LET us be honest. Let us preserve the veracity of our souls. Let
education commence in the cradle--in the lap of the loving mother.
This is the first school. The teacher, the mother, should be absolutely
honest.
The nursery should not be an asylum for lies.
Parents should be modest enough to be truthful--honest enough to
admit their ignorance. Nothing should be taught as true that cannot be
demonstrated.
Every child should be taught to doubt, to inquire, to demand reasons.
Every soul should defend itself--should be on its guard against
falsehood, deceit, and mistake, and should beware of all kinds of
confidence men, including those in the pulpit.
Children should be taught to express their doubts--to demand reasons.
The object of education should be to develop the brain, to quicken the
senses. Every school should be a mental gymnasium. The child should be
equipped for the battle of life. Credulity, implicit obedience, are the
virtues of slaves and the enslavers of the free. All should be taught
that there is nothing too sacred to be investigated--too holy to be
understood.
Each mind has the right to lift all curtains, withdraw all veils, scale
all walls, explore all recesses, all heights, all depths for itself, in
spite of church or priest, or creed or book.
The great volume of Nature should be open to all. None but the
intelligent and honest can really read this book. Prejudice clouds and
darkens every page. Hypocrisy reads and misquotes, and credulity accepts
the quotation. Superstition cannot read a line or spell the shortest
word. And yet this volume holds all knowledge, all truth, and is the
only source of thought. Mental liberty means the right of all to read
this book. Here the Pope and Peasant are equal. Each must read
for himself--and each ought honestly and fearlessly to give to his
fellow-men what he learns.
There is no authority in churches or priests--no authority in numbers or
majorities. The only authority is Nature--the facts we know. Facts are
the masters, the enemies of the ignorant, the servants and friends of
the intelligent.
Ignorance is the mother of mystery and misery, of superstition and
sorrow, of waste and want.
Intelligence is the only light. It enables us to keep the highway, to
avoid the obstructions, and to take advantage of the forces of nature.
It is the only lever capable of raising mankind. To develop the brain
is to civilize the world. Intelligence reaves the heavens of winged and
frightful monsters--drives ghosts and leering fiends from the darkness,
and floods with light the dungeons of fear.
All should be taught that there is no evidence of the existence of the
supernatural--that the man who bows before an idol of wood or stone
is just as foolish as the one who prays to an imagined God,--that all
worship has for its foundation the same mistake--the same ignorance, the
same fear--that it is just as foolish to believe in a personal god as in
a personal devil--just as foolish to believe in great ghosts as little
ones.
So, all should be taught that the forces, the facts in Nature, cannot be
controlled or changed by prayer or praise, by supplication, ceremony,
or sacrifice; that there is no magic, no miracle; that force can be
overcome only by force, and that the whole world is natural.
All should be taught that man must protect himself--that there is no
power superior to Nature that cares for man--that Nature has neither
pity nor hatred--that her forces act without the slightest regard for
man--that she produces without intention and destroys without regret.
All should be taught that usefulness is the bud and flower and fruit of
real religion. The popes and cardinals, the bishops, priests and parsons
are all useless. They produce nothing. They live on the labor of others.
They are parasites that feed on the frightened. They are vampires that
suck the blood of honest toil. Every church is an organized beggar.
Every one lives on alms--on alms collected by force and fear. Every
orthodox church promises heaven and threatens hell, and these promises
and threats are made for the sake of alms, for revenue. Every church
cries: "Believe and give."
A new era is dawning on the world. We are beginning to believe in the
religion of usefulness.
The men who felled the forests, cultivated the earth, spanned the rivers
with bridges of steel, built the railways and canals, the great ships,
invented the locomotives and engines, supplying the countless wants of
man; the men who invented the telegraphs and cables, and freighted the
electric spark with thought and love; the men who invented the looms and
spindles that clothe the world, the inventors of printing and the great
presses that fill the earth with poetry, fiction and fact, that save and
keep all knowledge for the children yet to be; the inventors of all the
wonderful machines that deftly mould from wood and steel the things we
use; the men who have explored the heavens and traced the orbits of
the stars--who have read the story of the world in mountain range and
billowed sea; the men who have lengthened life and conquered pain; the
great philosophers and naturalists who have filled the world with
light; the great poets whose thoughts have charmed the souls, the great
painters and sculptors who have made the canvas speak, the marble live;
the great orators who have swayed the world, the composers who have
given their souls to sound, the captains of industry, the producers,
the soldiers who have battled for the right, the vast host of useful
men--these are our Christs, our apostles and our saints. The triumphs of
science are our miracles. The books filled with the facts of Nature are
our sacred scriptures, and the force that is in every atom and in every
star--in everything that lives and grows and thinks, that hopes and
suffers, is the only possible god.
The absolute we cannot know--beyond the horizon of the Natural we cannot
go. All our duties are within our reach--all our obligations must be
discharged here, in this world. Let us love and labor. Let us wait and
work. Let us cultivate courage and cheerfulness--open our hearts to the
good--our minds to the true. Let us live free lives. Let us hope that
the future will bring peace and joy to all the children of men, and
above all, let us preserve the veracity of our souls.