The banks south and west of New York and some of the Rhode Island

banks now suspended again. Specie at Philadelphia was at one hundred

and seven to one hundred and seven and one-half. United States Bank

stock at seventy. On October 15, it was at eighty, and sold at New

York at one-fourth premium. Scarcely any New York City notes were in

circulation.

This suspension was the real catastrophe of the speculative period

which preceded. A great and general liquidation now began. Perhaps as

many as two hundred of these banks never resumed. The stagnation of

industry lasted for three or four years. The public improvements so

rashly begun were suspended or abandoned. The states were struggling

with the debts contracted. Some repudiated; some suspended the payment

of interest. The New England states and New York escaped all the

harsher features of this depression and emerged from it first. In

proportion as we go further south and west we find the distress more

intense and more prolonged. The recovery was never marked by any

distinct point of time, but came gradually and imperceptibly.

The credit of the Bank of the United States bore up wonderfully under

the shock of its second suspension. Its friends were ready to attribute

its misfortunes to conspiracies, jealousy, or any other cause but its

own faults. They did not indeed know its internal history. It might

have recovered if it had not been ruined from within. The cotton

speculations showed a loss, in the summer of 1840, after saddling the

Bank with all possible charges, of $630,000 for the speculators. The

legislature of Pennsylvania ordered the banks to resume January 15,

1841. On the first of January, 1841, a statement of the assets of

the Bank was made, when it appeared that they consisted of a mass of

doubtful and worthless securities. The losses to date were over five

millions, according to the report of the directors, but over seventeen

millions, taking the stocks at their market value. The Bank resumed

January 15, with the other Philadelphia banks, and the great Bank

loaned the state four hundred thousand dollars, agreeing to loan as

much more. In twenty days the Philadelphia banks lost eleven millions

in specie, of which six millions were taken from the Bank of the United

States. On February 4 the Bank failed for the third and last time.

Its final failure was said to be due to stock jobbers. Suits were at

once begun in such numbers that all hope of ever resuscitating it had

to be abandoned. Its deposits, when it failed, were one million one

hundred thousand dollars and its notes in circulation two million eight

hundred thousand dollars. Twenty-seven millions out of the thirty-five

of its capital were held in Europe. The stock, in March, 1841, was at

seventeen. A committee of the stockholders reported in April, showing

the internal history of the Bank for five years. This brought out from

Mr. Biddle six letters of explanation, defense, and recrimination,

which are valuable chiefly for the further insight they give into the

history. As to the winding up of the Bank it is very difficult to

obtain information. Private inquiries lead to the following results.

Three trusts were constituted: one for the city banks to which the Bank

owed five or six millions; one for the note-holders and depositors; and

one for the other creditors. The city banks, the note-holders, and the

depositors were ultimately paid in full. The other claims were bought

up by one or two persons who took the assets. What they made of them is

not matter of history.

The attempt of the Pennsylvania banks to resume in January, 1841, had

been the signal for similar attempts in the other states. The banks on

the seaboard as far south as South Carolina generally resumed, and in

the Western and Gulf states some took the same step. All were indebted

to the Northeast, and were asked to pay as soon as they said they

were ready to pay. Like the Philadelphia banks they succumbed to this

demand. The Virginia banks held out until April, when the suspension

was once more universal south of New York.

All the states except New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island,

Connecticut, and Delaware had debts, amounting in all to nearly two

hundred millions. The Southern States had generally contracted these

debts to found banks. The Middle and Western States had contracted

debts for public works. In the former case the profits of the banks

were expected to cover the interest on the debt. In the latter case

the works were expected to be remunerative in a short time, and the

interest was provided for in the meantime by bank dividends (on stocks

owned by the state, which only constituted another debt), by taxes on

banks, and by royalties. Both schemes were plausible and might have

been successful if managed with good judgment and moderation. Under

the actual circumstances they were subject to political control, the

methods of which were reckless and ignorant. The consequence was

that when credit collapsed and the English market no longer absorbed

the state stocks with avidity, the states found themselves heavily

indebted, bound to pay large interest charges, and without the

anticipated revenue. The state banks of the South had loaned their

borrowed capital to legislators and politicians, and had no assets but

“suspended debt.” The improvement states had become heavily indebted

to their own banks and depended on bank dividends to pay interest. The

state banks all held state stocks as assets, and when these declined

in value, the banks became insolvent. Thus the banking system was

interlocked with the state finances and with the mania for improvements

unwisely planned and attempted without reference to the capital at

command. The aversion to taxation was very strong, and as taxation

was delayed, one state after another defaulted on its interest. The

delinquent states were Pennsylvania (which laid taxes in 1840, but

inadequate to meet the deficiency), Michigan (of which the Bank of the

United States held two millions in bonds not paid for when it failed),

Mississippi (of which the same bank held five millions in bonds the

obligation of which was disputed and never met), Indiana (whose debt

was one-fifth of the total valuation), Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland

and Arkansas, and Florida territory--total amount, one hundred and

eleven millions. In five years the Bank of the United States gave to

Pennsylvania three millions, subscribed nearly half a million to public

improvements by corporations, and loaned the state eight and one-half

millions. In 1857–1858 Pennsylvania sold out her works, which had cost

thirty-five millions, for eleven millions. The bonds deposited in New

York to secure circulation had a par value of four and six-tenths

millions, but were worth only one and six-tenths millions on the first

of January, 1843. As early as March, 1841, this decline caused a panic

in “Safety Fund” and “Free Bank” notes at New York.

Pennsylvania now entered on another experiment which threatened to

ruin her remaining banks as the reckless demands on the Bank of the

United States had helped to ruin that institution. On May 3, 1841, the

legislature passed, over a veto, a “Relief Act.” The object was to

secure a loan of three millions from the banks. The Act allowed them to

issue that amount in small notes which they were to subscribe to a five

per cent loan. They were to redeem the notes in five per cent stock on

demand in amounts over one hundred dollars. The stocks were then at

eighty and specie at seven per cent premium.

The best financial writer in the country at that time (Gouge) said of

this Act: Pennsylvania, “after having borrowed as much as she could in

the old-fashioned way from banks and brokers, and domestic and foreign

capitalists, resolved to extort a loan of a dollar a head from every

washerwoman and woodsawyer and everybody else within her limits who

had a dollar to lend. But as washerwomen and woodsawyers and other

dollar people cannot long dispense with the use of their funds, it was

necessary to give these certificates of loan in a circulating form, so

that the burden might be shifted from one to another day by day, or, if

necessary, two or three times a day.”

The summer of 1841 was marked by intense distress in Pennsylvania. A

table of the best investment stocks of Philadelphia shows a shrinkage

between August, 1838, and August, 1841, from sixty million to three and

one-half millions. The wages class was exposed to the bitterest poverty

and distress. The Pennsylvanians attributed the trouble to the want of

a protective tariff. For a time, in the autumn, the Relief notes seemed

to act beneficially. The banks took them and they circulated at par

with the rest of the state currency. In January, 1842, the Girard Bank

failed, and about the same time the Pennsylvania and three others less

important, and by March a crisis was reached worse than anything which

had preceded. A bill was suddenly passed by the legislature commanding

immediate resumption. An amendment was proposed that the banks should

no longer be bound to receive the Relief notes, although the state

should do so. The amendment was afterwards withdrawn, but the Relief

notes were ruined. They fell, some to seventy-five and some to fifty

in state currency and then became merchandise, after six months and

three days of use. Capital was now not to be had at four per cent per

month, but this bankruptcy had cleared the situation. The eleven banks

which had not failed agreed to resume on March 18. The exchanges with

New York turned in favor of Philadelphia. The years 1842 and 1843 were

years of great depression. The banks throughout the west and south were

liquidating, after which they either perished or resumed. From 1843 a

new sound and healthy development of industry and credit began. The

recovery, however, was very slow, and banks sprang up again sooner and

faster than anything else.

The total amount of Relief notes issued in Pennsylvania was two and

one tenth millions. In January, 1843, the amount outstanding was,

of depreciated $639,834, of specie value (issued by banks which had

resumed) $240,801. Bicknell’s _Reporter_ said: “If any one can devise

an immediate plan whereby the people can get rid of about $700,000 of

paper trash, he will be entitled to the name of a public benefactor.”

In February, 1843, the Legislature ordered the Treasurer to cancel

$100,000 of Relief notes at once and $100,000 monthly until all were

destroyed, but in June, 1843, there were still $684,521 out.

This is certainly a melancholy story of the way in which people who

enjoy the most exceptional chances of wealth and prosperity can

squander them by ignorance of political economy and recklessness

in political management. Banks were regarded as means of borrowing

capital, not as institutions for lending it. If there was anywhere

a group of needy speculators, they secured a bank charter, elected

themselves directors, gave their notes for the stock, printed a lot

of bank notes, loaned the notes to themselves, and went out and with

the notes bought the capital they wanted. Bank after bank failed with

an immense circulation afloat and no assets but the notes of its

directors, who had failed too. When the United States had thirty or

forty millions surplus on hand and these banks could get the custody

and handling of it for an indefinite period, because the country had

no need for it, it can readily be understood why banks multiplied. The

banks were encouraged to lend this deposit freely to the public, which

they were by no means loath to do, for that was the only way to gain a

profit on it. They lent it, not once but two or three times over. The

New York bank commissioners pointed out the danger of a system in which

the borrower came directly into contact with the bank which issued the

currency. If a man was eager to borrow and pay high interest and the

bank had only to print the notes to accommodate him, there was every

stimulus to over-issue. If the borrower engaged in any enterprise he

raised the price of everything he bought. When he became engaged in

his enterprise and wanted more capital, he went back to the bank more

eager and more ready to pay high interest than ever, and the operation

was repeated. In 1836, on the top of the inflation, the rates for money

were twelve and fifteen per cent throughout the year, with a very

tight money market. The banks and the business community could not

throw the blame on each other. They stimulated each other and went on

in their folly hand in hand. The penalties, however, were not fairly

distributed. The banks “suspended,” as they called it; that is, when

asked to pay their debts, they said they would not; and they enjoyed a

complete immunity in this respect, while people outside who could not

pay had to fail.

I have tried, within the limits to which I am bound, to show how many

elements were combined in this period and how they were all interwoven.

There are the political elements, the tariff element, the movement

of population to the new land, the fiscal operations of the general

government, the revolution in the coinage, the mania for public

improvements, the reckless creation of state debts, and the war on

the United States Bank. Any one of these might have accounted for a

financial crisis in an old country, and the fact that the catastrophe

produced by all combined was not greater here is a striking proof of

the vitality of the country and the wonderful advantages which it was

wasting.

