It was this new growth of humanity which made continuing social progress
so rapid and so sure.
These young minds had no rubbish in them. They had a vivid sense of the
world as a whole, quite beyond their family "relations." They were
marvelously reasonable, free from prejudice, able to see and willing to
do. And this spreading tide of hope and courage flowed back into the
older minds, as well as forward into the new I found that people's ideas
of youth and age had altered materially. Nellie said it was due to the
change in women--but then she laid most things to that. She reminded me
that women used to be considered only as females, and were "old" when no
longer available in that capacity; but that as soon as they recognized
themselves as human beings they put "Grandma" into the background, and
"Mother" too; and simply went on working and growing and enjoying life
up into the lively eighties--even nineties, sometimes.
"Brains do not cease to function at fifty," she said. "Just because a
woman is no longer an object to 'fall in love' with, it does not follow
that life has no charms for her. Women to-day have all that they ever
had before, all that was good in it; and more, a thousand times more.
When the lives of half the world widen like that it widens the other
half too."
This quite evidently had happened.
The average mental standard was higher, the outlook broader. I found
many very ordinary people, of course; some whose only attitude toward
this wonderful new world was to enjoy its advantages; and even some who
grumbled. These were either old persons with bad digestions or new
immigrants from very backward countries.
I traveled about, visiting different places, consulting all manner of
authorities, making notes, registering objections. It was all
interesting, and grew more so as it seemed less strange. My sense of
theatrical unreality gave way to a growing appreciation of the universal
beauty about me.
Art, I found, held a very different position from what it used to hold.
It had joined hands with life again, was common, familiar, used in all
things. There were pictures, many and beautiful, but the great word Art
was no longer so closely confined to its pictorial form. It was not
narrow, expensive, requiring a special education, but part of the
atmosphere in which all children grew, all people lived.
For instance the theatre, which I remember as a two-dollar affair, and
mainly vulgar and narrow, was now the daily companion and teacher. The
historic instinct with which nearly every child is born was cultivated
without check. The little ones played through all their first years of
instruction, played the old stone age (most natural to them!) the new
stone age, the first stages of industry. Older children learned history
that way; and as they reached years of appreciation, special dramas were
written for them, in which psychology and sociology were learned without
hearing their names.
Those happy, busy, eager young things played gaily through wide ranges
of human experience; and when these emotions touched them in later
years, they were not strange and awful, but easy to understand.
In every smallest village there was a playhouse, not only in the
child-gardens, but for the older people. They each had their dramatic
company, as some used to have their bands; had their musical companies
too, and better ones.
Out of this universal use of the drama rose freely those of special
talent who made it the major business of their lives; and the higher
average everywhere gave to these greater ones the atmosphere of real
appreciation which a growing art must have.
I asked Nellie how the people managed who lived in the real
country--remote and alone.
"We don't live that way any more," she said. "Only some stubborn old
people, like Uncle Jake and Aunt Dorcas. You see the women decided that
they must live in groups to have proper industrial and educational
advantages; and they do."
"Where do the men live?" I asked grimly.
"With the women, of course--Where should they? I don't mean that a
person cannot go and live in a hut on a mountain, if he likes; we do
that in summer, very largely. It is a rest to be alone part of the time.
But living, real human living, requires a larger group than one family.
You can see the results."
I could and I did; though I would not always admit it to Nellie; and
this beautiful commonness of good music, good architecture, good
sculpture, good painting, good drama, good dancing, good literature,
impressed me increasingly. Instead of those perpendicular peaks of
isolated genius we used to have, surrounded by the ignorantly
indifferent many, and the excessively admiring few, those geniuses now
sloped gently down to the average on long graduated lines of decreasing
ability. It gave to the commonest people a possible road of upward
development, and to the most developed a path of connection with the
commonest people. The geniuses seemed to like it too. They were not so
conceited, not so disagreeable, not so lonesome.
People seemed to have a very good time, even while at work; indeed very
many found their work more fun than anything else. The abundant leisure
gave a sort of margin to life which was wholly new, to the majority at
least. It was that spare time, and the direct efforts of the government
in wholesale educational lines, which had accomplished so much in the
first ten years.
Owen reminded me of the educational vitality even of the years I knew;
of the university extension movement, the lectures in the public
schools, the push of the popular magazines; the summer schools, the
hundreds of thousands of club women, whose main effort seemed to be to
improve their minds.
"And the Press," I said--"our splendid Press."
"That was one of our worst obstacles, I'm sorry to say," he answered.
I looked at him. "Oh, go ahead, go ahead! You'll tell me the public
schools were an obstacle next."
"They would have been--if we hadn't changed them," he agreed. "But they
were in our hands at least, and we got them re-arranged very promptly.
That absurd old despotism which kept the grade of teachers down so low,
was very promptly changed. We have about five times as many teachers
now, fifty times as good and far better paid, not only in cash, but in
public appreciation. Our teachers are 'leading citizens' now--we have
elected one President from the School Principalship of a state."
This was news, and not unpleasant.
"Have you elected any Editors?"
"No--but we may soon. They are a new set of men now I can tell you; and
women, of course. You remember in our day journalism was frankly treated
as a trade; whereas it is visibly one of the most important
professions."
"And did you so reform those Editors, so that they became as
self-sacrificing as country doctors?"
"Oh, no. But we changed the business conditions. It was the advertising
that corrupted the papers--mostly; and the advertisers were only
screaming for bread and butter--especially butter. When Socialism
reorganized business there was no need to scream.
"But I find plenty of advertising in the papers and magazines."
