Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 23.djvu/130

120 of the helpless illiterates who have never crossed the threshold of a schoolhouse. We pick up an admirable pamphlet by an experienced teacher of this city, Mr. John McMullen, on '"The Education of the Rich." Now, the education of the rich is generally fashionable, traditional, and classical, but for the vital purposes of well-being it gives them but little advantage over the wholly untaught. Mr. McMullen pleads that the rich need to study vulgar and common things as well as the industrial classes. His words are well calculated to enforce the view taken in this article. He says:

"Is it not time that some humane person should make a movement in favor of the industrial education of the rich? Since they must live in houses, why should they not be taught something about them? Defective masonry means cracked walls and obstructed doors; defective carpentry means general discomfort and an occasional crash; defective flues mean midnight fires; while defective plumbing and ventilation mean diphtheria and death.

"Let us at least teach them enough to prevent them from being poisoned by the plumber, dying 'as the fool dieth,' like rats in a corner, in the luxurious homes which they themselves, perhaps, have reared. Tims we have read recently in the papers, of one man who built an expensive and luxurious house, and lost four children in one month from diphtheria. Some three years ago, I had in my school two bright boys, the sons of intelligent and educated parents. A little brother at home sickened and died; then a little sister; and then one of my scholars became sick. A thorough examination of the house was made, and a faint, musty smell was traced to the bath-room. The mother found, to her horror, that these deaths were due to defective plumbing, and that they might have been prevented. She fled in terror from the city, and has never since returned."

From the amount of screaming and denunciation in the newspapers, both by editors and by correspondents, regarding Dr. Dix's lectures on woman, we infer that somebody has been badly hit, and that the doctor is to be paid off in abuse. A lady, for example, writes to the "World": "I have observed that Dr. Dix has made haste to publish his Lenten lectures without waiting for the close of Lent. This alertness is creditable to the practical and mercantile instincts of Dr. Dix. His lectures will sell now if they are ever to sell." Probably in anticipation of such insinuations, the author has prefixed a note to his volume from which we quote a few words: "I ask the reader of the following lectures to bear in mind—1. That they were written for my own people, and in the line of my usual pastoral work. 2. That they were not intended for publication. 3. That I now give them to the public in my own defense, because of the misrepresentation of my views by critics who had not the means of knowing exactly what I said, or all that I said. They are printed just as they were delivered, with scarcely the change of a word; and, in order to comply with the request of the publishers that they should appear at the earliest possible day, I am obliged to omit adding a large number of notes and quotations by which, if more time were allowed me, I should have endeavored to fortify by strong authorities the position which I have taken." Whether it was wise in Dr. Dix to yield to the hurry of his publishers, and send out his volume unfortified by the evidence at his command, may be a question; but that it was done in compliance with their wishes shows that his own preference was otherwise, and sufficiently relieves him from the mercenary imputation of the "World's" correspondent.

Dr. Dix is entitled to have his