On the four or five years of inflated prosperity there followed four

or five years of the most slow and grinding distress. 1843 is the year

of lowest prices in our history, and the year of severest restriction

in industry. In 1842 the United States Treasury was under protest and

actually bankrupt, and American credit was so low that an agent of the

general government who was sent to Europe to try to place a loan of

only twelve million dollars there could not do it at all. In that same

year, however, out of what income it did have, the general government

distributed six hundred thousand dollars, which came from land, amongst

the states. As for calling back any of the twenty-eight millions

deposited with the states, no effort of the kind was ever made. The

states were complaining that the fourth installment, to which they had

a right, had never been paid to them. The question is sometimes mooted

whether a national debt is a curse or a blessing. There can be no doubt

whatever that a national surplus is a curse.

In the years before 1837 there had been a great deal of eloquence

spent upon “the credit system.” After 1837 this matter was dropped. By

the credit system they meant the multiplication of bank notes which

were false promises. The notion was that the system of using these in

business gave poor men an easier chance to get rich. At first they

were loaned easily at low rates. Then, as prices rose and speculation

became active, interest advanced. The “poor men” found themselves

forced to submit to more and more ruinous renewals, all the heavier

because of the usury law, until they lost all they had ever really

owned. The question, then, is how much better off than they were would

the poor men of 1830 have been in 1845 if they had gone on slowly

earning and saving capital and making no use of credit at all. As it

was, the poor men of 1830, after supposing themselves rich in 1836,

were all bankrupt in 1845. Such is the course of every inflation of

the currency. It is proved by hundreds of instances; and there is no

delusion which it seems so hard to stamp out of the minds of men as

this, that in business we can make something out of nothing, although

we cannot in chemistry or mechanics. Nothing more surely tempts the man

without capital to his ruin than the easy credit which accompanies the

first stages of inflation.

It is worth while also to reflect for a moment on the results of the

two plans for dealing with the crisis: the New York plan and the

Philadelphia plan. When an error has been committed in this world, we

always have to bear the penalty for it. If we do not like the stripes

on one side we can turn and take them on the other, but when nature

inflicts penalties for her broken laws we never can squirm out of

the way. In this case, then, when the folly had been perpetrated the

punishment had to be suffered. The only choice was whether to take it

quick and heavy, or light and long. The New Yorkers chose the former

way. The contraction was severe and painful while it lasted, but it

was soon over. From May, 1838, the New York banks resumed and held on

without further default and the New York business recovered and entered

upon a new course of growth from that time. The Philadelphians took

the other course. They made it easy for the debtors and waited for the

storm to blow over. The consequence was that the debts increased still

further. The advantage in trade over New York proved shortlived and

terribly expensive, for the goods were not paid for. The confusion and

distress lasted for four years longer than in New York, and the total

loss was very much greater. For the last five years we have been under

the same necessity as that which oppressed the country in 1837. We have

been following the Philadelphia plan and I may give you my opinion that

we have not been wise. I think that we might have escaped three years

ago with far less loss, and might have been three years further on the

road to new prosperity.

In conclusion let me draw your attention to the lesson of this history

in regard to resumption. There was no resumption, you see, until the

currency had been reduced to the limits of the actual specie necessity

of the country or even below it. Either voluntarily or by bankruptcy

the redundant paper had to be withdrawn. Such has been the case in

every other instance of resumption that I know of, which has been real

and permanent. Applying this to our own present circumstances I ask

myself whether the amount of paper now in circulation is in excess of

the requirement of the country, and there seems to me every reason

to believe that it is. If that is so, resumption cannot be real and

permanent until a portion of it has been redeemed and withdrawn.

The interest in resumption of the great body of industrious, sober,

and thrifty citizens cannot be exaggerated. Renewed prosperity on a

solid basis is impossible until after a complete return to specie

value. There are those, however, who want to live by anything but

honest labor, who find their best chance when prices are fluctuating

and currency is continually changing in value. They have schemes and

interests which resumption must destroy. They have done all they could

to make it fail and they are watchful and eager to see it fail. If it

does fail it will be a great national calamity, on account of the

authority which it will offer to these prophets of evil if for no other

reason. Resumption with us now stands at just that point where the

lightest preponderance of force may turn it one way or the other--may

insure its success or cause its failure. It is a great gain to get our

faces set in the right direction. It arouses the national pride in the

success of resumption. It silences opposition and malevolent efforts

against it. It makes it very much easier to take the requisite steps to

insure success, for they involve no pain at all, nothing but economy

and prudence in the national finances; the avoidance of unnecessary

expenditure and the postponement for a time of certain expenditures

proper in themselves. If the country needs six hundred million dollars

to do its business with, then the withdrawal of a portion of the paper

would simply bring gold into circulation, and resumption would be

placed beyond a doubt. If the country does not want six hundred million

dollars to do its business with, then we cannot sustain specie payments

with that amount afloat, and we have still before us more of the

experience of 1842 and 1843.

THE SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY[58]

In the present state of the science of sociology the man who has

studied it at all is very sure to feel great self-distrust in trying

to talk about it. The most that one of us can do at the present time

is to appreciate the promise which the science offers to us, and to

understand the lines of direction in which it seems about to open out.

As for the philosophy of the subject, we still need the master to show

us how to handle and apply its most fundamental doctrines. I have the

feeling all the time, in studying and teaching sociology, that I have

not mastered it yet in such a way as to be able to proceed in it with

good confidence in my own steps. I have only got so far as to have an

almost overpowering conviction of the necessity and value of the study

of that science.

Mr. Spencer addressed himself at the outset of his literary career to

topics of sociology. In the pursuit of those topics he found himself

forced (as I understand it) to seek constantly more fundamental

and wider philosophical doctrines. He came at last to fundamental

principles of the evolution philosophy. He then extended, tested,

confirmed, and corrected these principles by inductions from other

sciences, and so finally turned again to sociology, armed with the

scientific method which he had acquired. To win a powerful and correct

method is, as we all know, to win more than half the battle. When so

much is secured, the question of making the discoveries, solving the

problems, eliminating the errors, and testing the results, is only a

question of time and of strength to collect and master the data.

We have now acquired the method of studying sociology scientifically so

as to attain to assured results. We have acquired it none too soon. The

need for a science of life in society is urgent, and it is increasing

every year. It is a fact which is generally overlooked that the great

advance in the sciences and the arts which has taken place during

the last century is producing social consequences and giving rise to

social problems. We are accustomed to dwell upon the discoveries of

science and the development of the arts as simple incidents, complete

in themselves, which offer only grounds for congratulation. But the

steps which have been won are by no means simple events. Each one

has consequences which reach beyond the domain of physical power

into social and moral relations, and these effects are multiplied

and reproduced by combination with each other. The great discoveries

and inventions redistribute population. They reconstruct industries

and force new organization of commerce and finance. They bring new

employments into existence and render other employments obsolete,

while they change the relative value of many others. They overthrow

the old order of society, impoverishing some classes and enriching

others. They render old political traditions grotesque and ridiculous,

and make old maxims of statecraft null and empty. They give old vices

of human nature a chance to parade in new masks, so that it demands

new skill to detect the same old foes. They produce a kind of social

chaos in which contradictory social and economic phenomena appear side

by side to bewilder and deceive the student who is not fully armed

to deal with them. New interests are brought into existence, and new

faiths, ideas, and hopes, are engendered in the minds of men. Some of

these are doubtless good and sound; others are delusive; in every case

a competent criticism is of the first necessity. In the upheaval of

society which is going on, classes and groups are thrown against each

other in such a way as to produce class hatreds and hostilities. As

the old national jealousies, which used to be the lines on which war

was waged, lose their distinctness, class jealousies threaten to take

their place. Political and social events which occur on one side of the

globe now affect the interests of population on the other side of the

globe. Forces which come into action in one part of human society rest

not until they have reached all human society. The brotherhood of man

is coming to be a reality of such distinct and positive character that

we find it a practical question of the greatest moment what kind of

creatures some of these hitherto neglected brethren are. Secondary and

remoter effects of industrial changes, which were formerly dissipated

and lost in the delay and friction of communication, are now, by

our prompt and delicate mechanism of communication, caught up and

transmitted through society.

It is plain that our social science is not on the level of the tasks

which are thrown upon it by the vast and sudden changes in the whole

mechanism by which man makes the resources of the globe available to

satisfy his needs, and by the new ideas which are born of the new

aspects which human life bears to our eyes in consequence of the

development of science and the arts. Our traditions about the science

and art of living are plainly inadequate. They break to pieces in our

hands when we try to apply them to the new cases. A man of good faith

may come to the conviction sadly, but he must come to the conviction

honestly, that the traditional doctrines and explanations of human life

are worthless.

A progress which is not symmetrical is not true; that is to say, every

branch of human interest must be developed proportionately to all the

other branches, else the one which remains in arrears will measure the

advance which may be won by the whole. If, then, we cannot produce a

science of life in society which is broad enough to solve all the new

social problems which are now forced upon us by the development of

science and art, we shall find that the achievements of science and art

will be overwhelmed by social reactions and convulsions.

We do not lack for attempts of one kind and another to satisfy the

need which I have described. Our discussion is in excess of our

deliberation, and our deliberation is in excess of our information. Our

journals, platforms, pulpits, and parliaments are full of talking and

writing about topics of sociology. The only result, however, of all

this discussion is to show that there are half a dozen arbitrary codes

of morals, a heterogeneous tangle of economic doctrines, a score of

religious creeds and ecclesiastical traditions, and a confused jumble

of humanitarian and sentimental notions which jostle each other in the

brains of the men of this generation. It is astonishing to watch a

discussion and to see how a disputant, starting from a given point of

view, will run along on one line of thought until he encounters some

fragment of another code or doctrine, which he has derived from some

other source of education; whereupon he turns at an angle, and goes on

in a new course until he finds himself face to face with another of

his old prepossessions. What we need is adequate criteria by which to

make the necessary tests and classifications, and appropriate canons of

procedure, or the adaptation of universal canons to the special tasks

of sociology.

Unquestionably it is to the great philosophy which has now been

established by such ample induction in the experimental sciences, and

which offers to man such new command of all the relations of life, that

we must look for the establishment of the guiding lines in the study of

sociology. I can see no boundaries to the scope of the philosophy of

evolution. That philosophy is sure to embrace all the interests of man

on this earth. It will be one of its crowning triumphs to bring light

and order into the social problems which are of universal bearing on

all mankind. Mr. Spencer is breaking the path for us into this domain.

We stand eager to follow him into it, and we look upon his work on

sociology as a grand step in the history of science. When, therefore,

we express our earnest hope that Mr. Spencer may have health and

strength to bring his work to a speedy conclusion, we not only express

our personal respect and good-will for himself, but also our sympathy

with what, I doubt not, is the warmest wish of his own heart, and our

appreciation of his great services to true science and to the welfare

of mankind.

