Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/865

Rh brings another class within the reach of dangers from which they would otherwise have stood entirely aloof. The man who can neither read nor write generally has a feeling of his own weakness, and is thrown back on his natural shrewdness and knowledge of things for self -protection, while a little school education, though of the shallowest kind, often puffs up its possessor to an amazing sense of self-sufficiency.

No one, we trust, will misunderstand the drift or purpose of these remarks. We wish in the first place to express our disapproval of the illiberal policy which would shut the door of this vast country, with its immense resources, in the face of a healthy, able-bodied immigrant, simply because he has not learned to read and write; and in the second place, to emphasize the position we have so often taken, that the mere ability to read and write is no safeguard whatever of character, no guarantee of the course in life which the individual will afterward pursue. There is in it the potentiality of further growth in knowledge, but there is also the potentiality of a life of scheming, of a life of sensuality, of a life of lawlessness. For one who can read there are useful books and papers to be had with very little trouble; but there are pernicious ones to be had with even less. The problem to-day is far less what to do with our illiterates than what to do with a considerable body of our literates, applying that term to all who can read and write; and to pretend that the welfare of the state is threatened if an almost imperceptible percentage of illiterate foreigners is added yearly to our seventy millions of population is hardly less than hypocritical.

The true safeguards of national prosperity have little to do with legislation of this character. They lie in respect for law, in a sense of justice between man and man, in a sense of responsibility on the part of those who through wealth possess power and social influence. They lie also in the faithfulness of public officers in the discharge of their duties, and in the recognition by every citizen of the truth that his actions count in the general sum of influences by which the fortunes of the state are molded for good or for evil. They lie, we need hardly say, in the right discharge by parents of their duties toward their children, and in the general soundness and purity of family life. They lie, finally, in a liberal, humane, and righteous public opinion, by which public policy is guided into right channels, and the evils which spring from diseased parts of the body politic are kept in check. These are the things we need to be concerned about, and which we must be concerned about if the nation is to prosper. Then, sooner or later, we must come to that régime of liberty which gives free scope to the activities and better sentiments of all. We must come to a belief that a vast amount of our intermeddling with the laws of supply and demand and the natural tendencies of things has been vain and hurtful. Until we reach this point our national prosperity will be on a more or less precarious basis, and our national character will not attain its best development.

proposal has been seriously made in the columns of our contemporary Science that all the different scientific bureaus under the Government at Washington should be gathered into one great department of science under a ministerial head. The proposition is professedly