Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/425

Rh instincts began to emerge it is not necessary to determine. It is enough to know that they did emerge, and that, having emerged, they became capable of doing as much for his moral and emotional nature as the recognition of law, which also emerged at a given moment, was capable of doing for his intellectual nature. To-day, in moral and intellectual man—in other words, in the higher types of the human race the world begins to have a worthy tenant and master, one in whose eyes a "splendid purpose" may be read—the purpose of governing wisely and justly and mercifully the heritage into possession of which he has come.

The practical question then is just this: whether because the bishop's theology is not enjoying quite as much prestige as it did of old, and because the emancipated human spirit is seeking knowledge everywhere, even in regard to matters which the bishop thinks ought to be accepted as authoritatively settled, there is any reason to apprehend that the bonds of society and of the family are going to be loosed, that the humane instincts, which for generations have been gaining in strength, are going to fall into decay, and that man, under the influence of scientific teachings, is destined to become a mere cunning compound of cruelty and self-indulgence. Well, for our part, we don't believe it; there is nothing in past history to render such a result probable, everything to render it improbable. What the most distant future may have in store for our race, we know not; but of this we feel persuaded, that the future which lies immediately before us will be an era of greater justice, of greater humanity, and at the same time of greater intellectual liberty, than any the world has yet seen. All the signs point that way.

Why, here, in these United States, and in that most favored portion of them which sends its youths to Eastern colleges and universities. But who talks of "growing illiteracy"?—surely some very ill-informed individual who does not know what splendid work our public schools are doing. By no means; but we may as well, without further ado, explain the matter.

For a good while past the colleges and universities of the country have been finding it harder and harder to put up with the very inferior preparation, particularly as regards knowledge of the English language, of the youths who go up from the secondary schools for matriculation. Harvard is in open rebellion against the annoyance; and a committee of the Overseers lately made the suggestion that it would be a good thing to print the papers of these ill-taught youths, and give the names of the schools from which they had come. At this the principals of a number of the leading schools took alarm; and it was in the protest which they published that the ominous words we have quoted appeared. "While we regret," they say, "the growing illiteracy of American boys, we can not feel that the schools should be held solely responsible for the evils, which are chiefly due to the absence of literary interest and of literary standards in the community." In other words, there is a growing illiteracy among boys, because, broadly speaking, illiteracy has taken possession of the country. The parents of the boys—who themselves had the benefit of public-school training—have, for the most part, no literary interests and recognize no literary standards. These high-school principals ought to know whereof they affirm; we do not know who