INTEGRITY IN EDUCATION[59]

In addressing you on the present occasion, I am naturally led to

speak of matters connected with education. We are met here amid

surroundings which, to the great majority of us, are unfamiliar, but

we are assembled in the atmosphere of our school days and under the

inspiration of school memories. Some of us are rapidly approaching, if

we have not already reached, the time when our interest in education

re-arises in behalf of the next generation. Many are engaged in the

work of teaching. Others have only just finished a stage in their

education. I therefore propose to speak for a few minutes about

integrity in education, believing that it is a subject of great

importance at the present time, and one which may justly command your

interest.

By integrity in education, I mean the opposite of all sensationalism

and humbug in education. I would include under it as objects to be

aimed at in education, not only the pursuit of genuine and accurate

information and wide knowledge of some technical branch of study, but

also real discipline in the use of mental powers, sterling character,

good manners, and high breeding.

Modern sensationalism is conquering a wide field for itself. It is a

sort of parasite on high civilization. Its motto is that seeming is as

good as being. Its intrinsic fault is its hollowness, insincerity, and

falsehood. It deals in dash, flourish, and meretricious pretense. It

resides in the form, not in the substance; in the outward appearance,

not in the reality. It arouses disgust whenever it is perceived; but

the worst of it is that its forms are so various, its manifestations

are sometimes so delicate, and it often lies so near to the real and

the true, that is it difficult to distinguish it. Life hurries past

us very rapidly. The interests which demand our attention are very

numerous and important. We have not time to scrutinize them all. Then,

too, the publicity of everything nowadays prevents modest retirement

from being a sign of merit. We go on the principle that if anything

is good, it is for the public. Publicity is honorable and proper

recognition, and those who have charge of the public trumpets have not

time, if they have the ability, to discriminate and criticize very

closely.

These reflections account sufficiently for the growth of sensationalism

in general. Probably each one sees the mischief which it does in

his own circle or profession more distinctly than elsewhere. I have

certainly been struck by its influence on education. I see it in

common-school education as well as in the universities. It attaches to

methods as well as to subjects. It develops a dogmatism of its own.

Men without education, or experience as teachers, often take up the

pitiful rôle of another class which has come to be called “educators.”

They start off with a whim or two which they elaborate into theories

of education. These they propound with great gravity in speech and

writing, producing long discussions as to plans and methods. They are

continually searching for a patent method of teaching, or a royal road

to learning, when, in fact, the only way to learn is by the labor of

the mind in observing, comparing, and generalizing, and any patent

method which avoids this irksome labor produces sham results and

fails of producing the mental power and discipline of which education

consists.

Persons of this class are generally impatient until they have attained

some opportunity of putting their notions in practice, and then it

is all over with any institution which becomes subject to their wild

empiricism.

The saddest results of such proceedings are seen, of course, in the

pupils. That a certain school should lose its pupils, or fall into

debt, or be closed, is a comparatively small affair. The real mischief

is that men should be produced who have no real education, but only

a perverse training in putting forward plausible and meretricious

appearances. Such education falls in with the outward phenomena of

a sensational era and strengthens the impressions which a young and

inexperienced observer gets from our modern society, that audacity

is the chief of talents, that success or failure is the only measure

of right or wrong, that the man to be admired is the one who invents

clever tricks to circumvent a rival or opponent, or to skip over

a troublesome principle. Young people are more acute in their

observations, and they draw inferences and form generalizations

more logically and consistently than their elders. They have not

yet learned respect for dogmas, traditions, and conventionalities,

and their “education” goes on silently but surely, developing a

philosophy of life either of one kind or another. If, therefore, you

have an educational system consisting of formal cram for recitation or

examination, if there is a skimming of text-books, an empty acquisition

of terms, a memorizing of results only, you may pursue high-sounding

studies and “cover a great deal of ground,” you may have an elaborate

curriculum and boast of your proficiency in difficult branches, but you

will have no education. You may produce men who can spend a lifetime

dawdling over trifles, or men who always scatter their force when

they try to think, but you will not have intelligent men with minds

well-disciplined and well under control, who are able to apply their

full force to any new exigency, or any new problem, and to grasp and

conquer it.

The fault here is plain enough. People forget, or do not perceive, that

simplicity and modesty are the first requisites in scientific pursuits.

We have to begin humbly and with small beginnings if we want to go

far. Inflation and pretense only lead to vanity and dilletantism, not

to strength and fruitful activity. If we advance eagerly, we deceive

ourselves by the notion that we are making grand progress. We are only

leaving much undone which we shall have to go back and repair. If, on

the other hand, we proceed slowly and with painstaking, every step of

advance is sure and genuine. It forms a great vantage-ground for the

next step. It strengthens and confirms the mental powers. They come

to act with certainty by scientific processes, not by guesses, and

this mental discipline enables us to apply our powers wherever we need

them. A new task is not a dead wall which is impassable to us because

we have never seen one like it before. It is only a new case for the

application of old and familiar processes. I never see anything more

pitiable than the helpless floundering in a new subject of a young man

far on in his education who has never yet learned to use his mind.

In what I have already said about the philosophy of life which a young

person forms during the process of education, I have suggested that

education must exert a great influence on character. It is sometimes

asserted that education ought to mold character--ought to have that

object and work towards it, of set purpose. I do not deny this, but

I beg you to observe that it obscures the truth. The truth is that

education inevitably forms character one way or the other. The error is

in speaking as if academical instruction could be carried on without

training character, unless the set purpose were entertained. One might

read many books on mathematics and the sciences without any very direct

moral culture, but everything we learn about this world in which we

live reacts in some sort of principle for the regulation of our

conduct here. This, however, is not the most important thing. A school

is a miniature society. Do we not all know how it forms an atmosphere

of its own, how the members make a code of their own, and a public

opinion of their own? And then, what a position the teacher holds in

this little community. What a dangerous and responsible eminence he

occupies. What criticism he undergoes. What an authority his example

exerts. So, in this little society, general notions of conduct are

unconsciously formed, principles are adopted, habits grow. Every member

in his place gives to, and takes from, the common life. It may be well

doubted whether there is any association of life which exerts greater

influence on character than does the school, and its influence comes,

too, just as the formative period, when impressions are most easily

received and sink deepest.

Here then is where sensationalism may do its greatest harm, and

where integrity of method is most important. The untruthfulness of

sensationalism here becomes a germinal principle, which develops into

manifold forms of untruthfulness in character. Young people cannot

practice show and pretense and yet be taught to believe that the only

important thing is what you are, and not at all what people think

about you. They cannot practice the devices which give a semblance of

learning, and yet be taught to believe that shams are disgraceful and

that the frank honesty which owns the worst is a noble trait. They may

learn to be ashamed when caught in a false pretense, but they will

not learn shame at deceit. I do not say that they will lie or steal,

but it is a pitiful code which defines honesty as refraining from

seizing other people’s property. Honesty is a far wider virtue than

not-stealing. It embraces rectitude of motive and purpose, completeness

and consistency of principle, and delicacy of responsibility.

Truthfulness is the very cornerstone of character, and an instinct of

dislike for whatever is false or meretricious is one of the feelings

which all sound education must inculcate. It cannot do so, however,

unless its _personnel_ and its methods are all animated by unflinching

integrity.

I mentioned also, at the outset, amongst those things which are

embraced in education and to which I desire to see the principle of

integrity applied, good manners. Some people make an ostentatious

display of neglect for good manners. They think it democratic, or a

sign of good fellowship, to be negligent in this respect. They think

it something to be boasted of that they have no breeding. Some others

make manners supersede education and training and even character.

It is the latter error which most invades the sphere of education.

We are familiar with its forms. It gives us the mock gentleman of

the drawing-room under the same coat with the rowdy of the bar-room.

When this system triumphs, it fits our young people out with a

few fashionable phrases, which suffice for the persiflage of the

drawing-room, when a scientific subject by chance comes up. Girls are

the victims of this system far more than boys, but in “cultivated

circles” cases are common of this kind, in which a smattering of books

has been engrafted on the culture of the dancing school. Young men

and young women who have tacked together a few miscellaneous phrases

current amongst the learned will deliver you their opinions roundly

on the gravest problems of philosophy and science. The phrases which

stick in their minds the longest are those which are epigrammatic and

paradoxical, whether true or not. In fact, they could not analyze

or criticize their mental stock if they should try. They have never

learned to consider a subject and form an opinion.

It does not follow, however, that boorishness is erudition, or that it

does not belong to education to teach the good manners which are good

simply because they are the spontaneous expression of a sound heart

and a well-trained mind. Envy, malice, and selfishness are the usual

springs of bad manners. They belong to the untrained and brutish man,

and it is the province of true education to eradicate them. Hence it

is that where true education is wanting we may often find the worst

manners with the greatest social experience, and the truest courtesy

where there has been genuine discipline, but little acquaintance with

social forms.

I have not started this train of thought in order to tell you now that

we have enjoyed the true method of education, and that others have

not, but there are some things connected with this institution which

we may remember with pleasure in view of the reflections which I have

presented.

This school was founded so long ago that it already has a body of

graduates who are useful and influential men in this city, and many

others are scattered up and down the country, useful and honorable, if

not celebrated citizens. It was not founded without some struggle, but

the more enlightened views prevailed and the results have vindicated

those views, I suppose to the satisfaction of everybody. The enterprise

enjoyed at the outset the patronage of a body of men of remarkably

broad views and sound public spirit. We who profited by its instruction

in our time may properly remember those men on this occasion with

gratitude and respect. One of them, surpassed by none in zeal to work

for and intelligence to plan such an institution, has only just passed

away. Your city has been fortunate in possessing such citizens.

The plan on which the school was founded was remarkably wise and

farseeing. It has placed the highest education within the reach of

every boy in your city who had sufficient industry and self-denial to

seek it. Many of you are now in the position of active and responsible

citizens. You must regard this institution as one of the boasts of

your city. Guard it well. You may not boast of it only. You owe it a

debt which you must pay. Every boy and girl who has graduated here owes

a debt to the common school system of America. Every man for whom this

school has opened a career which would otherwise have been beyond his

reach, owes a tenfold debt, both to the common school system and to

the class in which he was born. Sectarian interests, private school

interests, property interests, and some cliques of “culture” falsely

so called, are rallying against the system a force which people as yet

underrate. There is no knowing how soon the struggle may open, and you

may be called upon to pay the allegiance you owe.

This school has also been remarkably fortunate in the selection of the

teachers who have presided over it. We cannot exaggerate the value of

this selection. It is by the imperceptible influence of the teacher’s

character and example that the atmosphere of a school is created. It is

from this that the pupils learn what to admire and what to abhor, what

to seek and what to shun. It is from this that they learn what methods

of action are honorable and what ones are unbecoming. They learn all

this from methods of discipline as well as from methods of instruction.

They may learn craft and intrigue, or they may learn candor and

sincerity. They may learn to win success at any cost, or they may learn

to accept failure with dignity, when success could only be won by

dishonor.

