There are reasons for thinking that such a theory of popular education
as has been outlined, and a modified practise based on the theory, are
needed at the present time as a measure of social therapeutics.
Without joining the prophets of evil who think we are moving swiftly
toward a social revolution, one may say in all sobriety that there are
signs which look ominous for the future of our democratic experiment.
It is not merely that there is wide-spread discontent and a general
breaking away from old standards and restraints. All that, which is
apt to look so threatening to elderly people, especially if they are
not much given to the reading of history, may be nothing but the sign
of healthy life and growth. Stable democratic society may consist with
almost any amount of discontent, provided it discharges itself by way
of legal channels duly provided for the purpose in advance.
But the really menacing symptom of our time, is in a
word,--lawlessness. I have not chiefly in mind the shocking and
increasing prevalence of outrageous crimes against person and
property. That is certainly bad enough. That life and property are not
as safe in the United States as they were a generation ago, and not
as safe as they are today in the British Empire, France, Germany,
Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries, is surely a fact to give
us pause. And yet, in that fact alone there is nothing highly ominous
for the future of democracy. In all ages, under all forms of
government, there have been murderers, thieves and ravishers, but
social order has never been destroyed or even seriously imperiled by
them. Society has found ways to protect itself. The statistics of
crime vary from decade to decade under the operation of causes that
are fairly well understood by experts. An excess at any time can be
corrected by known methods if a people sets resolutely about it.
The danger lies rather in a diminishing respect for law as such among
large masses of the nominally respectable population. Multitudes have
come to look on the will of the community as expressed in law, not as
an obligation binding on the conscience, but as a sort of solemn
joke--something meant for the other fellow. This cynicism with regard
to law has become a veritable cancer of the social body. The matter is
difficult to treat statistically, but surely there can be no doubt
about it. It is no illusion of perspective, not the nightmare of a
pessimist, but simple damning truth, that the law-abiding spirit has
of late been losing ground rapidly. The case is not stated too
strongly by a recent writer when he says:
In spite of his vulnerability he [the capitalist] is of all
citizens the most lawless. He appears to assume that the law will
always be enforced by some special personnel whose duty lies that
way, while he may evade the law, when convenient, or bring it
into contempt, with impunity. The capitalist seems incapable of
feeling his responsibility as a member of the governing class, in
this respect, and that he is bound to uphold the law that others
may do the like.... He therefore looks on the evasion of a law
devised for public protection, but inimical to him, as innocent
or even meritorious.[26]
[Footnote 26: Brooks Adams, _Theory of Social Revolutions_, page 212.]
Of course there are many honorable exceptions; indeed this very
remark is made by Mr. Adams himself. It may be said too that the
influential men who fall as a class under this sweeping indictment can
often allege a colorable excuse for their anti-social conduct--as that
the law they try to "beat" was devised in ignorance or malice by
corrupt politicians. And so they play the game of money against
politics, and are not aware of the social menace of their conduct.
They subordinate the greater to the less, and know not what they
do--any more than the aristocracy and clergy of France knew what they
were doing just prior to 1789. They think themselves the salt of the
earth. Many of them are more or less zealous church-members, and have
had a "religious education." And yet, in playing fast and loose with
the law, they are playing with fire in their own cellars. When a
ruling class--our government is a qualified plutocracy--loses its
sense of responsibility, and takes to violating the law, it takes the
surest way to bring all law into contempt. And when the general
contempt for law reaches a certain point, then comes anarchy and--the
strong man on horse-back to tell us what to do, and shoot us if we
don't do it.
* * * * *
The vocation of the croaker is not lightly tolerated by the public
opinion of our day. Every one votes him a nuisance. A deep-seated
American optimism expects that we shall somehow weather the storms of
the future as we have weathered those of the past. The writer of these
reflections has the national temperament, but he thinks the time has
come to reef sails and trim ship. For law and obedience to law there
must be, if society is to cohere and go on its way; and in a democracy
lawlessness is not so much _a_ peril as _the_ peril. We must look to
our democratic foundations, lest they be undermined while we go on
gaily amusing ourselves, piling up money, and assuring each other that
everything is all right in the best government the sun ever shone
upon. There is need of a vast co-operative effort on the part of all
the ethical forces of society--an effort directed consciously and
vigorously to the specific end of checking and turning back the rising
tide of lawlessness. There is work for the home, for the church, for
the voluntary association; and of course there is work for the school,
with which we are here more immediately concerned.