 Oregon and California passed similar laws and 
 both were sustained by the respective home courts 
 and taken to the Supreme Court of the United 
 
 1 Ritchie v. People, 155 Ills. 98. 
 
 2 Ritchie v. V/ayman, 244 Ills. 509. 
 
Ideals in Law 65 
 
 States where the Fourteenth Amendment to the 
 Federal Constitution (though it had been work- 
 ing more than ten hours a day for many years) 
 was again relied on to defeat the laws. Both 
 statutes were, however, sustained; the Oregon 
 statute in 1898^ and the California statute in 
 19 15.2 A single extract from the late Mr. Jus- 
 tice Brewer's opinion in the first of these cases 
 will show its quality and also show how fully the 
 idea of the power of the state to protect itself 
 and correct inequalities of opportunity and ability 
 among its citizens has now been accepted by the 
 highest court in the land. He says, 
 
 That woman's physical structure and the performance 
 of maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the 
 struggle for subsistence Is obvious. This Is especially true 
 when the burdens of motherhood are upon her. Even 
 when they are not, by abundant testimony of the medical 
 fraternity, continuance for a long time on her feet at 
 work, repeating this from day to day tends to Injurious 
 effects upon the body, and as healthy mothers are essential 
 to vigorous offspring, the physical well-being becomes an 
 object of public Interest and care In order to preserve the 
 strength and vigor of the race. 
 
 The question whether laws limiting hours of 
 labor for men in employments not specially dan- 
 gerous or exceptional In some other way are 
 within the police power cannot be said to be set- 
 
 1 Muller V. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412. 
 
 2 Miller v. Wilson, 336 U. S. 373. 
 
66 Ideals of America 
 
 tied. There certainly are a considerable number 
 of decisions in the negative. In 1914 the Supreme 
 Court of Oregon sustained a law providing for a 
 ten hour day for males In factories.^ The court 
 said that it could not be said that the law would 
 not promote the peace, health, and general wel- 
 fare of the citizens of the state. This judgment 
 was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United 
 States in April, 1917.^ In Massachusetts, how- 
 ever, In 19 1 5, a law which provided that em- 
 ployees In and about railway stations should not 
 be employed for more than nine working hours 
 in ten hours time, the additional hour to be al- 
 lowed as a lay-off, was held to be an unwarrant- 
 able Interference with Individual liberty and prop- 
 erty rights and therefore contrary to constitutions 
 which secure these fundamental rights.^ The lan- 
 guage sounds familiar. I venture to hazard a 
 guess that It will grow less familiar as the years 
 go on. 
 
 The material at hand relating to this class of 
 legislation Is very large In amount and very in- 
 teresting In character but the limitations of space 
 Tvill not permit. Nor can I attempt to review the 
 various other classes of laws which have been 
 put upon the statute books In recent years in- 
 
 ^ State V. Bunting, 71 Ore. 259. 
 
 2 Bunting v. State, 24-? U. S. 426. 
 
 3 Com. V. B. k M. R. R., no N. E. 264. 
 
Ideals in Law 67 
 
 tended to ameliorate the condition of the laborer, 
 or to remove the real or supposed handicaps un- 
 der which he labors. Reference may perhaps 
 be made to one very significant class of laws 
 which has come into being within a very few 
 years in very many states, I. e., the workmen's com- 
 pensation or social insurance acts. 
 
 These laws were passed in response to a very 
 widespread public demand. Prior to their pas- 
 sage, whenever a workman was injured and could 
 not agree with his employer as to the responsi- 
 bility for the injury or the terms of settlement, he 
 was obliged to sue the employer, go through all 
 the courts, divide the verdict (if any) with his 
 lawyer, and come out at the end of long months 
 and probably years of waiting either with a sum 
 of money more or less adequate or with a decision 
 that he was entitled to nothing, because he him- 
 self had been negligent, had assumed the risk, or 
 had worked with a negligent fellow-servant. This 
 remedy was a relic of earlier and much simpler 
 days; the days of manual labor, of the small shop 
 with few employees, simple machinery, and In- 
 frequent accidents. Modern Industrial develop- 
 ment requires, however, that the workman carry 
 on his toil in company with veritable armies of 
 fellow-men, many of whom he can neither know 
 nor see; it surrounds him with mighty and com- 
 plicated machinery driven by forces whose relent- 
 
68 Ideals of America 
 
 less strength rivals that of the thunderbolt itself, 
 and it requires him to labor day by day with fac- 
 ulties at high tension in places where death lurks 
 in ambush at his elbow awaiting only a moment's 
 inadvertence before it strikes. It has created an 
 army of injured and dying with constantly swell- 
 ing ranks marching with halting step and dimming 
 eyes to the great hereafter. Legislate as we may 
 along the line of stringent requirements for safety 
 devices this army will still increase. To speak of 
 the common law personal injury action as a rem- 
 edy for the problem is to jest with serious sub- 
 jects, to give a stone to him who asks for bread. 
 To meet this burning question the Workmen's 
 Compensation Acts have come into being. Differ- 
 ent in their details, they have some characteris- 
 tics in common. Generally speaking they provide 
 that all industrial accidents resulting in injuries to 
 workingmen shall be compensated for by the em- 
 ployer at specified rates during the time of dis- 
 ability, those rates being determined upon a basis 
 of a given percentage of the wages of the injured 
 person; if death results, other definite standards 
 of indemnity to be paid to the surviving depend- 
 ents are provided. The procedure is simple; a 
 claim is made before an administrative board or 
 judge, and the matter is taken up quickly and 
 without legal machinery, the award is made and 
 can only be attacked on the ground of fraud or 
 
Ideals in Law 69 
 
 because there was really no evidence to sustain it. 
 
 These acts have been generally, though not 
 universally, sustained when attacked as unconsti- 
 tutional. The reason, doubtless, is that they have 
 generally been made elective in form, i, e., em- 
 ployers could elect whether they would come in 
 under them or not, and thus if they chose to come 
 in they could not complain of any infringement 
 of their rights to have due process of law because 
 they had voluntarily consented to come under the 
 terms of the law. It is true that election to accept 
 the law was made attractive by a somewhat in- 
 genious provision having some of the character- 
 istics of a club, to wit, a provision that the em- 
 ployer who chose to remain outside of the law 
 should not have the benefit, in a personal injury 
 action, of one or two or all of the time-honored 
 defenses, known as contributory negligence, as- 
 sumption of risk, and negligence of a fellow- 
 servant. 
 
 These laws have worked well; nominally the 
 employer pays for all injuries, in reality he in- 
 sures himself in an accident insurance com.pany 
 (which takes charge of and pays the claims made) 
 and adds the cost of insurance to the cost of his 
 manufactured product. In the end, therefore, 
 the public pays, and when all of the states have 
 similar laws all employers will be on an equal 
 basis. 
 
70 Ideals of America 
 
 Such laws are already in force In forty-one 
 states and territories and the Federal Govern- 
 ment has an act for its employees. The New 
 York law did not have the elective feature as to 
 certain employments and was held unconstitu- 
 tional by the highest court of that state In the 
 year 1911/ because it deprived the employer of 
 property without due process of law In that it im- 
 posed on him a liability without his consent and 
 without his fault. Since that decision was made, 
 however, the state constitution has been amended 
 so as expressly to authorize such a law and an- 
 other law of similar nature has been passed and 
 upheld by the court of appeals of New York.- 
 The compensation laws of New York, Washing- 
 ton, and Iowa have been sustained by the Supreme 
 Court of the United States and have thus survived 
 the acid test of the Fourteenth Amendment. The 
 first two of these laws are compulsory and the 
 last one elective.^ 
 
 Much more might, and really ought to be said, 
 concerning labor legislation, but I must pay at- 
 tention to some other fields of legislation before 
 closing this paper. I stop now only to observe 
 that the Idea that safety and health should be 
 promoted in all working places has taken full 
 
 1 Ives V. S. B. R. Co., 201 N. Y. 271. 
 
 2 Jensen v. S, P. Co., 215 N. Y. 514. 
 
 3N. Y. C. R. R. Co. V. White, 243 U. S. 188; M. T. Co. v. 
 Washington, Id., 219; Hawkins v. Bleakley, Id., 210. 
 
Ideals in Law 7i 
 
 possession of the public mind and to this end legisla- 
 tion providing for the use of the best safety de- 
 vices, the guarding of all dangerous machinery, 
 the prevention so far as possible of occupational 
 diseases, the providing of safe, sanitary, and 
 healthful shops has become practically universal, 
 nor has such legislation been seriously attacked 
 in the courts. Its validity as a proper exercise of 
 the police power is quite beyond question. In the 
 more advanced states these laws are framed in 
 general terms requiring in substance that places 
 of employment and exposed machinery be made 
 safe and the administrative details are committed 
 to a permanent body or commission which has 
 power to inspect and determine what is safe and 
 what is not safe. This commission calls to its aid 
 the experience of both employer and employee as 
 well as the knowledge of the expert and formu- 
 lates the administrative details in the shape of 
 regulations which have the force of law. Thus 
 the adjustment to new conditions and changing 
 methods becomes easy and prompt. There need 
 be no long waiting for legislative action. 
 
 The subject of labor unions, strikes, lockouts, 
 boycotts, and other contests between employer 
 and employee covers so large a field that it is 
 manifestly impossible to give it treatment. I 
 would not be understood as minimizing its vast 
 importance but that very fact makes a mere brief 
 
72 Ideals of America 
 
 discussion all the more unfitting. Furthermore 
 the controversies on these subjects are still acute. 
 Only in the most general way can there be said 
 to be any general public ideals. It may be safely 
 asserted that the general public desires to be fair 
 both to employer and employee; it believes that 
 the employee has a right to organize, to strike 
 if he be dissatisfied, and to be free from black- 
 listing; it does not believe that he is entitled to 
 resort to violence to gain his ends, nor does it be- 
 lieve that it should be possible for the whole pub- 
 lic to suffer great inconvenience and loss because 
 of a disagreement between employer and em- 
 ployee. 
 
 The laws which will work out substantial jus- 
 tice to employer and employee while protecting 
 the public have not yet been perfected although 
 there has been much legislation. The histo- 
 rian or essayist of the future may perhaps be 
 able to record the satisfactory solution of these 
 questions. Certainly it Is not possible now. 
 
 Passing from the consideration of labor prob- 
 lems and conditions, I would direct your thought 
 for a moment to the very general public awaken- 
 ing on the subject of housing, sanitation, and liv- 
 ing conditions In the great cities. The slum and 
 the crowded tenement house are In many respects 
 the foulest products of modern civilization, for In 
 them the race is poisoned at the source; yet for 
 
Ideals in Law 73 
 
 many years they passed practically without notice; 
 they were hardly fit subjects to be mentioned in 
 good society; nor was it realized that the state 
 owed any duty to its poorer citizens to make con- 
 ditions of life more healthful or endurable, and 
 still less was it realized that the state had a selfish 
 interest in the health of its citizens which would 
 demand that something be done to remove such 
 ulcers as these from the body politic. In most, 
 if not all, of the states containing large cities 
 where these problems are acute, the regulation 
 of tenement building is now quite complete; hu- 
 man habitations must be provided with certain 
 specified sanitary fittings and be built under cer- 
 tain rules as to light, ventilation, and ground 
 space. Legislation in this line is rarely questioned 
 in the courts, nor is it perceived how it could be 
 successfully attacked. Playgrounds are appear- 
 ing where there were none before, the old-time 
 slum is certainly being crowded out, the city child 
 is to be given a chance, the city worker is to have 
 light, air, and healthful surroundings, the city 
 itself is ultimately to become, not perhaps a 
 place where every prospect pleases, but most 
 certainly a place where even the poorest may 
 live comfortably and happily under sanitary con- 
 ditions and freed from repulsive and degrading 
 surroundings. 
 
 The city of the future is still a dream city; its 
 
74 Ideals of America 
 
 domes and lofty towers gleam only in the Imagi- 
 nation of the enthusiast, but they will come in 
 time. 
 
 The Federal Supreme Court recently rendered 
 a decision which goes far to remove the bogey of 
 the Fourteenth Amendment from the path of the 
 city planner. The city of Los Angeles passed an 
 ordinance prohibiting the manufacture of brick 
 within a certain specified section. Its constitu- 
 tionality was attacked under the due process and 
 equal protection provisions of the Fourteenth 
 Amendment. The court held it valid as a proper 
 exercise of the police power, and used these very 
 forcible words: 
 
 It IS to be remembered that we are dealing with one 
 of the most essential powers of government, one that is 
 least Hmitable. It may Indeed seem harsh In Its exercise, 
 it usually is on some individual, but the imperative neces- 
 sity for its existence precludes any limitation on it when 
 not exerted arbitrarily. A vested interest cannot be as- 
 serted against it because of conditions once obtaining. 
 .... To so hold would preclude development and 
 fix a city forever in its primitive conditions. There must 
 be progress and if, in its march, private interests are in the 
 way, they must yield to the good of the community; the 
 logical result of the petitioner's contention would seem to 
 be that a city could not be formed or enlarged against 
 the resistance of an occupant of the ground, and that if it 
 grows at all it can only grow as the environment of the 
 occupations that are usually banished to the purlieus.^ 
 
 ^ Hadacheck v. Los Angeles, 239 U. S. 394. 
 
Ideals in Law 75 
 
 No more categorical and emphatic statement 
 that private interests, even though vested, must 
 give way to the good of the community has been 
 made anywhere than this pronouncement made by 
 the tribunal which has the last and decisive word 
 on the subject. That this tribunal has responded 
 to the thought of the time there can be no doubt. 
 
 Among the prevailing ideas of the present day 
 enumerated at the beginning of this paper, was 
 the idea that public utilities must be regulated by 
 law both as to their rates and as to the quality of 
 their service if the great public is to be properly 
 served. Of this I would speak very briefly al- 
 though the subject is one on which volumes might 
 be written. 
 
 The prevalence of the idea is due to our de- 
 pendence upon our public utilities and this is com- 
 paratively a modern development. A century ago 
 the public utility had not come; life was simple. 
 Individual wants few, and Individual resources 
 generally sufl^cient to provide for them. The or- 
 dinary citizen knew little about gas and less about 
 electricity; he drove his own horse, if fortunate 
 enough to possess one, drank water from his own 
 well, had no telephone, sent no telegrams, used 
 no railroad, sent no express packages, and prac- 
 tically was independent of any public utility. No 
 such life Is possible today, however. We must cat- 
 alogue our public utilities and try to imagine how 
 
76 Ideals of A^n erica 
 
 we would get along without them if we would real- 
 ize our dependence on them. Neither modern 
 business nor modern life could go on without 
 them. The urban citizen of today goes to his 
 business upon the city traction system, transacts 
 his business with the aid of the telephone and tele- 
 graph, the express company, and the commercial 
 railway. Gas and electric companies light his 
 home, cook his meals, furnish his power for do- 
 mestic operations, while water companies furnish 
 him with water and telephone companies put him 
 in communication with friends at home or abroad. 
 
 Many of these utilities are and must be monop- 
 olies and the necessity that the public be safe- 
 guarded from imposition, extortion, or poor serv- 
 ice on the part of the utilities is patent to anyone. 
 The power of the legislature, both to regulate the 
 service and fix the rates of service is fully and 
 freely admitted, subject only to the exception that 
 rates must not be put so low nor service regula- 
 tions made so drastic as to be confiscatory, and 
 to the further limitation that no state regulations 
 can affect Interstate commerce. 
 
 Most, If not all, of the states have legislated 
 In this direction and so also has the Federal Gov- 
 ernment. Time will not permit any review of 
 such legislation; in most instances the laws are 
 administered by a board or commission which has 
 power to make regulations and administrative or- 
 
 I 
 
Ideals in Law 77 
 
 ders, thus applying to particular cases and con- 
 crete facts the abstract provisions of the basic 
 law. So long as such provisions are not confisca- 
 tory the acts of the commissions are fully sus- 
 tained by the courts. 
 
 It Is manifestly Impossible for me to do more 
 than mention the legislative activities, both state 
 and federal, framed and intended to conserve our 
 great natural resources In the way of minerals, 
 waterpowers, forests, coal, and land; to provide 
 for reforestation of cut-over areas; to provide 
 for larger contributions to the public revenues by 
 graded Income taxes, inheritance taxes, and priv- 
 ilege taxes of various kinds; to introduce more 
 humane and scientific methods Into our adminis- 
 tration of the criminal laws; to make the admin- 
 istration of justice generally more efficient, rapid, 
 and satisfactory by Improving the quality of the 
 bench, removing the pitfalls In practice, and mak- 
 ing procedure a means and not an end; to prevent 
 monopolistic combinations of capital and re- 
 straint of competition; to prevent adulteration of 
 food and the fraudulent imposition of quack medi- 
 cines on the people; and to prevent the exploita- 
 tion of corporate stocks and bonds with no value 
 behind them. All of these activities bear witness 
 more or less directly to the awakened public con- 
 science of the last quarter century. Any one of them 
 would furnish material for a separate chapter. 
 
78 Ideals of America 
 
 This paper should not close, however, without 
 at least a reference to the drift toward a more 
 pronounced democracy which we have witnessed 
 during the last score of years, especially in the 
 western states. This drift is evidenced by the 
 very general adoption of the direct primary for 
 the nomination of all elective officers; the consti- 
 tutional amendment for the election of United 
 States senators by popular vote; the establish- 
 ment in some states of the initiative and refer- 
 endum in very comprehensive form; the institu- 
 tion of the recall, including in some instances the 
 judiciary as well as other officers; and the adop- 
 tion of equal suffrage in many of the states. 
 Much of this new legislation Is hasty and to the 
 last degree experimental. That any such direct 
 and extensive control of governmental processes 
 by the body of the electorate as Is provided for 
 by many of these laws will improve govern- 
 mental conditions or be practicable in operation Is 
 a subject open to grave question. The argument 
 In its favor Is an attractive one; It appeals to the 
 pride of the people to be assured that all political 
 and governmental defects can be removed by giv- 
 ing the people direct control, but the truth of the 
 proposition has yet to be demonstrated and It will 
 take many years to demonstrate It, If Indeed it 
 be capable of demonstration. Speaking for my- 
 self I simply say that on these subjects (except 
 
Ideals in Law 79 
 
 the single subject of equal suffrage) I am not yet 
 convinced. 
 
 To me the future of triumphant democracy lies 
 not that way, but rather In the way of less fre- 
 quent elections, a shorter ballot, the election of a 
 few officers specially fitted by education and training 
 for their offices, invested with power to ap- 
 point and remove subordinates and made respon- 
 sible for results. The people will retain their 
 power by retaining control of the heads of de- 
 partments, not by attempting to select and remove 
 all subordinate officers. 
 
 We are certainly living in a time of great men- 
 tal activity. There Is much hurrying to and fro; 
 a Babel-like confusion of voices arises from the 
 great field of human endeavor; there seems little 
 concerted movement; reformers arise here and 
 there proclaiming the virtues of their own par- 
 ticular measures of reform and denouncing the 
 nostrums of others. Some are doubtless real re- 
 formers and patriots while some are merely self- 
 seekers, but the distinction is not always easy to 
 be made. There is everywhere a confusion of 
 tongues, the currents of thought seem to cross 
 each other and unity of action seems impossible. 
 Are we mere pleasure lovers and dollar chasers? 
 Have we any high and dominating ideal? Ts 
 there any elevated purpose, any lofty conception 
 of human betterment which is in control and which 
 
8o Ideals of America 
 
 is being worked out in spite of the confusion, the 
 contradictions, the garments rolled in blood, the 
 thunder of the captains, and the shouting? It is 
 not easy to say, yet I have faith to believe that, 
 after all the great American nation is sound at 
 heart and that we have some visions which are 
 being expressed in law. Among them is pre- 
 eminently the vision of a real equality of citizen- 
 ship; not the abstract equality before the kvv^ pro- 
 claimed by the declaration of independence and 
 the constitutions, but an equality resulting from 
 the frank recognition of the fact that men are 
 born unequal in opportunity, ability, and environ- 
 ment, and that it is the greatest function of the 
 state to equalize the conditions as far as may be 
 possible, not merely by the philanthropic work, 
 but by the curbing of privilege of any kind and by 
 subjecting the unrestrained individual liberty of 
 former years to the limitations necessary to ac- 
 complish the greatest good to the community. In 
 other words, by putting into complete operation 
 the maxim of the Roman law. Sic iitere tiio lit ali- 
 enum non laedas. 
 
 Can this be accomplished? I think so; but 
 surely not unless God shall give us men and women 
 cast in heroic mold; men and women endowed not 
 only with the understanding heart, which feels 
 and appreciates the conditions of the present, but 
 with the philosophic mind which weighs with just 
 
Ideals in Law 8i 
 
 discrimination the accumulated experiences of the 
 past; men and women who can withal lift up their 
 eyes in abiding faith to the hill tops of the future 
 which even now are touched and glorified by the 
 light of the approaching day. 
 
IV 
 Ideals in Labor 
 
IV 
 IDEALS IN LABOR 
 
 By John P. Frey, Editor International Holders' Journal 
 
 IT HAS seemed to some superficial observers 
 that organized labor's ideals consist of noth- 
 ing more than higher wages, shorter hours of 
 labor, more control, and additional rules and reg- 
 ulations affecting employment. Perhaps the ideals 
 which have guided the trade-union movement of 
 our country are not generally known to the pub- 
 lic because trade-unionists have been more busily 
 engaged in working for their attainment than in 
 crystallizing them Into set phrases. 
 
 In discussing labor's ideals, or the ideals of 
 any other group, it must be borne in mind that 
 human activities are influenced by more than one 
 motive and that it may be possible to lose sight of 
 the ideals which have Influenced men because 
 other motives also may have actuated them. We 
 justly honor and approve the Ideals of freedom 
 and independence which inspired the American 
 colonists during the Revolutionary War, yet with- 
 out doubt some of those who were genuine patri- 
 ots did not lose sight of the broad acres they 
 
 85 
 
86 Ideals of America 
 
 might be able to secure or the public offices which 
 they might hold should the effort for independence 
 succeed. These motives, however, if they ex- 
 isted, did not necessarily dim the high ideal for 
 which they risked their fortunes and their lives. 
 
 One Sunday, soon after I became a member of 
 my local union, I went to Boston to secure advice 
 from John F. O'Sullivan, who, in addition to his 
 newspaper work, was actively engaged in organ- 
 izing and assisting the trade-union movement In 
 Massachusetts. At his home I was Introduced to 
 Frank K. Foster, one of the most brilliant laymen 
 whom the American trade-union movement has 
 produced. While we were talking, a rap came at 
 the door and I had the pleasure of meeting Henry 
 Abrahams, who for over twenty-five years had 
 been secretary of the local Cigar Makers' Union 
 and who had served the Central Labor Union of 
 Boston as its secretary for over twenty-five years. 
 
 It seemed strange to me to find an Irishman 
 and a Roman Catholic, a descendant of the old 
 New England stock and a Protestant, and a man 
 whose ancestors had heard the thunders of Mt. 
 Sinai, greet each other as though they were mem- 
 bers of an affectionate family and then devote 
 an afternoon to the discussion of ways and means 
 of obtaining legislation which would prevent In- 
 justice from being done to the wage earners of 
 Massachusetts, male and female, union and non- 
 
Ideals in Labor 87 
 
 union alike. I was able to understand that 
 something which these men had acquired as trade- 
 unionists enabled them to feel that there was no 
 division between them because of ancestry, race, 
 religion, or political affiliations, but that in the 
 interest of all those who toil, they were as one. 
 
 The public gathers its limited knowledge of 
 trade-unionism mostly from newspaper items and 
 editorial comment, particularly when some acute 
 industrial dispute is In progress. It knows little, 
 if anything, about the activities which are car- 
 ried on every day, year by year. Practically all 
 trade-unions, for instance, have committees who 
 visit sick members, attend to their wants, and see 
 that comforts and necessities are provided. The 
 newspapers seldom tell of the beds endowed by 
 trade-unions in the hospitals of our cities. The 
 public Is unaware of the enormous sums of money 
 contributed voluntarily by trade-unions for the 
 purpose of assisting the distressed of their own 
 and other organizations. 
 
 What Is Implied by these activities? Is It not 
 that the trade-union movement has brotherhood 
 as one of Its ideals, brotherhood so broad and so 
 deep that it obliterates the lines of nationality, 
 race, creed, politics — brotherhood which extends 
 without reservation to all of the toilers of the 
 world? The space at my disposal will not allow 
 me to present the unbounded material evidence 
 
88 Ideals of America 
 
 which Indicates the existence of this ideal of 
 brotherhood, but I cannot pass without calling 
 attention to some evidences with which you should 
 be made familiar. 
 
 For many years, members of the Typograph- 
 ical Union have maintained a home in Colorado 
 Springs, where without cost members afflicted witH 
 tuberculosis or whose health has been otherwise 
 impaired are given the care of skilled physicians 
 and a home where comfort and kindliness sur- 
 round them like sunshine falling upon the flowers. 
 The Pressmen's Union maintains a similar insti- 
 tution in Rogersville, Tenn. 
 
 Many of our unions pay out enormous sums 
 each year in sick and death benefits to their mem- 
 bers. The International Molders' Union of 
 North America up to December 31, 19 18, had 
 paid out $3,303,564.85 to its members in sick 
 benefits alone; other large sums had been paid 
 for death and disability benefits. In the year 
 1917-18, the national and international unions af- 
 filiated with the American Federation of Labor 
 paid out to their members $3,658,000 in death, 
 sick, traveling, and unemployment benefits, and 
 this sum does not take into account the enormous 
 amounts paid out to members from local treas- 
 uries. 
 
 Trade-unionism in America is international. 
 The boundary line to the north does not exist so 
 
Ideals in Labor 89 
 
 far as our unions are concerned. The delegates 
 from Canada and the United States meet as mem- 
 bers of but one organization. They have but one 
 trade-union constitution; they have but one set 
 of officers; there Is but one treasury into which 
 their dues are placed, and so far as their activi- 
 ties as trade-unionists are concerned, they are 
 members of but one organization. But In a still 
 broader sense the American trade-union move- 
 ment is international, for it has always maintained 
 friendly cooperative relations with the great la- 
 bor bodies of the world. These conditions serve 
 to indicate the progress which the trade-unionists 
 of the world have made toward their Ideal of 
 brotherhood. 
 
 If we were to examine the constitutions of 
 those trade-unions representing skilled or semi- 
 skilled trades, we would find they contain pro- 
 visions for the education of apprentices. Some, 
 we would discover, provide that the apprentice, 
 after a certain time, must be placed at work be- 
 tween two journeymen, so that he can have their 
 assistance in qualifying himself as a craftsman. 
 We would find other organizations providing for 
 the technical education of apprentices. Again, we 
 would discover local efforts, such as that in Chi- 
 cago, through which some of the unions, the car- 
 penters for instance, have made special provision 
 for the education of their members, as well as of 
 
90 Ideals of America 
 
 the apprentices, In the theory and practice of their 
 craft. 
 
 Some of the International unions, finding no 
 other satisfactory medium, have established 
 schools of their own, one of the best known being 
 that organized by the Typographical Union, in 
 which through a correspondence course the mem- 
 bers are taught the theory and the art of their 
 craft. The Pressmen's Union has established a 
 school at its headquarters and members from all 
 over the United States and Canada go to Rogers- 
 vllle, Tennessee, to increase their proficiency and 
 acquire a broader knowledge of their trade. Dur- 
 ing the winter months, many local unions hold 
 courses of lectures for the education of their mem- 
 bers. 
 
 For reasons which it is unnecessary to discuss 
 at this time, the trade-union movement of the 
 United States has never been given the degree of 
 credit to which it is entitled for the prominent, if 
 not predominant, part which it has played in the 
 establishing of our public school system. But a 
 few years ago, the wage-earner's child was prac- 
 tically a charity pupil, the opportunities for an 
 adequate education being confined almost exclu- 
 sively to the children of the well-to-do. The his- 
 tory of trade-unionism In this country from 1825 
 to 1835 ^s filled with evidence that the trade- 
 unions of that period were carrying on a tremen- 
 
Ideals in Labor 91 
 
 dous campaign, which had for Its purpose the 
 establishing of a public school system, supported 
 and directed by the state, which would guarantee 
 to every wage-earner's child the opportunity of 
 obtaining at least an elementary education. 
 
 At a mass meeting of trade-unionists held In 
 New York City In December, 1829, the following 
 resolution was adopted: 
 
 Resolved: That next to life and liberty, we consider 
 education the greatest blessing bestowed upon mankind. 
 
 Resolved: That the public funds should be appro- 
 priated to a reasonable extent for the purpose of education 
 upon a regular system that shall Insure the opportunity 
 to every individual of obtaining a competent education 
 before he should have arrived at the age of maturity. 
 
 In September of the same year, a mass meeting 
 of trade-unionists In Philadelphia adopted reso- 
 lutions of like Import, the preamble of which 
 read: 
 
 No system of education which a free man can accept has 
 yet been established for the poor, whilst thousands of 
 dollars of public money have been appropriated for colleges 
 and academies for the rich. 
 
 At a trade-union meeting held In Boston in 
 1830, It was resolved: 
 
 That the establishment of a liberal system of education 
 obtainable by all should be among the first efforts of 
 every lawgiver who desires the continuance of our national 
 independence. 
 
92 Ideals of America 
 
 And shortly afterwards the general trade -union 
 movement of Cincinnati issued an appeal to the 
 West stating that their efforts would be directed 
 toward elevating the condition of the workmen 
 and obtaining a national system of education. 
 The trade-unions have been foremost in working 
 for the passage of legislation providing free text- 
 books. One of the prime motives which has led 
 to extended trade-union activities for the preven- 
 tion of child labor has been the intention that the 
 children of the poor should secure at least an ele- 
 mentary education before facing the problems of 
 life. 
 
 But the trade-unions go further than this in 
 their efforts to educate their members. Their lit- 
 erature includes the discussion of civic problems, 
 civic duties and responsibilities, economics, soci- 
 ology, and industrial history. Continual efforts 
 are made to teach members those principles of 
 self-government which are essential to every citi- 
 zen. No group in the community has realized 
 more keenly that education is essential to their 
 welfare and that without education their ideals 
 are unattainable. Trade-unionists look upon edu- 
 cation In its broadest sense as one of the corner- 
 stones upon which the structure of trade-unionism 
 is erected. 
 
 Education then, In its truest and broadest sense, 
 is one of the ideals of labor. As evidence, let me 
 
Ideals in Labor 93 
 
 quote a few sentences from the report of the 
 Committee on Education which was unanimously 
 adopted at the convention of the American Fed- 
 eration of Labor held in San Francisco in 19 15. 
 The committee reported: 
 
 Education is necessarily the foundation of any republic. 
 Education is necessary to the perpetuity of any republic; 
 it is therefore the essential duty of this republic to guar- 
 antee every child an adequate education. Everybody 
 believes in education. Differences arise, not upon its 
 value, but upon the questions oi what a true education 
 should consist of, who should be educated, how far and 
 by what methods they should be educated, and what per- 
 sons should conduct such education. 
 
 Education should include whatever we do for our- 
 selves and whatever is done for us by others, and for the 
 express purpose of bringing us nearer to the perfection of 
 our nature. In its largest conception, education should 
 comprehend even the indirect effects produced on char- 
 acter and on the human faculties by things by which the 
 direct purposes are different, by law, by forms of govern- 
 ment, by industrial arts, and by modes of social, economic, 
 and civic life. Education should comprehend the culture 
 which each generation gives to those who are to be its 
 successors. In order to best qualify them for at least keep- 
 ing up and. If possible, for raising the improvement of 
 humankind which has been attained. 
 
 It may appear to those who have not seen be- 
 neath the surface that the trade-union ideal is 
 simply higher and higher wages, shorter and 
 shorter hours of labor, more control in Industry 
 and additional rules and regulations affecting la- 
 
94 Ideals of America 
 
 bor. It has even been held by some economists 
 that the wage earner in securing an advance in 
 wages is in effect acquiring what the stockholder 
 secures when dividends are increased. 
 
 But what we must understand, if we are to 
 grasp the trade-union ideal, is the trade-union 
 viewpoint. What is it that the trade-unionist aims 
 to secure through an advance in wages? What 
 do shorter hours of labor mean to him, and why 
 does he struggle so persistently and courageously 
 to secure both? What are wages? What do 
 they mean to the wage earner? 
 
 They are not so many dollars and so many 
 cents — they are the man's life, they are the fac- 
 tor which determines what measure of decency, 
 of comfort, and of opportunity the wage earner 
 will have in this life. The amount of these wages 
 determines whether the home shall be a back 
 room in a crowded tenement district or whether 
 it shall be a separate dwelling surrounded by pure 
 air and sunshine and conducive to health and com- 
 fort. 
 
 These dollars and cents which come in the 
 weekly pay envelope determine the quality and 
 the quantity of the food which shall enter the 
 home. They determine the comforts and con- 
 veniences and opportunities which the wage- 
 earner's family can enjoy. They determine the 
 wage-earner's standard of living. They deter- 
 
Ideals in Labor 95 
 
 mine whether his body shall be nourished and vig- 
 orous or whether it shall be underfed and weak- 
 ened. These wages determine still more — they 
 determine the physical, the mental, and the moral 
 standards of the overwhelming majority in all of 
 our industrial centers. If there is anything in the 
 realm of human activities which has been incon- 
 trovertibly demonstrated by scientific investiga- 
 tion during recent years, it is that wages pro- 
 foundly influence physical and mental standards. 
 
 The vital statistics of both Europe and Amer- 
 ica demonstrate that the home environment and 
 the quality of the food largely determine the phys- 
 ical and mental characteristics of the toilers and 
 determine also the degree of vitality with which 
 their children enter into this world. 
 
 A recent federal investigation in Montclair, 
 N. J., indicated that the average infant mortality 
 was eighty-four per thousand, but in the homes 
 where the lower-paid workers lived the rate was 
 one hundred and thirty per thousand, that where 
 the income to the family was twelve dollars per 
 v/eek the death rate was twice as large as where 
 the income was twenty-three dollars or more. 
 Analyzing still further, it was found that where 
 the fathers were business or professional men the 
 infant mortality was but forty-one per thousand. 
 Among the higher-paid workers the infant death 
 rate was seventy-four, while in the families of 
 
96 Ideals of America 
 
 the less skilled and lower paid it rose to one hun- 
 dred and one. 
 
 In Johnstown, Pa., In a residential ward where 
 comfort and wealth abound, the infant mortality 
 was but fifty per thousand, while in the tenement 
 district, where the lower-paid workers were forced 
 to live, the death rate was two hundred and sev- 
 enty-one per thousand. The report of the med- 
 ical officer of Finsbury, London, for 1906 shows 
 that the death rate of adults In the one-room tene- 
 ments was thirty-nine per thousand while In tene- 
 ments of four or more rooms It was but sixteen 
 and four-tenths per thousand. The same report 
 indicated that the infant mortality in the one-room 
 tenements was two hundred and eleven per thou- 
 sand while in the four-room tenements it was but 
 one hundred and twenty-one. In the Inquiry made 
 by the Local Government Board of London In 
 19 10, it was found that the death rate was fifteen 
 per cent greater In back to back houses built In 
 long rows. Statistics compiled In England some 
 years ago indicated that the children of the lower- 
 paid workers, at sixteen years of age, weighed 
 nineteen and a half pounds less and were three 
 and three-quarters inches lower In stature than the 
 children of the well-to-do. 
 