You know well what has always been the tone impressed on this

institution by the teachers we had here. We had many, both gentlemen

and ladies, whom we remember with respect and affection. Our later

experience of the world and of life has only served to show us more

distinctly, in the retrospect, how elevated was their tone, how sincere

their devotion, how simple and upright their methods of dealing with

us. They were not taskmasters to us, and their work was not a harsh and

ungrateful routine to them.

One figure will inevitably arise before the minds of all when these

words are said, the figure of one who died with the harness on. I

have never seen anywhere, in my experience, a man of more simple and

unconscious high-breeding, one who combined more thoroughly the dignity

of official authority with the suavity of unrestrained intercourse with

his pupils. It is a part of the good fortune which came to us and to

this city from this institution that so many young people here enjoyed

his personal influence.

It follows, as a natural consequence, from these facts, that we enjoyed

here to a high degree what I have described as integrity in education.

Sensationalism of any kind has always been foreign to the system here.

It must perish in such an atmosphere. We had instruction which was real

and solid, which conceded nothing to show and sacrificed nothing to

applause. We learned to work patiently for real and enduring results.

We learned the faith that what is genuine must outlast and prevail

over what is meretricious. We learned to despise empty display. We had

also a discipline which was complete and sufficient, but which was

attained without friction. There was no sentimentality, no petting, no

affectation of free and easy manners. Discipline existed because it was

necessary, and it was smooth because it was reasonable.

Now there is nothing to which people apply more severe criticism, as

they grow old, than to their education. They find the need of it every

day, and they have to ask whether it was sufficient and suited to the

purpose or not. It is because we find, I think, that our education here

does stand this test that we are able to meet here on an occasion like

this with genuine interest and sympathy. The years in their flight have

scattered us and brought us weighty cares and new interests. We could

not lay these aside to come back here for purposes of mere sentiment,

or to repeat conventional phrases. We meet on the ground of grateful

recollection of benefits received, benefits which we can specify and

weigh and measure.

This school must be regarded as a local institution. It belongs to

this city and its advantages are offered to the young people who grow

up here. I have referred to the exceptional wisdom and enlightenment

which presided over its foundation and have nourished its growth. In

conclusion, let me refer to what concerns its present and its future.

We are reminded by all we see about us here that its building and its

appliances are far better than they were in our day. Its prosperity

bears witness to its present good management. But, gentlemen, these

good things are not to be preserved without vigilance and labor. The

same wisdom and enlightenment must preside over the future as over the

past. I doubt not that the value of this institution to your city is

so fully appreciated, and the methods by which it has been developed

are so well understood, that any peril to it or to them would arouse

your earnest efforts for its defence. Keep it as it has been, devoted

to correct objects by sound methods. Sacrifice nothing to the _éclat_

of hasty and false success. Concede nothing to the modern quackery

of education. Resist the specious schemes of reckless speculators on

educational theories. It is not to be expected that you can escape

these dangers any more than other people, and you have to be on your

guard against them. You want here an educational institution which

shall, in its measure, instruct your children in the best science and

thought of the day. You want it to make them masters of themselves and

of their powers. You want it to make them practical in the best and

only true sense, by making them efficient in dealing intelligently with

all the problems of life. The country needs such citizens to-day. The

state needs them. Your city needs them. They are needed in all the

trades and professions. You must look to such institutions as this to

provide them, and you must keep it true to its methods and purpose

if you want it to turn out men of moral courage, high principle, and

devotion to duty.

DISCIPLINE

It occurs very frequently to a person connected as a teacher with a

great seat of learning to meet persons who, having completed a course

of study and having spent a few years in active life, are led to make

certain reflections upon their academical career. There is a great

uniformity in the comments which are thus made, so far as I have heard

them, and they enforce upon me certain convictions. I observe that an

academical life is led in a community which is to a certain extent

closed, isolated, and peculiar. It has a code of its own as well for

work as for morals. It forms a peculiar standpoint, and life, as viewed

from it, takes on peculiar forms and peculiar colors. It is scarcely

necessary to add that the views of life thus obtained are distorted and

incorrect.

I should not expect much success if I should undertake to correct

those views by description in words. It is only in life itself, that

is, by experience, that men correct their errors. They insist on

making experience for themselves. They delude themselves with hopes

that they are peculiar in their persons and characters, or that their

circumstances are peculiar, and so that in some way or other they can

perpetrate the old faults and yet escape the old penalties. It is

only when life is spent that these delusions are dispelled and then

the power and the opportunity to put the acquired wisdom to practice

is gone by. Thus the old continually warn and preach and the young

continually disregard and suffer.

Although I could not expect better fortune than others if I should thus

preach, yet there are some things which, as I have often been led to

think, young men in your situation might be brought to understand with

great practical advantage, and which, if you did understand them, and

act upon them, would save you from the deepest self-reproach and regret

which I so often hear older men express; and the present occasion seems

a better one than I can otherwise obtain, for presenting those things.

I allude to some wider explanations of the meaning and purpose of

academical pursuits. I do not mean theories of education about which

people dispute, but I mean the purposes which any true education has

in view, and the responsibilities it brings with it. It surely is not

advisable that men of your age should pursue your education as a mere

matter of routine, learning prescribed lessons, performing enforced

tasks, resisting, unintelligent, and uninterested. Such an experience

on your part would not constitute any true education. It would not

involve any development of capability in you. It could only render you

dull, fond of shirking, slovenly in your work, and superficial in your

attainments. Unless I am greatly mistaken, some counteraction to such

a low and unworthy conception of academical life may be secured by

showing its relation to real life, and attaching things pursued here to

practical and enduring benefits. I have known men to get those benefits

without knowing it; and I believe that you would get them better if you

got them intelligently, and that you would appreciate them better if

you got them consciously.

In the first place, it will be profitable to look at one or two notions

in regard to the purpose of education which do not seem to be sound.

One is that it is the purpose of education to give special technical

skill or dexterity and to fit a man to get a living. We may admit at

once that the object of study is to get useful knowledge. It was,

indeed, the error of some old systems of academical pursuits that they

gave only a special dexterity and that too in such a direction as

the making of Greek and Latin verses, which is a mere accomplishment

and not a very good one at that. It must be ranged with dancing and

fencing; it is not as high as drawing, painting, or music. There is,

moreover, a domain in which special technical training is proper. It is

the domain of the industrial school, for giving a certain theoretical

knowledge of persons who will be engaged for life in the mechanic arts.

With this limitation, however, we have at once given to us the bounds

which preclude this notion from covering the true conception of an

academic career. It does not simply provide technical training for a

higher class of arts which require longer preparation. You know that

this conception is widely held through our American community, and that

it is laid down with great dogmatic severity by persons who sometimes,

unfortunately, are in a position to turn their opinions into law. It

is one of the great obstacles against which all efforts for higher

education amongst us have to contend.

I pass on, however, to another opinion just now much more fashionable

and held by people who are, at any rate, much more elegant than the

supporters of the view just mentioned, that is, the opinion that what

we expect from education is “culture.” Culture is a word which offers

us an illustration of the degeneracy of language. If I may define

culture, I have no objection to admitting that it is the purpose of

education to produce it; but since the word came into fashion, it has

been stolen by the dilettanti and made to stand for their own favorite

forms and amounts of attainments. Mr. Arnold, the great apostle, if

not the discoverer, of culture, tried to analyze it and he found it to

consist of sweetness and light. To my mind, that is like saying that

coffee is milk and sugar. The stuff of culture is all left out of it.

So, in the practice of those who accept this notion, culture comes to

represent only an external smoothness and roundness of outline without

regard to intrinsic qualities.

We have got so far now as to begin to distinguish different kinds of

culture. There is chromo culture, of which we heard much a little while

ago, and there is bouffe culture, which is only just invented. If I

were in the way of it, I should like to add another class, which might

be called sapolio culture, because it consists in putting a high polish

on plated ware. There seems great danger lest this kind may come to be

the sort aimed at by those who regard culture as the end of education.

A truer idea of culture is that which regards it as equivalent to

training, or the result of training, which brings into intelligent

activity all the best powers of mind and body. Such a culture is not to

be attained by writing essays about it, or by forming ever so clear a

literary statement or mental conception of what it is. It is not to be

won by wishing for it, or aping the external manifestations of it. We

men can get it only by industrious and close application of the powers

we want to develop. We are not sure of getting it by reading any number

of books. It requires continual application of literary acquisitions to

practice and it requires a continual correction of mental conceptions

by observation of things as they are. For the sake of distinguishing

sharply between the true idea of culture and the false, I have thought

it better to call the true culture discipline, a word which perhaps

brings out its essential character somewhat better.

Here let me call your attention to one very broad generalization on

human life which men continually lose sight of, and of which culture

is an illustration. The great and heroic things which strike our

imagination are never attainable by direct efforts. This is true

of wisdom, glory, fame, virtue, culture, public good, or any other

of the great ends which men seek to attain. We cannot reach any of

these things by direct effort. They come as the refined result, in a

secondary and remote way, of thousands of acts which have another and

closer end in view. If a man aims at wisdom directly, he will be very

sure to make an affectation of it. He will attain only to a ridiculous

profundity in commonplaces. Wisdom is the result of great knowledge,

experience, and observation, after they have all been sifted and

refined down into sober caution, trained judgment, skill in adjusting

means to ends.

In like manner, one who aims at glory or fame directly will win only

that wretched caricature which we call notoriety. Glory and fame, so

far as they are desirable things, are remote results which come of

themselves at the end of long and repeated and able exertions.

The same holds true of the public good or the “cause,” or whatever

else we ought to call that end which fires the zeal of philanthropists

and martyrs. When this is pursued directly as an immediate good, there

arise extravagances, fanaticisms, and aberrations of all kinds. Strong

actions and reactions take place in social life, but not orderly

growth and gain. The first impression no doubt is that of noble zeal

and self-sacrifice, but this is not the sort of work by which society

gains. The progress of society is nothing but the slow and far remote

result of steady, laborious, painstaking growth of individuals. The man

who makes the most of himself and does his best in his sphere is doing

far more for the public good than the philanthropist who runs about

with a scheme which would set the world straight if only everybody

would adopt it.

This view cuts down a great deal of the heroism which fills such a

large part of our poetry, but it brings us, I think, several very

encouraging reflections. The first is that one does not need to be a

hero to be of some importance in the world. Heroes are gone by. We want

now a good supply of efficient workaday men, to stand each in his place

and do good work. The second reflection to which we are led is that we

do not need to be straining our eyes continually to the horizon to see

where we are coming out, or, in other words, we do not need to trouble

ourselves with grand theories and purposes. The determination to do

just what lies next before us is enough. The great results will all

come of themselves and take care of themselves. We may spare ourselves

all grand emotions and heroics, because the more simply and directly

we take the business of life, the better will be the result. The

third inference which seems to be worth mentioning is that we come to

understand the value of trifles.

