Part 38 (1/2)

The princely endowments of magnificent universities like the Leland Stanford Junior University, the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins University, Harvard, Yale, and others, have not interfered with the growth and development of state education, for it rests upon the permanent foundation of a popular demand for inst.i.tutions supported by the contributions of the whole people for the benefit of the state at large. State inst.i.tutions based upon permanent foundations have been zealous in obtaining the best quality of instruction, and the result is that a youth in the rural districts may receive as good undergraduate instruction as he can obtain in one of the older and more wealthy private inst.i.tutions, and at very little expense.

_The Printing-Press and Its Products_.--Perhaps of all of the inventions that occurred prior to the eighteenth century, printing has the most power in modern civilization. No other one has so continued to expand its achievements. Becoming a necessary adjunct of modern education, it continually extends its influence in the direct aid of every other art, industry, or other form of human achievement. The dissemination of knowledge through books, periodicals, and the newspaper press has made it possible to keep alive the spirit of learning among the people and to a.s.sure that degree of intelligence necessary for a self-governed people.

The freedom of the press is one of the cardinal principles of progress, for it brings into fulness the fundamental fact of freedom of discussion advocated by the early Greeks, which was the line of demarcation between despotism and dogmatism and the freedom of the mind and will. In common with all human inst.i.tutions, its power has sometimes been abused. But its defect cannot be remedied by repression or by force, but by the elevation of the thought, judgment, intelligence, and good-will of a people by an education which causes them to {485} demand better things. The press in recent years has been too susceptible to commercial dominance--a power, by the way, which has seriously affected all of our inst.i.tutions. Here, as in all other phases of progress, wealth should be a means rather than an end of civilization.

_Public Opinion_.--Universal education in school and out, freedom of discussion, freedom of thought and will to do are necessary to social progress. Public opinion is an expression of the combined judgments of many minds working in conscious or unconscious co-operation. Laws, government, standards of right action, and the type of social order are dependent upon it. The attempt to form a League of Nations or a Court of International Justice depends upon the support of an intelligent public opinion. War cannot be ended by force of arms, for that makes more war, but by the force of mutually acquired opinion of all nations based on good-will. Every year in the United States there are examples of the failure of the attempt to enforce laws which are not well supported by public opinion. Such laws are made effective by a gradual education of those for whom they are made to the standard expressed in the laws, or they become obsolete.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. Show from observations in your own neighborhood the influence of education on social progress.

2. Imperfections of public schools and the difficulties confronting educators.

3. Should all children in the United States be compelled to attend the public schools?

4. What part do newspapers and periodicals play in education?

5. Relation of education to public opinion.

6. Should people who cannot read and write be permitted to vote?

7. Study athletics in your school and town to determine their educational value.

8. Show by investigation the educational value of motion-pictures and their misuse.

9. In what ways may social inequality be diminished?

10. Would a law compelling the reading of the Bible in public schools make people more religious?

[1] Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, I, 220.

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CHAPTER x.x.xI

WORLD ECONOMICS AND POLITICS

_Commerce and Communication_.--The nations of the world have been drawn together in thought and involuntary co-operation by the stimulating power of trade. The exchange of goods always leads to the exchange of ideas. By commerce each nation may profit by the products of all others, and thus all may enjoy the material comforts of the world. At times some countries are deficient in the food-supply, but there has been in recent years a sufficient world supply for all, when properly distributed through commerce. Some countries produce goods that cannot be produced by others, but by exchange all may receive the benefits of everything discovered, produced, or manufactured.

Rapid and complete transportation facilities are necessary to accomplish this. Both trade and transportation are dependent upon rapid communication, hence the telegraph, the cable, and the wireless have become prime necessities. The more voluminous reports of trade relations found in printed doc.u.ments, papers, and books, though they represent a slower method of communication, are essential to world trade, but the results of trade are found in the unity of thought, the development of a world mind, and growing similarity of customs, habits, usages, and ideals. Slowly there is developing a world att.i.tude toward life.

_Exchange of Ideas Modifies Political Organization_.--The desire for liberty of action is universal among all people who have been a.s.sembled in ma.s.s under co-operation. The arbitrary control by the self-const.i.tuted authority of kings and governments without the consent of the governed is opposed by all human a.s.sociations, whether tribal, territorial, or national. Since the world settled down to the idea of monarchy as a necessary form of government, men have been trying to {487} subst.i.tute other forms of government. The spread of democratic ideas has been slowly winning the world to new methods of government.

The American Revolution was the most epoch-making event of modern times. While the French Revolution was about to burst forth, the example of the American colonies was fuel to the flames.

In turn, after the United States had won their freedom and were well on their way in developing a republican government, the influence of the radical democracy was seen in the laws and const.i.tutions of the states, particularly in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Spanish-American War led to the development of democracy, not only in Cuba and Porto Rico but in the Philippine Islands. But the planting of democracy in the Philippines had a world influence, manifested especially in southeastern Asia, China, j.a.pan, and India.

_Spread of Political Ideas_.--The socialism of Karl Marx has been one of the most universal and powerful appeals to humanity for industrial freedom. His economic system is characterized by the enormous emphasis placed upon labor as a factor in production. Starting from the hypothesis that all wealth is created by labor, and limiting all labor to the wage-earner, there is no other conclusion, if the premise be admitted, than that the product of industry belongs to labor exclusively. His theories gained more or less credence in Germany and to a less extent in other countries, but they were never fully tested until the Russian revolution in connection with the Great War. After the downfall of Czarism, leaders of the revolution attacked and overthrew capitalism, and inst.i.tuted the Soviet government. The proletariat came to the top, while the capitalists, n.o.bility, and middle cla.s.ses went to the bottom. This was brought about by sudden revolution through rapid and wild propaganda.

Strenuous efforts to propagate the Soviet doctrine and the war against capitalism in other countries have taken place, without working a revolution similar to that in Russia. But the International is slowly developing a world idea among {488} laborers, with the ultimate end of destroying the capitalistic system and making it possible for organized wage-earners to rule the world. It is not possible here to discuss the Marxian doctrine of socialism nor to recount what its practical application did to Russia. Suffice it to say that the doctrine has a fatal fallacy in supposing that wage-earners are the only cla.s.s of laborers necessary to rational economic production.

_The World War Breaks Down the Barriers of Thought_.--The Great War brought to light many things that had been at least partially hidden to ordinary thinking people. It revealed the national selfishness which was manifested in the struggle for the control of trade, the extension of territory, and the possession of the natural resources of the world.