 What do wages mean to the worker? They 
 mean his very life, the quality of the blood that 
 flows through his veins and nourishes his body. 
 
Ideals in Labor 97 
 
 the degree of vitality with which his children shall 
 enter this world. They determine his physical 
 and mental welfare In a predominating manner. 
 
 Why does the trade-unionist struggle for a 
 shorter work day? Let the trade-unionists speak 
 for themselves. They desire a shorter work day 
 among other things so that there may be oppor- 
 tunity for leisure and recreation. They desire 
 to terminate each day's labor with sufficient vital- 
 ity left to enjoy the society of their fellow-men, 
 to prepare themselves better, through study, for 
 the problems which face them as wage earners, 
 to enjoy some of the blessings which the Almighty 
 has so bounteously spread at every hand. 
 
 The American wage earner knows from prac- 
 tical experience what it means to labor from sun 
 to sun, what it means to give most of the waking 
 hours to hard manual toll, what It means to re- 
 turn home so tired, so exhausted from the day's 
 labor, that all his being cries out for rest. The 
 trade-unionist has learned that housing conditions, 
 the quality and quantity of the food, the sanitary 
 conditions of the shop, wages, and the hours of 
 labor not only affect his Immediate physical well- 
 being and reflect themselves In the well-being of 
 his offspring, but that they also very largely In- 
 fluence his length of life. 
 
 I know of no more convincing statistics on this 
 point than those presented by the Cigar Makers' 
 
98 Ideals of America 
 
 and the Typographical Unions from their records 
 of death benefits paid to members. In 1888, 
 fifty-one per cent of the deaths among union cigar 
 makers were from tuberculosis, in 191 1 this had 
 been reduced to twenty per cent. In 1888, the 
 average age at death of members of this union 
 was thirty-one years, four months, and ten days; 
 in 191 1, the last year from which this data has 
 been worked out, the average age at death had 
 been Increased to fifty years, one month, and ten 
 days. In 1900 the average age at death of mem- 
 bers of the Typographical Union was forty-one 
 years and three months, and in 19 15 it was prac- 
 tically fifty years and eleven months. During 
 these periods the eleven, ten, and nine hour day 
 had been displaced for the eight hour day, better 
 sanitary conditions had been established in the 
 shops, and the wage rate had been considerably 
 advanced, in some cases almost doubled. These 
 Improved conditions had reduced deaths from 
 tuberculosis over fifty per cent; they had length- 
 ened the average life of union cigar makers nine- 
 teen years, and the average life of printers over 
 nine years. 
 
 It is because of such facts that the trade-union- 
 ists see something more than dividends in wages. 
 They see their very life and that of their descend- 
 ants determined by the money In the weekly pay 
 envelope and profoundly influenced by the hours 
 
Ideals in Labor 99 
 
 of labor during which they are called upon to toil. 
 The trade-union movement believes that man was 
 made for something more than mere labor, eating, 
 and sleeping. It believes that opportunities for 
 self-development are as important as labor and 
 that, unless the wage earner is afforded opportu- 
 nities for recreation and self-development, the 
 standards of the mass of our people will go down- 
 ward and backward instead of upward and for- 
 ward. 
 
 The term I am about to use may not adequately 
 describe the ideal which the trade-unionist has in 
 mind when he endeavors to increase his earnings 
 and shorten his hours of labor, but for the present 
 let me call it "the ideal of a standard of living." 
 The trade-unions believe that childhood should 
 be dedicated to growth, play, and education, youth 
 to character building, and manhood to the devel- 
 opment of the highest qualities of citizenship. 
 The wage-earners' standard of living, which rests 
 so largely upon the wages received and upon the 
 hours of labor, determines the physical, mental, 
 and moral foundations of the masses upon which 
 the structure of our American institutions must 
 rest. 
 
 The masses of those who labor in our indus- 
 tries constitute the foundation upon which our 
 American institutions are erected and the trade- 
 union ideal aims to make this foundation deeper, 
 
loo Ideals of America 
 
 broader, more secure than It ever has been In the 
 past, by continually elevating and advancing the 
 standard of living through higher wages and 
 shorter hours of labor. 
 
 There Is but one more Ideal which I desire to 
 place before you at this time, and this Is the Ideal 
 of freedom — human freedom, freedom In the In- 
 dustries, democracy In the government of Indus- 
 try, equivalent to democracy In the government of 
 our country. No Ideal has urged organized labor 
 forward more energetically than that of Indus- 
 trial freedom. The trade-unionist's Ideal Is the 
 full application of the principles and mechanisms 
 of democracy In the Industries and In the relation- 
 ship between employer and employee. Freedom 
 Is essential to the workers' development and the 
 trade-unionist can see no practical way of estab- 
 lishing industrial liberty except through the meth- 
 ods of Industrial democracy. Labor's Ideal Is 
 freedom — freedom to work out Its own salvation. 
 Brotherhood and education are essential ideals, 
 but without Industrial freedom it would be Im- 
 possible to achieve the Ideals of a steadily pro- 
 gressing standard of living. 
 
 Since the Dark Ages there have been three 
 great struggles for the ideals of liberty. One was 
 for religious freedom, the right to worship the 
 Almighty according to the dictates of one's con- 
 science, and some of the bloodiest wars which his- 
 
Ideals in Labor loi 
 
 tory records were fought for liberty of conscience 
 and the right to worship the Almighty as men 
 pleased. 
 
 But liberty of conscience was not enough. 
 While one set of men had It within their power 
 to determine the laws under which others must 
 live, men could not develop as they should and 
 tyranny flourished. And so other wars were 
 fought, thrones were overturned and dynasties 
 passed away In the struggle which men made for 
 the right of political freedom, the right to have 
 their voices count In the making of the laws 
 under which they must live. 
 
 And while these contests were being waged, 
 labor passed from slavery to serfdom, serfdom 
 to peonage, and peonage to freedom, but the free- 
 dom accorded to worklngmen In the Industries 
 was not that same quality or degree of freedom 
 which was theirs in religion and politics. The 
 wage earner is not industrially free, cannot be 
 industrially free, so long as employing capital, by 
 itself and without let or hindrance, fixes the terms 
 of employment and the conditions of labor. And 
 so the trade-union movement has exerted itself 
 in the past and Is using its efforts today without 
 ceasing to establish a condition under which gov- 
 ernment in the industries, like the government of 
 our country, shall exist only by and with the con- 
 sent of the governed. 
 
I02 Ideals of America 
 
 The trade-union ideal is equality for employer 
 and worker, equality before the law, equality in 
 daily practice, equality of rights and opportuni- 
 ties and responsibilities, at all times and under 
 all circumstances. We hold that any people who 
 would allow themselves to be governed by others 
 without protest or who would waive their right 
 to a voice in determining the laws under which 
 they are to live would be servile and unworthy. 
 We are equally justified in holding that workers 
 who would be willing to have their terms of em- 
 ployment and conditions of labor determined 
 wholly by the employers or who would consent 
 to work under conditions in the fixing of which 
 they were not allowed a voice, would be servile. 
 The employer would be a master and the worker 
 would not be a free man in the full sense of the 
 term. 
 
 The ideals of brotherhood, education, a stand- 
 ard of living, and industrial freedom animate 
 trade-unionism and it must be apparent that, to 
 the degree that these ideals are realized, the 
 physical, mental, and moral quality of the masses 
 of our people in the industries will be raised. 
 These ideals, which steadily have guided labor, 
 have shone like a beacon light while labor has 
 been tossed by the storms which sweep over our 
 industrial seas. They are the ideals which have 
 held trade-unionists together during their darkest 
 
Ideals in Labor 103 
 
 hours. They are the ideals which have Inspired 
 men to devote their lives to the trade-union move- 
 ment with the same zeal, enthusiasm, devotion, 
 and self-sacrifice which marks those who have 
 some higher purpose in life than their personal 
 comfort and self-interest. 
 
 It is these ideals, animating the army of or- 
 ganized labor, which hold out the brightest pros- 
 pects for the future of our social structure and 
 which give assurance that trade-unionism is a con- 
 structive force, accomplishing for labor what no 
 other institution has been able to achieve. 
 
V 
 
 Ideals of Science 
 
IDEALS OF SCIENCE 
 
 By Professor John Merle Coulter, Head of the Depart- 
 ment of Botany, University of Chicago 
 
 IT IS necessary to define the term "science" as 
 used in this paper. It has come to mean a 
 method rather than a subject, a method which 
 may be applied to any subject. There is a science 
 of language, of literature, of history, of politics, 
 and even of religion, as well as a science of chem- 
 istry, physics, geology, biology, etc. In fact, in 
 academic circles every subject claims to be scien- 
 tific, which means a point of view in reference 
 to the materials of a subject. Just as such a claim 
 may be, it is clear that in this series of papers, the 
 current connotation of the term is intended, 
 which restricts it to the so-called "natural 
 sciences" that deal with material things. It 
 would be unjust to the widening application of the 
 scientific method, however, not to call attention 
 to this restricted use of the term " science" as em- 
 ployed in this paper. 
 
 It should be remarked in the outset that no- 
 where in the world are the ideals of science 
 
 107 
 
io8 Ideals of America 
 
 higher and more nearly on the way to being 
 reaHzed than in this country. We are no longer 
 the pupils, but the colleagues of our foreign 
 brethren. Science, however, knows no national 
 boundaries. 
 
 The ideals of science at present are expressing 
 themselves in three general ways, each of which 
 must receive consideration. They are not mu- 
 tually exclusive, but complementary. Opinions 
 may differ as to the relative importance of these 
 three ideals, but there is probably no difference 
 of opinion as to their value. I shall present them 
 in what I conceive to be the order of their im- 
 portance. 
 
 The first ideal of science is to extend the 
 boundaries of hmnan knozvledge. It sets up as 
 its goal to understand nature. We speak of 
 " conquering nature " and of making her a servant 
 to minister to our needs, but this first ideal con- 
 tains no such thought. To know nature, simply 
 because it is wonderful and worth knowing, is 
 what it means. In the presence of this ideal, 
 nature may be likened to a great masterpiece, en- 
 joyed by those who know how to appreciate what 
 it means. To them its market value is no factor 
 in their appreciation. To such an investigator, 
 nature resembles a huge unexplored continent 
 whose secrets are gradually, very gradually, dis- 
 
Ideals of Science 109 
 
 covered. Something of the enthusiasm of the 
 original explorers of our great western territory 
 takes possession of him. Every advance into the 
 new territory Impresses him with the fact that 
 It Is far more extensive than he had dreamed. 
 Every trail Is worth following, for It means addi- 
 tional knowledge. Some trails may lead to rich 
 farm lands and gold mines, but In exploration 
 these are only Incidents. To understand the new 
 country, all trails must be followed and mapped. 
 The figure has suggested the fact that this Ideal 
 of science Is the Ideal of the explorer, the Ideal 
 which makes all exploration worth while. With- 
 out It, this nation would have had the Alleghanles 
 for Its western boundary. Without It, nature 
 would have remained a region of mystery, pro- 
 lific In superstitions. 
 
 This general exploration of the unknown was 
 once appreciated more than It Is now. The 
 original explorations appealed to the wonder In- 
 stinct of a people to whom the new territory was 
 a revelation. But after the territory became 
 mapped in Its rough outlines, the wonder instinct 
 subsided, and people turned their attention to the 
 farm lands and the gold mines and came to 
 Imagine that exploration stands primarily for 
 these things. Recently, however, the tide has 
 turned and exploration in science is coming into 
 its own again. This is indicated, perhaps most 
 
no Ideals of America 
 
 significantly, by the change of attitude in the scien- 
 tific work of the government. The Bureau of 
 Plant Industry, for instance, during the last few 
 years, has been adding to its staff scientific ex- 
 plorers, so that more and more of its work is 
 coming under the category of our first ideal. The 
 reason for this has been the realization of the 
 fact that practical application is sterile unless 
 there is a continuous discovery of something to 
 apply. Practice in an old territory is useful, but 
 the discovery of new territory that demands new 
 practice is far more valuable. If it had not been 
 for exploration we should have been farming in 
 New England today, instead of in Illinois; and 
 if it had not been for scientific exploration our 
 practice would have remained that of a century 
 ago. This shift in the attitude of a government 
 bureau indicates a shift in the attitude, not of the 
 representative men engaged in the scientific work 
 of the government, but in the attitude of the 
 people, who through their representatives permit 
 such work. 
 
 This attitude of the government is expressing 
 itself also in the developing ideals of agricultural 
 experiment stations, which were formerly schools 
 for apprentices, but which are now becoming 
 rapidly schools of science. It is expressing itself 
 also in the endowment of institutions for research, 
 such as the Carnegie Institution and the Rocke- 
 
Ideals of Science m 
 
 feller Institute. Furthermore, the general growth 
 of this Ideal is being felt in the universities, those 
 notorious hotbeds of pure science, in the increas- 
 ing attendance of practical students who have dis- 
 covered that they must know science and must be 
 able to explore. 
 
 Cooperation in research Is the scientific slogan 
 of today, and we are moving rapidly toward the 
 time when every man who has the ability to ex- 
 plore shall have the opportunity. In other words, 
 this country is entering upon its second period of 
 exploration; this time not of territory but of 
 nature. 
 
 That scientific exploration is entering upon an 
 advanced stage of its development is shown by 
 the fact that It is proceeding In its method from 
 analysis to synthesis. Until recently, progress in 
 science was marked by an increasing segregation 
 of subjects, so that scientific men were distributed 
 into numerous pigeon-holes and labeled. A man 
 in one pigeon-hole knew little of the work of his 
 colleagues, and cared less. This segregation was 
 immensely useful in the development of the tech- 
 nique of science, by which results are secured. 
 But now we realize the fact that nature is not 
 pigeon-holed, but is a great synthesis; and we 
 know that to understand nature, which is to syn- 
 thesize our results, all of our so-called sciences 
 must focus upon the problems. Using my own 
 
12 Ideals of America 
 
 field of work, botany, as an Illustration, we have 
 discovered that to know plants and their relation 
 to the synthesis we call nature, we must know not 
 only their structure and habits, but also the chem- 
 istry of the materials that affect their living, the 
 physics of the variable conditions that they must 
 face, the geological record of their former his- 
 tory. In short, botany has become the focusing 
 of all the sciences upon the problems of plants. 
 In one sense, scientific exploration is a luxury, 
 just as is music or art or literature, and must be 
 recognized in the same way as a response to a 
 high human impulse, the impulse to know, an im- 
 pulse which is developing the human race into 
 greater intellectual efficiency. 
 
 A second ideal of science is to apply the results 
 of science to human welfare. It sets up as its 
 goal the service of man and expresses itself in 
 what has been called " applied science," the science 
 of our first ideal being distinguished as "pure 
 science." It is this expression of science that the 
 national government and the state governments 
 have been fostering almost exclusively until re- 
 cently. As indicated in connection with our first 
 ideal, the public has begun to recognize the fact 
 that pure and applied science are not mutually ex- 
 clusive fields of activity, but complementary, and 
 therefore public support for pure science is grow- 
 
Ideals of Science 113 
 
 ing. Even yet, however, a general appreciation 
 of the vital connection between these two ideals 
 IS lacking, and a compact statement may be useful. 
 It will serve to distinguish the two ideals and at 
 the same time to emphasize their interdependence. 
 
 The idea that there are two distinct kinds of 
 science, pure and applied, not only exists in the 
 public mind, but also is reenforced by published 
 statements from colleges and universities. An 
 attempt to define these two kinds of science re- 
 veals the fact that the distinction Is a general 
 Impression rather than a clear statement. If the 
 Impression be analyzed, it seems that pure science 
 Is of no material service to mankind and that ap- 
 plied science has to do w^ith the mechanism of 
 our civilization. The distinction, therefore. Is 
 based upon material output. In other words, 
 pure science only knows things, while applied 
 science knows how to do things. This impression, 
 rather than distinction, has been unfortunate In 
 several ways. The public, as represented by the 
 modern American community, believes In doing 
 things; and therefore to them pure science seems 
 useless and Its devotees appear as ornamental 
 rather than as vital members of human society, 
 to be admired rather than used. The reaction of 
 this sentiment upon opportunities for the cultiva- 
 tion of pure science is obvious. 
 
 On the other hand, the universities, as repre- 
 
114 Ideals of America 
 
 sented by their Investigators, believe In knowing 
 things; and therefore to them apphed science 
 seems to be a waste of Investigative energy and 
 Its devotees appear to be unscientific — very use- 
 ful, but not to be acknowledged as belonging to 
 the scientific cult, the cult of explorers. The 
 reaction of this sentiment sometimes has been to 
 avoid the investigation of problems that have 
 an obvious practical application and to justify 
 Lowell's definition of a university as " a place 
 where nothing useful Is taught." 
 
 In recent years, however, a new spirit Is taking 
 possession of the public, and it has invaded the 
 universities. In fact, so conspicuous have the uni- 
 versities become in the movement that they seem 
 to be the leaders; certainly they furnish the 
 trained leaders. The new spirit that Is beginning 
 to dominate increasingly Is the spirit of mutual 
 service. It is called by a variety of names, de- 
 pendent upon the group that proclaims It; It is 
 narrow or broad In its application, dependent 
 upon the moral and intellectual equipment of its 
 promoters ; but It is the same enduring idea. The 
 university Is no longer conceived of as a scholastic 
 cloister, a refuge for the Intellectually Impractical, 
 but as an organization whose mission is to serve 
 society In the largest possible way. Furthermore, 
 this service Is conceived of not merely as the In- 
 direct contribution of trained minds, but also as 
 
Ideals of Science ii5 
 
 the direct contribution of assistance in solving the 
 problems that confront community life. 
 
 As an Introductory Illustration of the relation 
 between pure and applied science, there may be 
 outlined the usual steps that science has taken In 
 the material service of mankind. An investigator, 
 stimulated only by what has been called " the de- 
 lirious but divine desire to know," Is attracted by 
 a problem. No thought of its usefulness In a 
 material way Is In his mind; he wishes simply 
 to make a contribution to knowledge. No one 
 can appreciate the labor, the patience, the Intel- 
 lectual equipment involved in such work unless 
 he has undertaken It himself. The Investigator 
 succeeds In solving his problem and Is satisfied. 
 Later, perhaps many years later, some other 
 scientific man discovers that the results of the 
 former may be used to revolutionize some process 
 of manufacture, some method of transportation 
 or communication, some empirical formula of 
 agriculture, some practice In medicine or surgery. 
 The application Is made and the world applauds; 
 but the applause Is chiefly for the second man, 
 the one who made the practical application. Any 
 analysis of the situation, however, shows that to 
 the practical result both men contributed, and In 
 that sense both men, the first no less than the 
 second, were of Immense material service. The 
 ratio that exists between scientific men of the 
 
ii6 Ideals of 'America 
 
 first type and those of the second is not known, 
 but there Is very great disparity. 
 
 Another illustration is needed as a corollary. 
 In this case an Investigator, stimulated by the 
 desire to serve the community, is attracted by a 
 problem. He also wishes to make a contribution 
 to knowledge. He succeeds in solving his prob- 
 lem, perhaps makes his own application, and is 
 satisfied. Later some other scientific man dis- 
 covers that the results of the former may be used 
 to revolutionize certain fundamental conceptions 
 of science. His statement Is made and the scien- 
 tific world applauds; and this time also the ap- 
 plause is chiefly for the second man, the pure 
 scientist. The analysis of this case shows, how- 
 ever, that to the scientific result both men con- 
 tributed and that both men were of large scientific 
 service. 
 
 A third illustration is needed to complete the 
 historical picture of progress in scientific knowl- 
 edge and in its material applications. A practical 
 man, not trained as an Investigator, faces the 
 problem of obtaining some new and useful result. 
 His only method is to apply empirically certain 
 formulae that have been developed by science, 
 but with ingenuity and patience he succeeds. Al- 
 though he is not able to analyze his results, his 
 procedure reveals to a trained investigator data 
 that lead to a scientific synthesis of the first order. 
 
Ideals of Science ii7 
 
 With such Illustrations taken to represent the 
 actual historical situation, what may be some of 
 the conclusions? It is evident that responsibility 
 for the material results of science Is to be shared 
 by those engaged in pure science, those engaged 
 In applied science, and those not trained In science 
 at all. The only distinction Is not In the result, 
 therefore, but in the intent. In fact, the difference 
 between pure science and applied science in their 
 practical aspects resolves itself Into the difference 
 between murder and manslaughter; It lies In the 
 Intention. So long as the world gets the practical 
 results of science, It Is not likely to trouble itself 
 about the Intention. In every end result of science 
 that reaches the public there Is an Inextricable 
 tangle of contributions. Between the source of 
 energy and the point of application there may 
 be much machinery; perhaps none of It can be 
 eliminated from the final estimate of values, and 
 yet the public Is In danger of gazing at the prac- 
 tical electric light and of forgetting the power- 
 house. 
 
 Another conclusion Is that all application must 
 have something to apply, and that application only 
 would presently result In sterility. There must 
 be perennial contributions to knowledge, with or 
 without immediately useful Intent, that application 
 may possess a wide and fertile field for culti- 
 vation. 
 
ii8 Ideals of America 
 
 A third conclusion is that there is nothing in- 
 herent In useful problems that would compel their 
 avoidance by an investigator who wishes to con- 
 tribute to knowledge. While such an investigator 
 should never be handicapped by the utilitarian 
 motive, at the same time he should never be per- 
 versely nonutllltarlan. There Is no reason why a 
 university, for example, especially one dominated 
 by research, should not include among its inves- 
 tigations some that are of Immediate concern to 
 the public welfare. 
 
 A final conclusion may be that all science Is 
 one; that pure science is often immensely prac- 
 tical; that applied science is often very pure 
 science; and that between the two there is no 
 dividing line. They are like the end members 
 of a long and Intergrading series; very distinct in 
 their isolated and extreme expression, but com- 
 pletely connected. If distinction must be ex- 
 pressed in terms where no sharp distinction exists, 
 It may be expressed by the terms fundamental 
 and superficial. They are terms of comparison 
 and admit of every intergrade. In general, a 
 university devoted to research should be interested 
 in the fundamental things of science, the larger 
 truths, that increase the general perspective of 
 knowledge, and may underlie the possibilities of 
 material progress in many directions. On the 
 other hand, the immediate material needs of the 
 
Ideals of Science ii9 
 
 community are to be met by the superficial things 
 of science, the external touch of more fundamental 
 things. The series may move In either direction, 
 but Its end members must always hold the same 
 relative positions. The first stimulus may be our 
 need, and a superficial science meets It, but In so 
 doing It may put us on the trail that leads to the 
 fundamental things of science. On the, other 
 hand, the fundamentals may be gripped first, and 
 only later find some superficial expression. The 
 series is often attacked first In some intermediate 
 region, and probably most of the research In pure 
 science may be so placed; that is, It Is relatively 
 fundamental, but It is also relatively superficial. 
 The real progress of science Is away from the 
 superficial, toward the fundamental, and the more 
 fundamental are the results, the more extensive 
 may be their superficial expression. 
 
 A notable illustration of this connection be- 
 tween fundamental science and Its superficial ex- 
 pression Is that given by the study of organic 
 evolution. Before the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century, evolution was a speculation which was as 
 old as our record of human thought. During 
 the nineteenth century It came to be based upon 
 observation, and thus became a science, but Its 
 appeal was simply to those who wanted to under- 
 stand nature. At the beginning of the present 
 century It became a subject for experiment, for 
 
I20 Ideals of America 
 
 observation had reached Its limit and It was neces- 
 sary to know through experiment whether one 
 kind of organism can produce another kind. This 
 experimental work began to uncover the laws of 
 inheritance, or of heredity, as w^e have come to 
 call It. The discovery of these laws suggested 
 methods of securing practical results In plant- 
 breeding never dreamed of before, and a revolu- 
 tion In agriculture was the result. It Is a far cry 
 from a speculation concerning evolution to a solu- 
 tion of the problem of food production, but the 
 continuity is unbroken. 
 
 It Is the proper balance between the two ideals 
 that must be maintained. The physical needs of 
 man, great as they may be, must never obscure 
 the Intellectual needs of man; especially as the 
 trained Intellect is the speediest agent In meeting 
 physical needs. On the other hand, the Intellec- 
 tual needs of man, noble as they may be, must 
 never lose sight of the fact that the speediest 
 results are often obtained by the enormous In- 
 crease of experimental work under the pressure 
 of physical necessity. 
 
 A third Ideal of science Is to develop a scientific 
 attitude of mind. It sets up as Its goal a more 
 effective citizen and expresses Itself In the results 
 of science In education. The scientific attitude 
 of mind is probably nothing more than trained 
 
Ideals of Science 121 
 
 common sense, but a fuller definition will indicate 
 more clearly the significance of this ideal. In the 
 first place, it is a spirit of inquiry which recognizes 
 that we are surrounded by a vast body of estab- 
 lished beliefs that need a thorough going over to 
 distinguish heirloom rubbish from the priceless 
 results of generations of experience. It is also 
 a spirit that demands a close connection between 
 a result and its claimed cause. Failure to develop 
 this spirit provides the soil In which political 
 demagoguery, destructive charlatanism, and re- 
 ligious vagaries flourish like noxious weeds. It Is 
 a spirit that keeps one close to the facts. 
 
 One of the hardest things in my teaching ex- 
 perience has been to check the tendency to use one 
 fact as a starting point for a wild flight of fancy. 
 Such a tendency is corrected somewhat, of course, 
 when facts accumulate, and flight in one direction 
 Is checked by a pull in some other direction. Most 
 of us, however, have the tendency, and the ma- 
 jority are so unhampered by facts that flight is 
 free. There seems to be abroad a notion that 
 one may start with a single well-attested fact, and 
 by some machinery of logic construct an elaborate 
 system and reach an authentic conclusion, much 
 as the world has imagined for more than a cen- 
 tury that Cuvier could do if a single bone were 
 furnished him. The result is bad, even though 
 the initial fact has an unclouded title, but it too 
 
122 Ideals of America 
 
 often happens that great superstructures have 
 been reared upon a fact that is claimed rather 
 than demonstrated. 
 
 Facts are like stepping stones. So long as one 
 can get a reasonably close series of them he can 
 make some progress in a given direction; but 
 when he steps beyond them he flounders. As one 
 travels away from a fact its significance in any 
 conclusion becomes more and more attenuated, 
 until presently the vanishing point is reached, like 
 the rays of light from a candle. A fact is really 
 influential only in its own immediate vicinity, but 
 the whole structure of many a system lies in the 
 region beyond the vanishing point. 
 
 Such "vain imaginings" are delightfully seduc- 
 tive to many people whose life and conduct are 
 even shaped by them. I have been amazed at the 
 large development of this phase of emotional in- 
 sanity, commonly masquerading under the name 
 " subtle thinking." Perhaps the name is expres- 
 sive enough if it means thinking without any 
 material for thought. An active mind turned in 
 upon itself, without any valuable objective ma- 
 terial, seems to react upon itself, resulting in a 
 sort of mental chaos. 
 
 In short, the scientific spirit is one that makes 
 for sanity in thought and action, a spirit which 
 is slowly increasing in its influence, but which as 
 yet does not control the majority of citizens. Any 
 
Ideals of Science 123 
 
 subject that can be used to cultivate this spirit 
 is of the greatest importance. 
 
 Of course the methods introduced by science 
 are now being developed in connection with other 
 subjects, and the same result may be obtained 
 through them; but it still remains true that the 
 scientific spirit just described is more easily and 
 effectively developed in contact with the concrete 
 materials of science. 
 
 A stronger claim for science, however, can be 
 made, In that it gives a training peculiar to Itself, 
 and It Is this contribution that expresses the ideal 
 I wish to emphasize. I shall assume that any 
 peculiar result of science In education must be ob- 
 tained, not through information In reference to 
 the facts of science, but through contact with the 
 materials of science. However valuable informa- 
 tion may be, It can hardly be regarded as a sub- 
 stitute for knowledge. Information Is always at 
 least second hand; while knowledge Is first hand. 
 The real educational significance of personal ex- 
 perience, which Is a better name for what we call 
 the laboratory method. Is very commonly over- 
 looked, even by teachers of science. 
 
 We were first told that science teaches the 
 laboratory method, the Inference being that the 
 content of science Is of no particular educational 
 advantage In Itself, but Is merely useful In teach- 
 ing a valuable method. Of course this method 
 
124 Ideals of America 
 
 holds no more relation to science than do algebraic 
 symbols to algebra; they both represent merely 
 useful machinery for getting at the real results. 
 
 Then we were told that science cultivates the 
 power and habit of observation. Of course It 
 does, but this Is not peculiar to training In science, 
 for It belongs to any subject In which the labora- 
 tory method Is used. Then It was claimed that 
 the study of science trains the power of analysis. 
 This Is certainly getting the subject upon higher 
 ground, for the power of analysis Is of Immense 
 practical Importance, but to Imagine that analysis 
 Is the ultimate purpose of science In education Is 
 not to go very much further than to say that 
 the ultimate purpose Is the laboratory method. 
 The latter Is the method, the former Is but the 
 first step In Its application and Is by no means 
 peculiar to science. 
 
 Beyond analysis lies synthesis, and this certainly 
 represents the ultimate purpose of science. The 
 results of our analysis are as barren as a bank of 
 sand until synthesis lays hold of them; but even 
 synthesis Is not peculiar to science. To pass by 
 the Incidental and the temporary and to reach the 
 real and permanent contribution of science to 
 education Is to discover that It lies, not In teaching 
 the laboratory method, In developing the power 
 of observation. In cultivating the spirit of analysis, 
 or even In carrying one to the heights of syn- 
 
Ideals of Science 125 
 
 thesis, but in the mental attitude demanded in 
 reaching the synthesis. In this regard, the de- 
 mands of science are diametrically opposed to 
 those of the humanities, for example, using this 
 term to express the great region of literature and 
 Its allies. The general effect of the humanities 
 In the scheme of education may be summed up in 
 the single word appreciation. They seek to relate 
 the student to what has been said or done by man- 
 kind, that his critical sense may be developed and 
 that he may recognize what Is best In human 
 thought and action. To recognize what is best 
 involves a standard of comparison. In most cases 
 this standard is derived and conventional; In rare 
 cases it is original and individual; in no case Is it 
 founded on the essential nature of things, In abso- 
 lute truth, for It Is likely to shift. It is the artistic, 
 the esthetic which predominates, not the absolute. 
 The whole process is one of self-injection In order 
 to reach the power of appreciation. If the proper 
 result of the humanities Is appreciation, whose 
 processes demand self-injection, the proper and 
 distinctive result of science is a formida, to obtain 
 which there must be rigid self-elimination. Any 
 Injection of self Into a scientific synthesis vitiates 
 the result. The standard Is not a variable and 
 artificial one, developed from the varying tastes 
 of men; It Is an absolute standard founded upon 
 eternal truth. 
 
126 Ideals of America 
 
 Two such distinct mental attitudes as self-injec- 
 tion and self-elimination are not contradictory, 
 but complementary. The exclusive development 
 of either one must result in a lopsided develop- 
 ment. Persistent self-injection tends to mysticism, 
 a confusion of ideals, or even vagaries, with reali- 
 ties, a prolific source of all irrational beliefs. 
 Persistent self-elimination narrows the vision to 
 a horizon touched by the senses, and clips the 
 wings that would carry us now and then beyond 
 the treadmill of life into a freer air and a wider 
 outlook. The two processes and the two results 
 are so distinct and so complementary that any 
 scheme of education which does not provide for 
 the definite cultivation of both of these attitudes 
 is in constant danger of resulting in mental dis- 
 tortion. 
 
 You have now the reason for the statement 
 that the scientific attitude of mind is trained com- 
 mon sense, and also for the claim that this ideal 
 of science is related to the better equipment of 
 the race for meeting its increasingly complex 
 problems. 
 
 To summarize the whole situation: the ideals 
 of science are: (i) to understand nature, that 
 the boundaries of human knowledge may be ex- 
 tended, and man may live in an ever-widening 
 perspective; (2) to apply this knowledge to the 
 
Ideals of Science 127 | 
 
 service of man, that his life may be fuller of 
 opportunity; and (3) to use the method of science 
 in training man, so that he may solve his problems 
 and not be their victim. 
 
VI 
 
 Ideals in Education 
 
VI 
 IDEALS IN EDUCATION 
 
 By Ernest Carroll Moore, Professor of Education^ 
 Harvard University 
 
 IN THESE distressful days when each one of 
 us at times feels that the way of life which 
 w^e call civilized may be lost and forgotten it is 
 imperative that we take stock of the forces which 
 we can employ to perpetuate it among men. 
 Surely the name for our age is that which Fichte 
 gave to his, "the age of completed sinfulness." 
 Such horrors as are now known, such suffering 
 as is now felt, the race has never known before. 
 Indeed if all the other wars, pestilences, famines, 
 cataclysms and devastations which have afflicted 
 mankind since the beginning of recorded time 
 were added together into one great horror, it is 
 a question whether their sum total would equal 
 this single one which goes on now. Have they 
 who did this thing no pity, no bowels of com- 
 passion, no care for the one little life which is all 
 we have, that they make nothing of It and crush 
 it out so ruthlessly? Surely colossal madness has 
 done this thing, for sanity could not even imagine 
 
 131 
 
132 Ideals of America 
 
 it. But no, It is all due to ideals, all the result of 
 teaching. 
 
 Yet there is another side to the picture. It has 
 been met by something stronger than it is. Never 
 before since history began has the irresistible and 
 triumphant power of an idea so manifested itself 
 as now. Thought is again made flesh and dwells 
 among us and we who are so fortunate as to be 
 alive now behold its power. Such devotion to 
 the old fidelities, such eagerness to serve, such 
 patience under suffering, such a sublime surrender 
 of goods, of cherished plans, of friends, of self 
 itself, that an idea may live, that an ideal may 
 triumph, as takes place at every instant of time 
 in Europe, this world has never seen before. We 
 may indeed say to each other what Aeschines said 
 to his fellows who were alive in the day of Alex- 
 ander, and we may say it to each other with 
 better right than he said it: "We live not the 
 life of mortals, but are born at such a moment 
 of time that posterity will relate our prodigies." 
 
 When the Homer shall arise to tell of these 
 great deeds as half-forgotten things, he will not 
 sing of wrath or power of armaments or over- 
 confident, long-labored efficiency. He will sing 
 of ideals, of human hatred of wrong, of s-acrifice 
 for social laws, of irresistible love of liberty. 
 These are invisible things, but they are stronger 
 than visible things and determine them. Ideals 
 
Ideals in Education i33 
 
 are always that, they are personal; they exist 
 nowhere but in minds; they do not float in the air 
 or belong to things. They always belong to folks. 
 They are the thoughts, the hopes, the plans, the 
 resolutions of people. They are not fancies or 
 opinions, but purposes, principles, resolves. The 
 ideals of this nation are the thoughts of what 
 this nation is going to do, has got to do, that you 
 and I and the rest of folks in it have; and the 
 ideals of education in this country are the thoughts 
 of what education is for, and must do, that you 
 and I and the rest of folks in our land have. 
 