All that I have said here about wisdom, fame, glory, “public good,” as

ends to be aimed at, holds good also of culture. It becomes a sham and

affectation when we make it an immediate end, and comes in its true

form only as a remote and refined result of long labor and discipline.

Before I speak of it, however, in its direct relation to education, let

me introduce one other observation on the doctrine I have stated that

we cannot aim at the great results directly. That is this: the motive

to all immediate efforts is either self-interest or the desire to

gratify one’s tastes and natural tendencies. I say that all the grand

results which make up what we call social progress are the results

of millions of efforts on the part of millions of people, and that

the motive to each effort in the heart of the man who made it was the

gratification of a need or a tendency of his nature. I know that some

may consider this a selfish doctrine, eliminating all self-sacrifice

and martyr or missionary spirit, but to me it is a pleasure to observe

that we are not at war with ourselves, and that the intelligent pursuit

of our best good as individuals is the surest means to the good of

society. Moreover, do you imagine that if you set out to make the most

of yourself in any position in which you are placed, that you will have

no chance for self-sacrifice, and no opportunity of martyrdom offered

you? Do you think that a man who employs thoroughly all the means he

possesses to make his one unit of humanity as perfect as possible,

can do so without at every moment giving and receiving with the other

units about him? Do you think that he can go on far without finding

himself stopped by the question whether his comrades are going in the

same direction or not? Will he not certainly find himself forced to

stand against a tide which is flowing in the other direction? It will

certainly be so. The real martyrs have always been the men who were

forced to go one way while the rest of the community in which they

lived were going another, and they were swept down by the tide. I

promise you that if you pursue what is good for yourself, you need not

take care for the good of society; I warn you that if you pursue what

is good, you will find yourself limited by the stupidity, ignorance,

and folly of the society in which you live; and I promise you also

that if you hold on your way through the crowd or try to make them go

with you, you will have ample experience of self-sacrifice and as much

martyrdom as you care for.

Now, if I have not led you too deep into social philosophy, let us

turn again to culture. We find that culture comes from thought, study,

observation, literary and scientific activity, and we find that men

practice these for gain, for professional success, for immediate

pleasure, or to gratify their tastes. The great motive of interest

provides the energy and this culture is but a secondary result. It

is a significant fact to observe that when the motive of interest is

removed, culture becomes flaccid and falls into dilletantism.

I think that we have gained a standpoint now from which we can study

undergraduate life and make observations on it which have even

scientific value. During an undergraduate career, the motive of

interest in each successive step is wanting. There is no immediate

object of pleasure or gain in the lesson to be learned next. Only

exceptionally is it true that the learning of the lesson will gratify

a taste or fill a desire. The university honors are only artificial

means of arousing the same great motive, which is in the social body

what gravitation is in physics. The penalties which are here to be

dreaded are but imitations of life’s penalties. I think that many who

have undertaken to give advice and rebuke and warning to young men in

a state of pupilage have failed because they have not fully analyzed

or correctly grasped this fact, that the academical world is a little

community by itself in which the great natural forces which bind

older men to sobriety and wisdom act only imperfectly. Life is far

less interesting when the successive steps are taken under compulsion

or for a good which is remote and only known by hearsay, than it is

when every step is taken for an immediate profit. I doubt very much

whether the hope of culture or self-sacrificing zeal for the public

good would make older men toil in lawyer’s offices and counting-houses,

unless there were such immediate rewards as wealth and professional

success. In real life it is true that men must do very many things

which are disagreeable and which they do not want to do, but there

too the disagreeable things are made easier to bear. The troubles of

academical life seem to be arbitrary troubles, inflicted by device

of foolish or malicious men. Troubles of that kind always rouse men

to anger and rankle in their hearts. But there is no railing against

those ills of life which are inherent in the constitution of things.

A man who rails at those is laughed at. So the man just emancipated

from academical life finds himself freed from conventional rules

but subjected to penalties for idleness and extravagance and folly

infinitely heavier than any he has been accustomed to, and inflicted

without warning or mercy or respite. On the other hand, he finds that

life presents opportunities and attractions for him to work, where

work has a zest about it which comes from contact with living things.

His academical weapons and armor are stiff and awkward at first and he

may very probably come to despise them, but longer experience will show

that his education, if it was good, gave him rather the power to use

any weapons than special skill in the use of particular ones. Special

technical skill always tends to routine. Although it is an advantage in

itself, it may under circumstances become a limitation. The only true

conception of a “liberal” education is that it gives a broad discipline

to the whole man, which uses routine without being conquered by it and

can change its direction and application when occasion requires.

This brings me then to speak of the real scope and advantage of a

disciplinary education. A man who has enjoyed such an education has

simply had his natural powers developed and reduced to rule, and he

has gained for himself an intelligent control of them. Before an

academical audience it is not necessary for me to stop to clear away

the popular notions about untutored powers and self-made men. It is

enough to say that the “self-made” man is, by the definition, the first

bungling essay of a bad workman. An undeveloped human mind is simply

a bundle of possibilities. It may come to much or little. If it is

highly trained by years of patient exercise, judiciously imposed, it

becomes capable of strict and methodical action. It may be turned to

any one of a hundred tasks which offer themselves to us men here on

earth. It may have gained this discipline in one particular science

or another, and it may have special technical acquaintance with one

more than another. Such will almost surely be the case, but there

is not a more mistaken, one-sided, and mischievous controversy than

that about _the_ science which should be made the basis of education.

Every science has, for disciplinary purposes, its advantages and its

limitations. The man who is trained on chemistry will become a strict

analyst and will break up heterogeneous compounds of all kinds, but he

will be likely also to rest content with this destructive work and to

leave the positive work of construction or synthesis to others. The

man who is trained on history will be quick to discern continuity of

force or law under different phases, but he will be content with broad

phases and heterogeneous combinations such as history offers, and will

not be a strict analyst. The man who is trained on mathematics will

have great power of grasping purely conceptional relations, or abstract

ideas, which are, however, most sharply defined; but he will be likely

to fasten upon a subordinate factor in some other kind of problem,

especially if that factor admits of more complete abstraction than

any of the others. The man who is trained on the science of language

approaches the continuity and development of history with a guiding

thread in his hand, and his comparisons, furnishing stepping-stones

now on the right and now on the left, lead him on in a course where

induction and deduction go so close together that they can hardly

be separated; but the study of language again always threatens to

degenerate into a cram of grammatical niceties and a fastidiousness

about expression, under which the contents are forgotten. Now, in

individual affairs, family, social, and political affairs, all these

powers of mind find occasion for exercise. They are needed in business,

in professions, in technical pursuits; and the man best fitted for the

demands of life would be the man whose powers of mind of all these

diverse orders and kinds had all been harmoniously developed. How

shallow then is the idea that education is meant to give or can give

a mass of monopolized information, and how important it is that the

student should understand what he may expect and what he may not expect

from his education. As your education goes on, you ought to gain in

your power of observation. Natural incidents, political occurrences,

social events, ought to present to you new illustrations of general

principles with which your studies have made you familiar. You ought to

gain in power to analyze and compare, so that all the fallacies which

consist in presenting things as like, which are not like, should not be

able to befog your reason. You ought to become able to recognize and

test a generalization, and to distinguish between true generalizations

and dogmas on the one hand, or commonplaces on another, or whimsical

speculations on another. You ought to know when you are dealing with a

true law which you may follow to the uttermost; when you have only a

general truth; when you have an hypothetical theory; when you have a

possible conjecture; and when you have only an ingenious assumption.

These are most important distinctions on either side. Some people are

affected by a notion, fashionable just now, that it belongs to culture

never to go too far. Mr. Brook, in “Middlemarch,” you remember, is

a type of that culture. He believed in things up to a certain point

and was always afraid of going too far. We have a good many aspirants

after culture nowadays whose capital consists in a superficial literary

tradition and the same kind of terror of going too far. They would put

a saving clause in the multiplication table, and make reservations

in the rule of three. On the other hand, we have those who can never

express anything to which they are inclined to assent without gushing.

A simple opinion must be set forth in a torrent fit to enforce a great

scientific truth. One is just as much the sign of an imperfect training

as the other, and you meet with both, as my description shows, in

persons who pride themselves on their culture. I will not deny that

they are cultivated; I only say that they are not well disciplined,

that is, not well educated.

Your education, if it is disciplinary, ought also to teach you

the value of clear thinking, that is, of exact definitions, clear

propositions, well-considered opinions. What a flood of loose rhetoric,

distorted fact, and unclear thinking is poured out upon us whenever

a difficult question falls into popular discussion! You cannot find

that people who assume to take part in the discussion have a clear

definition in their minds of even what they conceive the main terms in

the discussion to mean. They do not seem able to make a proposition

which will bear handling so as to see what it is, and whether it

is true or not. They cannot analyze even such facts as they have

collected, and hence cannot draw inferences which are sound. It needs

but little discussion of any great political or social question to show

instances of this, and to show the immense importance of having in the

community men of trained and disciplined intellects, who can think

with some clearness and resist plain confusion of terms and thought.

For instance, I saw the other day a long argument on an important

public topic which turned upon the assertion and belief on the part

of the writer that a mathematical ratio and a subjective opinion were

things of the same nature and value. Perhaps, when he was at school,

his father thought there was no use in studying algebra and geometry.

It would not make so much difference if he would not now meddle with

things for which he did not prepare himself, but it is this kind of

person who is the pest of every science, traversing it with his whims

and speculations; and perhaps I feel the more strongly the importance

of this point because the political, economic, and social sciences

suffer from the want of high discipline more than any others.

I ought not to pass without mention here the mischief which is done in

every science by its undisciplined advocates who, while admitted to

its inner circle, distract its progress and throw it into confusion by

neglect of strict principles, by incorrect analyses or classifications,

or by flinching in the face of fallacies. They render the ranks

unsteady and delay the march, and the reason is because they have never

had rigorous discipline either before or since they enlisted.

If your education is disciplinary, it ought also to teach you how to

organize. I add this point especially because I esteem it important

and it is rarely noticed. It is really a high grade of discipline

which enables men to organize voluntarily. If men begin to study and

think, they move away from tradition and authority. The first effect

is to break up and dissolve their inherited and traditional opinions

as to religion, politics, and society. This is a necessary process of

transition from formal and traditional dogma to intelligent conviction.

It applies to all the notions of religion, as has often been noticed,

but it applies none the less to politics and to one’s notions of

life. The commonplaces of patriotism, the watchwords of parties and

tradition, the glib and well-worn phrases and terms have to be analyzed

again, and under the process much of their dignity and sanctity

evaporates. So too one’s views of life, of the meaning of social

phenomena, and of the general rules for men to pursue with each other,

undergo a recasting. Now during this process, men diverge and break

up. They do not agree. They differ by less and more, and also by the

various recombinations of the factors which they make. Pride, vanity,

and self-seeking come in to increase this divergence, it being regarded

as a sign of independence of thought.

