Page:The Genius of America (1923).pdf/194

 "dreadful symmetry." But why not go in for aeronautics? It does look as if we might eventually surpass the eagle in flight. And the desire to get above the earth has always impressed me as a very human, though a dangerous, passion. If, however, danger and difficulty really attract you, why not go in for the big experiment? It is much more difficult than becoming a python or a tiger. Why not attempt to demonstrate the utmost capacity of the human spirit for being a man?"

But let us descend from the dizzy heights where the heroes and villains dwell. Few of us can belong to that eminent class which sets new standards of human achievement. Below that high level, however, is the wide workaday world where professional competence is ever in request and ample scope is afforded for the display of a relative excellence. Educators of the Renaissance ordinarily composed their outlines of education with a prince in their mind's eye, who was to be instructed in every art and science necessary or becoming to a member of the governing class. In a democratic society, as every one knows, the assumption is that we are all peers, that we are all princes, that each one of us is to be trusted with some share of the burden of the political and social government. Under