 I have sometimes fancied a visitor coming to 
 Harvard University and asking to be shown the 
 real university. One of the guides might take 
 him into the Yard and point out the buildings 
 to him and say: These are the real university; or 
 another guide might produce for him a list of the 
 endowment funds and say: This is the real uni- 
 versity; or another one might show him a book 
 which contains the history of the university — 
 Harvard guides are, I regret to say, rather too 
 prone to do that. He might take him to Mt. 
 Auburn and show him certain rather numerous 
 plain and simple graves there, and say: This Is 
 the real university; or might show him the roll of 
 the alumni, or the assembled student body, or the 
 faculty gathered in faculty meeting, or the labora- 
 tories, and the library; and I have imagined the 
 
134 Ideals of America 
 
 visitor turning away in each case and asking: 
 What brings all these together here? What is 
 the purpose that built these buildings, that brought 
 this money, that constituted this history, that as- 
 sembled these professors both living and dead, 
 that collects these students? Show me that, for 
 that shapes all the rest, that Is the real university. 
 Or, I have imagined that same discerning visitor 
 coming from Europe and asking to be shown the 
 real United States, and when pointed to the land 
 bounded on the east by the Atlantic, on the south 
 by Mexico, on the west by the Pacific and on the 
 north by Canada, saying that was all here before 
 Columbus came, yet he did not find any United 
 States here. That is the territory of the United 
 States. Show me the real United States. And 
 next he would, perhaps, be directed to go to 
 Washington and look at the White House and the 
 Supreme Court and the assembled Congress, but 
 would at once say: No, that is the government of 
 the United States. Look then at all these one 
 hundred million people, he would be told. But 
 no, they are the people of the United States. I 
 want to see what makes these states and what 
 unites them. And Socrates-like he would then go 
 about from this man to that saying to each of 
 them, "Speak that I may see thee," .and from 
 what he found that they desired with all their 
 hearts, souls, minds, and strength he would decide 
 
Ideals in Education i35 
 
 whether there is Indeed any real United States. 
 Ideals are our very life blood; they pay our debts; 
 they send us to our work in the morning; they 
 keep us from taking our neighbors' property, from 
 turning destroyer and pillaging, burning, and 
 trampling out lives. 
 
 You are that discerning visitor. You ask me 
 to show you the real education of our country. 
 You do not want to be shown the buildings, or 
 the funds or the teachers or the textbooks or the 
 students. This is to be no tabulation of plant, 
 equipment, resources, personnel or results, no 
 journey through a museum to look at specimens. 
 It is the animating purpose of this great enterprise 
 that you wish me to consider and I most gladly 
 comply, but with a reservation. France is a real 
 thing; you cannot touch it or see it or hear it; 
 it is a mental thing, a desire, a thought, a de- 
 termination that men by thousands set aside life 
 for nowadays. Suppose you were to go among 
 the soldiers who were at Verdun and among the 
 women that worked and prayed for them at home 
 and ask the question of each one of them : What is 
 France? You would get strangely different an- 
 swers. I, too, am a private, or at most a drill 
 sergeant in a vast army. I cannot speak with 
 certainty for the others. I can tell you only what 
 education is to me and what I believe it is to 
 them. 
 
136 Ideals of America 
 
 Education Itself Is an ideal. When our an- 
 cestors were still " extreme gross," to use a phrase 
 from Francis Bacon, they took no thought for it. 
 Indeed we can imagine a world in which grown 
 folks in cataclysmal selfishness practised destroy- 
 ing all their young as soon as they were born. 
 Our race has, you know, at various times and In 
 different ways destroyed a good many of them. 
 A race which followed that practise would soon 
 die out. But why not? If we were In fact as 
 completely selfish as many of our makers of 
 opinion give us credit for being, wx would not 
 and could not care. But we do care. We want 
 them to live. All education Is rooted In that un- 
 selfishness, Is grounded in that ideal. It Is that 
 something In us which makes us child-keepers, that 
 makes schools and teachers and meetings like this, 
 and child-labor laws, and horrible revulsion when 
 young lives are wantonly trampled out. 
 
 Again we can imagine a society in which every 
 parent took the greatest pains to teach his child 
 to lie, and to teach him to steal and to teach him 
 to kill, and to do no work for himself but to force 
 others to do everything for him, to be a destroyer, 
 to delight In anger, to value brawling, to Indulge 
 every passion as his right, to disobey all laws, to 
 turn a deaf ear to all pleadings, to look upon 
 compassion as cowardice, and not to fear death 
 but to look forward to endless aeons of joy In 
 
Ideals in Education i37 
 
 another world provided only that he took the pre- 
 caution to die fighting. Such a training would 
 bring up children to rend their parents and de- 
 stroy each other. The result would be exactly 
 the same as if the parents destroyed all the chil- 
 dren at birth, only it would be longer in coming. 
 There would not be the slightest difference in 
 the long run between this method of bringing up 
 children and destroying them outright. But just 
 this kind of education has been solicitously incul- 
 cated in various places and at various times in the 
 world's history. Why is it not given now? It is, 
 not all of it, but part of it, in every country. Why 
 do you object to it? Because it threatens us, be- 
 cause it destroys lives. The education which we 
 seek must not be of that kind. It must have just 
 one object, to serve life, and one justification, 
 that It serves It. By life we do not mean mere 
 existence but a certain kind of existence. Our 
 want of It is more real than anything else we 
 know. For the sake of it men suffer wounds, are 
 torn asunder, are impaled, yet count imprison- 
 ment, loss of possessions and agonizing death as 
 little things beside the loss of their conviction that 
 the good of men must be served. For the edu- 
 cator that alone Is the real thing. And the only 
 reason we have such a thing as education at all 
 is because of the value we put upon human lives. 
 We talk much about our Institutions of learning. 
 
138 Ideals of America 
 
 about the subjects which we teach In them and 
 about our devotion to the sciences. That Is not 
 what most of us mean at all. We use such phrases 
 as "you must get knowledge for the sake of 
 knowledge," "you must pursue science for the 
 sake of science," but they are for most of us only 
 a circumlocution. What we are really concerned 
 for Is the good of folks. In the service of educa- 
 tion It Is much easier to assign reasons which will 
 satisfy our fellows and quiet objections than rea- 
 sons which will do the business and produce the 
 fruit of helping men to new and better experi- 
 ences. What we are concerned with is knowl- 
 edge as a means, not an end. 
 
 Some time ago Professor Dewey told me that 
 when he began to write his last book on the 
 philosophy of education he made what was to him 
 the startling discovery that all philosophy is 
 philosophy of education. For, what other reason 
 can there be for striving to have folks learn 
 philosophy than that they may learn to think 
 about life sanely? Is not the same thing true of 
 all literature, all art, all science, all Industry, all 
 government, all religion, all morals? Have we 
 any reason for caring for them save that our 
 efforts in them conserve and augment human 
 forces and make life a better thing? Has In- 
 dustry any other warrant than the production of 
 goods for human use? Has science any other 
 
Ideals in Education i39 
 
 motive than that Indicated by its motto, '' I 
 serve?" Has religion any other purpose than to 
 inculcate helpful lessons about God and the life 
 of our own souls? Has government any other 
 reason for existing than to devise and secure the 
 welfare of folks? All these exist to teach men 
 to be free. I am therefore going to be more de- 
 manding than Professor Dewey was. I am going 
 to say that all literature, all art, all science, all 
 government, all religion is for education, that they 
 have no other reason for existence than to teach 
 folks to live well. We who teach are fabricating 
 the future. We must build it out of all the dis- 
 coveries concerning the life of man that man has 
 made. 
 
 But I must not, without stating the other one, 
 allow you to commit yourselves to the view that 
 all knowledge is nothing but a series of discoveries 
 which men have made as to the best ways to think 
 and act in order to live well here upon this planet; 
 that it has all grown out of the race's experiment- 
 ing with life, that every single one of its formula- 
 tions is only a body of recipes or guideboard 
 directions advising us what to do or which road 
 to take when certain conditions are met, and that 
 every book Is a guidebook to a country that the 
 mind of the reader is likely to visit. This Is the 
 pragmatic view of the nature and function of 
 knowledge, the only view which, as I believe, 
 
I40 Ideals of America 
 
 makes education either worth while or possible. 
 For If all philosophy Is philosophy of education, 
 all education is an outcome or effect of philosophy 
 and this philosophy of consequences is the only 
 one which provides the parent and the teacher 
 with a working definition of knowledge, which will 
 tell him how to distinguish unerringly what les- 
 sons the child must learn from the Infinite mass of 
 pseudo-lessons which he might spend his time 
 upon and be none the better or wiser for having 
 done so. Let me give you some Illustrations of 
 just this need for distinguishing knowledge from 
 facts, for selecting the matter which children 
 should be taught from that which they should not 
 be taught. This selection must be made in every 
 subject and the principle or ideal of utility is the 
 only principle which helps us to make it. 
 
 All children who go to school in our country 
 must be taught to spell. But there are four 
 hundred thousand words, more or less, in our 
 language. Shall they be taught to spell all of 
 them or only a part of them and if only a part, 
 which part? What does a knowledge of spelling 
 mean? What does the teaching of spelling re- 
 quire the teacher to do? There are two views: 
 According to one, spelling is spelling, and to be 
 a good speller means to be able to spell every 
 word, or since that is absurd, almost every word 
 and at least most of the hard words in the 
 
Ideals in Education 141 
 
 language. Those who take this position say that 
 spelling is for the sake of spelling, the more of it 
 one learns the better. The other view is that 
 spelling is a very practical matter, we must all 
 take pains to spell the words that we write. Each 
 one of us has at least four vocabularies and of 
 these our writing vocabulary is by far the smallest. 
 The words which folks are likely to use in letters 
 after they leave school, we should take particular 
 pains to teach each child to spell while he is in 
 school. That number of words careful tests have 
 shown to be more than about two thousand, while 
 the number of words which everybody uses is 
 hardly more than five hundred. Now if we 
 should follow the Cleveland plan of putting but 
 two new words into each spelling lesson together 
 with eight old ones, since there are more than 
 one hundred and fifty days in each school year, we 
 could perhaps in four years teach children to spell 
 all the words which they are likely to have occa- 
 sion to write, and to spell them correctly. As 
 soon as w^e take the position that spelling is not 
 for spelling but for use we can teach It success- 
 fully. As long as we cling to the view that 
 spelling Is for spelling we are so confused and 
 uncertain that we get nowhere and no one is 
 pleased with our attempts, ourselves and the chil- 
 dren least of all. That we are not pleased may 
 make but little difference, but that the children 
 
142 Ideals of America 
 
 should because of our misguided efforts learn to 
 hate learning is a tragedy more terrible and dev- 
 astating even than the World War. 
 
 An examination in geography was given in 
 Boston a little while ago to 593 eighth grade 
 students, 165 third year high school students and 
 87 normal school students. The list which was 
 submitted to them was carefully prepared and 
 included such questions on the geography of the 
 United States as: Locate New York City on 
 the map. Locate San Francisco on the map. 
 Why do the states just east of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains receive less rain than Massachusetts? Ex- 
 plain the way in which the flood plains of the 
 Mississippi River have been formed. Why are 
 these flood plains good for agriculture? And on 
 the geography of Europe such questions as: 
 Locate on the map two seaports of European 
 Russia. Why does England Import large quan- 
 tities of wheat? Why has Germany become very 
 important as a manufacturing country? Out of 
 the 845 pupils tested on the geography of Europe 
 not a single pupil passed. In the test on the 
 United States 8.7 per cent of the elementary 
 school pupils, 4.8 per cent of the high school 
 students and i.i per cent or one of the normal 
 school pupils passed. Your conclusion Is, doubt- 
 less, that they were either pretty poor students or 
 that their teaching had been poor. That is not my 
 
Ideals in 'Education i43 
 
 conclusion. A few days after this test had been 
 given I was present at a meeting where these 
 results were discussed. Everyone had practically 
 reached the conclusion which you just now 
 reached, when one of the men present asked, 
 " How many facts would you say are brought to 
 the attention of a public school child in his study 
 of geography each year? As many as ten 
 thousand?" "Yes," was the reply, "fully as 
 many as ten thousand." When we study geog- 
 raphy for facts you see we do not learn geography. 
 The view that we study spelling for the sake of 
 spelling, geography for the sake of geography, 
 science for the sake of science, and knowledge of 
 all kinds for the sake of knowledge, is due to the 
 anti-pragmatic philosophy known as Intellec- 
 tualism. It says that the highest function of our 
 minds is to know in order to know — that a sub- 
 ordinate function of them is to know in order to 
 do. That knowledge in its truest form is knowl- 
 edge wholly unmixed with volition or knowledge 
 that, as somebody has said, thank God, nobody 
 can possibly do anything with. " God hath 
 framed the mind of man as a glass capable of the 
 
 image of the universal world For 
 
 knowledge is a double of that which Is," said 
 Bacon. According to the pragmatlsts he has done 
 nothing of the sort, and we would be enormously 
 handicapped and wholly helpless If he had. The 
 
144 Ideals of America 
 
 fact that it is impossible for us to attend, with the 
 same intensity, to everything which goes on indi- 
 cates that the mind is not a mirror to reflect im- 
 ages of everything which is, but a selecting device 
 which works by picking out that which is worth 
 while from that which is not worth while. This 
 philosophy then commands educators to abandon 
 their attempts to treat all that is known as 
 equally valuable, and to impart universal knowl- 
 edge to the young. It says that knowledge for 
 the sake of knowledge, science for the sake of 
 science, or art for art's sake, are monstrous shib- 
 boleths, that only confusion, misdirected effort, 
 and a wretched wasting of life result from them, 
 that knowledge, science, and art are all for man's 
 sake, are tools, and must never be hypostatized 
 into self-existent realities. 
 
 So much for ideals about what we should 
 teach. Next comes the question, what result 
 should we seek when we teach it. What does 
 teaching these various lessons that the race has 
 learned, and values, do for the learner? Or, in 
 other words, what Is education? Here so many 
 ideals are held by teachers that I cannot examine 
 them all. I will select three for your considera- 
 tion. The first is that education imparts knowl- 
 edge — that teachers have it and students do not 
 have it and students go to school that teachers or 
 textbooks or both together may pass it over, hand 
 
Ideals in Education i45 
 
 it out, impart it, or deliver it to them. Many 
 people think schools are knowledge-shops, where 
 pounds, ounces, pennyweights of knowledge are 
 transferred to the young. They do this perhaps 
 because they see teachers constantly engaged in 
 testing their students to find out how much of 
 what has been delivered to them they retain and 
 can hand back again. But if you will stop for a 
 moment and consider what sort of a thing knowl- 
 edge is, you will see that no teacher can hand 
 over or share his knowledge with his pupil any 
 more than he can hand over or share his head- 
 ache or his toothache with him. My knowledge 
 is the body of sensations, perceptions, memories, 
 images, thoughts, feelings, and volitions that I 
 am aware of, somewhat reduced to order, classi- 
 fied and arranged so that when something hap- 
 pens that calls for a reaction from me I am able 
 to make that reaction and do what should be done 
 next. If you speak to me in English I can answer 
 you in English for I have a knowledge of English 
 words, but if you speak to me in Italian I cannot 
 answer you in Italian for I have no knowledge of 
 that language. If you ask me what two and 
 seven and nine make I can tell you, but if you 
 put me into the midst of a battle and ask me 
 what to do next, I cannot tell you, nor can I do 
 It if you give the commands for I have not learned 
 how to work by that action-system. We go to 
 
146 Ideals of America 
 
 school to learn to use our own minds in the sev- 
 eral most Important ways in which the race has 
 found it necessary to use minds, to learn to work 
 by the action-systems that the race has learned 
 to prefer. It is always our own thoughts that 
 we learn to work with. If the teacher tells me 
 that three and five make eight, I must think three 
 and then five and I must combine them. If 
 she says that Christopher Columbus discovered 
 America in 1492, I must form a notion of what 
 is meant by Christopher Columbus, by discovered, 
 and by America, and I must work out or make 
 my own notion of what 1492 means. The teacher 
 does not give me her thoughts. She cannot. No- 
 body can. All she can do is to put me into a 
 condition in which I must generate and make use 
 of my own. 
 
 The mistaken notion that education is the im- 
 parting of knowledge, the delivering or confer- 
 ring or handing out of knowledge, with all the 
 confusion and waste that follows from it in 
 schools, is due to certain foolish statements which 
 we allow ourselves to make concerning language. 
 We say that It imparts thought or vehicles 
 thought or expresses thought or conveys thought. 
 It does nothing of the sort. Thoughts cannot be 
 sent from one person to another. They never 
 pass through the air. They do not ride on words 
 or leave us when we move our lips and disturb 
 
Ideals in 'Education i47 
 
 the air about us in such a way that that disturb- 
 ance reaches the tympanum of an auditor. If I 
 speak to you, you feel a sound, but you make your 
 own meaning to fit that sound. If the sound Is 
 of a language strange to you, you say you cannot 
 make out what I mean. Language Is only a sys- 
 tem of signals^ When I can make them out, I 
 can understand what you mean, but the thought 
 which I make to fit your sounds, your words. Is 
 my own thought, not yours. In place of saying 
 that language imparts thought or conveys thought, 
 we should say that language demands thought, or 
 requires thought or necessitates thought or arouses 
 thought or provokes it. The teacher Is a provoker 
 of thought, not one who purveys or supplies It, 
 and the thought and knowledge which the student 
 makes are his own. Education then simply puts 
 him into conditions in which he, using what men 
 have said and done in past time and what men 
 say and do now as raw material for his own con- 
 structing, makes up his own mind about the mat- 
 ter and so builds up his own knowledge. 
 
 The other mistaken Ideal of education to which 
 a great many teachers devote themselves and 
 their students, as I believe altogether In vain, is 
 not concerned with the imparting of knowledge 
 but with the creating of mind. Those who fol- 
 low this ideal seem to say that our minds are very 
 Imperfect things at birth, that they must be made 
 
148 Ideals of America 
 
 over, improved, renovated, disciplined, sharp- 
 ened, drawn out, made supple, developed, and 
 perfected. Do you remember the story of the 
 man who went about the streets of an ancient city 
 crying " new lamps for old." You say there never 
 was such a man. Do not be too sure about it. 
 The professors who hold this view go about cry- 
 ing: New minds for old, new minds for old. They 
 say that certain studies are valuable, not because 
 we cannot possibly get along without knowing 
 their content, but because they form a sort of 
 grindstone on which we must sharpen our intel- 
 lects. I believe that this doctrine is a superstition 
 and a baneful one, and that no other educational 
 ideal begins to take such a toll of young lives as 
 this one does. It is an idol which is worshiped 
 chiefly in our colleges, but they make both en- 
 forced and voluntary converts to it in the high 
 schools and voluntary converts to it in the elemen- 
 tary schools of our country. Ask the teacher of 
 spelling or arithmetic or geography why he be- 
 lieves in spelling for the sake of spelling, or arith- 
 metic which no one outside of school uses, or 
 geography which one will never again refer to In 
 life, or grammar the use of which no student 
 understands, and he will tell you that it is because 
 these lessons are good for the mind, they 
 strengthen it, make it facile, increase its power, 
 and sharpen the wits of the young. But no 
 
Ideals in Education i49 
 
 teacher ever has to get Inside the mind or do any 
 burnishing or repair work there, no teacher ever 
 has to add any cubits to Its stature or build any 
 additions to it. That simply cannot be done. *' I 
 have hardly ever known a mathematician who 
 could reason," says Plato. '' Learning Greek 
 teaches Greek, and nothing else; certainly not 
 common sense. If that have failed to precede the 
 teaching," said Browning. In the Harvard Club 
 in Boston there Is a room set apart for the use of 
 the graduates of the Medical School and over the 
 fireplace In that room Is an Inscription, a motto 
 which states In a sentence the Ideal, the philosophy 
 of the medical profession. It Is this: "We dress 
 the wound, God heals It." Now if we were to 
 try to make a sound ideal for the teaching pro- 
 fession, a philosophy which we could all unite in 
 following, what form should It take? This I 
 think: ''We train people to use their minds; God 
 makes them." That training Is always specific, 
 never general. It Is always learning to do this, 
 that, or the other particular thing, never learning 
 to act in general. 
 
 What specific things shall we train them to do? 
 You see, just as soon as you give up Intellec- 
 tuallsm with Its mirror-up-to-nature Ideal and Its 
 knowledge-for-the-sake-of-knowledge slogan, you 
 must take the position that knowledge Is not a 
 luxury, but an Indispensable human necessity. It 
 
I50 Ideals of America 
 
 is not having it that makes it valuable, It Is doing 
 by its aid or with it. Knowledge therefore be- 
 comes different from fact; it is what we do about 
 facts; it is learning to work with facts, making 
 them come our way or getting ready for them by 
 foreseeing them. That is, knowledge, real knowl- 
 edge, is always a kind of skill. The person who 
 has it Is different from other folks In what he can 
 do. To know French means to speak, write, and 
 read French; to know ethics means to be con- 
 strained to ethical thought and action; to know 
 science means to maintain the suspended judg- 
 ment rather than the snap judgment, to collect 
 the necessary information and try out our mental 
 conclusions before we assert them or act upon 
 them. Though studies have curiously different 
 kinds of names, some of them names ending In 
 ing and other names ending in ic, y, or ry, this is 
 due to some false notions on the part of the men 
 who named them. They are all really ing studies 
 and serve no other purpose than to train us to use 
 our own minds upon the matters of which they 
 treat in the ways that the race has thus far found 
 It most useful to work In Its struggles to master 
 these matters. According to this Ideal every 
 child goes to school for exactly the same reason 
 that an apprentice goes to a blacksmith shop, 
 I. e., to learn to work with or operate or use cer- 
 tain highly important social tools which the race 
 
Ideals in 'Education 151 
 
 has wrought out with which to perform its work. 
 Every society teaches its children to think about 
 the things which It cares for, to do the things 
 which It values. The school Is simply society's 
 most conscious effort to keep itself alive and to 
 renew Itself. It cannot be the same In the differ- 
 ent countries, for It is the chosen agency for real- 
 izing the national Ideal. When Socrates was In 
 prison awaiting execution his friend Crito came 
 to him and said: "I have arranged everything. 
 The prison doors are open. You can escape and 
 cross the frontier of Attica to safety if you will." 
 But, said Socrates, nothing Is worth doing 
 that must not first be thought about. Let us 
 think about this. Injustice and death are of slight 
 concern to a man who Is Innocent, but doing in- 
 jury to his own soul Is of great concern. And 
 then, as you will recall, he Imagines the personi- 
 fied Laws of Athens coming to him and asking 
 him If he can be planning to destroy them. They 
 say to him: 
 
 Did we not bring you into existence? Was it not by 
 our authority that your father married your mother and 
 begat you? Are not those of us reasonable which com- 
 manded your father to train you in music and gymnastic ? 
 .... No one of us has hindered you or any other 
 citizen after he comes of age and has examined our man- 
 agement of the city and finds that it does not please him 
 from taking all that belongs to him and going wherever 
 he pleases But whoever among you who after 
 
152 Ideals of America 
 
 examining and seeing how we give judgment and man- 
 age the other affairs of the city, chooses to remain, pledges 
 himself in verj^ deed to abide by us and perform what- 
 soever we command. 
 
 Sir Henry Jones says : 
 
 The greatest discovery ever made by man was made by 
 the Greeks when, cutting themselves free from the tra- 
 ditions of the ancient world, they alighted upon the con- 
 ception of a civil state where citizens should be free. The 
 most momentous experiment of mankind is that of carry- 
 ing out their conception to its ultimate consequences in a 
 true democracy. 
 
 That most momentous experiment we are car- 
 rying out. The means which the Athenians, 
 though not of our blood our true ancestors, chose 
 are the means which we choose. Our laws com- 
 pel the parent to have his child trained In the 
 elements of education. In this we try to carry 
 on the early Athenian practice, to put into effect 
 the advice of Plato and of Aristotle and to realize 
 the effort which Charles the Great and Alfred the 
 Great, with unerring vision of what Is necessary 
 to a state, made In vain. The child does not 
 belong to his parents, but to the state, to organized 
 society as a whole. The parents have duties to 
 him but no property In him. He must, whether 
 his parents are willing or are not willing, spend 
 his earlier years as an apprentice to certain social 
 activities which he will have to continue to per- 
 
Ideals in Education i53 
 
 form as long as he lives. He must be taught to 
 read and write and use the language of our 
 country and to work with the aid of numbers. 
 He must build up his own notions of the world, 
 become familiar with the songs and stories of his 
 race, and come to a realizing sense of what sort of 
 an undertaking he has inherited and what has 
 already been attempted and accomplished in it 
 before he came. 
 
 These things have become so much a matter 
 of second nature to us that their real meaning is 
 overlooked. Is it of overwhelming importance 
 to the people of the United States that every child 
 shall learn to read? Well, let us see. Many 
 things are happening in this world and in the 
 lurid light reflected from other lands we are able 
 more clearly to discern the features of our own 
 life. In the United States 96 per cent of the 
 people can read, in Mexico 80 per cent of the 
 people cannot. Because of that, and because of 
 that only, certain things happen in Mexico which 
 could not possibly happen in the United States. 
 One of them Is that spoken words have an undue 
 power there. If an orator stands on a street 
 corner In Mexico and makes a fiery speech to 
 the people telling them that their liberties are 
 being stolen from them, that they must arm them- 
 selves and march against the tyrant and destroy 
 him, the chances are perhaps about ninety to ten 
 
154 Ideals of America 
 
 that a number of them will rush to arms at once 
 and a new revolution will be on. Why? Be- 
 cause not having the means to be critical, little 
 arises In their minds to challenge and dispute that 
 which they hear so convincingly uttered. Not 
 being able to read they are the unwilling dupes 
 of unprincipled adventurers who trade upon their 
 eager creduHty and buy and sell them to suit a 
 private advantage. Surely the ability to read the 
 yellowest journal In existence would make one 
 more self-protective than that. Education exists 
 to make men free, and teaching folks to read arms 
 them with a means of self-protection by which 
 they can checkmate the schemes of Impostors. 
 With a free press It makes public opinion pos- 
 sible. Teaching folks to write Is not so clearly 
 Indispensable, but It does enable us to talk to 
 our friends who are beyond the reach of our 
 voices. It provides a nearly Indestructible memory 
 and is a requisite In many callings. Teaching 
 them to number gives a sense of security against 
 being cheated In the simple reckonings of life 
 and enables us to understand the social arrange- 
 ments of time and space. 
 
 These are the three Rs. The cry perpetually 
 goes up In this land, now from this critic of the 
 public schools, now from that, that they consti- 
 tute the whole duty of elementary education, that 
 whatsoever Is more than these cometh of faddism 
 
Ideals in Education i55 
 
 and should be driven out. Is this sound? Let 
 us go back to Mexico again. John Stuart Mill 
 used to say that social and political theories can- 
 not be tested in a laboratory, they do not lend 
 themselves to experimental control. Yet political 
 theories do display themselves upon a great stage, 
 and if we will but take note of what Is happening 
 all about us, we shall find that it corrects our own 
 theories and tells us much about our problems. 
 Even the person among us who Is least Informed 
 about Mexico must have concluded from what 
 he has read that at least one trouble with that 
 unhappy country Is lack of education. " Schools 
 for the people " Is a cry of the revolutionists, and 
 despite the fact that they claim to have created 
 fewer schools than they destroyed and that these 
 schools lead but a precarious and fitful existence, 
 the problem of Mexico no matter what else hap- 
 pens, whether home recovery or Intervention, 
 must be solved by her schools. What do we mean 
 when we say that? What is the problem of 
 Mexico? It Is an Indian country. Of Its sixteen 
 million people 38 per cent are pure-blooded In- 
 dians, 43 are mixed, and but 19 per cent are 
 whites. When Cortes came there In 15 19 he 
 found the Indians living In tribes throughout the 
 land and having few relations with their fellows 
 of other tribes, save to make nearly Incessant war 
 upon them. Talleyrand said a hundred years ago 
 
156 Ideals of America 
 
 that war Is the national industry of Prussia. Well, 
 war was the national industry of Mexico. When 
 the Spaniards came they did not fuse the Indians 
 into one people. They were not one people them- 
 selves. Even to this day the king of Spain is 
 not crowned king of Spain, but king of the Spains. 
 Catalonia, Castile, Aragon, Granada and all the 
 other Spains sent their contingents to Mexico. 
 They grouped themselves together, the men of 
 each of the Spains by themselves in different parts 
 of the country; they maintained their own customs 
 and their differences, and thus upon the antago- 
 nisms and repellencies of the ever-warring native 
 tribes were superimposed the antagonism and 
 repellencies of mutually jealous conquerors who 
 had never been one people. These differences did 
 not heal themselves; they multiplied. The ills of 
 Mexico are due to lack of unity. "The trouble 
 with us," says one distinguished Mexican, "Is 
 that we cannot trust each other." The problem of 
 Mexico is to create unity, to bring it to pass that 
 her people shall learn to value the same things, 
 to desire the same things, to hope for the same 
 things, to strive for the same things; that is the 
 problem of Europe also, and that is the problem 
 of the United States. 
 
 Each one of us is born a being separate from 
 his fellows and from the surrounding things of 
 nature. We must make two conquests and keep 
 
Ideals in Education i57 
 
 making them as long as we live. One of these Is 
 the conquest of nature, the other Is the conquest 
 of social relations. The conquest of nature is 
 relatively easy, but the conquest of social rela- 
 tions Is so difficult that as yet but a mere begin- 
 ning has been made in It. The earth produces 
 food enough and to spare for all of us, but at 
 this moment hundreds of thousands starve and 
 millions go to death in paroxysms of unspeakable 
 anguish. There Is but one way out of It. It Is 
 the final word of religion, philosophy, literature, 
 political theory, and morals. It is the problem 
 of education; men, all men, must learn that they 
 are brothers. 
 
 How can we be brought to value the same 
 things, to desire the same things, to hope for the 
 same things and to strive for the same things? 
 The problem of Mexico cannot be solved by 
 opening schools throughout the Republic and 
 teaching every Mexican boy and girl merely to 
 read, write, and cipher, in them. Many of the 
 most frantic destroyers of lives there have had 
 that training. Teaching them to read may de- 
 crease their over-susceptibility to deception, but 
 no amount of zeal In Instructing them In the three 
 Rs only or of instructing our people In them will 
 convert them into one people, with a common con- 
 sciousness, striving for a common Ideal and help- 
 ing each other to realize it. The state, said 
 
158 Ideals of America 
 
 Aristotle, Is a mutual undertaking of friends. It 
 does not exist for the sake of alliance and security 
 from Injustice nor yet for exchange and mutual 
 intercourse, but for the good life. Animals and 
 slaves cannot form It for they have no share In 
 happiness or In a life of free choice. Christianity 
 enlarged this Greek lesson to Include the entire 
 family of mankind. God Is the Father of all; 
 all are his children; life Is the mutual effort of 
 common humanity to assist each other, to value 
 the same things, to desire the same things, to hope 
 and work for the same things. Only as the state 
 enables Its citizens to do this can It be a state and 
 only as the people of a nation assist the peoples of 
 other nations to do this can it be a nation. 
 
 Unity of desire, unity of plan and aspiration, 
 unity of resolution and of action, the lesson of 
 unity must be taught In the schools of Mexico, 
 and in the schools of England, France, Germany, 
 and the United States, and It must be the chief les- 
 son which is taught there. In the light of this 
 principle we see what the real studies are. They 
 are not reading, writing, and arithmetic; they are 
 not the sciences or mathematics, valuable as these 
 all are. They are not the languages studied 
 merely for their disciplinary effect. They are 
 those studies that take us up, as It were, on a 
 high mountain and show us the kingdoms of this 
 world, and the great pulsing vivid panorama of 
 
Ideals in Education i59 
 
 human effort and striving that goes on In them. 
 The mission of these studies Is to make us ever 
 mindful of what In Its long struggle mankind has 
 attempted, hoped for, and done, that — In that 
 most moving phrase from the trenches — we may 
 *' carry on." I have often thought and often said 
 if I were compelled to choose from among all the 
 studies we teach one and only one for my child 
 to learn I'd rather have him learn the songs of 
 our country than any other thing; for there are 
 certain sentiments too precious and too dear to 
 be entrusted to the every-day forms of communi- 
 cation or even to be entrusted to that extraordi- 
 nary form which we call poetry. We give those 
 sentiments a more compelling power over us. We 
 sing them and thus secure for them the peculiar 
 privilege of saying themselves over and over 
 again In our hearts. I'd choose these songs first, 
 and after them poetry, stories, history, geog- 
 raphy, ethics. In later years philosophy, litera- 
 ture, and science would assert their claims. Dis- 
 ciplinary studies would be banished. Physical 
 training would call for more attention even than 
 It got in Greece. Each child would be taught the 
 elements of a trade. No child would be taught 
 anything that he could ever as long as he lived 
 feel that he was through with. Efficiency would 
 be the object, but not that lop-sided and deformed 
 efficiency that comes from the ability to control 
 
i6o Ideals of America 
 
 things only, but that larger efficiency that seeks 
 first the welfare of the kingdom of men. What 
 is taught would not be handed down on authority. 
 Instruction would not be a militarizing of the 
 minds of the young. Each student should use his 
 own mind, should think his own thoughts, should 
 put his own values upon things and men and be 
 convinced by his own conviction. Each student 
 would study reading in order to read, arithmetic 
 to become an arithmetician, geography in order 
 to be his own geographer by continually studying 
 the earth and man's relation to it, history that he 
 might learn to work with and by the aid of his- 
 toric facts, science in order to himself be scientific 
 by employing the methods of science, literature 
 that he might make out its message and be his 
 own critic and appraiser of that which is written, 
 and ethics that he might make up his own mind 
 about human conduct and guide his life accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 He must of course become self-supporting, but 
 it is even more important that he become society- 
 supporting. These are indeed but two aspects 
 of one and the same requirement. He must pull 
 his own weight and must meet the standards of 
 living, but he must also do his part in improving 
 and raising the standards of living. It is not 
 enough that he be trained to fit into his environ- 
 ment. He must be trained to make it over into a 
 
Ideals in Education i6i 
 
 better social environment. There Is, In short, but 
 one ideal of education. It is, and everywhere 
 must be, the process by which each child of the 
 race guided by his own interest, employing his 
 own attention, and using his own mind in com- 
 prehending the process of human living, becomes 
 a person who thinks, desires, and acts as the 
 embodiment of social laws. 
 
VII 
 Ideals in Business 
 
VII 
 IDEALS IN BUSINESS 
 
 By Arthur E. Swanson, Dean Northioestern University 
 School of Commerce 
 
 IDEALS in business! What an array of con- 
 flicting ideas this phrase provokes in the 
 minds of the various persons who come in contact 
 with business in one way or another. And the 
 number of such persons is great, for there are 
 comparatively few people who are not touched 
 by business in some way. In this respect business 
 differs from other professions or vocations. It 
 is, in a way, everybody's concern. 
 
 The nature of the Ideas which any one person 
 has depends largely on the relation of that indi- 
 vidual to business. The laborer has his opinions, 
 the business man his, the farmer his, the social 
 reformer his, the socialist his and so on. It 
 would be comparatively an easy task to state the 
 Ideals of business as Interpreted by almost any one 
 of these groups. They have been presented ad 
 infinitum and are classic. But to Interpret the 
 Ideals of business In an unbiased manner Is a very 
 
 i6s 
 
1 66 Ideals of America 
 
 difficult task. There are, at least, no precedents 
 to be followed. 
 
