Page:Education and Life; (IA educationlife00bakerich).pdf/181

 probably the drone in the bee-hive, when he is about to be destroyed, would say, "I would like to live for life's sake, and would like to buzz a while longer for buzz's sake."

I would see young men and women go out into the world with a true democratic spirit, with a ready sympathy for all classes of people, and with a helpful attitude toward all problems of state and society. The work of any public institution of higher learning is a failure in so far as its graduates fail to honor the state's claim on them as citizens. The great principle of evolution is the struggle for life; there is another equally important principle, namely, the struggle for the life of others. Altruism, dimly disclosed away down on the scale of being, finally shines forth in the family and home in all of those social sentiments that make human character beautiful and noble. Society is the mirror in which each one sees himself reflected, by which each attains self-consciousness, and becomes a human being. From coöperation spring industries, commerce, science, literature, art—all that makes life worth living. If the individual owes everything to society, he should be willing in some small ways to repay part of the debt.

The great Bismarck, that man of iron and blood, not given to sentimentality, in fireside conversation repeatedly proclaimed that during his long and arduous struggle for the unification of Germany he was sustained by a sense of duty and faith in God. "If I did not believe in a Divine Providence which has ordained this German nation to something good and great, I would at once give up my trade as a