It is not too much to say that so long as this divergence exists, it

is a sign of a low and imperfect development of science. If pride and

vanity intermingle, they show that discipline has not yet done its

perfect work. It is only on a higher stage of culture or discipline

that self is so overborne in zeal for the scientific good that opinions

converge and organization becomes possible. But you are well aware

that without organization we men can accomplish very little. It is not

the freedom of the barbarian who would rather live alone than undergo

the inevitable coercion of the neighborhood of others that we want. We

want only free and voluntary coördination, but it belongs to discipline

itself to teach us that we must have coördination in order to attain to

any high form of good.

I have now tried to show you the scope, advantages, and needs of

a disciplinary education. I have one remark more to make in this

connection. A man with a well-disciplined mind possesses a tool which

he can use for any purpose which he needs to serve. I do not consider

it an important question by the study of what sciences he shall get

this discipline, for, if he gets it, the acquisition of information in

any new department of learning will be easy for him, and he will be

strong, alert, and well equipped for any exigency of life.

Before quitting the subject, I desire to point out its relation to

one other matter, that is, to morals, or manners. It is a common

opinion that the higher man attains, the freer he becomes. A moment’s

reflection will show that this is not true--but rather quite the

contrary. The rowdy has far less restraints to consider than the

gentleman. “Noblesse oblige” was perverted in its application, perhaps,

before the Revolution, but it contains a sound principle and a great

truth. The higher you go in social attainments, the greater will be

the restraints upon you. The gait, the voice, the manner, the rough

independence, of one order of men is unbecoming in another. Education

above all brings this responsibility. Discipline in manners and morals

does not belong to the specific matter of education, but it follows of

itself on true education. The educated man must work by himself without

any overseer over him. He finds his compulsion in himself and it holds

him to his task longer and closer than any external compulsion.

This responsibility to self we call honor, and it is one of the

highest fruits of discipline when discipline, having wrought through

intellect, has reached character. Honor falls under the rule which I

mentioned early in this lecture. You cannot reach it because you want

it. You cannot reach it by direct effort. It cannot be taught to you

as a literary theory. True honor can only grow in men by the long

practice of conduct which is good and noble under motives which are

pure. We laugh at the artificial honor of the Middle Ages and despise

that of the dueling code, but let us not throw away the kernel with

the shell. Honor is a tribunal within one’s self whose code is simply

the best truth one knows. There are no advocates, no witnesses, and no

technicalities. To feel one’s self condemned by that tribunal is to

feel at discord with one’s self and to sustain a wound which rankles

longer and stings more deeply than any wound in the body. It is the

highest achievement of educational discipline to produce this sense

of honor in minds of young men, which gives them a guide in the midst

of temptation and at a time when all codes and standards seem to be

matter of opinion. I have said some things about lack of discipline in

thought and discussion, but that is nothing compared with the lack of

discipline in conduct which you see in a man who has never known what

honor is, whose whole moral constitution is so formless and flabby that

it can perform none of its functions, and who is continually seeking

some special plea, or sophistry, or deceptive device for paying homage

to the right while he does the wrong. Education ought to act against

all this and in favor of a high code of honor, not simply the education

of schools and academies, but that together with the education of

home and family. Our great educational institutions ought to have an

atmosphere of their own and impose traditions of their own, for the

power which controls in the academic community is not the voice of

authority but the voice of academic public opinion. That might root out

falsehood and violence and meanness of every kind, which no penalties

of those in authority could ever reach; and I submit that such a

public opinion would be becoming in a body of young men of good home

advantages and the best educational opportunities the country affords.

Call it high training, or culture, or discipline, or high breeding, or

what you will, it is only the sense of what we owe to ourselves, and it

is greater and greater according to our opportunities.

THE COÖPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH

NOTE BY THE EDITOR

Among Professor Sumner’s papers there turned up a curiosity which I

do not like to pass over altogether, although it is more appropriate,

perhaps, to the purposes of the biographer. Apparently Sumner amused

himself, along in the seventies or early eighties, in figuring to

himself the state of the world under a socialistic régime of the sort

which he was always ridiculing and opposing. He did this by imagining

the contents of a socialist newspaper, the _New Era_, of the date July

4, 1950, consisting of editorials, news notes, public announcements,

criminal cases, and even a book review. The whole caricatures in

high colors the phenomena attending such a régime in its period of

exuberance. “The following,” he writes, “is a complete and verbatim

copy of a [New York City] newspaper of the date given. It is printed on

a small quarter sheet of coarse paper. The printing is so bad that it

is hard to read, and the typographical errors, all of which have been

corrected, are inexcusable.”

The motto of the paper is: “Let the Rich Pay! Let the Poor Enjoy!”

The responsible editor is Lasalle Smith, and the proprietors Marx

Jones, Chairman of the New York City Board of Ethical Control, Cabet

Johnson, Chairman of the Board of Arbitration for Wages and Prices,

Babœuf Brown, Chairman of the Board of Control for Rents and Loans,

and Rousseau Peters, President of the Coöperative Bank. A notice warns

readers that “This paper is published strictly under the coöperative

rules established by the Typographical Union in our office and under

the direction of the council of the same. The Committee of Grievances

gives its assent and approval to each number before it is published.

All subscriptions are payable monthly in advance to the Treasurer of

the Typographical Union. The Typographical Union, being a member of

the organized Coöperative Commonwealth, has police powers for the

collection of all sums due to it.”

* * * * *

A special notice reads as follows:

We send copies of this edition of our paper to a large number of

persons who have not hitherto coöperated in our enterprise but whom

we have enrolled until they signify their refusal. We call especial

attention to the names and standing in the Coöperative Commonwealth

of the proprietors of this journal. We believe that many of those

whom we now invite to coöperate, and who have been under suspicion of

being monopolists, capitalists, recalcitrants, and reactionists, will

see that they cannot better establish their credit for civism than by

accepting our invitation.

* * * * *

The following extracts are from the editorials:

Our reports of the Ethical Tribunal show that our noble Board of

Ethical Control needs to guard diligently our interests. Another

pestilent preacher has been condemned to the chain gang. At least we

make sure that our streets will be cleaned, a task which no coöperators

could be asked to perform, since all the ancient lawyers, professors,

and preachers are now condemned to this business. The stubbornness

and incorrigibility of these classes towards the Commonwealth is

astonishing.

The Board of Ethical Control announce as the result of the plébiscite

which was taken on April 1 last, that, by a vote of 5319 to 782, the

Commonwealth voted to retain the present Board of Ethical Control for

ten years, instead of reëlecting them annually as heretofore. This is

as it should be. Why disturb the tranquillity of our happy state by

constant elections when our affairs are entrusted to such competent

hands?

The agents of the Board of Ethical Control reported 213 persons found

dead in the streets at the dawn of day, 174 bearing marks of violence;

the rest, not having coöperators’ tickets, were ancient monopolists

who had apparently perished of want. The Grand Coöperator said that he

should submit to the Board of Ethical Control the question whether it

is edifying to continue these reports.

* * * * *

There follow extracts from the inaugural of G. P. M. C.[60] Lasalle

Brown, which begin with the sentiment:

_Of old ye were enslaved by those who said: Work! Save! Study! We

emancipate you by saying: Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy!_

The first right of everyone born on this earth is the right to enjoy.

The Coöperative Commonwealth assures this right to all its members.

We have not abolished private property. We only hold that every man

is considered to have devoted his property to public use. We have not

abolished landlords, capitalists, employers, or captains of industry.

We retain and use them. Such members of a society are useful and

necessary if only they be held firmly in check and forced to contribute

to the public good.

We need “history” and “statistics” to batter down all the old system,

but we should be the dupes of our own processes if we used them

against ourselves. All sensible coöperators should know that history

and statistics are far greater swindles than science.

There are dangers in the Coöperative Commonwealth which demand

vigilance. There is danger of jealousy and division amongst

coöperators. Harmony is essential to the Coöperative Commonwealth and

we must have it at any price.

Some say that our Commonwealth is weak. It is the strongest state that

ever existed. No one before our time ever knew the power of a “mob,”

as it used to be called. At a tap of the bell, every coöperator is at

hand. Our only danger is factious division of this power. Let every

coöperator have rewards for harmony and penalties for faction--strict,

sure, and heavy!

There is danger from science. The evolution heresy is a worse foe to

coöperation than the old Christian dogma. Stamp it out!

There is danger from the virus of the old anarchism--worst of all

because it is often enough like the truth to deceive the elect. It

means liberty and individualism. Stamp it out!

* * * * *

Under the heading “Domestic News” occurs the following:

The Commissioners of Emigration have detected several persons striving

to leave the city for Long Island, carrying gold with them. It is well

known that many rich persons, animated by selfishness and disregarding

their duties as trustees of their wealth for the public, have escaped

to the wilds of Long Island beyond the Commune of Brooklyn, carrying

with them all the gold which they could obtain. Hence the Commissioners

of Emigration have arranged to patrol the East River by the

Commonwealth galleys and have limited the ferry transits to the Fulton

ferry between 8 and 9 A.M. and 5 and 6 P.M. Any persons found carrying

away gold will be sent to the galleys and the gold confiscated. Gold is

needed to buy supplies for the Commonwealth.

No dispatches from Philadelphia have been received for a fortnight. A

steamboat of 100 tons burden is cruising in the Hudson River, taking

toll of all goods in transit across the river. Reports disagree as to

the character of the persons on this boat. By some it is asserted to be

manned by coöperators who, being poor, are putting into effect ethical

claims against material goods. By others it is said to be manned by a

gang of monopolist scoundrels and vagabonds, who, driven to desperation

by the boycott and plan of campaign, seek this means to perpetuate

their existence. It behooves the Board of Ethical Control to learn

which of these reports is correct before taking action.

A report comes from the West that the Indians have seized Illinois,

killing the whites and taking possession of the improvements. They

have imbibed the ancient capitalistic notions and are impervious to

ethical and coöperative doctrines. They are rapidly increasing in

numbers, strange as it may seem, for we have read in ancient books

that they were dying out a century ago. It is suggested that they now

increase because they are conquering, and that they will go on doing so

until they exterminate all whites from the continent. In the absence

of private mails, we humbly suggest that our Board of Ethical Control

should communicate with similar boards of the communes to the westward.

* * * * *

Under the heading “Industrial”:

The Board of Equalization of Production have set the amounts of various

commodities which may be produced during the coming fall season. Those

whom it concerns are to call at the office of the Board at once, pay

the fees, and obtain their instructions. The penalty of over-production

is fixed at 100 coöperative units per unit of product, half to the

informer.

The Board of Arbitration for Contracts will sit daily at their office

in Coöperative Hall from 10 to 12 A.M. to approve of contracts. The

fee is 1000 coöperative units from each party. Notice is called to the

ordinance of the Board of Ethical Control: “If two or more persons

make a contract without the presence and approval of the Board of

Arbitration or otherwise than in conformity with the regulations of

said Board, they may be fined according to the circumstances of the

case.”