 If any headway is to be made. It Is essential 
 that there be some common understanding of the 
 subject we are discussing. "Ideal," as a term, 
 Is used In so many connections that it fairly brims 
 over with associated meanings from the various 
 fields of human experience. The meaning that 
 will be ascribed to Ideals in this connection can 
 best be summarized In the phrase — standards of 
 action and conduct to which the leaders In busi- 
 ness seek to conform. By this I do not refer to a 
 few Individuals, but to that large number of Indi- 
 viduals who In their own communities are re- 
 garded as the leading business men. Reference 
 Is had not to such standards of action which these 
 men, as individuals, might philosophize about, 
 but to those, which, In their business life, they 
 seek to realize as a practical and attainable goal 
 today or In the Immediate future. 
 
 A legitimate question to ask at the very start 
 Is: "Can we assume that there are any Ideals in 
 business?" To me the answer lies In the fact 
 that the human Individual seems Incapable of liv- 
 ing without Ideals. Social groups. In all the 
 stages of their development, give abundant evi- 
 dence of Ideals which crystallize Into custom, law, 
 and accepted practice. It Is safe to say that no 
 social group has been found without Its accepted 
 
Ideals in Business 167 
 
 ideals. Many of them are Inadequate from the 
 point of view of our present thinking but, never- 
 theless, they are standards for the respective 
 groups. It would be only reasonable to assume 
 that human Individuals, who have been so certain 
 to develop their ideals in so many other spheres 
 of life, should also do so In business. Observa- 
 tion further leaves no doubt In my mind that there 
 are Ideals In business. 
 
 Ideals In business are the resultant of the inter- 
 action of the Ideals of Individuals as members of 
 society with the purposes of business. Men bring 
 to business their personal Ideals. There they come 
 In contact — sometimes in conflict — with the con- 
 ditions that grow out of the purpose and nature 
 of business. Whether the contact Is mild, mod- 
 erate, or violent, depends largely upon the char- 
 acter of the personal Ideals of the men who 
 engage In business. On the whole, those ideals 
 are fairly representative of the Ideals of the mass 
 of people, with perhaps a practical touch added. 
 So that there is a sense In which we can speak of 
 personal Ideals as social ideals. 
 
 The purpose of business, as we shall observe 
 later, though definite. Is subject to considerable 
 modification as time goes on. Business ideals con- 
 sequently are the resultant In which both personal 
 ideals and the purpose of business figure. It Is 
 this partial dependence of business ideals on per- 
 
1 68 Ideals of America 
 
 sonal ideals which gives rise to the notion that 
 the personal ideals of persons engaged In busi- 
 ness are also the business ideals. Our approach, 
 accordingly, Is made from two directions, one the 
 personal or social ideals of the men engaged In 
 business and the other the purpose of business. 
 
 Volumes have been written on personal and 
 social Ideals. One of the dominant personal 
 ideals In our country during the past one hundred 
 years or more has been individualism. Our na- 
 tional history has, until the very present day, been 
 a history of pioneers. Pioneering conditions, 
 economically, socially, and politically, were con- 
 ditions which could have but one result in deter- 
 mining the Ideals of a people, namely individual- 
 ism. The great natural resources lay ready to 
 be converted Into wealth. All that the Individual 
 needed was the privilege to apply himself to the 
 task and to rid himself of all obstacles and hin- 
 drances that stood In his way. Economic inde- 
 pendence and the concomitant social isolation 
 translated themselves readily into independence 
 socially, politically, and even religiously. This 
 personal and social ideal of individualism has 
 made a deep Imprint on business Ideals. There 
 Is no mistaking the fact that there has been and is 
 now, in business, a worship of individualism. 
 
 Another common Ideal, more personal than 
 individualism, is that of trust or confidence In 
 
Ideals in Business 169 
 
 human relations. It Is evident that this personal 
 ideal has thoroughly permeated business, since the 
 whole credit system, in which business has Its 
 being, Is founded upon it. 
 
 The approach from the purpose of business 
 itself is not so well understood and calls for a 
 more detailed treatment. There are two kinds 
 of business, public and private. But since private 
 business dominates the Industrial world, it is the 
 purpose and limitations of private business in 
 which we are interested. The purpose of busi- 
 ness, meaning private business, is from the view- 
 point of the persons engaged In it, profit or gain. 
 Socially speaking or thinking, the purpose of busi- 
 ness Is to supply human beings with the various 
 kinds of goods that they may want. This ac- 
 counts for the fact that society permits business 
 to go on. From the point of view of the person 
 engaged in business, this social point of view is 
 largely incidental. He is in business for an ac- 
 quisitive purpose and not for a social purpose. 
 He is, in many cases, happy that he is performing 
 a social good. It depends on his personal ideals 
 whether he Is altogether conscious of it or not. 
 His purpose as a business man is to make a profit. 
 This fact has such a materialistic ring that it 
 embarrasses many persons In business and they 
 seek to disguise it In one way or another. There 
 can be no denying, however, the basic fact that 
 
I70 Ideals of America 
 
 the object of business Is profit. If a business is 
 run for any other purpose than profit, an inglo- 
 rious end in bankruptcy will soon indicate what 
 has happened. But it is one thing to say that the 
 purpose of business Is profit and another to say 
 that it is profit at any cost. It Is largely the con- 
 ditions that are laid down In this game of gain 
 and profit-making that indicate the Ideals that 
 have been realized In business. The point I wish 
 to make here is that, In our search for Ideals In 
 business, we must be aware of the fact that these 
 Ideals must, because of the purpose of business, 
 be capable of realization in a sphere of action 
 where gain is the dominating motive. Thus the 
 very purpose of business places a limitation on 
 the Ideals that can dominate It. 
 
 As we proceed from these two angles, we find 
 not one but a group of Ideals — a resultant, as 
 we have said, of the interaction of personal Ideals 
 with the purpose and character of business. One 
 of the Ideals of this group, perhaps the dominat- 
 ing one, Is success in business. Usually this means 
 to succeed while respecting the rules of the game 
 — usually, but not always, for man Is too ready to 
 forgive or to forget Infractions of rules if the 
 result Is achievement. Success as an Ideal in busi- 
 ness means success not only in securing profit and 
 amassing wealth, but in gaining power and per- 
 sonal prestige. The business world worships the 
 
Ideals in Business 171 
 
 man who has succeeded In business. Frequently 
 the success is gauged by the wealth accumulated, 
 but instances are numerous where it is measured 
 largely by power and position gained. The per- 
 sonal ideal of individualism finds expression in 
 this Ideal. 
 
 In the past the ideal of success has often meant 
 success at any cost, but higher standards have 
 gradually been established, sometimes by public 
 opinion, and more frequently by law, to deter- 
 mine the conditions which must be observed in 
 profit seeking. It cannot be said that it has been 
 a very prevalent ideal of business to establish 
 and to raise these rules of action. Business men 
 are as a whole worshipers of existing conditions 
 and are apprehensive of changes. This is a nat- 
 ural condition as a great part of business activity 
 consists of the successful meeting of risks. Any- 
 thing new or different introduces an element of 
 uncertainty which the business man does not know 
 how to measure, wherefore he seeks to maintain 
 the status quo and to avoid change. As a con- 
 sequence, although we usually find a small group 
 of business leaders in favor of establishing new 
 and higher standards of action, we find business 
 men as a whole opposed to these changes. The 
 social reformer has interpreted this opposition as 
 reactionism and standpatism. I believe that a 
 more adequate Interpretation is hostility to any 
 
172 Ideals of America 
 
 influence that disturbs the status quo. Thus many 
 of the rules that embody the ideals maintained 
 today have been projected into business from 
 without. It is interesting to notice how business 
 adopts many of these rules of action, forced upon 
 it from without, as an expression of its own ideals. 
 Government regulation of railroads is an instance 
 in point. 
 
 In this connection. It can almost be said that an 
 ideal of business is to maintain the status quo and 
 to oppose change. It is not difficult to understand 
 how such an attitude of mind is a natural one In 
 business. The Importance of reducing risks so 
 that they can be taken with safety is always im- 
 pressed upon the business man by the very nature 
 of business. 
 
 A second ideal in business Is control or partial 
 elimination of competition. It may seem anom- 
 alous to speak of this as an ideal in the face of 
 the oft repeated slogan, " Competition is the life 
 of trade." It appears to be a fact, however, that 
 in every business, when left to itself, there is in- 
 variably a tendency to reduce or control competi- 
 tion. There are various ways In which this tend- 
 ency works. Sometimes it takes the form of the 
 practices made familiar to us by so-called trusts, 
 when a business either attempts by direct or in- 
 direct means to stifle competition. At other times, 
 it takes the form of associations of competitors 
 
Ideals in Business i73 
 
 which have for their purpose the control of com- 
 petition by establishing common standards of 
 procedure, thereby making the competition more 
 intelligent. This sometimes takes the form of 
 open price associations. Again it takes the form 
 of open advocacy of government regulation of 
 competition, as in the case of the railroads. This 
 ideal of business has In the past been regarded 
 as antisocial and has been opposed by public 
 opinion. For that reason it has worked Itself out 
 in surreptitious ways. It is my opinion that this 
 ideal might be constructive and pro-social if we 
 would permit It to express itself in authorized 
 business associations, supervised by the govern- 
 ment and with definite powers and responsibilities. 
 The third ideal is that of efficiency. This Ideal 
 is, in a way, a relative one as efficiency is ordi- 
 narily desired for the purpose of making a busi- 
 ness successful. It cannot be said that efficiency 
 has always been an ideal of business, but I think 
 that it can be truthfully said that It is an ideal of 
 modern business. It Is true that external Insti- 
 tutions have frequently shown business how to 
 be efficient. But, granting this, the business men 
 of today are quick to take advantage of this help 
 as soon as they come to understand how it will 
 contribute to the success of business In a practical 
 way. In many instances, the Ideal of efficiency 
 today almost stands by itself, apart from the pur- 
 
174 Ide als of America 
 
 pose of business. Business men regard it as an 
 ideal to have their business well organized and 
 managed, even if it be possible for them to suc- 
 ceed with less efficiency. In such instances the 
 ideal of the business man is not only to succeed 
 but to have the work involved in his business per- 
 formed in the most efficient manner. If such an 
 ideal becomes prevalent, it bodes well for Amer- 
 ica's industrial future. Certain it Is that, na- 
 tionally, the greatest promise lies In having busi- 
 ness so organized and controlled that the em- 
 phasis is placed not only on profit-making but on 
 efficiency. 
 
 A fourth ideal In business is that of service. 
 Service is a very much used and abused term In 
 business. The meaning I intend for It Is in the 
 phrase, " Make the customer wholly satisfied with 
 his purchase and more satisfied, If possible, than 
 he could become by doing business with any other 
 organization." This Ideal Is clearly a relative 
 one and could almost be taken for granted as 
 being essential to the very nature and purpose of 
 business. The fact Is, however, that It has not 
 always been an Ideal of business. There was a 
 time when the ideal of caveat emptor prevailed In 
 business. This ideal Is now almost wholly super- 
 seded by the reverse Ideal, that of service. 
 
 In connection with this Ideal of service, there 
 IS an Ideal which we meet with quite frequently In 
 
Ideals in Business i75 
 
 business, but which we cannot say is prevalent. 
 This ideal is the aspiration, entertained by many 
 business men, to make of their business a perma- 
 nent institution which will continue after they are 
 gone. This ideal of permanency harmonizes well 
 with the ideal of service, as the thought under- 
 lying the latter is that, while service may not be 
 immediately profitable, it will be so in the long 
 run. 
 
 In Introducing, as a fifth ideal, the social re- 
 sponsibility of business. It may be that the wish 
 is father to the thought. As stated, it is evident 
 that the social purpose of business is to supply 
 the wants of people. It can rightfully be assumed, 
 furthermore, as a part of this social purpose, not 
 only that these human wants be satisfied In the 
 most efficient and economical way, but also that 
 in this process the happiness of the Individuals 
 engaged in business, including the workers, be 
 promoted. 
 
 The presence of an ideal of social responsibility 
 In business, if there be such, would indicate that 
 business men recognize the social function of busi- 
 ness and regard themselves as responsible for the 
 performance of that function. With such an 
 ideal dominant, the business man will regard as 
 primary demands upon his business, first, that he 
 give the customer the best value obtainable at the 
 prices set; second, that he definitely promote the 
 
176 Ideals of America 
 
 welfare of all persons engaged in his business; 
 and third, that he cooperate with the government 
 in such a manner as to promote the national wel- 
 fare. This ideal of social responsibility is a very 
 comprehensive and inspiring one. It cannot be 
 said that it is a dominating one in business, but 
 likewise, it cannot be said that it is foreign to 
 business. As an outcropping of personal ideals, 
 it has been present in individual instances in busi- 
 ness. In every generation there have been some 
 Individuals who have not only understood the 
 social function of business but who have sought to 
 realize it. These instances, however, have been 
 scattered. In modern times there can be no doubt 
 that the Ideal of social responsibility, though still 
 limited, is appearing In an increasing degree. 
 Evidences of Its presence in business exist, for 
 example, in the shape of new policies In regard 
 to labor, which are finding their place in business. 
 Many business men now consider themselves 
 responsible for the health of their employees and 
 for the maintenance of at least a living wage. It 
 may be objected that these policies have a source 
 not In an Ideal of social responsibility, but rather 
 in an enlightened self-interest. Taken from a 
 paternalistic view, If this objection holds, It Is 
 pertinent to Inquire If enlightened self-interest is 
 not In Itself a forced recognition of the social 
 responsibility of business. The attitude which 
 
Ideals in Business i77 
 
 many business men have shown toward the gov- 
 ernment in relation to the war indicates, it seems 
 to me, a very keen sense of social responsibility, 
 particularly in a national crisis or emergency. 
 Some, undoubtedly, believe this is a temporary 
 attitude and that when once normal conditions are 
 fully restored the former attitude will be resumed. 
 Personally, I do not believe that this will be so. 
 On the contrary, I am of the opinion that the 
 experience these men have had will give them a 
 keener appreciation of social responsibility and 
 will throw into business, when normal conditions 
 are resumed, a greater sense of social responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 In the interpretation of Ideals in business, it 
 has not been assumed that business men are as a 
 rule conscious of these ideals. It has not been 
 our aim either to include all the ideals, mainly 
 personal, that find expression here and there In 
 business. It has been our purpose to present the 
 most Important underlying Ideals which, whether 
 business men be conscious of them or not, domi- 
 nate In business life. Summarizing them In the 
 Inverse order of their prevalence, they are, social 
 responsibility, service, elimination of competition, 
 efficiency, and achievement or success in business. 
 
vm 
 
 Ideals in "Society" 
 
I 
 
VIII 
 IDEALS IN "SOCIETY" 
 
 By Elsie Clews Parsons, Author of "Fear and Conventionality," 
 "The Old-Fashioned Woman," etc. 
 
 1HAVE been asked to describe in this paper 
 a group of social facts for which there Is no 
 term, for which the best descriptive device the 
 sophisticated few have contrived Is a capital let- 
 ter and quotation marks. The lack of a term for 
 a social phenomenon Is In Itself an arresting fact. 
 It Is probably significant of some special attitude, 
 perhaps an attitude of indifference, or an attitude 
 of assumption. The Illinois Indians are said to 
 have had no other name for themselves but Illi- 
 nois, a word meaning men, " as If," adds their 
 historian, "they looked upon all other Indians as 
 beasts." Somewhat similar, I think, Is the popular 
 use among us of the term " Society." Just as 
 outside of the Illinois tribe men are not men, it 
 would seem, so social Intercourse outside of " So- 
 ciety" is not social intercourse. In both cases we 
 have an assumption of the supreme value of a 
 group of persons or of activities. It is this para- 
 
1 82 Ideals of America 
 
 mount or egocentric society life, not life In society, 
 I am to describe. 
 
 Before we conclude this discussion, we may 
 find a new term or two of service, but for the 
 moment I shall make use of such popular expres- 
 sions as, "society life," "in society," "society 
 woman," "society man." But in using these con- 
 venient expressions we must remember that like 
 other slang phrases they are merely verbal short 
 cuts. The "society man" is quite as non-existent 
 as the "economic man" of a past century. Any- 
 one who led a society life all his life, day in and 
 day out, could qualify for a freak museum. Nor 
 is the society life itself ever completely detached 
 from life at large — except in the society notes in 
 the newspapers. Even there, society reporters 
 and editors probably realize that they too are 
 taking short cuts even if they keep this realization 
 fairly covert from the public. 
 
 I am to describe society life In its American 
 setting. No modern community, I surmise. Is as 
 yet without society life. There is no community 
 but what has rigidly prescribed ways of meeting, 
 but what gives ceremonial parties of some kind 
 or other, birth or wedding or funeral parties, or 
 gives "purely social" feasts or dances, no com- 
 munity but what holds to ceremonial visiting or 
 entertaining as requisites of good form, and in 
 all such organized social contact or entertainment 
 
Ideals in ''Society'' 183 
 
 there are undoubtedly a sufficient number of prin- 
 ciples of selection and of leadership to constitute 
 within the group at large a "society group." 
 From community to community the principles of 
 selection vary, the type of society leader varies, 
 in details the psychology of the society group 
 varies. Having these differentiations in mind, we 
 speak of London society, of society in Rome or 
 Vienna, of New York or Chicago society. 
 
 The society life of Chicago differs somewhat 
 no doubt from the society life of New York, the 
 society life of San Francisco differs from the 
 society life of Philadelphia, but these differences 
 I am to ignore and direct attention to the com- 
 mon traits of American society life. It will not 
 be difficult, I take it, to avoid being too particular; 
 I am more fearful that I may be too comprehen- 
 sive. In describing American society life, I may 
 be describing, in part at least, the society life of 
 other modern communities. This is the more 
 likely as I am undertaking the description In terms 
 of desire — not merely of distinctive American 
 desires but of generic human desire. 
 
 Analysis of desire is never a negligible task in 
 any study of social facts, but In this connection it 
 is Imperative, for the foremost distinctive char- 
 acter of American society is, it appears to me, 
 its composition on the basis of effectual desire. 
 In other words the society group of any American 
 
1 84 Ideals of America 
 
 community Is composed of persons who are suffi- 
 ciently desirous to be In the group, In society, 
 to pay the entrance fee, so to speak, and the fees 
 to sustain membership. By these fees I mean, of 
 course, psychologic adaptations, not pecuniary 
 contributions. 
 
 Not that adaptations or performances costing 
 money are not expected of those In society. Com- 
 paratively few persons can belong to society with- 
 out having some source of revenue. Without 
 means of their own they must be kept by some 
 one — by a father or a husband or a wife — for 
 their costs of getting about, of dress, of "pay- 
 ing back," must be met. Now and then In the 
 larger cities may be found a small class of men 
 who get their living out of being In society, men 
 who dine out for the sake of the dinner. But 
 there are so many easier ways of earning a dinner 
 than by making yourself agreeable at one that this 
 society bread line Is never long. At best the posi- 
 tion of this type of diner-out Is insecure. 
 
 The society position of persons with either a 
 limited or an uncertain Income Is also somewhat 
 Insecure. Unless they are exceptionally indus- 
 trious from a society point of view, exceptionally 
 available or useful, they are readily relegated to 
 the group of persons whom one knows but who 
 are not fashionable. An assured social position 
 requires an assured and a comparatively large In- 
 
Ideals in ''Society'' 185 
 
 come. It requires too the spending of that income 
 In certain conventional ways, a society woman or 
 man must live up to her or his position. This 
 does not necessarily mean expenditure for the 
 direct amusement of others in society. Once a 
 social position is secured, society people do not 
 need to entertain, to entertain on any scale, either 
 large or small, but spending In elaborate or con- 
 spicuous ways Is expected of them. They are 
 supposed to keep a yacht or a racing stable or 
 patronize the arts or build a hospital or found 
 a university. 
 
 It may be said, therefore, that conspicuous ex- 
 penditure, or, to use Veblen's term, " conspicuous 
 waste," Is a desideratum if not a requisite of a 
 stable social position. At any rate it Is evident 
 that the society life Is more concerned with the 
 processes of consumption than with those of pro- 
 duction. Not that it is not economically advan- 
 tageous to certain types of producers to be in 
 society. For real estate men, brokers of various 
 kinds, for house decorators and certain archi- 
 tects, for portrait painters and drawing-room 
 musicians it is good business to be in society; their 
 best customers are there. For other groups, for 
 college presidents, let us say, or for lawyers, the 
 advantage of being fashionable is not unmixed. 
 College presidents and lawyers have to do with 
 a large number of persons who are not only out- 
 
1 86 Ideals of America 
 
 side society but who never expect to get Into It. 
 When such persons form the bulk of one's cUen' 
 tele, as in the case of physicians, of clergymen, of 
 politicians. It may be a positive disadvantage to 
 be reputed a society man — an unfashionable pa- 
 tient, or parishioner, or voter may resent the 
 classification. Even to be possessed of a fashion- 
 able wife, even to be in society thus vicariously, 
 a privilege sometimes allowed the college presi- 
 dent or the lawyer. Is a dangerous Indulgence for 
 a doctor of medicine or divinity or for a states- 
 man. 
 
 On the whole, although there are persons In 
 "Society" who are economically on the make, 
 although the element of business In "Society" 
 contributes to its dullness, as Mr. Chapman long 
 since pointed out, It Is fair to state, I think, that 
 "Society" does not to any considerable extent 
 gratify economic desires, I. e., the desires of sub- 
 sistence. 
 
 Without a society life people would be as well 
 off economically as with It, perhaps more so. 
 Their consumption might be more In accord- 
 ance with their personal comfort and tastes. In 
 fact we sometimes see the desire to spend one's 
 Income to suit oneself rather than to suit "So- 
 ciety" competing successfully against the desire 
 to get Into "Society" or to stay In "Society." 
 Living contrary to one's tastes, the high cost of 
 
Ideals in ''Society'' 187 
 
 "Society," Is now and again rebelled against — 
 by men. 
 
 What of the other primal human desire, the 
 sex desire? Does American society life contribute 
 to its gratification? Society life favors the sex 
 desire, I think, even less than the desire for sub- 
 sistence. That men and women fall In love In 
 society Is merely evidence that they can fall In 
 love anywhere, that lovers know no obstacles. 
 Prudent lovers, however, withdraw their love af- 
 fairs from the society life as far as they can. 
 According to circumstances, they may be described 
 as too domestic to want to go out or as afraid of 
 scandal. In various ways they are Indeed made 
 to understand that If they are really In earnest 
 they are a nuisance, a nuisance Intolerable to 
 "Society." An exception to "Society's" Intoler- 
 ance of lovers Is made In the case of those young 
 or Immature enough to remain even In their love- 
 making under the rule of their elders. Elderly 
 match-makers find In "Society" a convenient mar- 
 riage market, a place of exhibition and a bargain 
 counter, and so they suffer courtships which are 
 brief and which are conducted strictly according 
 to rule. 
 
 A society man will carry on his love affairs 
 not only outside of "Society" but even with 
 women who do not belong to " Society." A so- 
 ciety woman for whom this meandering Is more 
 
1 88 Ideals of America 
 
 difficult may forego love-making altogether. I 
 suppose that kind of negation is generally easier 
 for a woman at any rate than for a man. A 
 society woman is like the saloon keeper who does 
 not drink; she knows that to one In her position 
 love-making has particular risks, risks not only 
 for the love affair itself but to her position. So 
 she eschews it. In philandering or in flirting she 
 seeks a substitute. 
 
 Real love-making Is disadvantageous to a 
 woman's social position. Flirting may be not 
 only innocuous, It may be a help. It provides her 
 with retainers. Retainers are a society asset, 
 always an asset to the society woman, sometimes 
 an asset to the man who supports her, her father, 
 or her husband. Such retainers may be a part 
 of that vicarious profit expected by men whose 
 families are in "Society." 
 
 It is notable here as In other connections that 
 the sexes appear to play different roles In the so- 
 ciety life. Women are the leaders. Men, we 
 see, are merely their backers or their followers. 
 What is the explanation of this distribution of 
 roles? It Is not hard to find. "Society" means 
 more to women, as we say, than to men. It ap- 
 pears to satisfy desire more fully in women than 
 In men. For women It satisfies the desire for 
 achievement and the desire for prestige, i. e., it 
 gratifies ambition. Whether or not this Is due 
 
Ideals in ''Society'' 189 
 
 merely to the reason that men have other means 
 of gratifying ambition, more attractive means, I 
 do not attempt to say. The fact is that men do 
 satisfy their desires for achievement and for pres- 
 tige in other ways. The fact is too that women 
 who satisfy those desires in other ways are apt 
 to lose or never to acquire "social" ambition. 
 
 To be attractive to women a society life must 
 impart a sense of achievement. Aims and goals 
 both extensive and detailed it must supply. Stay- 
 ing in "Society" as well as getting into it must 
 be arduous; they call for enterprise and skill. 
 The American society life has answered these re- 
 quirements. That art of conspicuous wasting it 
 relies upon is in itself exigent. Other " social 
 duties" are laborious, often exhausting. They 
 require a kind of self-devotion which verges on 
 asceticism. They appeal to the energetic and the 
 self-denying spirit of the American woman. Take 
 the ceremonial, for example, of leaving cards. 
 Afternoon calling gives a woman, I believe, a 
 quasi-mystical sense of acquiring merit. I remem- 
 ber driving one lovely spring afternoon in Wash- 
 ington with a lady who was leaving cards. She 
 paid little or no attention to the charms of for- 
 sythia or maple tree blossoms but each of the 
 twenty-five calls she made appeared to give her 
 the kind of satisfaction a Catholic or a Buddhist 
 takes in telling the beads on his rosary. 
 
I go Ideals of America 
 
 The ceremonial of calling has reached its 
 apogee, I suppose, in Washington. So has the 
 dinner party, or as the phrase goes in parts of 
 the country, "the dinner company." But outside 
 of Washington the dinner party, if not " social 
 calling," affords women opportunities for self- 
 exhaustion and for the concomitant feehng of ac- 
 complishment. A successful dinner party leaves 
 its hostess with a poignant sense of achievement 
 — and a sigh of relief. That the strain of enter- 
 taining is severe, we may infer not only from 
 the run-down condition of the society woman at 
 the close of the season but from the alacrity with 
 which she sometimes goes to Europe or goes Into 
 mourning, her social responsibilities being for the 
 time suspended by circumstance. She welcomes 
 the chance of not "going out" without losing 
 caste. 
 
 The routine of dining out and of elaborate con- 
 sumption In general is fatiguing, but so is stone- 
 cutting or cotton-spinning. Possibly the life of 
 the steeple jack is as trying as that of the social 
 cHmber. The "social caller" might find making 
 or mending the clothes she calls In quite as 
 laborious as leaving cards or she might be even 
 more exhausted at the end of the afternoon If she 
 had been calling as an agent for a charity society. 
 In other words an enterprising woman could find 
 other jobs just as hard as paying c^lls or putting 
 
Ideals in ''Society'' 191 
 
 In an appearance or cultivating desirable ac- 
 quaintances, jobs as hard if not harder. Ardu- 
 ousness Is not the only charm, then, attaching to 
 "social duties." To be attractive, social duties 
 must be more than merely wearing. What other 
 character must they have? Obviously enough 
 they must bring prestige. 
 
 Prestige does attach to the society life. Why? 
 Because its activities are those of elaborate con- 
 sumption, Mr. Veblen would tell us, and the 
 ability to consume wastefully has always brought 
 prestige, be the consumer an Indian rajah, a giver 
 of potlaches on the Northwest Coast, or a pluto- 
 crat in other parts of America. True, but In so 
 far as not all lavish consumers are In society. In 
 the United States at least, there must be another 
 source of prestige besides wasteful consumption^ 
 attaching to the society life. This source, I take 
 It, Is excluslveness. Exclusiveness Is the greatest 
 of all factors In making any group prestlgeful — 
 excluslveness makes royalty prestigeful to com- 
 moners, the church to laymen, men to women, 
 elders to their juniors. It Is upon its excluslveness 
 
 ^ If Veblen had been more attentive to American facts he 
 would not have underestimated woman's direct part in wasteful 
 consumption. To him she is ever the vicarious consumer. In 
 American life at least it is her will to power and not primarily 
 that of her male supporter that is gratified by elaborate consump- 
 tion. The average American woman wants to be in society and 
 she knows that the more elaborate her consumption the better 
 chance she has to satisfy this social ambition. Is it necessary to 
 look further for a clue to our high cost of living? 
 
192 Ideals of America 
 
 that the society life most depends for Its charm 
 and for its power. By keeping people out it 
 makes them want to get in. Wanting to get in, 
 they become willing to comply with the entrance 
 conditions — entrance conditions first of a com- 
 paratively large circle and then of circles within 
 circles. To be in society is one thing, to be in 
 smart society Is another thing. But in either case 
 the entrance conditions largely conform to the 
 standards set by those within — standards, as we 
 have noted, of consumption, but also non-economic 
 standards in special modes of living, of dressing, 
 of eating, of talking, of feeling, and of thinking, 
 and first and foremost standards of exclusiveness, 
 i. e., of willingness to exact conformity of others. 
 Obviously we are dealing here, are we not, with 
 caste psychology, with a caste complex? As in 
 any caste In India or elsewhere. In "Society" con- 
 formity is required In matters of dress, of food 
 (eating In accredited places or having food served 
 in accredited ways). In matters of shelter or of 
 place of shelter (living In fashionable streets 
 or fashionable parts of town, going for the season 
 or the summer to fashionable resorts). In matters 
 of language, of occupations, and of mating. 
 
 Conformity Is as necessary In this American 
 caste as In castes elsewhere, but between it and 
 other castes there are two important distinctions. 
 The first distinction Is one that keeps us as a rule 
 
Ideals in ''Society'' i93 
 
 from recognizing this social classification as a 
 caste at all. Since Its membership Is composed on 
 a basis of effectual desire, as we have noted, made 
 up of persons possessed of fitting desires and free 
 from desires that might embarrass or complicate, 
 the caste appears exempt from some of the more 
 blatant forms of caste rigidity, from the rigidity 
 of membership through birth, for example, or 
 through family connection. In the same family 
 can we not see one brother in society and another 
 In the church or In the army, one sister, the height 
 of fashion and the other described as too serious 
 or too literary or too artistic to enjoy going out — 
 a decent paraphrase for her outcasting? 
 
 The second distinction about this particular 
 American caste has to do with sex. This Ameri- 
 can caste requires a far less degree of conformity 
 from Its men than from its women. I can't recall 
 ever sitting at a dinner party next to a barber 
 or dancing at a smart ball with a barkeeper, but 
 on the whole occupation taboos are much lighter 
 upon men in society than upon women. So are 
 dress taboos. An unfashionably dressed man is 
 put up with. So is a man who lives in a cheap 
 lodging in an obscure street. So Is a man who 
 ordinarily uses correct English, or occasionally 
 eats in an unfashionable restaurant, or even in a 
 fashionable restaurant with unfashionable friends. 
 In women these offenses are hardly tolerated. 
 
194 Ideals of America 
 
 For It is the women In society who are responsible. 
 Not that the men are given greater freedom 
 theoretically, they are merely more negligible. It 
 matters less what they do. The society woman 
 must live according to the rule she makes because 
 she counts. She it Is who counts, she It Is who 
 reigns. There are no kings In American *' So- 
 ciety," there are only queens. American *' So- 
 ciety" Is a gynocratic caste, a woman-controlled 
 caste. 
 
 As requested I have thus far been describing 
 social facts not as they might be but as they arc. 
 It has been suggested, however, that the final aim 
 of this City Club symposium should be a recon- 
 struction of social Ideals. If you accept the 
 analysis of '* Society" as a gynocratic caste, the 
 only Ideal it ought to entertain, you will of course 
 argue. Is the Ideal of suicide. There Is no oppor- 
 tunity open here to Idealists for the reconstruction 
 of an Institution. As democrats, as feminists, as 
 humanists, they must contemplate suicide or, from 
 the point of view of outsiders, murder. 
 
 As a matter of fact, this sociological murder Is 
 In process. Together with other bits of an archaic 
 social system even today the society life is being 
 scrapped — scrapped by women for themselves 
 just as long since men began to scrap it for them- 
 selves. In a growing democracy (and the suf- 
 frage movement if nothing else Is proof that this 
 
Ideals in ''Society'' i95 
 
 is a growing democracy) it becomes more and 
 more difficult to make yourself count through 
 keeping others from counting — to work the prin- 
 ciple of exclusiveness. In this country exclusive- 
 ness based on family lingers on only in isolated 
 New England or Pennsylvania communities, in 
 certain Boston or Philadelphia or Baltimore 
 circles. Exclusiveness based on wealth, or rather 
 on its expenditure, remains a more workable prin- 
 ciple. And yet, given such opportunities for ac- 
 quiring wealth as we possess and no sumptuary 
 laws on expending it, caste exclusiveness through 
 consumption is but a flimsy principle. The would- 
 be exclusive caste becomes inevitably a mere eco- 
 nomic class whose boundaries are too readily 
 crossed to be thought of as boundaries at all. Nor 
 is it any easier for our gynocratic caste to keep to 
 itself non-economic distinctions in language, in 
 bearing, in dressing, in ways of living in general. 
 American habits of imitation make such caste dis- 
 tinctions short lived. A caste which fails to ex- 
 clude and which cannot keep to itself any cultural 
 monopoly is certainly in danger of its life. 
 
 Imitation and economic elasticity — these are 
 the enemies of our gynocratic caste from without. 
 Within its organization are other perils. It faces 
 a shortage of leaders. Increasing outlets for 
 feminine energy and ambition operate upon our 
 gynocratic caste as increasing social opportunities 
 
196 Ideals of America 
 
 for the will to power among men have been seen 
 to operate from time to time on politics or upon 
 the church or upon the army. Other jobs prove 
 more attractive. Moreover once a leisure-class 
 woman has become a producer or inventor con- 
 sumption ceases to be her supreme concern. 
 Spending becomes simplified because its elabora- 
 tion is too great a drain on her energy and atten- 
 tion. Moreover spending no longer appears to 
 her as a kind of maker of values — the curious 
 pseudo-production it appears to the "born shop- 
 per." Her sense of achievement through pro- 
 prietorship is lessened. 
 
 Nor does a woman interested in her work prize 
 the kind of prestige elaborate consumption brings 
 her. She does not care to make that particular 
 appeal to women nor does she like the relation- 
 ship to men it involves. She is likely to want 
 something more in a man than a backer or a re- 
 tainer. She wants a companion. She soon finds 
 that there are no "interesting" men in "Society," 
 as we say, or that if they are met there from 
 time to time for fortuitous reasons the "Society" 
 background is not favorable to acquaintance. If 
 she has once belonged to the caste, she does not 
 of course deliberately cut loose from it. Some- 
 what like an irresponsible man she drifts in and 
 out of it, naturally from a caste point of view a 
 demoralizing factor. Demoralizing, disintegrat- 
 
Ideals in ''Society'' i97 
 
 ing or not, at least to the organization of the 
 society life she contributes nothing. Her talents 
 are lost to it. Above a certain economic class 
 level, every thoroughly converted feminist is, to 
 the extent of her vitahty, a loss in vitality to the 
 gynocratic caste. 
 
