"The two parties which divide the state--the party of conservatism and
that of innovation--are very old and have disputed the possession of the
world ever since it was made. This quarrel is the subject of civil
history. The conservative party established the reverend hierarchies and
monarchies of the most ancient world. The battle of patrician and
plebeian, of parent state and colony, of old usage and accommodation to
new facts, of the rich and the poor, reappears in all countries and
times....
"There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism,
joined with a certain superiority in its fact. It affirms because it
holds. Its fingers clutch the fact, and it will not open its eyes to see
a better fact. The castle which conservatism is set to defend is the
actual state of things, good or bad. The project of innovation is the
best possible state of things. Of course conservatism always has the
worst of the argument, is always apologizing, pleading a necessity,
pleading that to change would be to deteriorate. It must saddle itself
with the mountainous load of the violence and the vice of society, must
deny the possibility of good, deny ideas, and suspect and stone the
prophets; while innovation is always in the right, triumphant,
attacking, and sure of final success."
But though doomed to defeat, conservatism is not to be denounced or
condemned. It is not without its uses. It often keeps us from following
untried paths that open out alluring but end in thickets or quagmires. A
brake is sometimes as necessary to safety as motive power is to
progress. But the usual tendency of conservatism is to keep the brakes
on all the time, causing either stagnation, retrogression, or a
smash-up. The real revolutionist is the rock-ribbed conservative. It is
the boulder blocking the onward flow of the stream that causes the eddy
and the whirlpool.
Those who think on this subject and who really desire the improvement of
society--unfortunately a very small class--are divided over the question
whether mankind shall progress by the path of individualism or by that
of collectivism. Extremists assure us that these paths go in opposite
directions, or traverse each other at right angles. The truth is they
run parallel; and we have been travelling both, now advancing more on
one and then on the other, towards the ultimate goal of humanity--the
perfection of society through the elevation of the individual, the
perfection of the individual through the improvement of society. Each
helps the other; neither can be independent of the other. It often
happens that organized society cannot await the slow process of
individual perfection. It must accelerate the operation by changing
standards and ideals. There is no telling how long it would have
required to convince each individual slave-owner of the wrong of human
slavery, or each individual mine and factory owner of the wickedness of
child-labor. Society had to take the matter in hand and force individual
development--in one case by law, in the other by the sword. Many
thoughtful persons are raising the question whether society has not more
work of this kind ahead of it. There can be no individual perfection or
progress under certain social conditions. Ceremonious politeness was not
to be expected among the victims of the Black Hole of Calcutta.
Starvation has often led to cannibalism among men who would shrink with
horror from the thought of it under ordinary conditions. Society can
create conditions favorable or unfavorable to the improvement of the
individual.
The inevitable outcome of the struggle between individualism and
collectivism is the triumph of each in its own proper field.
A line drawn from the past to the present shows the trend of the future.
We find this embodying two distinct, and apparently contradictory,
tendencies--one towards greater individual freedom, the other towards a
constant extension of the principle of cooperation, or collectivism.
That is, organized society leaves ever greater freedom to the individual
in all those things that concern only him, while at the same time it
extends farther and farther its supervision and performance of those
things that pertain to the welfare of all, and which society can do for
the individual better than he can do for himself. A man may kiss his
wife on Sunday without scandal or fear of prosecution; and he may dress
in any manner he pleases within the bounds of convention, which is still
an unreasoning tyrant. He is generally glad to avail himself of the more
convenient water-supply provided by the community; but he may, if he
wishes, have a well in his yard, until, with the growth of the city,
this becomes a menace to his neighbors' health; then it must be closed.
He may still mould his own tallow candles and use no other light if he
prefers; but cooperation among consumers supplies him with a much
superior illuminant; and when this cooperation is extended to embrace
all the citizens--i.e., when gas or electricity is furnished by the
municipality, the cost is reduced, and he becomes a partner in the
profits.
Of the benefits of municipal cooperation we had a signal illustration in
the introduction of municipal sprinkling in St. Louis. Formerly, the
occupant of a fifty-foot lot paid a private contractor from $6 to $12 a
season, while he suffered from the dust blown from his neighbors'
frontage and from unsprinkled streets all over the city. Now the owner
of a fifty-foot lot pays about $1 a year and enjoys sprinkled streets
throughout the whole city. Municipal cooperation in libraries brings the
same kind of benefits. The average well-to-do reader, instead of a
five-dollar subscription fee, pays a dollar tax; and for that not only
he and his family, but also the families of his neighbors, have access
to a superior library. And it is almost as necessary for your comfort
that your neighbor's children have access to a library as for your own.
While social evolution tends to relieve the individual of the
compulsion of law, and also to lessen the pressure of public opinion, in
those affairs that pertain only to his own life, correlatively his
action is more and more restricted in so far as it affects his neighbors
and society in general--though here, too, law and custom tend more and
more to individual freedom. It was once regarded as a public scandal not
to go to church; and 50 years ago in St. Louis Unitarians were shunned
as suspicious characters. But pari passu with the growth of individual
liberty has grown the recognition of the duty of society to see that all
persons have equal liberty--to protect the weak against the strong.