The Coöperative Railroad Commission, having found a mechanic to repair

the locomotive, announce that they will recommence regular weekly trips

to Yonkers on next Monday. A train will start at 9 A.M., or as soon

thereafter as convenient. Accommodation for twenty-five passengers.

Passports may be obtained until noon on Saturday. They must be viséd

by the Railroad Commission and by the Coöperative Guardians of Public

Morals at their office in the Coöperative Workhouse not later than

two o’clock on the same time. The fare to Yonkers will be 10,000

coöperative units. On account of the inter-county commerce law, all

freight and passengers will be trans-shipped at Yonkers. To prevent

vexatious inquiries, the Commission hereby announce that they are not

informed whether or when trains will be dispatched to points beyond.

Since the Commonwealth was founded, as our readers know, coöperators

have refused to work in coal mines. No great harm has come of this

since the factories and machinery have been abolished and railroads

and steamers have almost gone out of use. Some coal, however, is a

convenience, and our readers will see with pleasure that delinquents in

considerable numbers are being sent to these mines under an agreement

with our Board of Ethical Control with the similar authority of the

Lehigh Commune in the ancient state of Pennsylvania.

We are informed that a number of ancient capitalists and monopolists,

being in a starving condition, recently applied to the Board of the

said Commune for leave to go into an abandoned coal mine and work it

for their own support.

A week ago yesterday, Coöperative Association 2391, A. P. D.,

bricklayers, 7824, M. X. H., plasterers, 4823 N. K. J., hodcarriers,

F. L. M. 8296, joiners, met to consider the state of the building

trades. On account of the decrease in the population, by which great

numbers of houses are vacant, building has ceased for years past and

these once great associations have dwindled down. The Board of Ethical

Control has caused public buildings to be constructed in order to give

them work and has ordered landlords to make repairs to the same end.

The conference on Friday, a week ago, was to consider further measures

of relief. It was decided that no vacant house ought to be allowed to

stand. Some maintained that no repairs ought to be allowed at all,

in order that new houses might become necessary, but others thought

that this would take away what little work is now obtained. G. C. Marx

Rogers, former professor of political economy, made a speech in which

he proposed that all houses now vacant and all ruins now standing which

give shelter to unregistered vagabonds and boycotted persons should be

destroyed; also that a committee be appointed to inspect all existing

dwellings, mark those which are out of repair and unfit for coöperative

residences, and that these latter should then be razed to the ground.

This would cause an immediate demand for new houses. This proposition

was unanimously adopted.

On Wednesday last the coöperative associations aforesaid met to hear

the report of the committee. Twelve hundred and forty-seven houses

had been noted so far as unfit for residences. The joint associations

passed a decree against said houses, as a beginning, and ordered the

committee of the whole to proceed to execute it.

They marched in a body to Bleecker Street, the northernmost limit

of the ruined houses and demolished them entirely. They then moved

southerly, destroying all vacant houses. Gradually, a number of persons

gathered to look on. The agents of Ethical Supervision kept this crowd

at a distance and secured the joint Coöperative Associations full

independence in the execution of their decree.

In East Canal Street, Nonconformist Jonathan Merritt, lessee of a block

of tenements, tried to dissuade or prevent the destruction of his

buildings. He was roughly handled, his skull split open and his arm

broken by the coöperators. The agents of Ethical Supervision took him

in on a charge of disturbing the public peace.

When it came to the destruction of occupied buildings, the tenants

objected. By the ordinance of the Board of Lodgings and Rents, each

had been allotted to his domicile and was, of course, bound to keep it

until allowed to change. It was also feared that no lodgings could be

found. The Board of Lodgings and Rents immediately convened and issued

new allotments of domicile. Suspects, nonconformists, recalcitrants,

and reactionists were sent to lodge in the ancient churches and the

coöperators were assigned to their tenements.

The revival and prosperity of the building trades is now assured.

* * * * *

Under the heading “Misdemeanors”:

Of all forms of incivism, the most reprehensible is hoarding gold. All

good coöperators who know of cases of this criminal selfishness are

bound to report it at the Bureau of Ethical Supervision under penalty

of incivism on the one hand and a reward of ten per cent of the sum on

the other. All gold must be exchanged at the bank of G. C. Cabet Rogers

for coöperative units.

An audacious lampoon has been printed at some secret press, the authors

of which must be discovered at all cost. It is a blasphemous parody

of the Coöperative Catechism. The Commission of Ethical Inquiry has

directed all its powerful machinery to detect the authors of this

outrage. Let every coöperator appoint himself a detective to help.

Search every house in your neighborhood! Trust nobody! Every person

found in possession of a copy of this pamphlet will be summarily

removed from the Commonwealth.

The supply of potatoes which forms the staple food of the mass of our

population is obtained from the northern part of the commune, in what

was formerly Westchester County. The great fields there are tilled

by the delinquents under taxes and fines, incorrigible monopolists,

survival capitalists and others under judicial sentence, under the

direction of the Board of Ethical Control. The convicts work from

sunrise to sunset, in order to mark the distinction between them and

honorable coöperators, who work but five hours per day. The product

of the fields on its way to the town is subjected to toll by the free

coöperative associations of the suburbs. Hence it always threatens to

be inadequate. Good coöperators cannot better serve the Commonwealth

than by ferreting out violators of the ordinances and other persons

guilty of incivism.

Karl Marx Jones, agent of the Board of Equalization of Distribution,

has disappeared. It is thought that he has gone towards Boston. He

reported to the Board, it will be remembered, two weeks ago, a case of

hoarding of gold. He was sent to collect it and was made custodian of

it. It has disappeared. The Board count upon the aid of communes to the

eastward to recover the gold, but not very confidently. He left all his

coöperative units behind him.

* * * * *

Ordinances of the Committee of Inquiry appears as follows:

Boycotts are declared against Robert Dorr, for saying that the

Coöperative Commonwealth is only a scheme to let a few exploit all the

rest; Matthew Brown, for saying that it is all a woman’s honor is worth

to appear on the street of the Coöperative Commonwealth, even thickly

veiled, for she runs the risk of attracting the attention of someone

against whom no one can defend her; James Rowe, for refusing to aid the

agents of the society in taking from her home without public scandal

a woman charged with incivism; John White, for hiding gold coin;

William Peck, for saying that Grand Coöperator Lasalle Brown secured

the boycott of Elihu Snow to get his property away from him; Edward

Grant, for saying that the Coöperative Commonwealth is only slavery in

disguise and the treatment of persons convicted of incivism is slavery

without disguise; Peter Moon, for saying that the Plan of Campaign is

only a scheme to allow a man’s debtors to rob him of a small fraction

of their debts if they will let some of the Grand Coöperators rob him

of all the remainder.

* * * * *

A considerable number of minor offences are tried before Grand

Coöperator Rodbertus Pease, Member of the Board of Ethical Control:

George Wood, aged sixty, was arraigned for carrying a pistol at night,

not being a member of any coöperative club and therefore not entitled

so to do. He declared that the streets were unsafe at night and that

he never went out after dark if he could help it, but that he was

compelled to go for a doctor for his sick grandchild and took the

pistol for security. He was met by two coöperators who asked him to

contribute to the Aged Coöperators’ Retreat. On his declaring that he

had nothing, they searched him and found the pistol. They then demanded

his coöperator’s ticket. As he had none, they took him to the Bureau

of Ethical Supervision, where he was detained until morning. The two

complainants appeared against him. They declared that they were poor

men. On examination it appeared that he was an incorrigible adherent

of the ancient monopolism. He was fined 10,000 coöperative units, half

to the informers. He began to lament at this, saying that he was very

poor--poorer than the complainants; but the Grand Coöperator declared

that no man could be a poor man who was not a coöperator.

The Emigration Commissioners whose sole duty is to prevent any

immigrants from coming into our commune put at the bar Fritz Meyer,

charged with immigrating. He pretended to be a sailor on the _Ferdinand

Lasalle_, but did not return on board of her before she sailed. In

defence he pleaded that he was left by accident. He was condemned to

serve on the yacht of the Board of Ethical Control at the pleasure of

said Board.

Ulysses Perkins and others, some of whom were coöperators and some

not, complained that their neighborhood was annoyed by the Coöperative

Brotherhood who hold their evening festivals at Coöperative Hall. They

declared that there was shouting and singing and that windows were

broken in spite of the heavy shutters. Their complaint was dismissed

as an attempt to oppress organized labor, and the coöperators amongst

them were especially reprimanded. The Grand Coöperator remarked that

the prejudice against beer which was manifested in ancient prohibitory

and license laws was not respected by the ethical judgment of our time.

On Monday last, several persons appeared to complain that the roads

outside of the city are infested by robbers. They were detained and the

Board of Ethical Control sent out delegates to inquire. They reported

yesterday, when the complainants were brought before the tribunal

to hear their report. They denied that there was any robbery, since

robbery means undue exaction of rent or of work for wages. The word

was used by the complainants in the ancient capitalistic sense. The

delegates found many coöperators enjoying holiday in the fields and

by the wayside. Some of them were playful and resented the exclusive

manner of passers-by who did not engage in sport. They asked for

treats, and they had appointed a committee to solicit funds for their

games. Some bands of banished monopolists were reported to be infesting

the woods, living by chance or by tilling some small fields which have

not been allotted to them, and plotting against the Commonwealth. The

Grand Coöperator said that such persons would be promptly dealt with

and dispatched a force of guardians of Ethical Order against them. The

complainants were discharged with a reprimand for misrepresenting the

innocent enjoyment of the coöperators in the suburb.

William Johnson, employer, was arraigned for contumacy. The Board of

Arbitration ordered him to pay 1000 coöperative units per day of six

hours. He closed his works. The Grand Coöperator ordered a second

charge for malicious lockout and fined him 10,000 coöperative units per

day until he should reopen his works.

Eliza Marcy, cook, actress, 26, was charged with defamation of Emily

Wilson, coöperative seamstress. The accused presented a certificate

of patronage from G. M. C. Brissot Robinson and was discharged from

custody, a rescript of the charge being transmitted to G. M. C.

Robinson for such action as he should deem proper.

Maria Waters, arraigned for working at type-setting below man’s rates,

pleaded poverty and distress as an excuse. She is the daughter of

an ancient monopolist from whom she inherited $100,000 before the

abolition of inheritance. She had therefore been denied admittance to

any coöperative society. She was fined 1000 coöperative units and sent

to the Ethical Workhouse to work it out.

Patrick Boyle, coöperative bricklayer, for mending his own table, he

not being a member of the furniture-makers’ union, was arraigned as a

scab and sentenced to forfeit his coöperative ticket, be graded as a

non-conformist, and pay 1000 coöperative units fine. Being unable to

pay, he was put under G. M. C. Scroggs to work it out.