 If the feminist bent is taken in youth, the cir- 
 cumstance may not only deprive the gynocratic 
 caste of a potential leader, it tends to depress 
 its value as a marriage market. Not only is the 
 girl not prepared at a finishing school to take 
 her proper place in society, she begins, in another 
 type of school or in college, to acquire the seeds 
 of revolution against the gynocracy, in so far as 
 it is a gerontocracy, a control by the elders, and 
 particularly a control of her through her sex or 
 her sex relations. She begins to make up her 
 mind to mate to please herself, not to please her 
 seniors. Among the many ways this decision is 
 disintegrating to the rule of the elders is its effect 
 upon the desire of the young to go into society. 
 It means that girls will not feel so " crazy about 
 society" because there only can they meet men — 
 such as they are. Youthful feminists like older 
 feminists want to meet all kinds of men, not only 
 the men admitted into society by their mothers, 
 but the men who never think of applying for ad- 
 mittance. These men, girls will meet in their work 
 and in their social intercourse at large. As for 
 
1 98 Ideals of America 
 
 those young men who go Into society but who go 
 only from time to time and reluctantly at that, 
 they will go still more sporadically when the bait 
 that attracts them, the girls they can't meet any- 
 where else, is withdrawn. And so the circle re- 
 volves. The fewer the young men in society, the 
 less attracted are the girls, even the old-fashioned 
 girls. The more aberrant the girls, the more un- 
 willing the men to "go out." Given a few more 
 such revolvings and "Society" as a place for 
 making marriages will be quite neglected, the last 
 vestige of marriage by service, so to speak, sub- 
 servience to the fashionable dowager, having dis- 
 appeared. This escape from society's match- 
 making machinery is, I need hardly say, part of 
 that general escape of the young from the old 
 which is the most Important, if but little noticed, 
 social fact of our times. 
 
 The gynocratic caste suffers in its human com- 
 position from the revolution of youth and frorn 
 the social development in general of women. It 
 suffers in its institutional frame-work from an- 
 other development peculiar to modern culture. I 
 refer to the modern change of attitude towards 
 what we may call life's crises. In early societies 
 changes In life are met with ceremonials — with 
 maternity, birth, adolescence, mating, and death 
 rites. In modern life this crisis ceremonialism Is 
 passing — much of it has passed. Upon it the 
 
Ideals in "Society'' i99 
 
 gynocratic caste has depended for part of its sig- 
 nificance, i. e., It has put these ancient social cere- 
 monies to its credit. Coming-out parties are 
 "society events," weddings are described as 
 " fashionable," funerals as " representative." 
 During the last few years, however, debutante 
 entertainments have been considered rather ridicu- 
 lous affairs and fashionable weddings a little vul- 
 gar. Funeral rings and scarfs and gloves are no 
 longer presented to the mourners; mourners are 
 even asked not to send flowers. It will not be 
 long before a wedding breakfast will be as bour- 
 geois as throwing rice In a railway station or as 
 a funeral feast, and standing up all afternoon 
 with a "bud" as antiquated as sitting up all night 
 with a corpse. In other words, the occasions upon 
 which the gynocratic caste can make both a public 
 justification of its existence and attract attention 
 to Itself are diminishing. 
 
 Within the caste Itself too there Is rebellion 
 now and again or pseudo-rebellion against self- 
 manifestations. " Functions " are derided by the 
 fashionable.' To be seen at a "tea" Is an affiche- 
 ment that you are not to be seen anywhere else. 
 To be asked to women's lunch parties, the most 
 characteristic form of entertainment American 
 '"Society" has produced, has come to mean In cer- 
 tain circles that you are not asked to dinner 
 parties. A really smart woman not only never 
 
200 Ideals of America 
 
 leaves dinner cards ; except as an act of condescen- 
 sion she never goes to a "real dinner party." As 
 for seeing her name in the society columns of a 
 newspaper or her picture in the Sunday supple- 
 ment, she greatly resents such newspaper imper- 
 tinence. It is a blow to her social prestige, she 
 feels, to be made so common. A social leader, 
 lives he or she in the Vatican or in an American 
 palace, cannot afford to be inspected at the option 
 of others. This attitude of safeguarding prestige 
 through safeguarding privacy, through objecting 
 to newspaper notoriety, may be expected to 
 spread. Like other fashionable attitudes it will 
 be imitated. Then the wretched society reporter 
 will not only feel himself more of a detective than 
 ever, but more of a fakir. His accounts of the 
 outermost circles of " Society," of its fringes, of 
 life for example at fashionable hotels, will be less 
 and less heeded and more and more curtailed until 
 one day the society column will find itself among 
 the historic curiosities of journalism. 
 
 Without boundaries, without leaders, without 
 matrimonial baits, without means of accrediting 
 or advertising itself through crisis ceremonials or 
 through newspaper notoriety, what hope of a 
 future existence is there, we may well ask, for the 
 gynocratic caste? 
 
 But surely along one line at least there lies 
 hope or vitality for the society life, the conserva- 
 
Ideals in ''Society" 201 
 
 tive may urge. However undemocratic and anti- 
 feminist it may be, however unworthily it gratifies 
 the will to power of idle women and irretrievable 
 snobs, however neglectful it is of other primary 
 desires, does it not meet after all one of the most 
 urgent of human impulses, the gregarious im- 
 pulse, the desire for company? The society life 
 does satisfy the desire for mere company — 
 among women. Perhaps men have less of this 
 desire, perhaps they care more for the companion- 
 ship which is more than mere company. But even 
 women's desire for company the society life satis- 
 fies only in a timid, half-hearted way. A degree 
 of segregation, as we have noted, the privacy 
 of exclusiveness, is so necessary to a prestigeful 
 position. Besides, as women acquire other forms 
 of human- association, association with fellow- 
 workers, with professional colleagues, with bona 
 fide playmates, the various forms of association 
 men have, they too will be bored, much as men 
 are, by those less personal ways of being together 
 characteristic of the society life. Small sets of 
 men and women with common interests and sym- 
 pathies will form spontaneously to work and play 
 together — a grouping that occurs already in 
 Europe and appears to be on the eve of occurring 
 in New York. There it may be said to await only 
 the disposal of what, for lack of a less flippant 
 term, we must call the "tagger-on spouse prob- 
 
202 Ideals of America 
 
 lem," a problem that, humorously enough, even 
 the gynocratic caste cannot keep from trying to 
 solve although solution will contribute so im- 
 portantly to its own undoing. 
 
 But outside of " sets," of intimate groups of 
 fellow-workers and playmates, salt of life as they 
 are to many, is there no need of other forms of 
 social intercourse, of more general meeting places, 
 of opportunities for the chance encounter? Cer- 
 tainly there is, and here at length is a definite and 
 concrete opportunity for the constructive human- 
 ist. All kinds of general meeting places are in 
 order — for all kinds of persons — city and 
 country club-houses, gardens, parks, beaches, boat- 
 houses, skating-rinks, outdoor and indoor danc- 
 ing floors, lobbies in concert-hall and playhouse — 
 in short the very meeting places that are springing 
 up everywhere under our eyes. These places 
 are increasing rapidly. They will increase more 
 rapidly and they will gain distinction once the 
 need of them begins to appeal to the imagination 
 of the social artist, of the lover of pleasant back- 
 grounds and quiet outlooks. Even today places 
 of assembly are becoming more decent and more 
 beautiful in form, although they are dominated 
 as yet both by commercialism and by the old 
 spirit of group exclusiveness and of group appre- 
 hensiveness. A new democratization, a new fear- 
 lessness, and a new freedom will pervade them in 
 
Ideals in ''Society'' 203 
 
 time, however, and then they will properly fulfill 
 their social functions, alike for the adventurous 
 individual who seeks in them a setting for the 
 chance encounter and for the gregarious lover of 
 his kind to whom the sense of the herd is com- 
 forting. 
 
IX 
 Ideals in Music 
 
IX 
 IDEALS IN MUSIC 
 
 By Edward Dickinson, Professor of the History and Criticism 
 of Music, Oberlin College, Ohio 
 
 LOTZE, having the history of music before 
 his eyes, declared music to be the most social 
 of the arts. A distinguished French scholar as- 
 serts that all the forms of music " are tributaries 
 of social life. From one end of its history to the 
 other it has an evolution parallel to that of so- 
 ciety." ^ But the directors of education in this 
 country, not having the history of music before 
 their eyes, have hitherto neglected to take full 
 advantage of the power that music possesses for 
 mental and moral discipline, and have left it to 
 wander to its rightful position In the educational 
 scheme through unregulated and devious channels. 
 In recent days, however, with a celerity that 
 would be astonishing if we were not accustomed 
 to the suddenness with which Ideas start up and 
 spread in this country, music, both as an abstract 
 art and also in alliance with poetry and the drama, 
 is flooding our collective life, and the call for 
 
 1 Combarieu, Music, its Laivs and Evolution, authorized trans- 
 lation. 
 
 207 
 
2o8 Ideals of America 
 
 music as a sort of inherent right is becoming so 
 peremptory that such philistine bodies as common 
 councils and boards of estimate are giving heed to 
 it, and colleges and universities that have long 
 been scornfully indifferent are becoming aware 
 that here is a challenge which they cannot pru- 
 dently continue to ignore. 
 
 And so the message I bring in respect to musi- 
 cal conditions in America is one of high satisfac- 
 tion, because I see in rapid progress a movement 
 which is the product of a strong purpose aimed 
 at an object that is clearly conceived. The musical 
 currents which have so long been cross currents 
 rather than parallel, are now flowing together. 
 The activities which may be summed up as crea- 
 tive, reproductive, and educational are moving 
 into step with one another, with the educational 
 motive at the front. The leaders of musical 
 progress are coming more and more under the 
 control of the will to make music serviceable to 
 the many rather than a gratification to the few; 
 to make music a factor in popular education and a 
 stimulating force In social life. There will be 
 no reaction against this tendency; the problem is 
 not how to keep it alive, but how to bring it under 
 wise control; how to unify the various activities 
 involved and develop and systematize the methods 
 by which the great end may be most completely 
 attained. 
 
Ideals in Music 209 
 
 The obstacles that have delayed the fulfillment 
 of the ideal which the best musical minds in this 
 country have long cherished are of two kinds : 
 first, the disorganization in the ranks of music 
 teachers and the absence of scientific methods, 
 and, second, the blindness of the leaders of gen- 
 eral education to the social and educative values 
 of music which the nations of Europe recognized 
 centuries ago. In view of the first we should be 
 cautious in condemnation of the second. The fact 
 that musical instruction, unlike any other element 
 in education, was for a long time, and is to a great 
 extent now, mainly In the hands of private 
 teachers explains much of the dIfHculty of the 
 situation. These private teachers, although for 
 the most part conscientious and zealous to accom- 
 plish good things, have been, in a multitude of 
 cases, imperfectly trained even In the technique of 
 their art and still more so in pedagogic method, 
 and until recently have been but little inclined to 
 establish any organization for mutual help. Even 
 now there Is only the faint beginning of an attempt 
 to bring about cooperation between their work 
 and that of the public school. The directors of 
 the public schools were likewise Ignorant of the 
 alms and the means of solid musical education. 
 Judging by what they saw of the private methods 
 or lack of method around them, they assumed 
 that music teaching was merely designed for the 
 
2IO Ideals of America 
 
 purpose of making players and singers. "This," 
 they implicitly declared, "we could not do if we 
 would, and we would not if we could, and there's 
 an end.'' 
 
 In course of time, however, a new light broke 
 upon the music teachers and the public-school 
 authorities. Both parties came to see that, as 
 Hermann Kretzschmar has said, "instruction in 
 song in the folk schools is not merely a musical 
 question, It Is a universal culture question," and 
 they set themselves to work to devise a system 
 that would helpfully combine with the courses al- 
 ready established. No one will assert that musi- 
 cal instruction in the public schools of the country 
 at large is yet much beyond its infancy; methods 
 are still Imperfect and a standardized system is 
 not yet attained. But there is probably no other 
 department of our national educational scheme 
 that Is being more eagerly overhauled with a view 
 to bringing It under the control of reason. In 
 place of the old custom of merely teaching a few 
 songs by rote, to be quickly forgotten, music Is 
 taught as a language, — It is animated by intelli- 
 gence, It becomes a conscious expression of emo- 
 tion, and It is made to react In a vitalizing way 
 upon the emotion and the understanding. It Is 
 widely recognized that one who directs the in- 
 struction In music In the common schools must 
 have as specific and thorough preparation as one 
 
Ideals in Music 211 
 
 who teaches In any other branch of learning. He 
 must know not only his subject but also the nature 
 of the child mind; in fact child psychology is his 
 subject. The whole method rests upon the child's 
 instincts and natural aptitudes, so that his musical 
 taste and proficiency grow simply and naturally 
 with his general growth, and music becomes a joy 
 because it Is a very constituent of his budding life. 
 I appeal for respect and encouragement to those 
 skillful, broad-minded, and devoccd men and 
 women who are finding a congenial place in con- 
 stantly increasing numbers among the supervisors 
 of music in our public schools. 
 
 Musical Instruction In the schools Is enlarging 
 its borders. Until recently only vocal music was 
 taught, but now Instrumental music is added. So 
 far has progress gone that it will soon cease to 
 excite surprise when a high-school or even a 
 grammar-school orchestra performs a program of 
 classic works in a manner to give pleasure even to 
 a professional musician. These orchestras join 
 on occasion with the school chorus, and oratorios 
 and cantatas of the great masters are performed 
 by high-school girls and boys to the admiration of 
 city fathers and the proud relatives of the young 
 musicians. 
 
 The leaders of the new musical education In 
 the public schools are not content with perform- 
 ance as a sign of progress. They believe that 
 
212 Ideals of America 
 
 musical intelligence and good taste are of still 
 more value in the nurture of youthful character, 
 and hence courses in musical theory and the his- 
 tory and appreciation of music are insisted upon 
 as a prime necessity. " The better half of musical 
 training," a distinguished educator has said, "is 
 good listening." The adoption of this Idea in 
 the curriculum of our schools will help to raise a 
 barrier against the tide of vulgarity which encom- 
 passes them on every side, and to cultivate a 
 wholesome taste which, rather than the drilling 
 of performers, must be the aim of musical Instruc- 
 tion among the masses of our young people. 
 
 As In all phases of life, so It Is in popular 
 musical education — as soon as one problem is 
 solved others appear. It is very evident that the 
 private teacher can never be dispensed with, for 
 the work of the public schools must be with chil- 
 dren In groups — that is, classes — and cannot 
 deal at all with those who desire a separate, in- 
 dividual training. Under the conditions that gen- 
 erally prevail, the child must be balked In his 
 effort after proficiency or else he must add a 
 heavy, often injurious weight to the labor required 
 of him In the public school. The solution of this 
 difficulty lies in some kind of cooperation between 
 the schools and the private teachers. The schools 
 must consent to allow the outside work to take 
 the place of one of the estabHshed school depart^ 
 
Ideals in Music 213 
 
 ments, and credits to be given therefor. The 
 practical difficulties in the way of this arrange- 
 ment are obvious, for the school hesitates to 
 assume responsibility for teaching which it does 
 not control, and the outside teacher objects to 
 having his methods dictated to him by a body of 
 which he is not a recognized and privileged part. 
 The school must be sure that this work is solid 
 enough to be entitled to its credits, and how can 
 it be sure of this unless it oversees it and examines 
 its results? Notwithstanding these impediments, 
 the experiment Is under trial in many places, with 
 results that are claimed to be wholly satisfactory. 
 The benefits of this plan, it is easily seen, work In 
 two directions, for the inevitable tendency must 
 be to weed out the incompetent private teacher, 
 to discourage the indifferent pupil, to bring about 
 an increased cooperation between pupil and music 
 teacher, between music teacher and school, be- 
 tween parents and school, between one teacher 
 and another, together with a more serious view, 
 among all four parties, of the value of music as a 
 character-builder and social tonic. 
 
 The whole subject of public-school music teach- 
 ing received a new illumination In the report upon 
 music In the public schools of the United States 
 prepared by Mr. Earhart of Pittsburgh, chairman 
 of the music committee of the National Education 
 Association. In writing to the Secretary of the 
 
214 Ideals of America 
 
 Interior, to whom this report was sent, Dr. 
 Claxton, United States Commissioner of Educa- 
 tion, said: "Sooner or later we shall not only 
 recognize the culture value of music, but we shall 
 begin to understand that, after the beginnings of 
 reading, writing, arithmetic, and geometry, music 
 has greater practical value than any other subject 
 taught in the schools." 
 
 Equally significant in a survey of contemporary 
 Ideals in music is the homage which the art is be- 
 ginning to receive from the colleges and universi- 
 ties. I say beginning to receive, for the long 
 hostility of the "higher education" to music and 
 its sister arts is a cause of sadness to those who 
 are aware of the place which the fine arts hold In 
 the history of civilization. The reluctance of the 
 college to welcome music may be to some extent 
 ascribed to the lack of agreement among musi- 
 cians as to what constitutes musical education, the 
 weakness of music teachers on the pedagogical 
 side, their frequent lack of broad general culture, 
 and the difficulty of adapting an art which appeals 
 so powerfully to the sense and the emotion to a 
 copartnership with studies which aim primarily at 
 the discipline of the intellect. 
 
 Musicians are fond of offering another ex- 
 planation less creditable to the intelligence of the 
 college governing bodies. A few years ago the 
 president of a prominent New England college, 
 
Ideals in Music 215 
 
 when it was proposed to Introduce courses in 
 musical science, Inquired If there was enough In 
 the subject to occupy a student for a term. On 
 another occasion, the executive committee of the 
 trustees of a very distinguished institution put 
 themselves on record as holding the opinion that 
 the training of the powers of expression through 
 musical performance should be classed with box- 
 making or any of the simpler processes of manual 
 training, and hence was not compatible with the 
 high dignity of the college tradition. 
 
 These absurd Instances, however, must already 
 be considered as belated survivals of worn-out 
 prejudice. The long reluctance of the college is 
 fast breaking down under the stress of a larger 
 conception of the function of the college in a 
 fluent democracy. If the democracy feels the 
 need of art, it should be taught to look toward 
 the college for aid In guiding its choices. No less 
 does the college itself need the humanizing In- 
 fluence of music; and the musical profession, which 
 Is ever coming more deeply into sympathy with 
 the whole people, needs the scholarly Inspiration 
 which the college can afford. That these two edu- 
 cational factors are offering to one another the 
 right hand of fellowship Is a promise of advantage 
 to both the contracting powers. 
 
 It is Inevitable that music in entering the classic 
 — shades, shall I say — no, the open air and the 
 
2i6 Ideals of America 
 
 sunlit spaces of our American colleges, should 
 enter hand in hand with the drama and the arts of 
 design, also long banished from what should 
 always be their home and sanctuary. The art 
 museum and the theater are taking their places 
 upon the campus beside the concert hall, and all 
 of them not far from the chapel. So it should 
 and must be. Is not Mr. Ralph Adams Cram a 
 true seer when he says in his inspiring book, The 
 Ministry of Art: "The day is not far distant 
 when the school of art will be not an accessory or 
 an adjunct to a university, but as absolutely and 
 intimately a part of its prescribed curriculum as 
 the ancient languages or philosophy or letters?" 
 For *' art is a great language for the voicing of 
 the greatest things, and he who is not learned 
 therein, either in its active or its passive aspect, 
 is to that extent ignorant, unlearned, uncultured." 
 Mr. Cram's allusion to art in its passive aspect 
 is a reminder that the colleges at present incline 
 to the view that the music course, like the aesthetic 
 courses in general, should have a cultural rather 
 than a vocational purpose. The question Is still 
 open, however, and opinions as well as practice 
 differ. With some institutions the conception of 
 the function of music in the higher education is in 
 accord with that which generally prevails In the 
 universities of the continent of Europe, which 
 " are concerned chiefly with the Intellectual train- 
 
Ideals in Music 217 
 
 ing which is necessary for all those who would 
 gain a broader grasp of musical art than the mere 
 technical view." ^ In America the increasing 
 strength of such a conception does not necessarily 
 exclude the teaching of music as a practical art. 
 Some of our colleges give credit toward the a.b. 
 degree for playing and singing; others only for 
 work in musical theory or history or both. Some 
 maintain music schools with pupils who take no 
 work in the department of arts and sciences; 
 others merge the department of music in the gen- 
 eral college scheme on the same terms as the 
 department of literature. Notwithstanding the 
 fact that the cultural ideal must in the nature of 
 the case be uppermost, the fact that a large and 
 increasing number of young men and women, 
 whose tastes and talents lead them into the musi- 
 cal profession, likewise desire the liberal culture 
 which the college gives tends to force the college 
 into a line of action which will minister to this 
 double need. For why, it may be asked, should 
 the college not train teachers for music as well 
 as for literature or dramatic expression? Never- 
 theless, while Professor Baker of Harvard may 
 train playwrights and actors, while successful com- 
 posers may issue from the classroom of Professor 
 
 1 Dr. Otto Kinkeldey, Music in the Universities of Europe and 
 America; Proceedings of the Music Teachers' National Asso- 
 ciation, 1915. 
 
2i8 Ideals of America 
 
 Parker at Yale, and skillful pianists receive their 
 training at Smith or Oberlin, these results will 
 always appear as by-products, and the college, 
 leaving the training of composers and virtuosos 
 to the professional schools and private teachers, 
 will find its chief mission in diffusing the refining 
 influences of music throughout the academic body, 
 in striving to convince its students of the neces- 
 sity of art as an agent of civilization, in order 
 that they may go forth ready to lend their prestige 
 in aid of all the influences that tend to promote 
 sound musical education everywhere and to dif- 
 fuse taste and intelligent enthusiasm among the 
 people. 
 
 Musical education in America is already feel- 
 ing the guiding hand of the college graduate. 
 The number of college graduates in the musical 
 profession in this country would surprise most of 
 us. Glance over the reports of the proceedings 
 of that very Influential body, the Music Teachers* 
 National Association, for the past ten years, and 
 see how many of its leading spirits are connected 
 with colleges, universities, and theological semi- 
 naries. 
 
 A similar tendency to bring musical educational 
 leadership Into the control of liberally educated 
 men and women would meet us In examining the 
 discussions at the national conventions of public- 
 school supervisors. 
 
Ideals in Music 219 
 
 Emanating from these and other centers of 
 scholarly investigation and practice we discover 
 remarkable progress in strengthening musical In- 
 struction In all directions. The state associations 
 of music teachers are rapidly gaining In the char- 
 acter of their papers and debates. There are 
 efforts in some of the states to permit or even 
 require private teachers to offer themselves for 
 examination before boards appointed by the state 
 or the state teachers' association, with certificates 
 of competence In return for satisfactory responses. 
 Throughout the country there is in progress a 
 powerful effort to reduce the Inevitable waste by 
 demanding higher qualifications on the part of 
 teachers and effecting something like unification 
 and standardization. 
 
 You would expect that a professional musical 
 educator would give a prominent place to the 
 phenomena of progress In the higher Institutions 
 and public schools. Permit me now to lay before 
 you what I might almost call the romance of 
 recent musical progress in our country. Indeed is 
 there not something that Is stirring to the imagina- 
 tion, something quickening to the heart, in the 
 rush of musical art to regain its old rights of 
 citizenship and become a possession of the com- 
 mon life? Music In the last few years has seized 
 upon the affections of the people at large as It 
 never has before In the history of this country. 
 
220 Ideals of America 
 
 It is striving to become a constant feature In the 
 national life and habit. From its former shelters 
 in the opera house, the concert hall, the detached 
 music school, and private studio, It is extending 
 not only into the common school but also into the 
 city's crowded streets, into the park and play- 
 ground, joining hands with the outdoor festival 
 and pageant, and now at last inspiring whole com- 
 munities to proclaim a new-discovered social con- 
 sciousness in verse and melody. So rapid Is this 
 movement of music back to the people that even 
 while I gather the facts for its illustration my 
 story is already old. 
 
 This movement has taken forms which cannot 
 be wholly distinguished from one another be- 
 cause they are integral parts of one large impulse. 
 The developments In the schools and colleges of 
 which I have already spoken are a characteristic 
 feature of It; — the manifestations of which I now 
 proceed to speak are found In the establishment 
 of musical settlements In the poor quarters of our 
 cities, the free concerts for the people provided by 
 city and town administrations and benevolent or- 
 ganizations, and latest of all the rise of what Is 
 called " community music." These developments 
 are all factors In the reaction of music (and in 
 this case reaction means progress) away from 
 the exclusive control of professional and commer- 
 cial interests to Its old status as a universal social 
 
Ideals in Music 221 
 
 Interest, brought directly to the people and 
 adopted by them as the expression of a common 
 inherent emotion. Such music was In Its original 
 condition. It was Inseparably bound up with 
 poetry and the dance — these activities not, as 
 afterward, delegated to individuals detached from 
 the mass, but constituting, however crude, a 
 composite art which was communal, the expres- 
 sion of religious or other sentiment by means In 
 which the whole group could participate. In the 
 stage of Intellectual development next above the 
 primitive condition, that represented by the more 
 refined folk song, music was still the passion and 
 joy of the community, where the poet and com- 
 poser were lost In the aggregate, the performer 
 for the moment In no way distinguished from his 
 neighbors In function or experience. 
 
 With the rise of the opera, the development of 
 the concert system, the Increasing complexity of 
 musical science, and the appearance of composers 
 and virtuosos who raised music to a brilliancy 
 which required trained specialists for Its full ex- 
 ercise, musical practice was concentrated Into 
 centers where wealth and fashion ruled, and the 
 naive music of the people shrunk away and timidly 
 withdrew Into obscurity. Even in the music of the 
 church a process quite similar may be observed. 
 
 Notwithstanding these centralizing and spe- 
 cializing tendencies a reaction was bound to come. 
 
222 Ideals of America 
 
 Music can never thrive if it is severed from its 
 sources in the popular heart. In spite of the enor- 
 mous technical developments of the nineteenth 
 century, its greatest composers, with the excep- 
 tion of the writers of grand opera (for grand 
 opera has always been an aristocratic, unsocial 
 affair) never quite lost touch with the music of 
 the people. The most significant fact, as I con- 
 sider it, in the history of European music in the 
 last twenty or thirty years is the instinctive turning 
 of the current of artistic creation back to the 
 people for new refreshment, and the revival of a 
 definite nationalism in place of a vague cosmopoli- 
 tanism in musical style and practice. This reac- 
 tion is characterized by a renewal of the study of 
 folk song on the part of composers as well as 
 scholars, the increased effort for the diffusion of 
 musical culture among the masses of the people, 
 the entrance into the current of progress of the 
 less musically developed outlying peoples, such as 
 the Finns and the Roumanians, and the determined 
 efforts of the nations of long musical traditions, 
 particularly the French and the English, to throw 
 off the dominance of foreign example, and develop 
 styles which the aroused national consciousness 
 may recognize as conformable to its own needs 
 and ideals. 
 
 All the phases of this popular, nationalizing 
 tendency — even the last mentioned, the effort to 
 
Ideals in Music 223 
 
 attain musical Independence — are making ex- 
 traordinary headway In America at the present 
 moment. Distinguished In many ways, certainly, 
 from the analogous phenomena In Europe, as our 
 conditions are different, this American movement 
 Is urged onward by similar motives and Is equally 
 a sign of vigorous health. Its purpose Is to bring 
 music more Intimately into the constant life of the 
 whole people, to make music a potent factor In 
 education, to add a new charm to the life of the 
 home, and to give freer opportunity to the Ameri- 
 can composer, performer, and director. And now, 
 especially observe In this connection that the best 
 promise of this American movement lies in the 
 fact that It involves a conception of music as an 
 art that serves interests other than Its own sep- 
 arate advantage. The German historian Krctz- 
 schmar distinguishes two orders of musical art — 
 music as a free art, and music that serves. Music 
 is free, according to his definition, when the art 
 work is loosened from all outer interests and 
 flourishes alone as art for the sake of art. This 
 function of music, he admits, must be acknowl- 
 edged; healthful growth does certainly require 
 scientific training in private studios and conserva- 
 tories, generous patronage of the professional 
 musician, and the public exhibition of technical 
 mastery in composition and execution. But some- 
 thing more is required. Music must also have 
 
224 Ideals of America 
 
 other motives than self-assertion for delight In 
 its own beauty; it must enter into the larger life 
 of the time and unite with other efforts whose 
 ends are found in the extension of individual and 
 collective welfare. Music should be a servant and 
 not a master. "Music, like all the arts," Kretz- 
 schmar asserts, "needs the closest connection with 
 culture and life; the people cannot draw their 
 aesthetic nourishment, their love for art and their 
 sense of it, from museums and galleries and con- 
 cert halls, but it must be offered to them in the 
 streets and squares and the church ; It must mingle 
 richly In their labor, their education, their emo- 
 tional llfe."i 
 
 The new "community music" is allied to the 
 work of the " community center," which is ex- 
 tending all over the country. Church music is 
 the one form of the art which In its conception 
 and uses can never be " free," although It has 
 sometimes perversely lost sight of this truth. But 
 the music of the church does need a discipline 
 which will bring it into more perfect harmony 
 with the spirit of devotion to which It is tributary; 
 and In this direction also we find progress, slow 
 and discouraging as It often may seem. The sur- 
 prising recent development of that most beautiful 
 of communal enterprises, the outdoor pageant, 
 
 ^ Hermann Kretzschraar, Musikalische Zeitfragen. 
 
Ideals in Music 225 
 
 would be Impossible without the aid of music, for 
 rhythm In movement and rhythm in sound are the 
 very breath of its being. We must also believe, 
 I think, that the astonishing growth of " free " 
 music in the multiplication of concerts of every 
 description and of composers and performers, in 
 the enormous development of all the musical 
 manufactures and trades, is vitally related to the 
 social and philanthropic movement. We rnay 
 find here convincing evidence of what I believe 
 to be the truth, that music attains full mastery 
 of its nobler powers only when it consents to be- 
 come a servant. 
 
 It was recently my privilege to visit the Music 
 School Settlement on the lower east side of New 
 York. Here I found a full-grown conservatory 
 of music in the most squalid section of the city — 
 a conservatory with more than eight hundred 
 students representing over twenty nationalities, 
 and a large and efficient faculty. The institution 
 Is supported by the Income from a moderate en- 
 dowment, tuition fees which range from ten to 
 fifty cents, and gifts from regular and irregular 
 patrons. 
 
 I was cordially received by the director who 
 gave me the history of the school from Its origin 
 in a little violin class that was started a few years 
 ago by an adventurous and charitable young 
 woman. Then we proceeded on a tour of Inspec- 
 
226 Ideals of America 
 
 tion. Adjoining the director's office was the li- 
 brary with seven thousand musical compositions 
 and twenty-two hundred books. I went into some 
 of the teaching rooms and felt the atmosphere 
 of earnestness that pervaded them. In the con- 
 cert hall the school orchestra was tuning up for 
 its weekly rehearsal. I read in the annual report 
 the long list of gifts of money, of tickets to con- 
 certs, operas, plays, and lectures, and a delightful 
 record of miscellaneous contributions, from 
 musical instruments and books to apples, doilies, 
 Christmas greens, and — most charmingly sug- 
 gestive — "wood for the Christmas fires" from 
 the Story-hour Children. 
 
 Other beneficent ministries attach themselves 
 by natural affinity to this musical benevolence. 
 There are athletic, dramatic, social, and literary 
 clubs, ranging from adults down to the youngest 
 club of boys, who dubbed themselves "The Peter 
 Pan Club" after that glorious day when Maude 
 Adams gave them a magical trip to the "Never 
 Never Land." There are Sunday night "At 
 Homes," aesthetic dancing classes, a Mothers* 
 Club, a Parents' Association, the Music School 
 Guild of young people who work in any way that 
 may promote the interests of the school and its 
 clientele, summer camps and excursions into the 
 country. The whole institution throbs with 
 healthful, joyful life. Outside is a seemingly end- 
 
Ideals in Music 227 
 
 less wilderness of cheap shops, factories, and 
 dingy tenement houses, narrow streets thronged 
 with roughly clad toilworn men and women, and 
 with children whose only playground Is the dirty 
 pavement. "How far that little candle throws 
 his beams I " says Portia to Nerissa In The Mer- 
 chant of Venice: "So shines a good deed In a 
 naughty world." 
 
 In thirty cities of this country musical settle- 
 ments similar to this in New York exist. They 
 are centers of light In places that would be dark 
 indeed without them. They throw their beams 
 afar, and draw not only the children but men and 
 women of all ages, who In the midst of the sordid 
 dullness of their lives feel a divine hunger In their 
 souls. 
 
 One Sunday morning, In the days of a former 
 director, Mr. David Mannes, there appeared be- 
 fore the school assembly a little group of medaled 
 veterans representing a post of the G. A. R. 
 They came to present the school with a flag. The 
 bright emblem was unfurled; the audience, led 
 by the school orchestra, sang The Star-spangled 
 Banner. Mr. Mannes made a brief speech of 
 acceptance. "Let us close,'' he said, "with the 
 chorale, A Strong Fortress is our God. Then, 
 with his baton raised he exclaimed: "This flag is 
 the symbol of our Ideal of government, a govern- 
 ment by the people, for the people. So must our 
 
228 Ideals of America 
 
 ideal of music be a music by the people, for the 
 people." 
 
 It is not too much to say that the ideal thus 
 proclaimed by Mr. Marines is the guiding star 
 of a host of musicians and music-lovers in this 
 country today. As the demand goes up from the 
 professional for better education in music, an 
 answer comes from the mass of the laity in a call 
 for a richer education hy means of music, an edu- 
 cation that will help to make more active those 
 faculties that have a social value. The essential 
 purpose of the national movement to extend the 
 love of music among the people, and engage them 
 in cooperation in its production and support, is 
 not simply to afford them a means of entertain- 
 ment of a better sort than the vulgar show in 
 which multitudes of our people find their only 
 recreation; that alone would be a worthy mo- 
 tive, but it is not all. Music has one power which 
 no other form of art expression possesses in equal 
 measure, that of bringing a mass of people under 
 the spell of a single uplifting emotion and thereby 
 welding them together as a unit in the fellowship 
 of a common experience. 
 
 This two-fold result Is certainly the aim of 
 those who have established free open-air or- 
 chestral concerts In our cities. The effect of these 
 concerts upon their untrained audiences Is of the 
 most interesting character. The statements of 
 
Ideals in Music 229 
 
 Mr. Arthur Farwell, former supervisor of Mu- 
 nicipal Concerts in New York City, would apply 
 as well to any other locality: "That these crowds 
 get the greatest satisfaction from the greatest 
 music on the programs there Is not the shadow 
 of a doubt. It is the great works that sweep 
 them out of themselves, exalt and rest them, and 
 bring their being again Into harmonious relations 
 with life after the toil and sordid struggle of 
 their days. It is no longer the separate minds 
 which listen, it is the over-soul of the mass. In 
 the occurrence of this phenomenon the people re- 
 ceive the essential nourishment that resides in the 
 composer's inspiration, and receive the fullest 
 revitalizing of soul which It is capable of bestow- 
 ing. It Is for this spiritual resolvent and revital- 
 Ization that the concerts are visited by the thou- 
 sands who are to be found there day after day." ^ 
 These efforts for civic betterment through 
 music take various forms. The outdoor music In 
 the parks and on the docks must be confined to a 
 part of the year. How shall the ministry of music 
 be continued In the cold season also ? Why should 
 not the schoolhouses, "the only available club- 
 houses for those who can afford no other," be 
 utilized? Here and there an enlightened public 
 opinion is forcing open the schoolhouses to larger 
 
 1 Proceedings of the Music Teachers' National Association, 
 1913: Municipal Music in Neiv York, Arthur Farwell. 
 
230 Ideals of America 
 
 services than those for which they were originally 
 designed; they are becoming social centers for 
 the poor, with music as an ingredient in their in- 
 vigorating atmosphere. 
 
