common order of America. For example, when a bitter and prolonged
conflict between organized capital and organized labour paralyzes some
necessary industry, we have no definite and sure way of protecting that
great third party, the helpless consuming public. In the coal strike, a
few years ago, the operators and the workmen were at a deadlock, and
there was a good prospect that many people would freeze to death. But
President Roosevelt, with the approval of men like ex-President
Cleveland, forced or persuaded the two warring parties to go on with the
mining of coal, while a committee of impartial arbitration settled their
dispute.
We have no uniformity in our game laws, our forestry laws, our laws for
the preservation and purity of the local water-supply. As these things
are left to the control of the separate States, it will be very
difficult to bring them all into harmony and good order.
The same thing is true of a much more important matter,--the laws of
marriage and divorce. Each State and Territory has its own legislation
on this subject. In consequence there are fifty-one distinct divorce
codes in the United States and their Territories. South Carolina grants
no divorce; New York and North Carolina admit only one cause; New
Hampshire admits fourteen. In some of the States, like South Dakota, a
legal residence of six months is sufficient to qualify a person to sue
for a divorce; and those States have always a transient colony of people
who are anxious to secure a rapid separation.
The provisions in regard to re-marriage are various and confusing. A man
who is divorced under the law of South Dakota and marries again can be
convicted of bigamy in New York.
All this is immensely disorderly and demoralizing. The latest statistics
which are accessible show that there were 25,000 divorces in the United
States in the year 1886. The annual number at present is estimated at
nearly 60,000.
But the work which is being done by the National League for the
Protection of the Family, and the united efforts of the churches, which
have been deeply impressed with the need of awakening and elevating
public sentiment on this subject, have already produced an improvement
in many States. It is possible that a much greater uniformity of
legislation may be reached, even though a national law may not be
feasible. It is certain that the effective protection of the family must
be secured in America, as elsewhere, by a social education and
coöperation which will teach men and women to think of the whole subject
"reverently, soberly, and in the fear of God, duly considering the
causes for which marriage was ordained."
In this, and in all other things of like nature, we Americans look into
the future not without misgivings and fears, but with an underlying
confidence that the years will bring a larger and nobler common order,
and that the Republic will be peace.
In the minor problems we shall make many mistakes. In the great
problems, in the pressing emergencies, we rely upon the moral power in
reserve. The sober soul of the people is neither frivolous nor
fanatical. It is earnest, ethical, desirous of the common good,
responsive to moral appeal, capable of self-control, and, in the time of
need, strong for self-sacrifice. It has its hours of illusion, its
intervals of indifference and drowsiness. But while there are men and
women passionately devoted to its highest ideals, and faithful in
calling it to its duties, it will not wholly slumber nor be lost in
death.
If there is to be an American aristocracy, it shall not be composed of
the rich, nor of those whose only pride is in their ancient name, but of
those who have done most to keep the Spirit of America awake and eager
to solve the problems of the common order, of those who have spoken to
her most clearly and steadily, by word and deed, reminding her that
"By the Soul
Only, the Nations shall be great and free."
VI
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION
VI
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION
The Spirit of America shows its ingrained individualism nowhere more
clearly than in education. First, by the breadth of the provision which
it makes, up to a certain point, for everybody who wishes to be
educated. Second, by the entire absence of anything like a centralized
control of education. Third, by the remarkable evolution of different
types of educational institutions and the liberty of choice which they
offer to each student.
All this is in the nature of evidence to the existence of a fifth
quality in the Spirit of America, closely connected with the sense of
self-reliance and a strong will-power, intimately related to the love of
fair play and common order,--a keen appreciation of _the value of
personal development_.
Here again, as in the previous lectures, what we have to observe and
follow is not a logical syllogism, nor a geometrical proposition neatly
and accurately worked out. It is a natural process of self-realization.
It is the history of the soul of a people learning how to think for
itself. As in government, in social order, in organized industry, so in
education, America has followed, not the line of least resistance, nor
the line of abstract doctrine, but the line of vital impulse.
And whence did this particular impulse spring? From a sense of the real
value of knowledge to man as man. From a conviction that there is no
natural right more precious than the right of the mind to grow. From a
deep instinct of prudence reminding a nation in which the people are the
sovereign that it must attend to "the education of the prince."
