Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/370

354 of the insecurity of the method and a hearty contempt for it. The one who has suffered by the teaching feels himself defrauded and swindled. Unless we can reason ourselves into the belief that falsehood or error is sometimes useful, we shall have to seek some better procedure. And even if we could persuade ourselves of the utility of untruth, we should still have the very perplexing questions to answer as to when, where, and what sort of falsehoods are useful.

But this is not the end of the trouble. If there be difference of opinion, the parties whose doctrines are rejected will inevitably oppose, by every lawful means at least, the principles adopted by those in power. They will nullify school-teaching by home-teaching; they will seek to disturb the school system by overthrowing its government; they will encourage disrespect toward the whole scheme of instruction; they will be in a state of chronic rebellion, which will create a present and pervasive social disorganization outweighing any advantage to be derived from the authoritative teaching. For, even if the latter be the truth, and the other error, the chances are that the force of authority will develop so great a resistance as to give a formidable strength and vitality to the erroneous doctrine; whereas, if its power were not thus artificially gathered and its life thus supported, it would die out from its inherent insufficiency.

Nor yet is this the whole of the matter. The adoption of any assumed truths by authority in the face of a manifest difference of opinion is an oppression which leads directly to anarchy and revolution, with despotism to follow. In order to maintain the teaching, the pressure in support must continually be increased to overbalance the opposition, which nevertheless grows in this very process, until by-and-by an upheaval is inevitable, perhaps with ruinous devastation. This is a familiar historical experience of which I need not stop to give illustration. I desire only to recall attention to the fact that, in the social and political as well as in the physical world, every action has its reaction. Revolution and anarchy are the natural and inevitable consequences of the establishment of truth by command. It may not come immediately, but disintegration is all the while going on, and the results will sooner or later appear. Thus, taking all these considerations, and even omitting the more special arguments which flow from legal guarantees of individual rights as established in a free community, we may be sure that, upon broad principles of the common weal, the first of the three courses suggested for public schools, in regard to education upon disputed questions of practical moment to the individual and to society, must unfailingly be most pernicious.

The second plan, that of teaching nothing at all, is not for the highest public interest, because its effect is to prevent the young from giving attention to, and acquiring accurate knowledge upon, subjects which ultimately will be forced upon them, and will call for opinion or action. Substantially the same reasons prevail against this course