Nothing in Victoria's reign has done more for the progress of England
than the series of acts that have been passed to curb the greed of mine
and factory owners, to prevent them from coining the muscle and manhood
of Britain into gold--in a way that, at one period, threatened to
exhaust the vitality of the race--to kill the goose that lays the golden
eggs.
The whole history of mankind is a continuous struggle of the weak and
ignorant many to secure the rights withheld from them by the superior
strength and cunning of the few. The oppression and injustice of the
past are apparent to all; but many of us, like the conservative
antagonists of Cobden and Bright, fail to see anything seriously wrong
in the present; and, like them, we fear change. But it is the part of
wise men to welcome change as the natural order of the universe--to see
that it is a change for the better.
It does not by any means follow that every new idea is a good one, that
every proposed change would be an improvement. But as progress is the
law of the universe, it rests with the old order to show why it should
be continued. Wisdom, therefore, urges us to give careful consideration
to new ideas, however contrary they may be to prevalent opinions,
bearing in mind the frequent lesson of history that "the stone which the
builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner," and
approaching all questions in the spirit of St. Paul's injunction: "Prove
all things; hold fast that which is good." For all political and social
problems, which are the burning questions of to-day, there is, it seems
to me, a simple test in Herbert Spencer's "first principle": "Every man
may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with
the possession of like liberty by every other man." Legislation that
does not square with the self-evident truth and justice of this dictum
is bad legislation, and must prove maleficent to the nation, state, or
city that enacts it. I need not offer any modern instances.
Reasoning in reverse order, i.e., from effect to cause, we may be sure
that when we see in a country abounding in natural resources, as ours
is, inhabited by the most intelligent, energetic, and resourceful people
the world has ever seen--when we see in such a country millions of
willing workers in enforced idleness; when, to account for the idleness
and its attendant want and destitution, we are offered the absurdity of
"over-production" of the very things for which millions are suffering;
when we see men and women who toil not revelling in luxury, while others
who labor sixteen hours a day are barely able to keep body and soul
together, we may know absolutely, without further investigation, that
there is something fundamentally wrong in our social organization.
This is not the time or place to point out these wrongs specifically, or
to advance, even in the most general terms, what, after much thought, I
believe to be the remedies. I merely urge the thoughtful study of social
problems without bias or prejudice. This state of openmindedness is not
easy to achieve. We think that we think our own thoughts; but as Tarde,
the French psychologist, says: "What the individual hypnotizer is to his
sleeping and abnormally plastic subject, such, almost precisely, is
society to the waking and normally plastic man."[7]
On the solution of social problems, Ibsen says: "There is only one thing
that avails--to revolutionize people's minds." This was a difficult task
about so plain a matter as the Copernican system, which was opposed by
the combined learning and piety of Europe. How much more difficult must
it be when the change affects the every-day life of every individual? As
Nitti says: "Had the propositions of Euclid affected economic interests
they would still appear doubtful hypotheses of arduous solution."
[7] "As, then, in philosophy the first step is to begin by doubting
everything, so, in social philosophy, the first step is to throw aside
all supposed absolute rights."--JEVONS.
The public library is destined to play an important part, to exercise
an incalculable influence in the solution of the social problems of
to-day, and through this on the future of the nation and the race. The
wisdom needed for this task is not to be obtained from schools or
colleges, but from the higher education of mature minds--the masses of
the people--which the public library alone can give. The preparation for
this higher education of the masses devolves on the schools and
colleges. Their curricula should be so arranged as to arouse "historic
consciousness" in the youngest child, to awaken social consciousness,
and to provide for its continuous development by starting every boy and
girl on a career of self-culture--by matriculating every child in the
People's University, the Public Library. In affairs that concern society
as a whole, it is better to trust the well-informed common-sense of the
people than the learning of the schoolmen.
It is not knowledge of mathematics or physics, or Greek and Latin, or
modern languages; it is not the study--academic study--of history, or
philosophy, or even political economy, that will solve the great social
problems that now confront us. These will help in various degrees,
directly or indirectly, some more, some less, some, perhaps, not at all.
A knowledge of the general course of history is essential; some
acquaintance with philosophy is useful; dogmatic theology serves only to
confuse, but the true religion that lies in a vital acceptance of
Christ's two commandments as a summary of the law and the prophets--that
is the greatest aid of all. Such, however, is the influence of
established order on men's minds that no investigation will avail
without a determination to take nothing for granted, to re-examine what
have been considered basic principles, to accept no postulates that do
not square with reason and justice. This cannot be done by confining our
reading to the accepted standards of a generation or a century ago. We
must keep abreast of the thought of the time; we must keep our eyes and
ears, and still more our minds, open; we must scorn no aids to
enlightenment; but we must do our own thinking; we must consider the
idea, not the source from which it came, remembering that good may come
out of Nazareth; we must live up to the motto; "Truth for authority, not
authority for truth," and we must "lend a hand."
My faith in the efficacy of the education offered by the public library
is not without foundation. In more than one case I have seen a course of
lectures or the reading of a single book lead to a course of reading in
economics and sociology, which has entirely changed points of view. New
ideals, higher standards, have made new men with higher lines of action.