 The latest phase of this truly democratic move- 
 ment Is found In the so-called " community 
 chorus/' which, It is claimed, made Its first appear- 
 ance in Rochester, N. Y., only a few years ago. 
 At least the name had its origin there; the thing 
 Itself might properly be called an expanded and 
 glorified singing school, as known to our New 
 England forbears, which in turn was the parent 
 of the "musical convention" of quaint yet honor- 
 able memory. The country singing school and 
 the musical convention, being somewhat undis- 
 ciplined and crude, were absorbed and lost in 
 the specialized musical culture that came to us 
 from Germany. But the desire, always latent 
 among the people, to express their social feeling 
 in song cannot long be repressed anywhere, and 
 In these latter days we see It bursting forth once 
 more. "The community chorus Idea," as It Is 
 described by one of its leaders, "is a step In the 
 social evolution of music beyond the traditional 
 forms of choral organization. It convokes all 
 the people, without discrimination or exception, 
 and without regard to previous musical knowledge 
 or training, to join together to sing. While a 
 community chorus may and does give concerts, its 
 
Ideals in Music 231 
 
 purpose Is not that of the usual choruses of the 
 concert world." It does not " interpose any of 
 the usual intellectual processes of musical educa- 
 tion between the people and their singing. It 
 deals with any and all of the people in the mass, 
 and Its aim, while musical, is not so much artistic 
 as social and spiritual." 
 
 If this "community chorus" movement stood 
 alone I should not be entirely confident that it 
 would not prove a passing fad. But it does not 
 stand alone. It is buttressed by the public school, 
 the church, the women's clubs, the municipal 
 musical enterprises, the dramatic movement, by 
 the many tendencies in social life which find in 
 the universal love of music a power which unifies 
 at the same time that it Idealizes. Moreover, it 
 Is allying itself with the "community center" 
 movement, through which, as Dr. Luther Gulick 
 states it, "neighborhood self-activity is being re- 
 stored in city life, and community consciousness 
 is being created in rural life." 
 
 In all the manifestations I have cited of a new 
 spirit at large in our country — the development 
 of musical education In the public schools and 
 colleges, the growth and waxing Infiuence of musi- 
 cal clubs, the music school settlement, municipal 
 concerts, the community orchestra and chorus — 
 we have once more revealed that Irrepressible 
 socializing power which, after all Is said of the 
 
232 Ideals of America 
 
 glory of the works of the great masters, Is the 
 chief title of honor which history bestows upon 
 the art of tone. We students of the history of 
 music look upon this musical movement among 
 the people with mingled hope and apprehension. 
 Will it continue to spread until all the waste 
 places are visited; will it transform the life of our 
 people? History, It is said, teaches that as ar- 
 tistic professional music develops, the music of 
 the people declines. So It has been, or so It 
 seemed to be. But history has a way of varying 
 her lessons, and loves to put historians to shame 
 when they become over-confident in their general- 
 izations. There are two kinds of music to which 
 we may apply the term *' popular,'' viz. : the music 
 that originates among the people, and music that 
 comes to them from various sources and is 
 adopted by them because it meets their wants. 
 
 The popular music that diminishes with the 
 growth of Individual creative and executive action 
 Is the music that emanates from the common 
 people — that branch of music which we call " folk 
 song." This phase of music retains characteristics 
 that testify to Its communal origin, and like the 
 popular poetry It Is Inevitably supplanted by the 
 specialized forms of Individual creation. We 
 Americans never had a really national form of 
 music, and the conditions that produce folk song 
 will never exist here. In the musical countries of 
 
Ideals in Music 233 
 
 Europe it is dying out. America will never be a 
 musical country as England was a musical coun- 
 try in the age of Elizabeth, as Austria was a musi- 
 cal country in the eighteenth century. The term 
 '' a musical nation," if it can ever be applied to us, 
 will involve a new connotation, as signifying a 
 country in which music has become a common in- 
 stitution, accepted by the leaders of thought as an 
 essential ingredient in education, employing its 
 Intensifying power everywhere In the service of 
 religion, of patriotism, of everything that helps 
 to create a civic consciousness and add sweetness 
 to the common life. 
 
 There Is a group of enthusiasts who find In 
 figures and statistics evidence that we are on the 
 high road to becoming a musical nation. We are 
 reminded of the prodigious increase In the num- 
 ber of concerts, the multiplication of orchestras 
 and choral societies, the enormous output of 
 pianos and organs, the well-nigh universal use of 
 mechanical piano players and phonographs on the 
 part of those who can afford them, and, as a 
 crowning testimony to the national love of music, 
 we are told by a competent authority that the 
 American people spend for music, musical Instru- 
 ments, and musical Instruction over six hundred 
 million dollars every year. The musical Inde- 
 pendence of America is proclaimed as an Ideal 
 and a rapidly realizing fact. The national musi- 
 
234 Ideals of America 
 
 cal consciousness, we are told, Is so far awakened 
 that the efforts of native composers and per- 
 formers are receiving an encouragement hitherto 
 refused, and the gratifying history of American 
 painting promises to be repeated In the field of 
 creative music. 
 
 This chorus of self-gratulatlon Is met by an 
 outcry of very shrill solo voices which assert that 
 these signs of progress are fallacious, that the 
 vast patronage of concerts on the part of the 
 wealthier class has the same significance as the 
 craze for the photo play on the part of the less 
 opulent order, that only a very small proportion 
 of those who buy concert and opera tickets re- 
 ceive any lasting intellectual benefit. They tell 
 us that the Increase in the extension of bad music 
 Is greater than that of good music, that the one 
 order of music which Immensely overtops every 
 other in the quantity of sales Is the coarse, silly, 
 inane "popular song.'* They see, or think they 
 see, a progressive degeneration in the public taste, 
 they group together all the shortcomings In our 
 musical, literary, dramatic, and pictorial output, 
 and declare with Mr. William Marion Reedy that 
 these vulgar manifestations are the reflection of 
 our national life In general, and believe with Mr. 
 Percival Chubb that our whole system of educa- 
 tion Is at fault In that It communicates no quick- 
 ening sense of the poetry of life. 
 
Ideals in Music 235 
 
 Wherever the balance of truth may lie, there 
 is no question that we are in the midst of intense 
 and unprecedented energies which express them- 
 selves in literature, in music, in the drama, in 
 architecture, and all the arts of design. Ameri- 
 can life is determined to express itself vigorously 
 in some way. The main question of interest is, 
 in what way shall that be? Shall our art strive 
 merely to show us life as the artist thinks he sees 
 it, literally, elementally, photographically, or life 
 as it strives to be when it is seized with the diviner 
 impulses? Shall our art aspire, as Walter Pater 
 says it should, towards the condition of music, or 
 towards that of the naturalistic novel? How- 
 ever we may answer these questions, in our 
 coteries and In our newspaper contributions, we 
 know that Art herself will have the final word, 
 and that her decision will be shaped by mighty 
 forces that are beyond our ken. I have tried to 
 show the grounds of my belief that the forces that 
 are operative In the music of this country are, on 
 the whole, working for true progress. Evidences 
 which I have not had time to give In detail plainly 
 show that those who love music are taking it more 
 and more seriously. They desire to know as 
 well as to enjoy. The lecturer is almost as much 
 encouraged as the star performer. The produc- 
 tion of books on music and the circulation of the 
 highest-class musical magazines are Increasing by 
 
236 Ideals of America 
 
 leaps and bounds. I know that these educational 
 influences I have described as yet reach only a 
 fragment of our population, that multitudes in 
 our congested cities and our scattered rural com- 
 munities have no music In their lives, that whereas 
 in earlier ages throughout the world every form 
 of labor had Its song, today In our country the 
 only sound heard in our factories Is the whir of 
 machinery, and the husbandman catches no wel- 
 come of Instruments and voices when he brings 
 his harvest home. Yet the musical revival In this 
 country Is real and genuine, as I have tried to 
 show. A wise man judges a movement not by Its 
 present accomplishment, but by its tendency. I 
 draw hope from the recent musical development 
 In this country because Its ruling spirit Is so 
 largely educational; because It Is rapidly becom- 
 ing organized and unified; because It Is coming 
 daily under the control of men and women of cul- 
 ture who believe with all their hearts In Its neces- 
 sity and beneficent power. It Is, I verily believe, 
 a force that will have an Influential place In the 
 efforts that are In progress to build up a new and 
 fairer democracy. 
 
X 
 
 Ideals in Religion 
 
X 
 
 IDEALS IN RELIGION 
 
 By George Albert Cot, Professor of Religious Education, Union 
 Theological Seminary, Neisj York 
 
 IF YOU had asked an Athenian in the age of 
 Pericles, *'What are the religious ideals of 
 Athens?" he would have had not the slightest 
 difficulty In replying. For Athens was the state, 
 and the state maintained in the Eleuslnlan mys- 
 teries an annual revival of religious consciousness. 
 Here the youths who had reached an appropriate 
 age gazed for the first time upon certain sacred 
 objects and upon a solemn drama symbolical of 
 the soul's progress, while from the lips of the 
 hierophant fell Instruction concerning the Ideal 
 meaning of life. 
 
 When we endeavor to say what are the religious 
 ideals of our own people, we are In no such 
 happy situation. America is not the state. Amer- 
 ica has no hall of sacred mysteries, no Initiation 
 of its youth into an American conviction as to 
 the destiny of man. There Is no American 
 church, and there will be none. The spirit of 
 America speaks in no creed, through no priestly 
 
 239 
 
240 Ideals of America 
 
 voice. It is, rather, a certain ethereal essence 
 that thrills our souls when we meet one another 
 simply as citizens. Of it we may say: 
 
 Tliere Is no speech nor language; 
 
 Its voice is not heard. 
 Yet its line is gone out through all the earth, 
 
 And its words to the end of the world. 
 
 The audible voices of religion are not one, but 
 many; we have not a church, but churches, and 
 these are contrary, the one to the other. Possibly 
 some future historian, free from all our biases, 
 will see in our sectarianism a real unity, a spiritual 
 division of labor. Let us hope that we shall yet 
 discover that each of our sects is but laying a sep- 
 arate stone in a single temple of the spirit. But 
 to us of the present, trying to understand our- 
 selves and to be true to ourselves, the ideals of our 
 religious bodies are contradictory. Irreconcilable. 
 Our America is the scene of a warfare of the 
 spirit. 
 
 I state this conclusion at the outset, in advance 
 of the evidence, partly in order that the evidence 
 may be the more sharply scrutlnizeci and partly 
 in order that there may be no illusion as to what 
 Is involved In our assumption that we are com- 
 petent to scrutinize religious ideals. Are we sure 
 that our present scrutinizing attitude does not 
 already contradict some of the ideals that we are 
 sure to meet? We are assuming, are we not, that 
 
Ideals in Religion 241 
 
 the religious divisions of our populace are so 
 many sects, each of which we regretfully see going 
 on its own way. We desire that all of them shall 
 discover some common or Inclusive principle, fol-» 
 lowing which each may contribute to the unifica- 
 tion of American purpose. If, Indeed, these sects 
 would acknowledge themselves to be sects. If 
 each one would seek to transcend Itself In some 
 Inclusive truth or purpose. If ecclesiastical Insti- 
 tutions understood themselves to be subject, as 
 Individuals are, to the spiritual law that he who 
 seeks to save his life loses It — then the search 
 In which we are at this moment engaged might 
 regard Itself as non-partisan and judicial. 
 
 But what if our religious divisions should deny 
 that they are sects? What If each one should 
 say, *' I have already settled the question that you 
 are ultimately interested In. The only possible 
 basis for the unification of the spirit of America 
 Is that which I prescribe?" Then, In truth, our 
 condition would be that of spiritual warfare, and 
 at once the problem would arise whether any 
 genuine neutrality Is possible, whether we have 
 not already taken an unneutral attitude by begin- 
 ning this Inquiry. 
 
 We who now agree to gaze upon the holy 
 things of one another's faiths may well require of 
 ourselves both high sincerity and absolute frank- 
 ness with one another. This places upon me an 
 
242 Ideals of America 
 
 obligation to confess that the spirit in which I 
 survey our contemporary ideals permits me to 
 doubt whether any religious group among us is 
 more than a sect. I assume the liberty of ques- 
 tioning whether any ecclesiastical body has com- 
 mitted itself in word and act to any ideal that can 
 possibly be the rallying center for the spiritual 
 aspirations of all America. If, now, there be 
 neighbors of mine who would declare against me 
 any spiritual penalty for raising this question, who 
 insist upon prescribing my conclusion in advance 
 and regardless of what I can observe — I take 
 them and their ideal, to be most sectarian of all, 
 least capable of uniting our divided souls. 
 
 Because I find ecclesiastical groups requiring 
 of one another submission rather than mutual 
 self-transcendence, because there are religious 
 ideals that cannot incorporate into themselves the 
 freedom that I am at this moment assuming, I am 
 obliged to regard the spiritual life of America as 
 a warfare. And because I must in this discussion 
 assume unqualified freedom of religious inquiry, 
 it has seemed to be the part of neighborly frank- 
 ness to invite you to judge for yourselves whether 
 this makes me also a sectary. Let me confess also 
 without reservation that, as I gaze on the divi- 
 siveness of our religious life, there moves within 
 me what seems to be a religious spirit that is 
 larger, more inclusive, than all fenced-in religion. 
 
Ideals in Religion 243 
 
 I worship the God, not of a religious institution, 
 not of a nation, not of a part of history but of 
 the whole, the God who, breathing himself every- 
 where into the human clod, makes it a spirit, a 
 social craving, the spirit of humanity, the spirit 
 of a possible world society. I bow my spirit be- 
 fore the spirit of the world democracy that Is 
 to be. 
 
 How shall we know what are the ideals of our 
 churches? Shall we go to their formulated creeds 
 and confessions of faith? These symbols of faith 
 were constructed for the most part in earlier gen- 
 erations, before the problems of society could be 
 seen In the perspective that Is inevitable to us. 
 You will not find here the concepts that are cur- 
 rent In our aspirations toward democracy. 
 
 .... Lo, where his coming looms, 
 
 Of earth's anarchic children latest born, 
 
 Democracy, a Titan who hath learned 
 
 To laugh at Jove's old-fashioned thunderbolts — 
 
 Could he not also forge them, if he would? 
 
 King by mere manhood, nor allowing aught 
 Of holier unction than the sweat of toil ; 
 In his own strength sufficient; called to solve, 
 On the rough edges of society, ^ 
 Problems long sacred to the choicer few, 
 And improvise what elsewhere men receive 
 As gifts of deity; tough foundling reared 
 Where every man's his own Melchisedek, 
 How make him reverent of a King of kings? 
 
 — Lowell, The Cathedral. 
 
244 Ideals of America 
 
 This Is a problem of religion that is simply 
 unrecognized In the traditional forms of doctrine. 
 We must look elsewhere If we wish to know what 
 relation exists today between religious ideals and 
 the Ideals of democratic society. On the other 
 hand It should be remembered that creeds do not 
 for the most part attempt to describe the good 
 life. Rather, each creed represents a party vote 
 on disputed questions of Scripture and of history. 
 Hence It comes to pass that upon the lips of many 
 Christians there are symbols of Christianity that 
 say not a specific word about the love that Is the' 
 fulfilling of the law. Not In these ancient sym- 
 bols shall we find the ideals by which men live. 
 
 Is the meaning of religion In modern life re- 
 vealed, then. In the Intermittent geysers called 
 revivals? To some extent It Is. A great popular 
 revival Is a holiday of the spirit, a temporary re- 
 lease from the dullness of the economic grind. 
 Here springs of tears and of laughter that have 
 been going dry are unsealed. Here for the mo- 
 ment the individual mind, melted into a mass 
 consciousness, basks In the freedom of irrespon- 
 sibility. By these processes, many a man Is re- 
 leased from the Iron bands of evil habits. Here, 
 helped by social stimulus, men acquire moral cour- 
 age and momentum. Loyalties of no mean quality 
 displace for a time, frequently for a lifetime, the 
 petty will that had developed in the Individual's 
 
Ideals in Religion 245 
 
 narrow round. Common morality and traditional 
 conceptions of religious duty are uniformly 
 preached in revivals. But if we ask revivalism 
 to show us what is to be done with the tremen- 
 dous social and anti-social forces that swirl around 
 us, its voice grows feeble. If we ask it how 
 America shall attain to the spiritual wholeness 
 toward which she strives to lift her eyes, revival- 
 ism becomes dumb. 
 
 There are three sources of information as to 
 religious ideals, however, upon which, in con- 
 junction, we may rely with some confidence, 
 namely: The expenditures of religious bodies, the 
 content and method of religious education, and 
 declarations of religious bodies when they are 
 confronted with the social problems of the day. 
 
 Let us begin with expenditures — for where 
 your heart is, there will your treasure be also ! 
 Here we come upon some things that are common 
 to all the faiths. Religion means to all our people, 
 among other things, regard for those who are in 
 sickness and distress. However numerous and 
 deep our differences may be, the Good Samaritan 
 has our unanimous franchise. Expenditures for 
 education indicate another tenet of all American 
 religion. Every child of God must have oppor- 
 tunity for mental growth. A third and vast item 
 of expenditure is that for the maintenance of wor- 
 ship. Costly worship is practiced by all religious 
 
246 Ideals of America 
 
 bodies, but the types differ so much that no single 
 or brief statement of the ideals that are here 
 seeking utterance can be adequate. 
 
 Some notion of the largeness of life, and of its 
 weakness; some acknowledgment of the majesty 
 of duty, and of human frailty; some hope of a 
 social future greater and better than the present; 
 some feeling of a divine presence in these convic- 
 tions of largeness and majesty and progress — 
 these things, all looking toward ideals, are always 
 present. But what contribution is being made by 
 public worship to the spiritual unity of America 
 or of the world? To enter some of our sanc- 
 tuaries is to withdraw for the time being from 
 America, struggling to become a soul, and to 
 spend an hour in agreeable apartness. The por- 
 tals of some of our temples swing between a vast 
 and seething present, full of unsolved problems, 
 and a reposeful past, which in magnificent attire 
 ever celebrates anew its own complete self-suffi- 
 ciency. Yet here and there prophetic Individuals, 
 having caught glimpses of God precisely in Amer- 
 icans bewilderment about her own soul, cause the 
 experience of worship, through prayer and ser- 
 mon, to become a consecration to the great Spirit 
 of Unity. 
 
 Still other vast sums are devoted to missions at 
 home and abroad. What ideals does this expend- 
 iture represent? Mixed ideals, undoubtedly. 
 
Ideals in Religion M7 
 
 The sentiment of pity, obedience to a command 
 of Jesus, loyalty to a denominational enterprise, 
 desire to extend one's own ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tion — all these are here. But something more is 
 here, something exceedingly vital. The modern 
 foreign missionary movement started out as an 
 effort to rescue Individuals from sin by preaching; 
 it Is transforming itself into cooperation with the 
 socially constructive forces of other peoples to the 
 end that the level of whole civilizations may be 
 raised. Educative processes that form social 
 standards are becoming basal in missionary strat- 
 egy. Moreover, the original intent to add new 
 members to our own respective ecclesiastical 
 bodies is being converted Into the policy of trans- 
 ferring the control of native churches as rapidly 
 as possible to the natives themselves, and of unit- 
 ing in these churches the various denominational 
 groups, even though we remain separate In our 
 own land. 
 
 Finally, the home base Is undergoing recon- 
 struction. Many of us can remember a time when 
 foreign missions were an affair of ministers who 
 extracted money from laymen by occasional ap- 
 peals to their emotions. Then came a period when 
 laymen began to study missions. As a result, a 
 local society here and there assumed the support 
 of a missionary. Finally, we see the laymen of 
 today meeting In great assemblies to consider the 
 
248 Ideals of America 
 
 world situation under the assumption that the 
 problem of a world religion is their affair. The 
 enlargement of social horizon that is coming — 
 that has already come — through this movement 
 is a notable fact. Laymen are actually beginning 
 to think of their religion, even of their personal 
 religious life, in terms of a possible world so- 
 ciety. After full reckoning has been made of 
 ecclesiastical divisions and ambitions in mission 
 work and of mixed motives everywhere, the mis- 
 sionary enterprise of today must be recognized as 
 a tremendous expansion and deepening of social 
 ideals. 
 
 A source of information more trustworthy 
 even than ecclesiastical expenditures is religious 
 education. For when we teach the young, we dis- 
 criminate between what we are and what our ideal 
 is. Education never says to children " Be what 
 we are," but " Be better than we are." Here we 
 criticize ourselves and pay something for prevent- 
 ing in future generations the faults of our own. 
 This is our most practical idealism. Tell me what 
 and how you teach the children, and I will tell 
 you to what ideals you are really awake. 
 
 What, then, are the churches teaching their 
 children? All of the churches, to begin with, are 
 teaching common morality. By this I mean both 
 the "do nots" of the Ten Commandments and 
 also the "do" principle of merciful kindness. 
 
Ideals in Religion 249 
 
 Through the constant inculcation of these prin- 
 ciples among more than fifteen millions of the 
 population, mostly children and youth, the Sun- 
 day schools and other church schools have become 
 a moral bulwark of incalculable significance. The 
 public school, when it instructs and trains its pupils 
 in morals, relies upon the open, continuous stand- 
 ard-setting done by the religious bodies. Imagine 
 the plight of the public-school teachers if they 
 could not rely upon such educational support. 
 Think what it would mean if the state should 
 suddenly find itself the only institution whereby 
 society introduces children to the moral wisdom 
 of the race, the only one that sets about awaken- 
 ing the heart of the child, out of which are the 
 issues of social life! The American system of 
 education is not identical with the public schools. 
 Our system includes the public schools and the 
 churches as complementary, mutually supporting 
 parts. 
 
 In the social ideals that control religious edu- 
 cation unanimity will be found at one point at 
 least. All religious bodies stand for the integrity 
 of the monogamous family. But beyond this 
 there Is variation, and there is likewise much un- 
 certainty. To say merely that common morality 
 is inculcated leaves the story of ideals less than 
 half told. For one and the same moral command 
 may represent contradictory ideals. "Thou shalt 
 
25<^ Ideals of America 
 
 not steal" is actually made to mean in our pres- 
 ent life either " Hold as sacred the present law 
 of private property" or "Revise this law funda- 
 mentally in the interest of humanity." "Thou 
 shalt not kill " may mean either " Refrain from 
 murder in the common-law sense," or "Take the 
 commercial profit out of everything that depresses 
 human vitality by accidents, disease, or over- 
 work." "Love of neighbor" may mean either 
 relieving distress, or removing the causes of dis- 
 tress, or the democracy of equal opportunity as 
 against special privilege. Therefore we must dis- 
 criminate between the different social ideals that 
 control religious education here and there. 
 
 The extraordinary revival of religious educa- 
 tion in orthodox Judaism is Inspired by an ideal 
 of racial solidarity. To keep the blood pure, to 
 perpetuate ancient ceremonies, to keep alive mem- 
 ories that separate this people from all others — 
 this Is fundamental. Therefore Instruction in the 
 Hebrew tongue Is prominent, and marvelously 
 effective methods for teaching It to American 
 children have been worked out. Here, then, is 
 the ideal of a permanent cleavage In the social 
 consciousness of America. Liberal Judaism, on 
 the other hand, emphasizing the social ideals of 
 the great prophets of the race, shows in varying 
 degrees a tendency to transcend the things that 
 separate Jews from their fellow-citizens. 
 
Ideals in Religion 251 
 
 Religious education in the Catholic Church is 
 a closely articulated system that follows with un- 
 wavering fidelity certain thoroughly conscious 
 ideals. Moral conduct is rigidly insisted upon, 
 and much definite training is provided. But this 
 is not all. Through every item there runs a 
 thread that suspends the whole upon a particular 
 view of social law. Moral conduct is obedience. 
 It is prescribed by authority. Without any am- 
 biguity whatever, Catholic education supports law 
 and order. It does so with the greatest natural- 
 ness because this great Church conceives itself, in 
 all its spiritual labors, as the authoritative admin- 
 istrator of fixed divine commands. To revert to 
 an Aristotelian conception, the Church is the 
 " form " and moving principle, while men are 
 "matter" which is to receive impetus, direction, 
 and particular quality from this "form." The 
 authority of the Church depends not a whit upon 
 the suffrage of Its members. 
 
 Consider, now^ that this authority Includes 
 morals as well as faith. Two things follow: 
 First, the public school cannot be competent to 
 teach morals, because it does not recognize the 
 one authority that, as Catholics believe, is com- 
 petent to say what Is right and what wrong. 
 Second, Catholics must oppose every social theory 
 that seems to make men themselves the source of 
 law. Hence Catholicism's Implacable antagonism 
 
252 Ideals of America 
 
 to socialism. Catholic religious education with- 
 out doubt tends to forestall social discontent not 
 only of the impulsive sort but also of the reflec- 
 tive sort as far as it is inspired by any non-con- 
 formist ethical feeling. 
 
 The only ethical unity of America that Cath- 
 olicism will at all consider, therefore, depends 
 upon accepting the Catholic interpretation of 
 authority in religion and morals. This great his- 
 toric institution sees no hope for our moral dis- 
 tractions, our divided purposes, short of the 
 extension of the Church itself until it becomes the 
 one and only church of us all. This is her ideal 
 America. She cannot participate in our public 
 schools whole-heartedly, but only partially and as 
 a temporary accommodation to a system that she 
 regards as fundamentally wrong. She cannot 
 identify herself whole-heartedly with any humani- 
 tarian reconstruction of the ethical bases of law, 
 for she regards her authority in the moral sphere 
 as exclusive. 
 
 There are Protestant bodies also, or at least 
 parties, that with varying degrees of insistence 
 teach their children to think that the spiritual 
 unity of America is possible only through en- 
 trance into one particular sheepfold. Their 
 church is "the" church; all others are "sects" or 
 "denominations." Or, their creed is a finality to 
 which all must ultimately bow. Partly by open 
 
Ideals in Religion 253 
 
 speech, but more largely by silent assumption, 
 dogma still separates good men. Still the ancient 
 art of slaying men by words is practiced among us. 
 Yet on the whole it may be claimed that our man- 
 ners are improving. They are improving partly 
 because scholarship applied to ancient dogmas 
 has shown how largely they are reflections of his- 
 toric periods and incidents. But our manners are 
 improving also because larger and finer social 
 ideals are coming to be incorporated into theo- 
 logical presuppositions. 
 
 It is noticeable that ecclesiasticisms of the ex- 
 clusive types tend to set off the sacred from the 
 secular, giving religion a sphere peculiar to itself 
 and thus saving it from excessive contact with the 
 jarring ideals of society at large. I do not see 
 how any exclusive eccleslasticism can do other- 
 wise. In an era of science one must not be In- 
 fallible in too many things, and when laws depend 
 upon the votes of the whole people, a particular 
 church must not prescribe too much. But this 
 results in the following paradoxical situation : 
 Logically considered, every act of legislation is 
 subject to an ethical test. In numberless cases 
 ethical motives are actually appealed to on behalf 
 of, or In opposition to, a proposed law. This is 
 true not only of laws that relate to vice and crime, 
 but also to those that concern the social welfare, 
 to say nothing of the fundamental rights of man. 
 
254 Ideals of America 
 
 There Is not an item In the law of contracts, there 
 is not a business custom, that does not involve the 
 ultimate question of the value of human life and 
 the proper relations between man and man as 
 persons. If I mistake not, some consciousness 
 that this Is so has begun to pervade the populace, 
 and the masses are already seeking for a com- 
 prehensive principle and motive for social organi- 
 zation. But It must be pointed out that the re- 
 ligious bodies that most insist upon the possession 
 of exclusive or unique authority for themselves 
 or for their dogmas are the ones that have the 
 least quarrel with the bisection of life into secular 
 and sacred. 
 
 But Protestantism, in most of its bodies at 
 least, reveals the presence of a contrary tendency. 
 Most of the Sunday schools say to their children, 
 " Here are Indeed revealed truths that must surely 
 be believed, but listen for God in your own heart, 
 and then live from within outward." Now this 
 emphasis upon having a right heart brings these 
 Protestants Into a peculiar relation to social agita- 
 tions that proceed from the good heart. On the 
 one hand, some of the leaders, holding that social 
 service and social reconstruction are not religion, 
 have insisted that the old slogan, " Get right with 
 God," is sufficient for the church. But other 
 leaders, pointing out that Jesus made love to God 
 and love to men a singk principle, have replied 
 
Ideals in Religion 255 
 
 that there Is no way to get right with God except 
 through active love, and that, consequently, the 
 reconstruction of society into a brotherhood is 
 the process of salvation. 
 
 Thus it comes to pass that the missionary mo- 
 tive with its world outlook has begun to fuse with 
 the brotherhood-motive of our most daring 
 humanitarianism. This fusion Is already express- 
 ing itself In the Laymen's Missionary Movement 
 and in the religious instruction of children. Not, 
 perhaps, with the consistency of a fully matured 
 policy, but yet with the Inevitability of a life 
 process, the new courses of lessons for Protestant 
 Sunday schools have begun to focus life's Ideals 
 around the conception of a world brotherhood. 
 Furthermore, the new methods of religious edu- 
 cation Include with entire definiteness the training 
 of children In missions and social service as a 
 single program. 
 
 What Is the reaction of ecclesiastical assem- 
 blies when they face the problems of our distracted 
 society? Do these assemblies use the dialect of 
 a privileged or Inert social class, or the intel- 
 ligible speech of a genuine world brotherhood? 
 As In the case of missions, so here ecclesiasticism 
 cannot yet be said to have realized clearly that it 
 must lose Its life If it Is to gain the world life 
 toward which It aspires. Missions plus remedial 
 philanthropy may be taken for granted; but social 
 
256 Ideals of America 
 
 reconstruction both at home and in mission fields 
 cannot as yet. Nevertheless the acknowledged 
 motive of brotherhood has already produced some 
 remarkable utterances concerning current social 
 problems. For example, the Federal Council of 
 Churches has united upon a "Social Creed" that 
 faces in the spirit of brotherhood a rather remark- 
 able catalogue of our social conflicts. This con- 
 fession of faith, taken in connection with parallel 
 declarations by various denominational assem- 
 blies, makes it impossible to accept the assertion 
 that is sometimes made that the churches are so 
 many fortresses of social conservatism. 
 
 What would happen to our economic and polit- 
 ical system if the spirit of brotherly love for all 
 mankind should get control of It? The answer 
 to this question will reveal the latent radicalism 
 — and not altogether latent — that is In Protestant 
 Christianity. There is, In fact, a large and In- 
 creasing number of men and women whose re- 
 ligious convictions require the testing of every 
 social regulation and custom by this question: 
 " Does It build up the life of all the men and 
 women and children concerned?" Alongside the 
 fiscal balance sheet, there is demanded a human 
 balance sheet that shall show the health and hap- 
 piness and possibilities of character that go into 
 Industry and that come out of it. The clearer 
 thinkers in Protestantism have seen that to be 
 
Ideals in Religion 257 
 
 Christians they must insist that business become 
 organized love. To this end they intend as far as 
 in them lies to organize men of good will into a 
 brotherhood that shall get control of law and 
 administration and the natural resources of the 
 earth. These persons, and their number is grow- 
 ing, have the radicalism of those who are con- 
 scious of themselves as instruments of the loving 
 will of God. 
 
 Call this fantastic if you will. Say that men 
 cannot love one another to any such extent. Say 
 that men have individual rights or vested Interests 
 that they will never surrender. Nevertheless the 
 fact remains that, with fresh and enlarged appli- 
 cation, multitudes of men believe with Intensity 
 that "God is love," and that the law for our life, 
 a law that must be put Into all laws and institu- 
 tions, is, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
 self." 
 
 Do any of our religious Ideals contain healing 
 for the terrible fever through which the world 
 has been passing? Religion that had sup- 
 posed Itself to be a monotheism of universal 
 human significance turned out, when the tide of 
 war swept over the world, to be a collection of 
 national religions, each with Its own god of war. 
 The subservience of religion to nationalism that 
 we have witnessed has brought to light the social 
 limitations of the ante helium faith. With their 
 
258 Ideals of America 
 
 lips men had spoken of divine love and of human 
 brotherhood; but men had not counted the cost 
 of brotherhood, nor made their industrial institu- 
 tions into instruments of brotherhood, nor trained 
 their own spirits steadily to think of national 
 boundaries or of diplomacy as so many opportu- 
 nities for brotherly love. Brotherhood was a 
 sentiment, a hope, an ethical fragrance; but the 
 hand upon the throttle of the social engine of 
 steel was not the right hand of fellowship. 
 
 Has American religion anything better to 
 offer? We have pious desires for world peace, 
 and for the permanent cessation of war. But 
 how do our prayers differ from those of the other 
 belligerents, all of whom desire peace? Wherein 
 is our religion any more of a guarantee of world 
 brotherhood than theirs? Who are our brothers? 
 Religiously considered, what are national boun- 
 daries? What constitutes national honor or vital 
 interest, religiously considered? 
 
 As one listens to those who stand forth as 
 spokesmen for God, one discerns that there is 
 unanimous approval of the ideal of universal 
 peace. " Surely," they all say, " the land of world 
 peace floweth with milk and honey." But here 
 the voices become confused. Most of them ap- 
 pear to be saying, "We are not able to go up 
 against national selfishness and national self-will, 
 those great giants, the sons of Anak. The land 
 
Ideals in Religion 259 
 
 which we have been spying out is a land that 
 eateth up the inhabitants thereof, and all the 
 people that we saw in it are men of great stature; 
 we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so 
 we were in their sight." And one saith to an- 
 other, " Let us make a captain, and let us return 
 into Egypt." But a few of the forth-speakers for 
 God use a different tone. " Let us go up at once," 
 they say, '' for we are well able to overcome. 
 Fear not the people of the land. If only God 
 delight In us, the God of the world brotherhood, 
 he will bring us Into the land of world peace, and 
 give It unto us." Thus speak the few. But the 
 congregation bids stone them with stones. 
 
XI 
 Ideals in Philosophy 
 
XI 
 
 IDEALS IN PHILOSOPHY 
 
 By Harry Allen Overstrect, Professor of Philosophy 
 College of the City of New York 
 
 AS a graduate student, I remember that 
 whenever I chanced to ask a question in 
 metaphysics of my great teacher, the Master of 
 Balliol, the answer came always prompt and de- 
 cisive. If I chanced to ask that same question two 
 months later, the answer again came prompt and 
 decisive, and in practically identical terms. I 
 came, after a time, to feel that there were no 
 doubtful places in the Master's philosophy. Al- 
 though it was a philosophy cosmic in its outreach, 
 the Master was equally at home in every part of 
 its vast domain. It gave me, as a student, a 
 peculiarly dizzy sense of the power to which a 
 human mind could attain. To hobnob thus with 
 the Cosmic Absolute and pass on authentic news 
 about him to college boys — it was achievement 
 rare and wonderful ! 
 