These are the feelings and convictions, very plain and primitive in
their nature, which were shared by the real makers of America, and which
have ever since controlled her real leaders. They are in striking
contrast with the views expressed by some of the strangers who were sent
out in early times to govern the colonies; as, for example, that Royal
Governor Berkeley who, writing home to England from Virginia in the
seventeenth century, thanked God that "no public schools nor
printing-presses existed in the colony," and added his "hope that they
would not be introduced for a hundred years, since learning brings
irreligion and disobedience into the world, and the printing-press
disseminates them and fights against the best intentions of the
government."
But this Governor Berkeley was of a different type from that Bishop
Berkeley who came to the western world to establish a missionary
training-school, and, failing in that, gave his real estate at Newport
and his library of a thousand books to the infant Yale College at New
Haven; of a different type from those Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam
who founded the first American public school in 1621; of a different
type from those Puritan colonists of Massachusetts Bay who established
the Boston Latin School in 1635 and Harvard College in 1636; of a
different type from Franklin, who founded the Philadelphia Circulating
Library in 1731, the American Philosophical Society in 1744, and the
Academy of Pennsylvania in 1749; of a different type from Washington,
who urged the foundation of a national university and left property for
its endowment by his last will and testament; of a different type from
Jefferson, who desired to have it recorded upon his tombstone that he
had rendered three services to his country--the framing of the
Declaration of Independence, the establishment of religious liberty in
Virginia, and the founding of the University of that State.
Among the men who were most responsible, from the beginning, for the
rise and growth and continuance of the spirit of self-reliance and fair
play, of active energy and common order in America, there was hardly one
who did not frequently express his conviction that the spread of public
intelligence was necessary to these ends. Among those who have been most
influential in the guidance of the republic, nothing is more remarkable
than their agreement in the opinion that education, popular and
special, is friendly to republican institutions.
This agreement is not a mere formal adherence to an academic principle
learned in the same school. For there has been the greatest possible
difference in the schooling of these men. Adams, Jefferson, Madison,
Monroe, Hamilton, Webster, Hayes, Garfield, Harrison, Roosevelt, had a
college training; Washington, Franklin, Marshall, Jackson, Van Buren,
Clay, Lincoln, Cleveland, McKinley, did not.
The sincere respect for education which is typical of the American
spirit is not a result of education. It is a matter of intuitive belief,
of mental character, of moral temperament. First of all, the sure
conviction that every American child ought to have the chance to go to
school, to learn to read, to write, to think; second, the general notion
that it is both fair and wise to make an open way for every one who is
talented and ambitious to climb as far as he can and will in the higher
education; third, the vague feeling that it will be to the credit and
benefit of democracy not only to raise the average level of
intelligence, but also to produce men and institutions of commanding
excellence in learning and science and philosophy,--these are the three
elements which you will find present in varying degrees in the views of
typical Americans in regard to education.
I say that you will find these elements in varying degrees, because
there has been, and there still is, some divergence of opinion as to the
comparative emphasis to be laid on these three points--the schoolhouse
door open to everybody, the college career open to all the talents, and
the university providing unlimited opportunities for the disinterested
pursuit of knowledge.
Which is the most important? How far may the State go in promoting the
higher education? Is it right to use the public funds, contributed by
all the taxpayers, for the special advantage of those who have superior
intellectual powers? Where is the line to be drawn between the education
which fits a boy for citizenship, and that which merely gratifies his
own tastes or promotes his own ambition?
These are questions which have been seriously, and, at times, bitterly
debated in America. But, meantime, education has gone steadily and
rapidly forward. The little public school of New Amsterdam has developed
into an enormous common-school system covering the United States and all
their Territories. The little Harvard College at Cambridge has become
the mother of a vast brood of institutions, public and private, which
give all kinds of instruction, philosophical, scientific, literary, and
technical, and which call themselves colleges or universities according
to their own fancy and will.
A foreigner visiting the country for the first time might well think it
had a touch of academic mania. A lecturer invited to describe the
schools and colleges of the United States in a single discourse might
well feel as embarrassed as that famous diplomat to whom his companion
at dinner said, between the soup and the fish, "I am so glad to meet
you, for now you can tell me all about the Far Eastern Question and make
me understand it." Let me warn you against expecting anything of that
kind in this lecture. I am at least well enough educated to know that it
is impossible to tell all about American education in an hour. The most
that I can hope to do is to touch on three points:--
First, the absence of centralized control and the process of practical
unification in educational work in the United States.