"Certainly--it is a great convenience. Have you studied it?"
I had to own that I had not particularly--I never did like advertising.
"You'll find it worth reading. In the first place it's all true."
"How do you secure that?"
"We have made lying to the public a crime--don't you remember? Each
community has its Board of Standards; there is a constant effort to
improve standards you see, in all products; and expert judgment may
always be had, for nothing. If any salesman advertises falsely he loses
his job, if he's an official; and is posted, if he's selling as a
private individual. When the public is told officially that Mr. Jones is
a liar it hurts his trade."
"You have a Government Press?"
"Exactly. The Press is pre-eminently a public function--it is not and
never was a private business--not legitimately."
"But you do have private papers and magazines?"
"Yes indeed, lots of them. Ever so many personal 'organs,' large and
small. But they don't carry advertising. If enough people will buy a
man's paper to pay him, he's quite free to publish."
"How do you prevent his carrying advertising?"
"It's against the law--like any other misdemeanor. Post Office won't
take it--he can't distribute. No, if you want to find out about the
latest breakfast food--(and there are a score you never heard of)--or
the last improvement in fountain pens or airships--you find it all,
clear, short, and reliable, in the hotel paper of every town. There's no
such bulk of advertising matter now, you see; not so many people
struggling to sell the same thing."
"Is all business socialized?"
"Yes--and no. All the main business is; the big assured steady things
that our life depends on. But there is a free margin for individual
initiative--and always will be. We are not so foolish as to cut off that
supply. We have more inventors and idealists than ever; and plenty of
chance for trial. You see the two hours a day which pays board, so to
speak, leaves plenty of time to do other work; and if the new thing the
man does is sufficiently valuable to enough people, he is free to do
that alone. Like the little one-man papers I spoke of. If a man can find
five thousand people who will pay a dollar a year to read what he says
he's quite as likely to make his living that way."
"Have you no competition at all?"
"Plenty of it. All our young folks are racing and chasing to break the
record; to do more work, better work, new work."
"But not under the spur of necessity."
"Why, yes they are. The most compelling necessity we know. They have to
do it; it is in them and must come out."
"But they are all sure of a living, aren't they?"
"Yes, of course. Oh, I see! What you meant by necessity was hunger and
cold. Bless you, John, poverty was no spur. It was a deadly
an├Žsthetic."
I looked my disagreement, and he went on: "You remember the hideous
poverty and helplessness of the old days--did that 'spur' the population
to do anything? Don't you see, John, that if poverty had been the
splendid stimulus it used to be thought, there wouldn't have been any
poverty? Some few exceptional persons triumphed in spite of it, but we
shall never know the amount of world loss in the many who did not.
"It was funny," he continued meditatively, "how we went on believing
that in some mysterious way poverty 'strengthened character,' 'developed
initiative,' 'stimulated industry,' and did all manner of fine things;
and never tinned our eyes on the millions of people who lived and died
in poverty with weakened characters, no initiative, a slow, enforced and
hated industry. My word, John, what fools we were!"
I was considering this Government Press he described. "How did you
dispose of the newspapers you had?"
"Just as we disposed of the saloons; drove them out of business by
underselling them with better goods. The laws against lying helped too."
"I don't see how you can stop people's lying."
"We can't stop their lying in private, except by better social
standards; but we can stop public lying, and we have. If a paper
published a false statement anyone could bring a complaint; and the
district attorney was obliged to prosecute. If a paper pleaded ignorance
or misinformation it was let off with a fine and a reprimand the first
time, a heavy fine the second time, and confiscation the third time; as
being proved by their own admission incompetent to tell the truth! If it
was shown to be an intentional falsehood they were put out of business
at once."
"That's all very pretty," I said, "and sounds easy as you tell it; but
what made people so hot about lying? They didn't used to mind it. The
more you tell me of these things the more puzzled I am as to what
altered the minds of the people. They certainly had to alter
considerably from the kind I remember, to even want all these changes,
much more to enforce them."
Owen wasn't much of a psychologist, and said so. He insisted that people
had wanted better things, only they did not know it.
"Well--what made them know it?" I insisted. "Now here's one thing, small
in a way, but showing a very long step in alteration; people dress
comfortably and beautifully; almost all of them. What made them do it?"
"They have more money," Owen began, "more leisure and better education."
But I waved this aside.
"That has nothing to do with it. The people with money and education
were precisely the ones who wore the most outrageous clothes. And as to
leisure--they spent their leisure in getting up foolish costumes,
apparently."
"Women are more intelligent, you see," he began again; but I dismissed
this also.
"The intelligence of a Lord Chancellor didn't prevent his wearing a wig!
How did people break loose from the force of fashion, I want to know?"
He could not make this clear, and said he wouldn't try.
"You show me all these material changes," I went on; "and I can see that
there was no real obstacle to them; but the obstacle that lasted so long
was in the people's minds. What moved that? Then you show me this
marvellous new education, as resulting in new kinds of people, better
people, wiser, freer, stronger, braver; and I can see that at work. But
how did you come to accept this new education? You needn't lay it all to
the women, as Nellie does. I knew one or two of the most advanced of
them in 1910, and they had no such world-view as this. They wore foolish
clothes and had no ideas beyond 'Votes for Women'--some of them.
"No sir! I admit that there was potential wealth enough in the earth to
support all this ease and beauty; and potential energy in the people to
produce the wealth. I admit that it was possible for people to leave off
being stupid and become wise--evidently they have done so. But I don't
see what made them."
"You go and see Dr. Borderson," said Owen.