 I question whether any American students of 
 the present generation have the same experience 
 with their teachers of philosophy. If they ask 
 
 263 
 
264 Ideals of America 
 
 of them a question In metaphysics, the answer is 
 most likely to come with hems and haws; and if 
 they ask the same question two months later, the 
 answer. In all probability, comes with quite differ- 
 ent hems and haws. American philosophers of 
 today, apparently, are altogether in doubt. And 
 as for being at home In their philosophic empire, 
 they act far more like uncomfortable beings who 
 are trying, with some desperate embarrassment, 
 to discover just where in the whole blessed world 
 they really are. 
 
 Has philosophy lost its way in the world? Is 
 the day of Its calm lordship of life gone by? Or 
 Is philosophy finding for Itself a new way? Is it 
 on the road to a still more splendid lordship? 
 
 To the philosopher of the closet, who looks at 
 philosophy simply in terms of philosophy Itself, 
 there are Indeed many things that bring concern 
 in the present state of philosophic thought — Its 
 unfinallty. Its limited outreach, its unwillingness to 
 take the old confident flights. Its shyness of the 
 Cosmos and the Absolute, its humble self-dis- 
 paragement. To the philosopher of the out-of- 
 doors, on the other hand, who measures his phi- 
 losophy In terms of his experiential world, these 
 characteristics of present-day philosophy bring 
 not concern but rejoicing. To him they are the 
 sign that philosophy Is still vital ; that It still draws 
 Its sustenance from the common life; that it lives 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 265 
 
 and moves with the life and movement of that 
 common existence. For to the philosopher of the 
 out-of-doors these characteristics of the philo- 
 sophic thought of today — its tentativeness, its 
 experimentalism, its suspicion of absolute truth 
 — are characteristics of the life of today and 
 show philosophy to be very near indeed to the 
 spirit of its time. 
 
 It may seem to some, however, that this is in- 
 deed a queer kind of compliment to pay to philo- 
 sophic thought — that it has changed with the 
 times. What is philosophy if not the contempla- 
 tion of the eternal verities? And what are the 
 eternal verities if not eternal? A philosophy 
 that changes its substance with the times must 
 indeed be a queer sort of philosophy, a sort 
 of presto-change philosophy, not a rock-bottom 
 philosophy worth planting one's feet upon with 
 firm assurance that it will not give way. 
 
 But here is precisely the significant thing about 
 typical present-day philosophy. It actually prides 
 itself upon the fact that it is not any longer a 
 rock-bottom structure of truth. It doesn't believe 
 in rock-bottom structures of truth. It rather pre- 
 fers to picture itself as out on vast and precarious 
 adventure — on rolling billows, amid veering 
 winds, adventuring for some far-distant, unknown 
 America. 
 
 What shall we make of all this? What Is 
 
266 Ideals of America 
 
 philosophy of today driving at anyway? What is 
 its job? What is its intent? And what are that 
 job and that intent worth? 
 
 Those of my hearers who studied their philos- 
 ophy in the eighties and nineties will remember 
 that in those years philosophy in America was 
 triumphantly German. No course in philosophy 
 was complete, in the first place, or really amounted 
 to anything without a study of Kant. And as 
 one studied Kant, one was reminded by one's in- 
 structors continually that an even greater was 
 still to come. In most cases one didn't reach the 
 greater one. Kant was a big enough job in him- 
 self, and most of us were piled ignominiously upon 
 the battle field long before we had got anywhere 
 near to grips even with the Transcendental Aes- 
 thetic. But always there were the awed whisper- 
 ings, the hushed allusions to the greater one, the 
 world-compelling Hegel. Hegel was the Master; 
 Hegel — with Fichte and Schelling as initiatory 
 torch-bearers — was the Truth. 
 
 Hegel, as we learned, was himself very scorn- 
 ful of Kant and made unmerciful sport of the 
 little old Koenigsberger's thin company of Dinge- 
 an-Sich, and of his rather naive dialectic. But on 
 the whole, when we came to look clearly into 
 Hegel himself, we found him to be not so very far 
 different from his great forerunner. Both, we 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 267 
 
 found, were philosophical optimists. Both be- 
 lieved that the problem of human existence could 
 be made a relatively simple one, If the human 
 mind would but submit itself to a true methodol- 
 ogy. For Kant, that true methodology consisted, 
 on the one hand, in a humble recognition of the 
 limited, tentative character of scientific reason, 
 and on the other, In a triumphant and soul-satis- 
 fying recognition of the unlimited, final character 
 of moral reason. Through that moral reason, 
 Kant got, or believed he got, his grip on the three 
 great realities, God, Freedom, and Immortality. 
 
 So the world for Kant was a good world. God 
 was in his heaven, looking after the Dinge-an- 
 Sick; and all was very right with the world. The 
 human soul was free, and its destiny was to be 
 dutifully happy in perpetuiim. 
 
 Hegel, to be sure, had no use for Kant's meth- 
 odology, for his division of the reason into scien- 
 tific and moral, pure and practical. But Hegel 
 believed with Kant that reason, If It were but the 
 right kind of reason, could reach the truth of 
 things. Reason could think itself through to the 
 heart of reality. The reality that Hegel reached 
 by his mind-shattering dialectic, or believed him- 
 self to have reached, was a world absolute in 
 spirit, a world eternally perfect, and yet a world 
 which, in its time aspect, was realizing itself 
 through progressive stages of evolution. Hegel 
 
268 Ideals of America 
 
 thus was an evolutionary optimist. God, the Ab- 
 solute, was in his heaven; and all was eternally 
 coming to be right with the world! 
 
 These were the philosophies that dominated 
 our lives in the eighties and nineties. They were 
 thoroughly conventional philosophies. They 
 seemed, to be sure, to be something very rare and 
 out of the ordinary. Their jargon was like to 
 nothing that we could remember and their 
 thoughts seemed desperately hard to master. But 
 after all was said and done and the smoke of 
 battle was cleared away, it came to little more 
 than this, that those tough old German philos- 
 ophers approved our long-standing conventional 
 thoughts — our thoughts about religion, about 
 morals, about politics, about sex relations, about 
 business. In short, they approved our long- 
 standing conventional Christian optimism. Above 
 all, they confirmed us in our customary view that 
 if people would only think things through, if they 
 would only seek for the truth and get that truth 
 stated, everything would be fine and noble. 
 
 It is significant now to remember that the 
 eighties and ninties were, in our country, the days 
 of agriculture and small business. Big business 
 was indeed beginning to rear Its head, but we were 
 not yet quite aware of It. We were a nation of 
 farmers and small tradesmen, with the typical out- 
 look of farmers and small tradesmen. 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 269 
 
 Now it is just that outlook which is interesting 
 here. Farmers and small tradesmen lead a re- 
 latively quiet life. There is no great fume and 
 fret about them, no helter-skelter rush, no wild 
 expectancy or thrilling adventure. Among such 
 folk, life goes on from day to day very much as 
 it always has. The season comes round and the 
 plow must be hauled out of its corner. The time 
 comes for marbles and for summer hats; and in 
 the small store, a letter is carefully indited order- 
 ing the new stock. Farmers and small tradesmen 
 make no big demands on life. They have no 
 heaven-scaling ambitions, no fiery discontents. 
 Periodically, a faithful and uncomplaining wife 
 presents a new offspring to an equally faithful but 
 not always uncomplaining husband, who forth- 
 with mends the baby buggy for another season's 
 run. On Sunday, the family repairs to its par- 
 ticular church and offers up thanksgiving in its 
 particular way to a God that giveth all. And on 
 Monday the farmer swaps horses and the grocer 
 sands the sugar. A quiet, complacent, unadven- 
 turous life, with no great evils to be fought save 
 the two monstrous evils of the flesh, whiskey and 
 sex immorality. 
 
 For such life the great outlines of reality were 
 fixed and secure. Things, in the main, were right. 
 Individuals indeed went wrong sometimes and had 
 to be set in order — the church and the jail were 
 
270 Ideals of America 
 
 there for that purpose. But on the whole, things 
 were as they should be — things political, things 
 economic, things social, and things religious. 
 
 It was somewhere in the nineties that little 
 clouds began to show themselves in the blue of 
 our complacent heavens. One heard of dishonest 
 uses of public moneys — "graft," it came to be 
 called. Some very ugly minded persons began to 
 print ugly tales in ugly magazines. We were told 
 things about aldermen and bosses. And then the 
 stories began to creep in about congressmen, even 
 about those noblest Romans of them all, United 
 States senators. And then the stories dared even 
 to besmirch our judges, the most sacredly inviolate 
 of all beings in our commonwealth. 
 
 We refused to listen, and yet the stories some- 
 how got beneath the skin of us. At the same 
 time, another annoyance was coming into our quiet 
 life. As we plowed our fields, as we sold our 
 calicos, there sounded in our ears a low growl 
 from over the country. " Unions," we muttered, 
 " the unions are making trouble." Then, In a 
 big city, someone threw a bomb and killed some 
 policemen, and we swore that the blackguard and 
 all his crew should be hanged. We hanged them 
 and returned to our plowing and our selling of 
 calicos. But the growl grew louder. Then there 
 were shots and cries of the wounded; windows 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 271 
 
 smashed, factories burned. And we sent the 
 militia to shoot down the dogs. And when the 
 militia couldn't do it, we sent federal troops. 
 
 It was all very annoying. When we came to 
 church on Sunday, a dodger would be thrust into 
 our hands, bidding us to stand by the strikers, 
 to stand for decent living wages, and decent con- 
 ditions of work. We got very angry and tore the 
 dodger to bits. And then we composed ourselves 
 and went In and told God how we hadn't been 
 drunk or done that other unmentionable thing, 
 and that we hoped he'd let us go to heaven when 
 our time came. 
 
 I need not pursue the matter In detail. I want 
 simply to emphasize how radically our life has 
 changed from the life of those complacent eighties 
 and early nineties. Today we cry for peace and 
 there Is no peace — no peace In business, no peace 
 in politics, no peace In religion, no peace between 
 the nations. We are torn and shattered. Great 
 doubts assail us. Great perplexities stagger and 
 dumfound us. While we w^ere living our quiet 
 lives, great forces, forces of good and forces of 
 evil, were growing up among us — big business, 
 big cities, big politics, big science, big adventures. 
 We suddenly found ourselves In a new world, a 
 world for which we hadn't prepared ourselves 
 and which we didn't know quite how to handle. 
 
 We stopped reading our Kant and our Hegel. 
 
272 Ideals of America 
 
 Somehow they didn't seem to apply. We began 
 to tackle things right and left. We got inter- 
 ested in political reform, in trade unionism, in 
 socialism, in sweatshop work and child labor, in 
 criminality and prostitution, in bad housing and 
 parkless streets, in imbecile children and un- 
 healthy parents. We got interested in Rocke- 
 feller and Harriman and Gould and Morgan. 
 We got interested in Wall Street. We got inter- 
 ested In the Supreme Court. 
 
 And when we stopped to take breath, lo, the 
 old philosophy was gone and a new one — new 
 ones — had grown up in its stead. 
 
 As we look now at the new philosophies born in 
 America since the nineties, we discover that the 
 spirit of them was the spirit of the new America, 
 the America that was outgrowing her youth of 
 complacent self-conceit, the America that was 
 learning sad and ofttimes tragic truths about her- 
 self, the America that was slowly finding herself 
 face to face with new and vastly perplexing human 
 problems. It was the spirit, in short, of self- 
 criticism, the spirit impatient of easy optimisms, 
 grim to confront real difficulties, frank to accept 
 the human world not as all planned and perfect, 
 but as one where the tragedy of defeat was real 
 and where there was need for the strong arm and 
 the strong heart of loyal help. The characteristic. 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 273 
 
 you will remember, of pragmatism — the first phi- 
 losophic child of the new American spirit — was 
 its biting scorn of absolutism's "block universe," 
 that finished futiHty of German philosophy; that 
 beatific world beyond good because beyond real 
 evil. Pragmatism threw out the challenge of an 
 awakened America: the world is not all good; 
 the world is hugely bad. God's not in his heaven; 
 the devil disputes his throne. Optimism is pap 
 for babes. The strong man is he who looks his 
 world in the face and sees it as a world of vast 
 and perilous adventure, a world where all man- 
 ner of forces contend, a world that may go to 
 smash for all that we can tell, a world, therefore, 
 that calls for one's help to win against the forces 
 of darkness. Not optimism, but an adventurous 
 meliorism — a world to be made better by fight- 
 ing for it, not a world to be accepted as already 
 the best of all possible worlds. 
 
 With this defiance of the complacent absolut- 
 isms went another defiance. Truth — how was 
 truth to be found? For the absolutist, truth was 
 there. Truth was eternal. Truth was something 
 to be discovered, a content already in place in the 
 high heavens, that somehow was to be appro- 
 priated. If people would but think hard enough 
 they would reach it. Thus the absolutisms laid 
 greatest stress upon thinking, and so upon the 
 purely logical disciplines and activities. 
 
274 Ideals of America 
 
 Pragmatism, disavowing the whole absolutlstic 
 block conception of a universe finished and per- 
 fect, believing instead that the universe is an ad- 
 venturous universe, unfinished, whirling along, 
 muddling along, fighting along, striking out Into 
 this line, now into that, had no use for Truth with 
 a capital T, Truth that is already there, eternally 
 real, all boxed up and ready for delivery. Truth 
 was something In process of creation. Tomor- 
 row there would be more truth than today; and no 
 one could tell what radically different truth there 
 might not be In a thousand aeons. Truth was not 
 a something to discover and appropriate; truth 
 was something to create. The truth-getting 
 process was a trying-it-on process. The act that 
 fitted, the project that succeeded, the line of direc- 
 tion that could carry Itself out — that was truth. 
 Truth In short was a dynamic thing, a thing of 
 action. And so, just as In the absolutisms the 
 stress was laid upon thought, In pragmatism the 
 stress was laid upon action. The one type of 
 philosophy was Intellectualistic; the other volun- 
 tarlstlc. 
 
 There was another outcome still. For the ab- 
 solutisms, reality. In Its proper nature, was not 
 this changing world of appearance. Reality was 
 the changeless, the eternal. Time, therefore, was 
 a category of lower Import. Time, somehow, 
 and all that was In time, were relatively unreal, 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 275 
 
 of lesser Import and value. For pragmatism, on 
 the contrary, with its denial of absolutes, it was 
 precisely the eternal that was the untrue category. 
 Time, and all that was in time — these were the 
 real; these were the only sources of authentic 
 values. While absolutism in short was eter- 
 nalistic, pragmatism, by its very nature and inter- 
 est, was aggressively temporalistic. 
 
 It will be interesting at this point to note the 
 parallel between this pragmatic way of thinking 
 in philosophy and a way of thinking that was al- 
 ready manifesting itself with increasing vigor in 
 the social and political world. The Fathers of 
 the Nation had written out for themselves in 
 their national constitution what to them was prac- 
 tically an absolute formulation of Political Truth. 
 For decades Americans had regarded that formu- 
 lation with supreme reverence, reciting its doctrine 
 of rights and its theory of the functions of gov- 
 ernment as something beyond the mutations of 
 time. Indeed so perfect did they conceive this 
 formulation of Political Truth to be that they 
 firmly believed that if other nations would but 
 take their constitution over bodily the social and 
 political millenium would be at hand. But in the 
 late nineties, Americans were beginning to be very 
 doubtful about their revered Constitution. One 
 experience after another led them to see in how 
 great measure the supposedly Absolute Truth em- 
 
276 Ideals of America 
 
 bodied in the Constitution was but the truth of a 
 specific and very much limited period in the na- 
 tion's life. They began to see that one must be 
 very suspicious of any fixed and final setting forth 
 of political truth, that political truth in short is 
 created in the very process of a nation's growth. 
 Moreover they began to see that political truth 
 is not to be discovered by thinking it out a priori, 
 deducing it from some high and holy principles of 
 human " rights," but that it is to be found by con- 
 stant, patient experimentation, experimentation in 
 which the institution or the law which " succeeds," 
 which " fits " the specific situation, is the institu- 
 tion or the law which is, for that situation, true. 
 Americans, in short, under stress of their national 
 difficulties, were quite unconsciously and yet with 
 growing conviction, changing from the political 
 absolutism of the first century of their national 
 life to political pragmatism. And I think it will 
 not be denied, when I say that such pragmatism 
 in political thinking is the characteristic note of 
 present-day American life. 
 
 I pass now to another equally significant though 
 somewhat more difficult aspect of philosophic 
 pragmatism. William James startled American 
 philosophers some years ago by asking the 
 apparently silly question, " Does consciousness 
 exist?" I remember that, at the time, I was still 
 in the growing-up stage in philosophy; and that 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 277 
 
 when I saw the question, I snorted and cast the 
 article which made pretense to answer the ques- 
 tion aside. But, curiously enough, despite my ex- 
 ceedingly disapproving snort, the question stayed. 
 And indeed, not only has American philosophy 
 not been able to cast the question aside, but I 
 think I am correct in saying that In the most 
 trusted quarters of American philosophy, the an- 
 swer Is now given as James gave It: " Conscious- 
 ness does not exist." 
 
 I am well aware that such a statement will 
 make the layman gasp; or perhaps better. It will 
 cause him to renew his conviction that, as all 
 philosophers are fools anyhow. It doesn't much 
 matter what they say. But this time let the lay- 
 man not be so sure. James was asking a big ques- 
 tion and was answering It In a big way. His 
 answer. In all Its deeper significance, marked prac- 
 tically a revolution, not only in our philosophical, 
 but In our social, our economic, our moral, and 
 our religious thinking. Simply to illustrate, let 
 me take the last. Religion, for most of the past 
 centuries, had been a thing von ohen herah. There 
 was supposed to be a higher order of being — the 
 spiritual — which somehow ruled over our lowly 
 bodily life, gave It Its purport and direction, 
 handed down Its laws and their penalties. Re- 
 ligion was reverence for this higher, non-bodily 
 order of being. Not only, however, was there 
 
278 Ideals of America 
 
 above human life such a non-bodily order of being, 
 but human life was itself in part non-bodily. 
 Human life was split in two; it was body and it 
 was soul. And at death, the thinking part would 
 bid a fond but grateful farewell to the bodily 
 part and fly away to its heaven of disembodied 
 bliss. 
 
 James's answer, in its full implications, swept 
 the slate clear of all such dualistic doctrine. By 
 brilliant analysis — an analysis pursued with con- 
 vincing power by such men as Dewey, Wood- 
 bridge, Holt, Thorndike, Watson, Singer and 
 others — James showed how impossible it was to 
 believe in a non-bodily substance, a " conscious- 
 ness " that somehow " ran " the body. Conscious- 
 ness, he showed, is not a substance, a peculiar kind 
 of being; consciousness is a relation, a way of 
 acting, the relation, in short, between a living 
 organism and the environment to which it speci- 
 fically responds. Consciousness, he showed, is a 
 type, a very complicated type, of organic (bodily) 
 behavior, and as such can no more be separated 
 from the body than the surface of a sphere can 
 be separated from the sphere itself. 
 
 All this is increasingly of the spirit of our day. 
 Some people decry the materialism of our day, 
 meaning by materialism the fact that people arc 
 interested in things — in finding them, in making 
 them, in making them over again into still more 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 279 
 
 satisfactory things. They who decry this are in 
 the main still at the older dualistic point of view, 
 at the point of view namely that it is man's busi- 
 ness to have as little commerce as possible with 
 the bodily world, that it is his business rather to 
 spend his energies in cultivating his "inner" life. 
 But the attitude of social and economic America, 
 like the attitude of the regnant American philos- 
 ophy is increasingly against such ancient dualistic 
 thinking. The spirit of America calls for the 
 valiant conquest of the bodily w^orld, which to 
 America means likewise the valiant conquest of 
 our own wider and more fruitful life. 
 
 I cannot here enter into the profound changes 
 which this anti-dualistic attitude of James and his 
 followers must bring to pass. Let me simply 
 say, as I leave the matter and pass on, that such 
 an attitude, as it grows among us, will sanctify 
 the world of common things; it will give us a 
 religion and a morals not, as in the past, von ohen 
 herab, but von iinten hinauf, a religion and a 
 morals that will root In the everyday adjustment 
 of everyday matters, a religion and a morals, in 
 short, whose heroisms will be not the heroisms of 
 the world-reviling ascetic or the heaven-aspiring 
 saint, but the heroisms of the engineer and the 
 business man, the producer and the manufacturer, 
 the artist and the scientist, the heroisms of those 
 who love this world of organic life and who work 
 
28o Ideals of America 
 
 courageously to bring such life more abundantly. 
 And that, I think, will be no small gain. 
 
 I have indicated above that the absolutists 
 were interested in thought. Truth, for the abso- 
 lutists, was there, eternally waiting to be discov- 
 ered, and it behooved man therefore to think and 
 keep on thinking. By thinking hard enough it was 
 believed, he might some day reach the very arca- 
 num itself. Pragmatism, on the contrary, had no 
 great confidence in thought. And it lacked con- 
 fidence, not because it had any particular distrust 
 of thought, but because it visualized the world 
 differently from the absolutists. It saw the world 
 as a world In the making, a world In which fact- 
 truths and value-truths were actually in process 
 of being created. Hence it distrusted thought, 
 not because thought was Intrinsically a poor sort 
 of thing but because no thought, however com- 
 petent, could find The Truth, for the simple rea- 
 son that In a world-in-the-making The Truth was 
 not there to be found. Truth was a daily, hourly 
 outcome of action. 
 
 Hence for pragmatism, thought took a second- 
 ary place in the scheme of life. In the classical 
 philosophical tradition, rooting in Aristotle, 
 thought was something good-in-itself. The high- 
 est life Indeed was the life of pure contemplation. 
 Pragmatism reversed this tradition, joining with 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 281 
 
 the voluntarlstlc Duns Scotus In the conviction that 
 the highest In hfe Is action. Thought Is simply 
 contributory to action, a pathbreaker, a problem 
 solver, a smoother out of difficulties. Thought 
 In short is never In any sense an end In Itself, but 
 always purely an Instrument of action. 
 
 It was at the University of Chicago, among a 
 group of vigorous thinkers, working together 
 under the leadership of John Dewey, that "in- 
 strumentalism " — the underlying logic of prag- 
 matic thinking — was brought to Its most elabo- 
 rate and penetrating formulation. We all still 
 remember the electric shock of William James's 
 announcement of the discovery of the " Chicago 
 school " of philosophy. We are far enough away 
 now from that announced discovery to evaluate 
 it; and I think that most philosophers would today 
 agree that what James so delightedly announced 
 as a new and vital development In philosophy was 
 Indeed precisely as he characterized It. 
 
 The Interesting thing about this Chicago move- 
 ment Is that It has already had most far-reaching 
 effects in one region at least of our practical life, 
 in education. The new theory of education that 
 is sweeping over the country today, carrying the 
 name of John Dewey from end to end of the 
 land, is nothing more nor less than the philosophy 
 of instrumentalism applied in the schoolroom. 
 Take for example, the slogan of the new theory, 
 
282 Ideals of America 
 
 "Learn by doing." Doing^s the thing. One may 
 think and think till one bursts one's skull, but 
 never by thinking shall one really arrive. Life 
 is a process to be lived, not simply to be thought 
 about. The schoolroom, therefore, must be a 
 place where students actually live through their 
 problems. Hence the quiet scorn of these idol- 
 breaking philosophers of the futile intellectualism 
 of the schools, the wearisome efforts to discipline 
 the child's mind, to develop his "thinking" power 
 by heaps of meaningless mathematics or parsing 
 of the classics or memorizing of kings and queens. 
 One need not be a bold prophet to declare that 
 here, in this new action-philosophy of education, 
 something deeply authentic has been brought into 
 our life, something through which life will be 
 more vigorously and intelligently effective. 
 
 I pass now to a very different development of 
 American philosophy, a development which holds 
 itself to be in some respects opposed to the one 
 just considered, but which in reality is in largest 
 degree supplemental. I shall not be concerned to 
 trace out the subtle disagreements of this move- 
 ment with the one preceding, but rather to indi- 
 cate just what the movement is and how it finds 
 a place in our present-day American thought. 
 
 Neo-realism, the movement referred to, is a 
 protest against the unrealness of past philosophy. 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 283 
 
 Philosophy had, by a curiously involuted logic,; 
 got itself so tangled up in its subjectivisms that 
 it had come actually to declare that thought was 
 more real than the physical things about us. Al- 
 though the real world was really most obviously 
 real, philosophy had so twisted and turned itself 
 that it had become timid about everything that 
 wasn't born within its own skull. Neo-realism, 
 through Woodbridge, Montague, Perry, Holt, 
 Spaulding, and others, restored philosophy to the 
 courage of the unsophisticated man. It restored 
 philosophy to a commerce with things, good, 
 hard, physical things. And it set for philosophy 
 the task of coming out of its subjectivistic haze 
 and tackling the problems of the world about us. 
 Such is the healthy spirit of neo-realism, a 
 spirit, be it noted, wholly in keeping with the 
 realism of our modern American life. For 
 American life demands today that the realities 
 be frankly and fearlessly faced — the crude, hard, 
 work-a-day realities. It has no patience with the 
 old timidities, the old sentimentalities, the old 
 romantic self-deceptions. In every region of life 
 it demands that we know the truth and that we 
 let the truth set us free. And it believes above all 
 that truth is to be discovered, not by some revela- 
 tion out of a philosophic heaven, but by a straight- 
 from-the-shoulder tackling of the commonplace 
 matters of this world. 
 
284 Ideals of America 
 
 And this brings us properly to Santayana, a 
 philosopher without a school, yet a philosopher 
 .whose influence is deep and will be lasting. San- 
 tayana writes with fascinating satire of the " gen- 
 teel " tradition in American philosophy, the Chris- 
 tian, puritanic, supernatural tradition. San- 
 tayana is frankly pagan, frankly naturalistic* 
 Like the pragmatists and the neo-realists, he is 
 at outs with the old romantic subjectivizings of 
 philosophy, the old romantic self-delusions. Like 
 them, he asks for a straight-away taking of the 
 natural world at its word, for an unashamed 
 meeting of its conditions, and an unafraid ap- 
 praisal of its values. 
 
 But now I find myself at the most difficult point 
 In this hasty review of American philosophy. I 
 have spoken of the restless, heaven-defying prag- 
 matists, of the dour, earth-gripping neo-realists 
 and of the pagan Santayana ; and my time is almost 
 exhausted. And yet there is Royce! — Royce, 
 the master of so many of the m.asters of American 
 philosophy. Ought not the major portion of this 
 paper to have been devoted to him? Doubtless. 
 But the curious fact is that, wonderful as Royce's 
 work has been, the major portion of It does not 
 belong to present-day philosophy. For good or 
 for ill — I speak of course subject to correction — 
 the philosophy that made Royce Internationally 
 famous Is a philosophy that today Is no longer 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 285 
 
 in the saddle. I should not venture to say this 
 were I not able to record another fact, namely 
 that a new Roycean philosophy is mounting to the 
 saddle. This is a philosophy that is as yet but 
 In the making; but I verily believe that If the good 
 fortune Is granted our world of having Royce live 
 for a number of years to come, this new Roycean 
 philosophy will shape Itself into a form most fruit- 
 ful for American life.^ 
 
 Those who know Royce know that he Is one of 
 the most remarkable men that has appeared in 
 American philosophy, and nothing more remark- 
 able has occurred In the history of this great 
 mind than his slow but unmistakable growth out 
 of a philosophy pertinent to a past generation Into 
 a philosophy deeply and splendidly In keeping 
 with our more recent democratic life. 
 
 In 1 90 1 Royce published his monumental trea- 
 tise, The World and the Individual. In that 
 volume of profound metaphysical analysis, the 
 Absolute was so commandingly In evidence that 
 human personality was all expunged. Universal 
 Thought, Universal Experience, Universal Self- 
 hood, the All-inclusive Self were the concepts that 
 were to the fore In the writer's Interest. Seven 
 years later, Royce published his Philosophy of 
 Loyalty and marked thereby the rise In him of 
 
 iThis was delivered some months before Professor Royce's 
 death. 
 
286 Ideals of America 
 
 new dominating interests, the ethical and social. 
 Three other volumes appeared in rapid succes- 
 sion — JViUiam James and Other Essays in 191 1 ; 
 The Sources of Religious Insight, in 19 12; and 
 The Problem of Christianity, in 19 13. In this 
 succession, the ethical and social interests de- 
 veloped with increasing power, until in the last 
 mentioned, the concept of human personality and 
 of the social community so dominated the whole 
 discussion that the old Cosmic Absolute was all 
 but forgotten. A new type of idealism was there 
 developed — the idealism of social humanity. 
 Life In the Beloved Community, loyalty to the 
 Beloved Community, the striving for the realiza- 
 tion of the Beloved Community, these were the 
 rich and permanent human values; these were art 
 and science and morals and religion; these were 
 the be-all and the end-all. 
 
 It Is unnecessary to dwell at length upon the 
 significance of all this. That one of the three 
 or four master minds in American philosophy 
 definitely turned to the social group and to the 
 principle of cooperative relationships within that 
 group as the expression of the truly indefeasible 
 values Is to say that philosophy at its highest has 
 turned Its face firmly and convincedly away from 
 the atomistic Individualism of the earlier genera- 
 tions and is looking with eager hope to the mu- 
 tualism of an Integrated, cooperative society. 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 287 
 
 Having spoken of Royce, nothing would seem 
 more fitting now than to mention Howison; for 
 the two in their oppositions as well as in their 
 agreements stand nearest together of all Ameri- 
 can philosophers.^ Both are idealists; both are 
 pers.onalists. Both have struck the note of a pro- 
 found reverence for human values. But to Howi- 
 son it was given to strike early and with brilliant 
 power a note which, until recently, was lacking 
 in Royce — the note of pluralism. Howison, like 
 James, had no use for the Absolute. His mind, 
 vigorously alive to the reality of personality, 
 would brook no merging of that individuality in 
 any Universal Self, however exalted the latter 
 might be. The City of God was to Howison 
 Indeed a city, a city with citizens who were just 
 as real, just as indefeasible in their ultimate nature 
 as God himself. To Howison, in short, democ- 
 racy was not simply of this changing order of 
 things; democracy was laid In the changeless 
 foundations of the world. Here again, on its 
 highest plane, American philosophy has voiced the 
 reverence for the unlimited possibilities of human 
 personality. 
 
 The pity of it Is that this gifted mind has left 
 only the meagerest report of himself in his writ- 
 ings. Nevertheless the vigor of his fight for 
 
 ^ Professor Howison has likewise died since this was delivered. 
 
288 Ideals of America 
 
 idealistic pluralism has left its deep impress upon 
 American philosophy. 
 
 Let us pause now for a moment before we 
 make our final summing up of contemporary 
 American philosophy. We have reviewed thus 
 far the points of view and the spirit of five char- 
 acteristic developments of American philosophy 
 — pragmatism, neo-realism, the naturalism of 
 Santayana, the new social idealism of Royce, and 
 the pluralistic Idealism of Howlson. Let me 
 speak briefly of one further characteristic develop- 
 ment. This development belongs to no single 
 school or movement of philosophy but in Increas- 
 ing measure to all of them — I mean the develop- 
 ment of the social point of view. Philosophy has 
 had Its day of epistemological absorption, when 
 it laid out Its universe of logical and methodologi- 
 cal concepts with a devotion as untiring as, to 
 the ordinary man. It seemed utterly useless. 
 Philosophy, however, has never been frightened 
 from great pursuits by the cry that the results 
 were "useless." It has sought truth in the high 
 places, ofttlmes beyond the vulgar ken. Today 
 a subtle but very real change is coming over 
 philosophy. Philosophers everywhere are turn- 
 ing with increasing Interest to the problems that 
 root In social life. In the philosophy of conduct, 
 the change from the old introspective, individual- 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 289 
 
 istlc point of view was marked decisively by the 
 publication, in 1908, of Dewey and Tufts' Ethics. 
 From that time on, the study of the moral life 
 has been, with growing depth and comprehensive- 
 ness, a study of the social order In which the 
 moral life operates. The philosopher has thereby 
 become interested on the one hand in a new type 
 of psychology, social psychology, and on the other, 
 In a new type of metaphysics, the metaphysics of 
 social values. And this double Interest has led 
 him to reenter, from a new and freshened point of 
 view, his old domains of politics and law. The 
 movement Is too recent to report large results — 
 a book like Dewey's German Philosophy and 
 Politics (1915) or Royce's The Problem of 
 Christianity being but forerunners of great things 
 to be accomplished. 
 
 But two cooperative enterprises among philos- 
 ophers will show the direction In w^hich much 
 philosophic thought Is being turned. The first 
 of these enterprises Is the International Journal 
 of Ethics, which, although retaining the same 
 name, has under the editorship of Tufts, with the 
 cooperation of such men as Roscoe Pound and 
 Bertrand Russell and John Dewey been trans- 
 formed, from an organ of the old Introspective, 
 individual ethics, to a vigorous organ of social, 
 political, and legal philosophy. This movement Is 
 of profound importance, for up to the present 
 
290 Ideals of America 
 
 there has actually been In America no organ set 
 apart for the discussion of the living problems of 
 social, political, and legal philosophy — a discus- 
 sion which the restless, searching life of social 
 and political America would seem to make wholly 
 necessary. The second cooperative enterprise Is 
 the increasingly successful endeavor to unite the 
 deeper ranging minds In the legal and the philo- 
 sophical professions in the penetrating effort to 
 work out for American law, what now It so 
 lacks, a consistent and unifying philosophy. 
 
 I hesitate to speak of another Influence that Is 
 turning philosophy from her ancient paths of 
 quietude. We philosophers have been apprised 
 lately, with humiliating force, that one touch of 
 war makes fools of all philosophers. Neverthe- 
 less, I believe that the war has turned the philo- 
 sophic mind of America to a far deeper searching 
 out of the fundamental grounds of human rela- 
 tionships and of the principles of organized 
 human activity. Plato, you will remember, wrote 
 his Republic after the heartbreaking tragedies of 
 the Peloponneslan War. Is It too much to expect 
 that out of the horrors of this world conflict an- 
 other and a greater Republic will shape Itself for 
 the finer, more enduring guidance of men? 
 
 And so to sum It all up. American philosophy 
 Is far different from what It used to be. To my 
 
Ideals in Philosophy 291 
 
 own mind it is far greater. Chary of absolutes, 
 suspicious of transcendental flights, tentative, ex- 
 perimental, it has set itself, with a kind of grim, 
 rebellious determination, to coming to better 
 grips with reality. It holds off old categories; 
 it refuses old consolations. It takes its problem 
 as immensely bigger, more complicated. It has 
 no longer the old ready "yea" and "nay." It 
 stumbles and falters with "perchance" and "if" 
 and "it may be so." All of which means that 
 philosophy no longer stalks proudly on the 
 heights. It takes its way in low places; it goes 
 stumbling through ditches; it gets down on its 
 hands and knees through bramble and brush. It 
 is a very sorry sight, is philosophy today! It 
 is much more like a ragged, earth-wandering 
 tramp than, as of old, a king in royal purple. 
 And yet somehow, on the whole — well some of 
 us who are philosophers like it m.uch more in 
 these days when it is stained with the mudstains 
 of the common road. 
 
 And perhaps, after all, in its mudstained days, 
 it may be worth far more to America. Fellow, 
 again, with the common man, it faces his imme- 
 diate problems; it wrestles with his perplexities; 
 with him, it fashions its world out of the stuff of 
 the everyday things. And this is to say that 
 today it is far more deeply and vitally democratic 
 than it ever has been before. 
 