Second, the growth and general character of the common schools as an
expression of the Spirit of America.
Third, the relation of the colleges, universities, and technical
institutes to the life of the republic.
I. First, it should be distinctly understood and remembered that there
is absolutely _no national system of education in America_.
The government at Washington has neither power nor responsibility in
regard to it. There is no Ministry of Public Instruction; there are no
Federal Inspectors; there is no regulation from the centre. The whole
thing is local and voluntary to a degree which must seem to a Frenchman
incomprehensible if not reprehensible. In consequence it is both simple
and complicated,--simple in its practical working, and extremely
complicated in its general aspect.
The reasons for this lack of a national system and a centralized control
are not far to seek. In the first place, at the time when the Union was
formed, many different European influences were already at work
fostering different educational ideals in various parts of the country.
No doubt the English influence was predominant, especially in New
England. Harvard College at Cambridge in Massachusetts may be regarded
as the legitimate child of Emmanuel College at Cambridge in England. But
the development of free common schools, especially in the Middle States,
was more largely affected by the example of Holland, France, and
Switzerland than by England. The Presbyterians of New Jersey, when they
founded Princeton College in 1746, naturally turned to Scotland for a
model.
In Virginia, through Thomas Jefferson, a strong French influence was
felt. A Frenchman, Quesnay, who had fought in the American army of the
Revolution, proposed to establish a National Academy of Arts and
Sciences in Richmond, with branches at Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New
York, to give advanced instruction in all branches of human learning.
He had the approval of many of the best people in France and Virginia,
and succeeded in raising 60,000 francs towards the endowment. The
corner-stone of a building was laid, and one professor was chosen. But
the scheme failed, because, in 1786, both America and France were busy
and poor. Jefferson's plan for the University of Virginia, which was
framed on French lines, was put into successful operation in 1825.
It would have been impossible at any time in the early history of the
United States--indeed, I think it would be impossible now--to get a
general agreement among the friends of education in regard to the form
and method of a national system.
Another obstacle to a national system was the fact that the colleges
founded before the Revolution--William and Mary, Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, Columbia--were practically supported and controlled by
different churches--Congregational, Presbyterian, or Episcopalian.
Churches are not easy to combine.
Still another obstacle, and a more important one, was the sentiment of
local independence, the spirit of home rule which played such a
prominent part in the _mise en scène_ of the American drama. Each of the
distinct States composing the Union was tenacious of its own
individuality, and jealous of the local rights by which alone that
individuality could be preserved. The most significant and potent of
these rights was that of educating the children and youth of the
community.
The States which entered the Union later brought with them the same
feeling of local pride and responsibility. Ohio with its New England
traditions, Kentucky with its Southern traditions, Michigan with its
large infusion of French blood and thought, Wisconsin with its vigorous
German and Scandinavian element,--each of these communities felt
competent and in honour bound to attend to its own educational affairs.
So far as the establishment and control of schools, colleges, and
universities is concerned, every State of the Union is legally as
independent of all the other States as if they were separate European
countries like France and Germany and Switzerland. Therefore, we may say
that the American system of education is not to have a system.
But if we stop here, we rest upon one of those half-truths which are so
dear to the pessimist and the satirist. The bare statement that there is
no national system of education in America by no means exhausts the
subject. Taken by itself, it gives a false impression. Abstract theory
and formal regulation are not the only means of unification. Nature and
human nature have their own secrets for creating unity in diversity.
This is the process which has been at work in American education.
First of all, there has been a general agreement among the States in
regard to the vital necessity of education in a republic. The
constitution of Massachusetts, adopted in 1780, reads thus: "Wisdom and
knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the people, being
necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as
these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education
in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of
the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all
future periods of this Commonwealth, to cherish the interests of
literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them, especially the
university at Cambridge, public schools, and grammar schools in the
towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards
and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences,
commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to
countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general
benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty
and punctuality, in their dealings, sincerity, good humour, and all
social affections and generous sentiments among the people." After such
a sentence, one needs to take breath. It is a full programme of American
idealism, written in the English of the eighteenth century, when people
had plenty of time. The new constitution of North Carolina adopted in
1868 puts the same idea in terse modern style: "The people have the
right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty of the State to
guard and maintain that right." You will find the same principle
expressed in the constitutions of all the American commonwealths.
