Aristotle laid it down as a self-evident proposition that all Hellenes
_love knowledge_. This was true of the national genius of the ancient
Greeks. The love of wisdom is the pride of the ancient Greek in
contradistinction to the barbarian, who does not prize knowledge. We
still belong to the barbarians. Our children, our pupils, our students
have no love of knowledge.
The ancient Greeks knew the value of a good education and understood its
fundamental elements. They laid great stress on early education and they
knew how to develop man’s mental energies, without fear of injury to the
brain and physical constitution. The Greeks were not afraid of thought,
that it might injure the brain. They were strong men, great thinkers.
The love of knowledge, the love of truth for its own sake, is entirely
neglected in our modern schemes of education. Instead of training men we
train mechanics, artisans and shopkeepers. We turn our national schools,
high schools and universities into trade-schools and machine-shops. The
school, whether lower or higher, has now one purpose in view, and that
is the training of the pupil in the art of money-making. Is it a wonder
that the result is a low form of mediocrity, a dwarfed and crippled
specimen of humanity?
Open the reports of our school superintendents and you find that the
illustrations setting forth the prominent work performed by the school
represent carpentry, shoemaking, blacksmithing, bookkeeping,
typewriting, dressmaking, millinery and cookery. One wonders whether it
is the report of a factory inspector, the “scientific” advertisement of
some instrument-maker or machine-shop, a booklet of some popular hotel,
or an extensive circular of some large department-store. Is this what
our modern education consists in? Is the aim of the nation to form at
its expense vast reserve armies of skilled mechanics, great numbers of
well-trained cooks and well-behaved clerks? Is the purpose of the nation
to form cheap skilled labor for the manufacturer, or is the aim of
society to form intelligent, educated citizens?
The high-school and college courses advised by the professors and
elected by the student are with reference to the vocation in life, to
business and to trade. Our schools, our high schools, our colleges and
our universities are all animated with the same sordid aim of giving
electives for early specialization in the art of money-getting. We may
say with Mill that our schools and colleges give no true education, no
true culture. We drift to the status of Egypt and India with their
castes of early trained mechanics, professionals and shopkeepers. Truly
educated men we shall have none. We shall become a nation of
narrow-minded philistines, well contented with their mediocrity. The
savage compresses the skull of the infant, while we flatten the brain
and cramp the mind of our young generation.