Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/207

Rh The arts of philanthropy arc, therefore, as direct an outcome of science as the lighting of the public streets or the warming of our homes. Cruelty and shame are products of the night. The daylight is a friend to friendliness. The progress of civilization and the progress of science are alike typified by the progressively brilliant and general illumination of cities. So, in old times, human sacrifices and piracy ceased wherever the worship of the Tyrian Melcarth yielded place to the philosophy, belles-lettres, and fine arts of the genial and beautiful Delphic Apollo, the civilizer, the far-shiner, the sun of Grecian righteousness, whose initiated became the educators of the modern world.

And yet these two magic words, "initiation," "education," have meanings directly the reverse of one another—the one a going in to learn the secrets of esoteric doctrine, unsafe for publication because immature; the other a being led out from ignorance to knowledge, from helplessness to the active performances of life. The idea of universal education is wholly modern—in fact, a product of the century in which we live. It is democracy in the world of intellect; it is the doctrine of equal human rights applied to the possessions of the human brain; it is the apotheosis of common sense; it demands the distribution of knowledge in adequate quantity and quality to all who live and all who are to live upon the earth. How this is to be accomplished is the greatest of the questions of the day, and it especially concerns us as members of an association for the advancement of science.

I do not intend to discuss the subject, to define the quantity and quality of knowledge adequate for the various classes of human society, or to propose any plans for its distribution. All I wish to say about it is, that it seems to me Nature limits both the responsibilities of teachers and the rights of learners more narrowly than is commonly supposed. The parable of the sower is a good reference for explanation. Most of the surface of the globe is good for little else than cattle-ranches or sheep-farms, and the large majority of mankind must in all ages be satisfied with the mere rudiments of learning. What they want is unscholastic wisdom with which to fight the fight of life, and they must win it for themselves. Only a limited number of persons in any community can acquire wealth of knowledge, and the only thought on which I wish to insist is this: these few must also get it for themselves, and, moreover, must work hard for it.

It is a hackneyed aphorism that there is no royal road to knowledge, although an incredible amount of pains has been taken to make one. Nature in this affair, as usual, has been a good, wise mother to us all; for it is not desirable to make the acquisition of knowledge easy, for the main point in scientific education is to secure the highest activity of the human mind in the pursuit of truth—an activity tried and disciplined by hardship and nourished on hardy fare. The quantity of food is of less importance; everything depends on establishing a good constitutional digestion. The harder the dinner is to