In the next place, the friendly competition and rivalry among the States
produced a tendency to unity in education. No State wished to be left
behind. The Southern States, which for a long time had neglected the
matter of free common schools, were forced by the growth of illiteracy,
after the Civil War, to provide for the schooling of all their children
at public expense. The Western States, coming into the Union one by one,
had a feeling of pride in offering to their citizens facilities for
education which should be at least equal to those offered in "the effete
East." It is worthy of note that the most flourishing State Universities
now are west of the Alleghanies. The only States which have more than 90
per cent of the children from five to eighteen years of age enrolled in
the common schools are Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, and Washington,--all in
the far West.
Furthermore, the free intercourse and exchange of population between the
States have made for unity in the higher education. Methods which have
proved successful in one community have been imitated and adopted in
others. Experiments tried at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Columbia have
been repeated in the West and South. Teachers trained in the older
colleges have helped to organize and develop the new ones.
Nor has this process of assimilation been confined to American ideas and
models. European methods have been carefully studied and adapted to the
needs and conditions of the United States. I happen to know of a new
Institute of Technology which has been recently founded in Texas by a
gift of eight millions of dollars. The president-elect is a scientific
man who has already studied in France and Germany and achieved
distinction in his department. But before he touches the building and
organization of his new Institute, he is sent to Europe for a year to
see the oldest and the newest and the best that has been done there. In
fact, the Republic of Learning to-day is the true Cosmopolis. It knows
no barriers of nationality. It seeks truth and wisdom everywhere, and
wherever it finds them, it claims them for its own.
The spirit of voluntary coöperation for the promotion of the common
order, of which I spoke in a previous lecture, has made itself felt in
education by the formation of Teachers' Associations in the various
States, and groups of States, and by the foundation of the National
Educational Association, a voluntary body incorporated in the District
of Columbia, "to elevate the character and advance the interests of the
profession of teaching, and to promote the cause of education in the
United States."
Finally, while there is no national centre of authority for education in
the United States, there is a strong central force of encouragement and
enlightenment. The Federal Government shows its interest in education in
several ways: First, in the enormous grants of public lands which it has
made from the beginning for the endowment of common schools and higher
institutions in the various States.
Second, in the control and support of the United States Military Academy
at West Point, the Naval Academy at Annapolis, the Indian Schools, the
National Museum, and the Congressional Library, and in the provision
which it makes for agricultural and mechanical schools in different
parts of the country. The annual budget for these purposes runs from
twelve to twenty millions of dollars a year.
Third, in the establishment of a National Bureau of Education which
collects statistics and information and distributes reports on all
subjects connected with the educational interests of America. The
Commissioner at the head of this bureau is a man of high standing and
scholarship. He is chosen without reference to politics, and holds his
office independent of party. He has no authority to make appointments
or regulations. But he has a large influence, through the light which he
throws upon the actual condition of education, in promoting the gradual
and inevitable process of unification.
Let me try to sum up what I have been saying on this difficult subject
of the lack of system and the growth of unity in American education.
There is no organization from the centre. But there is a distinct
organization from the periphery,--if I may use a scientific metaphor of
such an unscientific character. The formative principle is the
development of the individual.
What, then, does the average American boy find in this country to give
him a series of successive opportunities to secure this personal
development of mental and moral powers?
First, a public primary school and grammar school which will give him
the rudiments of learning from his sixth to his fourteenth year. Then a
public high school which will give him about what a French _lycée_ gives
from his fourteenth to his eighteenth year. He is now ready to enter the
higher education. Up to this point, if he lives in a town of any
considerable size, he has not been obliged to go away from home. Many of
the smaller places of three or four thousand inhabitants have good high
schools. If he lives in the country, he may have had to go to the
nearest city or large town for his high school or academy.
Beyond this point, he finds either a college, as it is called in
America, or the collegiate department in one of the universities, which
will give him a four years' course of general study. Before he can begin
this, he must pass what is called an entrance examination, which is
practically uniform in all the better institutions, and almost, but
perhaps not quite, equivalent to the examination in France for the
degree of _bachelier_. Thus a certain standard of preparation is set for
all the secondary schools. It is at the end of his general course in
literature, science, and philosophy that the American student gets his
bachelor's degree, which corresponds pretty nearly to the French degree
of _licencié_ in letters and sciences.