Their natures have not been changed, but their visions have been
clarified.
One of the stock arguments which conservatism always brings out to give
a final quietus to any proposal for social reform, is--"Oh, that's
impossible; you'd have to change human nature!" This mental attitude,
which, I am sorry to say, is the prevailing one with the great majority
of mankind, is admirable satirized in some verses which I had great
pleasure in printing in the April number of the St. Louis Public Library
Magazine:
There was once a Neolithic Man, an enterprising wight,
Who made his simple instruments unusually bright,
Unusually clever he, unusually brave.
And he sketched delightful mammoths on the border of his cave,
To his Neolithic neighbors who were startled and surprised,
Said he: "My friends, in course of time we shall be civilized!
We are going to live in cities and build churches and make laws!
We are going to eat three times a day without the natural cause!
We're going to turn life upside down about a thing called Gold!
We're going to want the earth, and take as much as we can hold!
We are going to wear a pile of stuff outside our proper skins;
We're going to have Diseases! and Accomplishments!! and Sins!!!
Then they all rose up in fury against this boastful friend
For prehistoric patience comes quickly to an end.
Said one, "This is chimerical! Uptopian! Absurd!"
Said another, "What a stupid life! Too dull, upon my word!"
Cried all, "Before such things can come, you idiotic child,
You must alter Human Nature!" and they all sat back and smiled!
Thought they, "An answer to that last it will be hard to find!"
It was a clinching argument--to the Neolithic Mind!
Yes, great progress and reform can be accomplished without changing
human nature. The elemental forces in the heart of man are the same now
as in the earliest recorded ages, and they are likely to remain the same
for all time to come. We cannot change the elements of man's nature; but
by changing conditions we can improve the product of reaction. We can
elevate conduct by elevating ideals. There was a time when the man who
could wield the heaviest battle-axe was the greatest man; and there are
still circles in which Corbett and Fitzsimmons are regarded as the
greatest men of the present day. But the men who now excite most general
admiration are our "captains of industry," the men who succeed in
getting money and the luxury and power it commands. How shall we elevate
our national ideals?
Selfishness is a mainspring of human action. A like motive, desire for
happiness, sets men to fighting dogs and to founding hospitals. Nero
found pleasure in one way, Marcus Aurelius in another. Charles I. and
Louis XVI. were not bad men; but they were controlled by outgrown
standards. Elizabeth, Napoleon, Peter, and Catherine of Russia sought
their own pleasure in accordance with their personal characters and the
standards of their times. But how much higher and purer pleasure the
devotion of their talents to the service of their fellowmen brought to
Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, Cobden, Bright and Gladstone--and
John Pounds!
False standards, low ideals, now lead many good men to find their
pleasure, not in cruelty, not in sensuality, but in the accumulation of
wealth, partly for the luxury, chiefly for the power it brings.
"Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer."
With the spread of intelligence and thought, and the consequent
elevation of popular ideals, men possessed of millions will not seek to
add to their large legitimate gains by legalized robbery from their
fellow-citizens; and people calling themselves Christians will not
rejoice in the distress and starvation of their fellow-men across the
ocean. Men will still be selfish but their selfishness will at least be
on a higher plane--less intense, less destructive of essential rights.
How shall we most speedily bring about this desired consummation? By
what agency can we most effectively elevate our national ideals? By
extending and improving our system of popular education, by reversing
the usual order and beginning where school curricula now end, by placing
our school-children from their earliest years in close and familiar
contact with the life and thought of the race as expressed in
literature, by exciting in every child admiration and emulation of the
world's true heroes, by feeding the imagination and cultivating the
moral faculties, by putting every child into the way of acquiring a
social and a historic perspective.
I suppose I am one of those simple-minded visionary optimists of whom
Prof. Royce speaks. But I do not "dislike" economic facts in the sense
of ignoring them, and I am not blind to the persistence of the elemental
forces of human nature. But as the abolition of slavery changed men's
mental attitude towards this social crime, without at all changing human
nature, just so I believe that the adoption of other social reforms
would in a generation cause all men to look with horror and wonder upon
social injustice that nearly every one now ignores or regards as
irremediable and inevitable. I share Ruskin's scorn of the word
"Utopian." "A thing is either possible or impossible." As Carlyle says,
"The actual final rights of man lie in the far deeps of the ideal. Every
noble work is at first impossible." In the A.L.A. we have heard the word
"Utopian," or its equivalent, on more than one occasion met by the
motto, "Hitch your wagon to a star"; and we have seen the impracticable
an accomplished fact.
If time permitted I might risk ridicule by presenting some features of
the vision that I see with the eye of faith in an all-wise and
all-powerful Creater and belief in human perfectibility as an infinite
progress.
"Die Zukunft decket
Schmerzen and Glücke
Schrittweis' dem Blicke;
Doch ungeschrecket,
Dringen wir vorwärts."
"New occasions teach new duties;
Time makes ancient good uncouth!
They must upward still and onward
Who would keep abreast with truth."