Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/934

844 produce a proper attitude of mind—according to the evidence proffered—toward every proposition or doctrine presented for acceptance.

We can not follow Prof. Ladd into the third division of his subject, namely, the claims of a scientific psychology to be regarded as a necessary part of a liberal education; we can only say that here too he seems to us to be on solid ground. We agree with him also when he says that "the condition of public education in the United States is far from satisfactory at the present time." There are many useful thoughts in his article on which we have not touched; and if we leave it for today it is "without prejudice" in case we should wish to return to it on some other occasion.

the ancient Greeks the idea of necessity, or as they called it ananké, assumed a certain religious character. It might bring evil and pain, but, in so far as it was an integral part of the order of things, it claimed a pious submission. We sometimes think that there is room for a similar conception in modern times. It is not uncommon to find people railing at the world as evil, because this or that is not arranged according to ideas of what is right, because necessity sets limits to human action and happiness. What the Greeks felt was that ananké could not be got rid of, and that the best thing we could do was to agree with it, and in a manner reverence it. The Greek was right: get rid of necessity in one form, and it immediately reappears in another; in some form man must face it and submit to it.

Socialist writers do not appear to be at all of this way of thinking. They have a noble zeal for remedying evils, but they do not seem to allow anything for the conditions which Nature itself imposes. Thus Prof. Albion Small, of Chicago, finds much to object to in the fact that "if a weaver or switchnan loses his job, no law compels another employer to hire him." He adds that "few men outside the wage earning class have fairly taken in the meaning of this familiar situation." What we should like Prof. Small or some one else to do is to figure out a situation in which, a weaver or a switchman having lost his job, somebody else would be obliged to hire him. It would really be interesting to have this worked out; our impression is that Prof. Small, or whoever undertook the task, would find himself bumping up against old "ananké" in an altered phase. Everybody in that case would want to be the man who could get a situation—of course, a satisfactory one for the asking; nobody certainly would care to be the provider of situations to his fellow -citizens. We are far from saying that there is not a vast amount of hardship in the world, and much of it of a kind which in no way benefits those who have to endure it, as of course some hardship undoubtedly does. But we want to see a way out that will not cut the nerves of industry and make self-reliance a forgotten virtue. We want to see a way out that will not lessen the sense of individual responsibility or make a man less a man. Show us such a way, and we shall gladly lend every effort in our power toward its realization.

Prof. Small seems to think that the occupation of the land under private tenure is largely responsible for the helpless condition of a portion of society; but has he or has any one else ever worked out in all its details a different scheme? Would poverty always be alleviated by a gift of land, especially if the land