292 Ideals of America 
 
 What the American philosophy of the future Is 
 to be Is still In the lap of the gods. I believe 
 that we shall witness the growth of a new type of 
 philosophic Idealism, a type of idealism that, 
 sloughing off both the absoluteness and the sub- 
 jectivity of the older theories, will nevertheless 
 attempt what they attempted, namely, to base life 
 broadly and fundamentally upon the splendid 
 human values. To that great work of the future, 
 to that great task for our American Common- 
 wealth, the philosophy of today is called. 
 
XII 
 Ideals in Literature 
 
XII 
 
 IDEALS IN LITERATURE 
 
 By Robert Morss Lovett, Professor of English, University 
 of Chicago; Editor of The Dial 
 
 THE subject stated, the ideals of literature in 
 the present day, may seem to some a con- 
 tradiction in terms, for at the outset of the con- 
 sideration we are confronted by the fact that 
 literature as an art of expression has, in large 
 measure, lost its ideals. No longer do writers 
 form a caste apart, an institution devoted to com- 
 petition in the production of masterpieces, seeking 
 like Milton " to leave something so written to 
 aftertimes as they should not willingly let it die.'* 
 On the contrary, in these days of popular educa- 
 tion, everyone writes, or threatens to do so, and 
 measures his success not in length of time, but in 
 width of space, not by a fit audience though few, 
 extending in a thin line down the centuries, but by 
 the unfit and vast assembly of readers scattered 
 over the whole world who for a week or a year 
 may be held by the potent charm of a ''best 
 seller." No longer does the literary audience con- 
 sist of a group of connoisseurs like the apprecia- 
 
 29s 
 
296 Ideals of America 
 
 tors of music or painting, instructed by criticism to 
 make formal comparisons and praise the best. On 
 the contrary, everybody reads, and supplying 
 reading matter to an immense and voracious 
 public has become a business like supplying it 
 with clothes and food. And finally, since the pub- 
 lic has become the dominant force in literary pro- 
 duction, literature itself has changed in defer- 
 ence to its tastes and interests. This public is un- 
 educated in appreciation of the art of expression; 
 it is primarily interested in the thought expressed. 
 Thus no longer do we find writers devoted pri- 
 marily to form, seeking subject matter that will 
 serve as material for epic, tragedy, or sonnet 
 sequence. On the contrary, the writer expends his 
 ingenuity and Imagination in finding what material 
 will take the public by its novelty or significance, 
 and adopting a form which will serve most di- 
 rectly and powerfully to convey this material to 
 its destination. 
 
 These differences between its position in the 
 past and In the present are not peculiar to litera- 
 ture. The same phenomena are to be observed 
 in the history of painting and music, but un- 
 doubtedly In the case of literature they are more 
 striking and fundamental. They are the result of 
 democracy, felt more strongly In literature be- 
 cause literature is the most democratic of all the 
 fine arts. Unlike music, painting, and sculpture, 
 
Ideals in Literature 297 
 
 It is not defended from popular practise by a 
 complicated special technique or the necessity of 
 expensive materials and tools. It is therefore not 
 necessarily a profession but may be a matter of 
 casual pursuit. That stanch social democrat, Wil- 
 liam Morris, upheld this view of literature as an 
 occasional or by-product: '* Unless a man can 
 write an epic while he is weaving a tapestry he Is 
 no good at all." And not only does this absence 
 of exacting technique render literature the most 
 easily practised of the fine arts; It gives it also the 
 most Immediate and general appeal to the world 
 of mankind. 
 
 Thus literature is exposed to two dangers, the 
 practise of Its art by the unlearned and the de- 
 termination of Its quality by the masses. These 
 dangers are not, It Is true, entirely modern. In 
 the past there were those who made writing a 
 means of direct popular appeal; but they were In 
 a measure held In check by criticism, whose func- 
 tion It was to defend literature, especially poetry, 
 from practise by the unfit and subjection to pop- 
 ular taste. But at the present time the aristo- 
 cratic standards of criticism are of little avail. 
 Whatever our differences as to what literature 
 Is, we are agreed that books that are not pub- 
 lished and read are not literature. Those who 
 believe that the only standards of literature are 
 aristocratic, in the old sense of dependence on 
 
298 Ideals of America 
 
 the past for sanction, will declare therefore that 
 our title is a contradiction in terms, and the ideals 
 of literature, along with literature itself, have 
 ceased to exist. But even if the pretentious terms 
 "ideals" and "literature" must be renounced in 
 the face of such challenge, it may still be worth 
 while to inquire into the tendencies and value of 
 public writing in a democracy. 
 
 As I have said, the so-called degradation of 
 literature, and the loss of its ideals, are due to the 
 democratic demand that it shall serve the uses, 
 not of the few, but of the many. Now the chief 
 uses which the many have found for literature 
 are two, corresponding to the two passions of de- 
 mocracy, education and entertainment. And in 
 both departments it must be admitted that the 
 demands of democracy are still In the elementary 
 stage. What Is wanted In education Is a rough 
 general knowledge of the world in which we live, 
 with answers to questions in the field In which, for 
 the moment or century, we are particularly In- 
 terested, and some data by which to direct our 
 own course toward what we euphemistically call 
 success In life. That field of Interest at present 
 is represented by science, including sociology; and 
 our principle of success is, as It has been since the 
 Renaissance, efficiency. Accordingly we find 
 literature both In subject matter and form, re- 
 flecting these influences. For entertainment, the 
 
Ideals in Literature 299 
 
 mass of men are dependent on appeal to the senses 
 and the emotions, but there Is one form of in- 
 tellectual enjoyment which is widespread — the 
 satisfaction of curiosity, that emotion of the mind 
 which is stirred by novelty. We find therefore 
 that the questions which the multitude of readers 
 ask in regard to the subject matter of any writing 
 are. Is it true? Is it important? Is it new? at 
 least In point of view or suggestion. Now our 
 standards of truth, as determined by science, and 
 of importance, as marked by efficiency for the pur- 
 poses of life, find exemplification In the great mass 
 of material drawn from the lives of human beings 
 everywhere, selected and presented with a view to 
 emphasizing reality and Importance, which we call 
 realistic. And the demand of Interest Is best 
 served by that Instinct for the novel, and particu- 
 larly the timely, which Is of the nature of jour- 
 nalism. A term then which covers both the 
 substance and the technique of a large part of 
 present-day writing Is journalistic realism. 
 
 I am aware that the word journalism will seem 
 to many a term of reproach, that In fact It is used 
 freely to designate the very antithesis of litera- 
 ture. It Is clear, however, that the attempt to 
 possess the whole public for the moment, rather 
 than a minute fraction of It for centuries, Is the 
 controlling impulse of the writer of today. It Is 
 so in response to the demand of the public that 
 
300 Ideals of America 
 
 what is produced shall be immediately useful, a 
 demand which it enforces by magnificent rewards. 
 Nor is it certain that such a stimulus is less pro- 
 ductive of vital work than what Mr. Leo Stein has 
 happily called " the obsession of eternity." How 
 much of the art, literary and plastic, which has 
 come down to us from the past was produced in 
 response to the immediate demand of the age 
 which it adorned ! In adoring our classics, we are 
 in large part paying homage to the journalism of 
 the Ages of Pericles, of Augustus, of Elizabeth, 
 or of Louis xiv. It will be said, and truly, that 
 the journalism of these ages was more refined 
 than ours because the reading public was always 
 the select few, not the whole mass; but this is but 
 to bring us back to the cardinal distinction be- 
 tween literature In an aristocracy and that in a 
 democracy. We need not hope that our art will 
 bind future ages In chains of tradition and prece- 
 dent, in order to believe In that art as valid and 
 vital for ourselves. Those ages may be the better 
 for their freedom. " Sufficient for the day Is the 
 evil thereof" may have a wider application than 
 the merely ethical. At all events, journalism, the 
 thing, involving an Immediate appeal to the In- 
 terests and a satisfaction of the needs of the 
 moment. Is the very vital essence of present-day 
 writing. 
 
 The principles of public criticism noted above, 
 
Ideals in Literature 301 
 
 reality, Importance, and Interest, are obviously to 
 be applied primarily to subject matter rather than 
 to form, and Indeed it is to material that the 
 realistic common mind of democracy first ad- 
 dresses itself. "What does it mean?" not, 
 "How is it expressed?" is the question of which 
 the answer decides, in the first Instance, the ac- 
 ceptance or rejection of the work. Indeed, the 
 annals of recent criticism are full of Instances of 
 astounding success won in despite of every canon 
 of form and style. Yet such examples tend to 
 prove, not that form and style are dead, past, and 
 useless, but only that the canons which defined 
 them are so — that in fact the structural forms 
 of literature in the large, and the devices of style 
 in detail, are only infinitely more vital, capable of 
 vastly more adaptation and variation than we 
 thought. To say that modern writing subordi- 
 nates form to subject matter is merely to say that 
 it has restored the original relation between the 
 two. The primitive forms of literature, the 
 ballad, the epic, the lyric, the drama, the sermon, 
 the tale were not there until the need of expressing 
 certain thoughts called them into being. True, 
 during the centuries when the control of litera- 
 ture, as of society, was aristocratic, they achieved 
 an authority comparable to that of the social dis- 
 tinctions of feudalism. Criticism defined them 
 minutely, and fixed the type of material appro- 
 
302 Ideals of America 
 
 priate to each. So late as the middle of the last 
 century we find the youthful Matthew Arnold 
 gravely considering the limitations which the con- 
 cept of great poetry put upon subject matter, de- 
 ciding that such matter could be found only in 
 the past — and, it may be added, turning to jour- 
 nalism as the medium of social criticism of his 
 own world. 
 
 At present, the concepts poetry, drama, novel, 
 exercise no such authority. The sincere writer 
 finds the form which affords the greatest oppor- 
 tunity of expression and reenforcement of his 
 theme and treats it with that end in view. If 
 he chooses the drama, he will care nothing about 
 the unities or the concept of the well-made play. 
 He will, however, be alert to take advantage of 
 the unique opportunities of the stage as a means 
 of giving power and emotional appeal to his 
 theme. As an elementary fact, for example, he 
 will recognize that he Is working In a medium of 
 three dimensions, not, as the narrative writer, In 
 one. It Is true, his public may know nothing of 
 these considerations In the abstract, and further 
 may be accustomed to seeing the stage 
 
 Defamed by every charlatan, 
 And soil'd with all ignoble use. 
 
 Yet if the use of the stage by the author really 
 gives to an important theme an emphasis which 
 
Ideals in Literature Z03, 
 
 it could have in no other form, the public must 
 be conquered. The so-called renaissance of the 
 drama is due to the discovery by Ibsen and his 
 successors that the stage is not limited by its tech- 
 nique to a certain kind of subject matter, but may 
 deal effectively with the important and immediate 
 realities of modern existence. 
 
 What we may almost call the renaissance of 
 poetry is due to the same discovery, not merely 
 through the repudiation of so much of the con- 
 ventional technique of poetry by the professors 
 of " free verse," but also through the amplifica- 
 tion and ease of control of that technique attained 
 by such poets as John Davidson and John Mase- 
 field, and through its enlargement by such as 
 Francis Thompson and William Vaughn Moody. 
 These men are genuinely modern in their recog- 
 nition of the proper relation of substance and 
 form. 
 
 The novel, owing to its hybrid origin and bour- 
 geois history, has never suffered from the obses- 
 sion of sacrosanctity. Fortunately no one has 
 ever known exactly what a novel is. Yet certain 
 technical principles of plot-establishment, back- 
 ground-development and character-drawing have 
 been held to constitute a technique of the novel. 
 Characteristic of the modern attitude is Mr. 
 Wells, in his transition from Ann Veronica 
 to Mr, Britling Sees It Through, proclaiming 
 
304 Ideals of America 
 
 Laurence Sterne the greatest of English novelists 
 because he most insolently flouted the technique 
 of the novel. Mr. BritUng is an example of the 
 prose narrative, which most readers do not dis- 
 tinguish from the novel, but which by its disre- 
 gard of novelistic conventions approaches infi- 
 nitely closer to life, and lays emphasis with 
 infinitely more exactness upon its overwhelming 
 and tragic facts. Naturally the Great War has 
 given birth to many such works, narratives of 
 a reality so stark and terrible that the reenforce- 
 ment of fiction, as in the great war novels of the 
 past — JVar and Peace, and La Debacle — would 
 be an impertinence. Le Feu and The Backwash 
 of War may be taken as examples. But even 
 before the war such books were recognized as 
 among the most powerful examples of modern 
 realism, e. g.. No. 5 John Street, The Ragged- 
 Trousered Philanthropists, Children of the Dead 
 End. It may in general be declared that the 
 vitality of a form of literature in the present day 
 consists in its flexibility and freedom of adaptation 
 to the infinitely various needs and uses of life. 
 
 So far I have spoken of contemporary litera^ 
 ture in two aspects, subject matter and structural 
 form. There is another aspect which will seem to 
 the apologists for what they call in proud humility 
 *'mere literature," of at least equal importance — 
 that is, those devices of expression in detail, pecu- 
 
Ideals in Literature 305 
 
 liar to the individual, which are known as style. 
 Now the same principles which I have mentioned 
 before, reality, importance, and interest, apply to 
 style as to material and form. That style which 
 serves best to reveal the subject as it really is, 
 and with true emphasis upon its value to life, is 
 unquestionably that which is most efficient for 
 modern purposes. But the third principle of in- 
 terest is clearly of great application in this field, 
 as a reenforcement to the other two. By the 
 personal reaction of the writer, which is the es- 
 sence of style, the subject matter, even though 
 remote and difficult, may be made immediate and 
 insistent to others as it is to himself, the old may 
 be freshened and given the appeal of the new. 
 By the arousing and vivifying power of style, 
 literature is enabled to do its work of education. 
 And it is also clear that in imparting interest to a 
 theme, the principle of timeliness in style is of 
 great moment. To speak the language of living 
 men has been the aim of modern writers from the 
 time of Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads — an aim 
 haltingly and confusedly pursued with many dis- 
 gusted reactions, but becoming clearer in the 
 present day, as the true sources and the great need 
 of power through intellectual leadership in democ- 
 racy are more clearly discerned. By this jour- 
 nalism in style, it is needless to say that I do not 
 mean writing like newspaper reporters. I may 
 
3o6 Ideals of America 
 
 point out, however, that the secrets of power of 
 the written word, the power of vivid portrayal 
 through detail, of passionate utterance, of the 
 convincing logic of events, of clarifying explana- 
 tion, and of winning persuasion, are to be learned 
 not in the old schools of pulpit, bar, and assembly, 
 nor in the academic classroom, with its traditions 
 of aristocratic formalism, but in the modern 
 school afforded by the daily newspaper and the 
 weekly and monthly magazine. The public is 
 the best teacher; it is a pity that those who attend 
 its school as pensioners often learn so badly. 
 
 I have hitherto spoken of literature in a democ- 
 racy as one of the useful arts, with functions 
 primarily of education and entertainment, and it 
 would be useless to deny that such it has, by force 
 of events, become. Our culture is literary. In the 
 attempt to diffuse culture widely among men, 
 literature must inevitably sacrifice its high places 
 to the plain. Suppose our culture were musical 
 instead of literary, would not music suffer the 
 same vulgarization? But there are some who in- 
 sist that true literature is a fine art, that it has 
 nothing to do with useful education and trivial 
 entertainment, that its function is to afford a 
 medium for the creation of true beauty, that so 
 far as it does not this it is not literature at all 
 but what Hamlet was reading — w^ords, words, 
 words. I have made it clear, I think, that I do 
 
Ideals in Literature 307 
 
 not share this view if by it is implied that in 
 literature the artist may profitably put before him- 
 self an ideal of pure beauty, and aspire toward it 
 consciously by the means which it offers. Those 
 means are now too much the common possession 
 of man, too much a social product, to give him 
 that exclusive sense of control which Is necessary 
 to the pure artist who lives In his own dream of 
 the world. But I should be far from denying 
 that literature Is still a fine art, and that in Its 
 production of beautiful things it realizes Its 
 highest function toward men, to train them in 
 appreciation of beauty and to afford them pleasure 
 by Its contemplation. As In all education so in the 
 artistic, as In all entertainment preeminently so In 
 aesthetic, Is literature best fitted to serve modern 
 men. Only I deny that the artist can render this 
 service by devotion to an aristocratic formula of 
 his ancestors, or of his social equals, or of his 
 own. Indeed it may be questioned whether litera- 
 ture as a fine art was not always, except In cases 
 of sheer imitation, the unsought result of an un- 
 fathomable combination of the Maker's soul with 
 that of his fellow-men — only whereas in the 
 past It was only the souls of the few who counted, 
 today It Is the soul of democracy. It may be 
 questioned whether the other so-called fine arts 
 have not had the same history, and will not sub- 
 mit to the same future. But at all events at the 
 
3o8 Ideals of America 
 
 present moment literature Is most like architec- 
 ture, a fine art imposed upon a useful one. The 
 common possessions and the practical needs of 
 men determine the material and the structural 
 plan — to the artist belong the problems of select- 
 ing the material in detail and of working out the 
 structure with a design of beauty, and it may be 
 of giving it fitting decoration. Because he works 
 under the limitations of his human service, is he 
 less an artist? His aesthetic is new and constantly 
 changing, as the life about him changes. 
 
 Naturalism, impressionism, symbolism, imag- 
 ism, mysticism, come and go — "a dust of sys- 
 tems and of creeds." It is hard to predict which de- 
 vices among so many will survive the day which 
 called them forth. Only this is certain, the true 
 aesthetic cannot be imposed from without by indi- 
 vidual caprice or vision, nor can it be recovered 
 from the past by study. The laws of beauty were 
 not given along with the Ten Commandments. 
 The true aesthetic is the result of human need, 
 human aspiration, human agony. It cannot be 
 complete unless it takes account of the human ex- 
 perience of the entire race, in which today for the 
 first time in the world's story the soul of man Is 
 tragically one. 
 
XIII 
 Human Progress 
 
XIII 
 HUMAN PROGRESS 
 
 By Allen B. Pond, President City Club of Chicago, igi4-i6 
 
 DURING the first century of our national life, 
 in spite of sundry political and financial 
 crises and in spite of the severe strain of the Civil 
 War, the predominant mood of the average 
 American was one of unquestioning optimism. 
 Mankind was making progress; civil liberty and 
 political liberty were being established; economic 
 liberty was taken for granted. The direct guid- 
 ance of a divine Providence was writ large on the 
 pages of history; by the grace of this Providence, 
 America was leading the way, and in the fullness 
 of time all nations would follow her example. It 
 was seldom that this American submitted his faith 
 in human progress to the ordeal of a rigorous 
 cross-examination; he seldom attempted to define 
 with exactitude just what he meant by human 
 progress; he contented himself with vague 
 phrases. Of course there would be problems, but 
 they would arise only In connection with matters 
 of detail. Man's capacity for progress and the 
 
 311 
 
312 Ideals of America 
 
 certainty of his progress were not to be ques- 
 tioned. 
 
 The past generation has witnessed a marked 
 change In the American mood; It Is no longer pre- 
 dominantly unquestioning, no longer uncritical, no 
 longer content to lull Itself with vague phrases. 
 America, after the first rapturous ravishment of 
 Its virgin soil, has discovered that the measur- 
 able filling up of Its domain, and the consequent 
 curtailing of unlimited opportunity for the un- 
 trained, have restaged in the New World many 
 of the perplexities and evils that have so bitterly 
 harassed the Old World. We are no longer sure 
 that we are the pets of Providence, destined to 
 travel by a flower-strewn path to the ultima Thiile 
 of human desires. We have begun to admit to 
 ourselves that we are part and parcel of man- 
 kind; that we are not and never can be a nation 
 aloof; that, thanks to the Invention and wide- 
 spread utilization of space-conquering means of 
 Intercommunication, our ultimate fate and our 
 daily life are Inextricably Involved with that of 
 other nations. 
 
 Then, too, we are beginning to realize that the 
 warp and woof of human Institutions and social 
 organization are so Intricate that any considerable 
 change In one phase may Involve quite Incalculable 
 results, and that what bade fair to bring an un- 
 qualified gain may bring in Its wake a loss that Is 
 
Human Progress 313 
 
 fairly staggering In its apparent Implication. To 
 Illustrate by a single example: (Requisite brevity 
 compels me to sweeping generalizations that were 
 otherwise unpardonable.) Let us call the period 
 from the beginning of the eleventh century to the 
 end of the fifteenth century the Gothic period, 
 and let us roughly contrast It in some of Its aspects 
 with the modern period dating from the flowering 
 out of the modern industrial system. The pan- 
 orama of the Gothic period discloses to us a 
 welter of life — brawling princes, warring cities, 
 chronic lawlessness, venturesome commerce, dense 
 popular ignorance, crude superstition, keen though 
 footless scholasticism, a searching though bot- 
 tomless dialectic, tumultuous emotion, ribald 
 coarseness, a vigorous industrial life wherever 
 and whenever lawlessness was but slightly abated; 
 a craftsmanship wherein the workman was him- 
 self a creator and wherein therefore his mind was 
 wedded to his labor and as a result of which 
 living was joy in spite of discomfort and even in 
 the face of disease or violent death; poetry grow- 
 ing out of the popular life and vivid with the 
 vividness of experience that smacked of the 
 market place and not of the study; a worthwhlle- 
 ness in the artizan's life that squarely contradicted 
 the ruling theology which proclaimed life in this 
 world to be despicable and a painful stepping 
 stone to heaven — a period, in short. In which, 
 
314 Ideals of America 
 
 in the teeth of lawlessness and theological pes- 
 simism, the craftsman's work was joy, and life 
 was a dish well seasoned by zest. 
 
 And the modern period! What of it? Com- 
 parative orderliness; lawlessness banished or 
 cloaked under the mask of law; wide ranging com- 
 merce; superstition being gradually replaced by 
 the comforting assurance that, if there be any 
 malign powers, they all live " at the back of the 
 beyond" and that means of intercommunication 
 are lacking; theology relegated to a less dominat- 
 ing position and become optimistic in tone; the 
 emphasis on life and its implicit purpose shifted 
 from a future world to this world; a more in- 
 clusive altruism in constant evidence; the ravages 
 of disease being successfully opposed; steam and 
 electrical energy harnessed and the factory system 
 in full swing; manufacture with its individual 
 creative zest supplanted by mechanlfacture and the 
 individual workman become a cog in the ma- 
 chine; trade, commerce, transportation all being 
 recast in a similar cramping mold; the ratio of 
 employees to employers vastly multiplied; the 
 workman busied with a fraction of a part of a 
 process and largely stripped of initiative and 
 of the zest that inheres in creative work; in spite 
 of the deep spiritual experience that his problems 
 are now bringing to the worker, labor divorced 
 from joy, because humdrum and routine have re- 
 
Human Progress 315 
 
 placed thought and Interest; life no longer finding 
 widespread, spontaneous, and joyous daily self- 
 expression in terms of beauty; poetry largely ban- 
 ished from the market place and from the scenes 
 of men's work and play and become a cult for 
 the cloistered and the erudite; the modern indus- 
 trial system put on its trial on charge of having 
 stripped the workmen's work of its joy and com- 
 pelled him to seek solely in his leisure for the 
 satisfactions and the zest of life. 
 
 Here is a case of a staggering loss springing 
 from a seeming advance. The mechanization of 
 industry Is a magnificent achievement of the 
 human mind; but we are concerned with ultimate 
 consequences, and every passing decade makes 
 more clear the need for devising some counter- 
 balancing adjustment or reorganization to fit this 
 great achievement to social ends. Has man, the 
 inventor, like Frankenstein, created a machine to 
 dominate him? Or will man, the social being, 
 contrive some means of dominating the machine? 
 If he does not, many will argue that human life 
 has sustained a loss so severe that the mechaniza- 
 tion of Industry — brilliant and spectacular though 
 the achievement be — marks a retrogression and 
 not an advance. Until a way out shall have 
 been found, the problem thus roughly stated must 
 be ranked as a vital problem, not one of mere 
 detail. 
 
3i6 Ideals of America 
 
 America also dreamed that, having done away 
 with political Inequality, she had likewise shut the 
 door on class. But the mechanization of Industry, 
 aided, perhaps, by other forces, has created the 
 so-called capitalistic system and has let class an- 
 tagonism In at the back door, while we have been 
 placarding the front door with "No Admission" 
 signs. 
 
 And so America, confronted by these and other 
 social problems that cannot be blinked, has come 
 to look at life and its unfoldlngs with a sober 
 mind. And now comes the debacle of the Euro- 
 pean war. Mexico we had, after a fashion, 
 explained to the satisfaction of our political 
 philosophy, a people sunk in deep Ignorance, auto- 
 cratically misgoverned for years, unaccustomed to 
 the use of liberty, the very word liberty carrying 
 not an appeal to self-control but an exhortation 
 to unbridled license. What more probable than 
 that, the grip of the strong hand once loosened, 
 chaos would reign? 
 
 But Europe! What of Europe? From the 
 outset it was certain that the war would provide 
 a stage, as all wars everywhere have done, for the 
 display of devotion, unto death, to obligations 
 that are the accepted result of status and not 
 conceived In thoughtful self-determination, for 
 the display of consecrated loyalty to ideals 
 whether sound or unsound; that It would provide 
 
Human Progress 317 
 
 a stage, as all wars between civilized peoples have 
 done, for the display of individual heroism and 
 magnanimity, of individual tenderness to the 
 weak.' But the war has thrown up in sharp relief 
 quite other considerations than these. We note 
 the reannunciation of the monstrous doctrine of 
 hegemony, the right of the large state to absorb 
 or to dictate to the small state whose sole offense 
 is its helplessness. We note the affirmation, in 
 America as well as in Europe, that the virility of 
 states and of peoples is dependent on the cultiva- 
 tion of the warlike spirit and that wholesale 
 slaughter of human beings, when practised under 
 the name of war, is a stimulus to the energy and 
 a tonic to the soul essential to the highest human 
 progress. We note the painstaking forethought 
 and the cold calculation with which, in a nation 
 that boasts its superiority to all other nations, 
 deeds of ruthless brutality are planned and exe- 
 cuted. Solemn pledges, not given under duress, 
 have the binding force of vagrant breezes. We 
 stand aghast. The civilization that we have so 
 boastfully acclaimed seems tumbling about our 
 heads like a house of cards. 
 
 Let us turn aside for the moment from the 
 spectacular and the tragic aspects of this absorb- 
 ing drama of human life. Let us in all sober- 
 ness ask ourselves: What, then, underneath and 
 behind it all, are the standards by which we of 
 
Ideals of America 
 
 today are to measure the human achievement? 
 Is the race really advancing? We talk casually 
 of civilization, of culture. Of what do they con- 
 sist? And are they one and the same thing? We 
 talk of human destiny. Have we a part in de- 
 termining that destiny or are we the helpless 
 creatures of a shifting environment over which 
 we have no control? What do we mean by 
 human progress? In these days that so distress 
 and disconcert us, it is preeminently fitting that we 
 pull ourselves together and anew submit to the 
 crucible of thought our estimate of the human 
 achievement, the validity of our ideals for hu- 
 manity and of our notions as to what constitutes 
 human progress. 
 
 The scientists are practically agreed that, in the 
 slow processes of time, organic life has responded 
 to a changing environment, has taken on more 
 and more complex forms, and that in the course 
 of this evolutionary process man has been evolved. 
 Many scientists and not a few social philosophers 
 find in this evolution no evidence whatever of 
 intelligent purpose. Even so, it does not inevit- 
 ably follow that it is impossible for some creature 
 of this evolutionary process to acquire free 
 agency within certain limits and in accordance 
 with the rules of the game. I am not going to 
 undertake to settle here and now the problem of 
 " free will." But I am going to assert that we 
 
Human Progress 319 
 
 all act every day as though we believed ourselves 
 possessed of a degree of free agency. 
 
 Very well then, suppose we grant the claim for 
 human origins in the interplay of blind, unthink- 
 ing forces. The fact remains that, in the stress 
 of social contact, the human race has evolved 
 fairly well-differentiated modes of thought and 
 action which we name "noble," "ethical," "altru- 
 istic," and the like; that it has evolved a sense 
 of social obligation. Is there no way by which, 
 through human forethought and initiative, we can 
 more certainly ensure in the relations of men the 
 supremacy of what we recognize as social obliga- 
 tion, as ethical conduct? If not, our chance of 
 furthering human progress is slight, even though 
 we may think we see the path it ought to follow. 
 
 Students of psychology believe nowadays that 
 the character of a child is markedly influenced by 
 its surroundings and experiences, its contacts and 
 reactions, and that we can, accordingly, bring a 
 modifying influence to bear on a child's character 
 by controlling its environment. We have, in the 
 Liverpool rehousing experiments, indisputable ex- 
 amples of modifying to a remarkable degree the 
 conduct of large groups of people by a sweeping 
 change in environment. What Is to prevent us 
 from materially modifying, on a larger scale, the 
 racial environment by reshaping our human in- 
 stitutions and social organization to ensure move- 
 
320 Ideals of America 
 
 ment toward a definite preconceived result, i. e., 
 human progress in consonance with the highest 
 Ideals the race has yet reached? 
 
 And this line of human progress which is to be 
 to us a sunpath leading to a happier dawn ! Where 
 Is it to be found? 
 
 Is it to be sought In otherworldllness — the an- 
 chorite's despair of conquering this world and his 
 attempt to conquer himself in vacuo? Or Is it to 
 be sought in vivid participation In life? Is it to be 
 sought in a further uncovering of nature's secrets 
 and in a still further bending of natural law to 
 serve the needs of man? And if In a further con- 
 quest of nature, In what way shall we ensure that 
 that conquest shall meet man's highest need? 
 Shall the test be ample creature comfort and ma- 
 terial prosperity for each and all? Or shall the 
 test be opportunity for mental and spiritual attain- 
 ment by each up to the limit of his capacity? Shall 
 the end sought be the state, conceived as an entity, 
 for the sake of which the individual shall exist 
 and in whose greatness he finds his complete satis- 
 faction — no matter how subordinate his lot, how 
 circumscribed his scope of action, or how cramped 
 and limited his field of thought? Or shall It be 
 sought In the upbuilding of a social order which 
 uses its every function and bends its every energy 
 toward giving each citizen a chance to be well- 
 born and then to develop to the highest degree of 
 
Human Progress 321 
 
 which he Is capable? Or is there some more 
 fundamental synthesis which includes more than 
 one of these alternatives? 
 
 The anchorite's solution needs but to be stated 
 to be cast aside. That door at least opens on no 
 pathway to progress, for over it Is written "Aban- 
 don Hope." Whatever disaster may await him 
 who chooses a vivid participation in life, any dis- 
 aster is better than the self-imposed futility of 
 meditation divorced from reality. For the end 
 of life Is not contemplation, but rather an indis- 
 soluble union of thought and act. 
 
 Any solution to be accounted worthy of a race 
 of manly men must involve coming to grips with 
 circumstances and wrestling with environing con- 
 ditions to the end that man may bend environ- 
 ment to his uses and may thereby live more 
 abundantly. This measurable subjection of en- 
 vironment to man Involves an ever-widening com- 
 prehension of the forces of nature and the 
 progressive mastery of those forces for the service 
 of man. To be sure, only the few will " follow 
 knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost 
 bounds of human thought;" but these few will 
 be pioneers not supermen, will blaze a trail for 
 millions and will not rest content In an achieve- 
 ment for themselves — their "care no more to 
 reck of might or right." The world Is having a 
 bitter lesson, which points only too clearly the 
 
322 Ideals of America 
 
 moral that something more Is needed than the con- 
 quest of nature by the few and a consequent 
 utilization of the acquired knowledge and power 
 for the benefit of a caste at the expense of a nation 
 of efficient and subservient workers. Once again, 
 we find that the privileged few cannot, in the long 
 run, be trusted to be regardful of the highest in- 
 terests of the many and that science and its appli- 
 cation to the processes of life of^er no guarantee 
 that, when they become the possession and the 
 instruments of the few, those who possess and 
 employ them, if only they may be allowed to sit 
 " on the hills like gods together," will not be con- 
 tent to 
 
 .... smile m secret, looking over wasted lands, 
 Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps 
 
 and fiery sands. 
 Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and 
 
 praying hands. 
 
 And, per contra, this means that human prog- 
 ress, in any fundamental view, must involve an 
 increasing conquest and utilization of the forces 
 of nature and, at the same time, a continuous re- 
 shaping of the human environment, both material 
 and social, such that there will ensue a nearer and 
 yet nearer approach to reasonable assurance of 
 material well-being, of sanity of body and mind, 
 of opportunity for intellectual and spiritual ex- 
 pansion, to every child born Into the world — bar- 
 
Human Progress 323 
 
 ring accidents against which no human prevision 
 can avail. In this view the state considered as 
 an entity, existing of and for itself and command- 
 ing the strict obedience of the citizen — while the 
 state Itself knows no obligation and owes no al- 
 legiance to Its citizens or to other states or even 
 to Truth itself — becomes an impossible concep- 
 tion, because the very essence of such a conception 
 inevitably carries with it the idea of " privilege " 
 peculiar to those who manipulate the mechanism 
 of the state. And all history shows that the path 
 of "privilege" lies athwart the path of human 
 progress, unless the word "human" be wrested 
 from Its true sense and be made to connote an 
 oligarchy or a caste. Are we not driven then to 
 the conclusion that human progress Is to be sought 
 in the upbuilding of a social order which shall 
 exist, not In and for Itself, but because only 
 through a social order can we hope to secure an 
 opportunity for each individual to be well-born 
 and to develop In body, mind, and spirit to the 
 highest degree of which he Is capable — a social 
 order to which every citizen recognizes his obliga- 
 tion not for the sake of the order as such. In any 
 passing phase of form, but because only through 
 a social order, one which has not finally crystal- 
 lized, can humanity hope to approach Its ideal 
 perfection? In the functioning of men In such 
 a social order, the conquest of knowledge, the 
 
324 Ideals of America 
 
 measurable subjection of natural laws to human 
 will, the molding of environment, the achievement 
 of sound health as something to be taken for 
 granted and of creature comfort and economic 
 independence for every citizen, will be seen to 
 require pari passu an expanding consciousness of 
 social obligation, a deepening, not a relaxing, 
 sense of ethical values, a more and more widely 
 spread ability on the part of individuals to " see 
 life steadily and see it whole," and, so seeing, 
 to hold as a vivid working creed the deep con- 
 viction that 
 
 All are needed by each one; 
 Nothing is fair or good alone. 
 
 I do not minimize the bewildering complex of 
 human life and the puzzling intricacy of its un- 
 foldings in history; I do not shut my eyes to the 
 tragedy of it; but I submit that, In the long, slow, 
 painful years that have witnessed its unfolding, 
 the splendor of the achievement far outweighs 
 the tragedy. And I further submit that a sane, 
 clear, wide-ranging view does indeed show that 
 progress toward the ideal that I have set forth 
 is written on man's history. If we keep this ideal 
 and this faith clearly before our minds, shall we 
 not bear with some measure of equanimity the 
 buffeting of trying times, distant as the goal may 
 be? 
 
 C 310 88 
 

 

 O. * « 
 
 
 HECKMAN 
 BINDERY INC. |§| 
 
 ^^ AUG 88 
 
 N. MANCHESTER,