* * * * *

Under “Benefits and Amusements”:

In addition to the three regular Labor Days of July, the 10th, 20th,

and 30th, the Board of Ethical Control has decreed an extra one on the

18th, with full wages. Commonwealth galleys will be ready to convey

coöperators and their families to Blackwell’s Island, where the dancing

and dining rooms in the ancient prisons of despotism will be arranged

for their entertainment. There will be a free circus at 3 P.M. and a

free variety entertainment in the evening. The two latter have been

provided by the liberality of G. P. M. C. Lasalle Brown.

Rents remitted for June and all arrears before January 1.

All coöperators in good standing are entitled to pensions of 100

coöperative units per week, with rations of coöperative bread and beer.

The agents of the Board of Equalization of Distribution will begin

next Monday the distribution of July pensions to all coöperators in

good and regular standing. The agents will call at the residences

of coöperators. There has been some delay which has occasioned just

murmurs. It has been due to delinquencies of tax-payers, amongst whom

not a little old capitalistic virus remains.

Masked Ball on every Sunday evening in the ancient Trinity Church.

Coöperative Enjoyment Association. Admission 100 c. u. All persons must

wear coöperative medals displayed.

* * * * *

“Foreign News” reports the following débâcle:

It will be remembered that about three years ago the last remnant of

English landlords was exiled to Guiana. The Commune of London granted

them a ship, of which an immense number blocked the Thames, not having

occupation, and they were allowed to navigate it if they could. Their

children were taken away from them, to be educated in the principles

of coöperation. From this mistaken complaisance a series of evil

consequences have flowed.

Some of the exiles have had yachting experience and most of them,

being trained in the ancient athletic sports, were able to navigate

the ship. Instead of obeying the law, they sailed to Gibraltar and

captured the ancient fortress. There they obtained arms and cannons,

of which they put a number on board their ship and returned to London.

Their first step was to seize the _Columbus_, a fine steamer of 1000

tons burden, one of the newest and in best repair of those lying in the

river. They then filled her bunkers with coal and wood which they took

by force from the Commonwealth barges in the river. They next seized

the arsenals at Greenwich and Norwich, carried off a great number

of repeating rifles and ammunition, and destroyed all the rest. The

coöperators of London, being taken unawares and being prepared only to

cope with the city monopolists, who had been disarmed, were unable to

interfere.

The pirates moored their vessel opposite the city and sent a message

of the G. P. M. C. by a captured coöperator that they would bombard

the city if their children were not all delivered to them. A hundred

of them landed with repeating rifles and revolvers and marched to the

coöperative factories, where they set free all who chose to join them.

In short, they departed after securing their children, a vast quantity

of tools and machinery, arms, supplies, and ammunition. A large number

of flunkies and snobs joined them, sufficient to man one or two other

vessels.

It now appears that they have taken possession of the Island of Sicily

and made it a base of concentration for a grand political reaction.

They have proclaimed as far as possible that their island is a refuge

for landlords, monopolists, and capitalists, and the roads of Europe

are crowded with vagabonds seeking to reach this nest of pirates. The

pirate state is growing. It is a republic like one of our ancient

states. It has an army of 5000 men who boast that with the arms which

they possess they can march from one end of Europe to another. They

control the Mediterranean and all its coasts. They have served notice

on the communal commonwealths of the Continent that they will avenge

any coercion exercised against any persons who seek to join them, and

six months ago they sent a force of 6000 men to Lyons to set free a

band of aristocrats who were imprisoned there and were threatened with

the guillotine.

It is said that there are no artisans now who are able to manufacture

repeating rifles like those which these robbers possess, except amongst

themselves--they having hired mechanics to recover the art. Even the

guns yet remaining on the Continent cannot be used because the art of

making the ammunition is lost. It was a great mistake to let these

pestilent scoundrels loose. Their state threatens the whole coöperative

movement. Its existence has greatly strengthened the collectivists

among coöperators, for it is said that the big empires must be restored

(on coöperative principles) to cope with them.

* * * * *

“Personal Items” record the following:

G. P. M. C. Lasalle Brown last evening gave a grand ball and

house-warming in his new house on Fifth Avenue. By demolishing and

removing the unsightly ruined houses in the neighborhood, a beautiful

park and garden have been added to this fine tenement. It was

illuminated last evening by thousands of lamps and torches carried by

the convicts who are under discipline in the household of the G. P. M.

C. The guests were members of the Board of Ethical Control and their

families, some of whom, remembering their own antecedents, observed

with interest amongst the convicts sons and daughters of ancient

monopolists, and in some cases white-haired survivals from the age of

bankers, railroad kings, and merchant princes. Such are the revenges of

history!

One hundred new carriages for the Board of Ethical Control have just

arrived. They are of the most superb workmanship and cost $5000 in

gold each. They belong, of course, to the Commonwealth and can only be

used under permission of the Board of Ethical Control. They have been

put, one each, under the care of separate members of the Board, as no

private individual is allowed to violate equality by owning a carriage.

We noticed with pleasure yesterday the families of Grand Coöperators in

these carriages in the park.

Non-conformists and others like them outside the pale of the

Commonwealth have, of late years, when they found their position

disagreeable, adopted the plan of attaching themselves voluntarily

as retainers or vassals to coöperators, especially to the leading

members of the Board of Ethical Control. In this way they secure some

of the advantages of coöperation. In order to show their position

and relationship, they wear special tokens or marks. The clients of

the newly inaugurated G. P. M. C. have just been put into uniform or

livery. They attended him in a body on his recent visit to his country

seat at Riverdale, where they did guard duty. Added to his personal

bodyguard of coöperators and friends, they made an imposing body. This

country-seat, by the way, has just been surrounded by a high stone wall.

* * * * *

There occurs an obituary of one of the community’s leading lights:

G. C. Brissot Cunningham died at 01 Fifth Avenue on Wednesday last.

He was born May 16, 1905 and was educated for a lawyer. In 1930,

putting himself in the foremost rank of the coöperative movement and

identifying himself with the most radical section, he was admitted to

the bar. By the abolition of inheritance, he found himself, on the

death of his father in the following year, thrown entirely on his own

resources. He then passed through some years of obscurity and great

poverty, which taught him to feel for the poor.

Allying himself with the noble band which supported our present G. P.

M. C., he helped to bring about the foundation of the coöperation in

1940 and was elected member of the Board of Ethical Control. In the

Board he filled many of the most important and responsible positions

on the several committees and was regularly reëlected. He devoted

himself to securing the Commonwealth, flinching from no measure to

establish it. He believed thoroughly in the motto “Enjoy.” After he

became a member of the Board of Ethical Control, the former mansion

of the ----s on Fifth Avenue was allotted to him and furnished from

the Commonwealth storehouse of forfeited property. He there kept up a

munificent hospitality on the most altruistic principles. He neither

cared to know whence his income came nor whither it went. In the spirit

of a true coöperator, whatever belonged to the Commonwealth was his

and whatever was his was free to any coöperator. His popularity with

the masses was shown yesterday when they turned out in a body for his

funeral. The non-coöperators who had felt his scourge were naturally

absent. A few of them who could not conceal their joy at his death were

summarily corrected by the coöperators. By his death at the early age

of forty-five, our Commonwealth has lost a valuable supporter.

[According to the ordinance adopted by the Board of Ethical Control,

February 10, 1945, since he died a member of the Board, his family will

have a pension of $15,000 per annum in gold for twenty-five years and

the use of his house for the same time. The Board will fill the vacancy

next week.--Editor of this paper.]

* * * * *

The _Text-book of Coöperation_, ordained by the Board of Ethical

Control for schools, is reviewed as follows:

This book is an authoritative exposition of the Coöperative

Commonwealth in the commune form. It is to supersede all other books

except the primer, writing-book, and elementary arithmetic. We have

done with all the ancient rubbish. All the books which have not been

destroyed are under the control of the Board of Ethical Control.

Especially we are now rid of all pernicious trash about history, law,

and political economy. The present book contains all that a good

coöperator needs to know. Its tone is strictly ethical. By separating

all children of incorrigibles and survivals from their parents and

educating them on this book, we may soon hope to bring all capitalistic

tradition to an end.

It is plainly proved here that the first right of every man and woman

is the right to capital. This right is valid up to the time when he

or she gets capital, when it becomes ethically subject to the similar

right of someone else, who has no capital as yet, to have some. This

principle carried out is the guarantee of justice and equality and is

the fundamental principle of the Coöperative Commonwealth in the middle

of the twentieth century.

The text-book describes the organization of our Commonwealth, with the

duties of coöperators, and gives a list of the ordinances of the Board

of Control.

There are now 1000 members of the Board of Ethical Control and 10,000

agents in their employ, chosen by lot monthly from all coöperators. The

Board is divided into ten Boards of 100 each for various branches of

duty. The members receive no salary but are remunerated by fees. They

enjoy no privileges or rights in the Commonwealth, but have the duty

of regulating all coöperative affairs according to their conscientious

convictions of justice. The ten chairmen of Boards form an exclusive

commission which decrees boycotts and plans of campaign. There are no

laws or lawyers in the system and no courts or juries of the ancient

type, now happily almost forgotten. There are no police, no detectives,

no army, no militia, and no prisons. The ancient prison at Sing Sing,

which is now within the limits of this commune, is turned into a

Coöperators’ Retreat. Under this happy régime no coöperator can do

wrong. Our only culprits are recalcitrants, suspects, incorrigibles,

survivals, and other would-be perpetuators of the old régime of monoply

and capitalistic extortion. Such persons are compelled to expiate their

selfishness and incivism by hard labor, but they are taken for this

purpose into the households or factories of the members of the Board

of Ethical Control, where they are subject to ethical discipline and

produce those things which are essential to the community and which the

Board of Ethical Control contracts to provide. The employments are such

as free coöperators consider disagreeable, unhealthy, or degrading.

The Committee of Inquiry into Incivism is a committee of the Board of

Ethical Control and has the high and important duty of watching over

coöperative duties. Its number and members are unknown, lest they

should be objects of malice. Its sessions and procedure are secret. It

employs 100 agents but has a right to command the services at any time

of all coöperators. Complaints of incivism may be lodged night or day

by any coöperator in the lion’s mouth in the court of the Coöperative

Hall (ancient United States postoffice).

The Committee proceeds against persons guilty of incivism by boycotts

chiefly. This measure puts the culprit outside the pale of the

Commonwealth which he has maligned or in which he has refused to take

his share. Such persons become vagabonds, and disappear or perish.

The chapter on coöperative religion is in the form of a catechism and

is to be thoroughly learned by heart by all pupils. It inculcates the

doctrines of our social creed by which each one is bound to serve

the health, wealth, and happiness of every other. Those who have the

means of material enjoyment shall put them at the disposition and use

of those who have them not. It impresses above all the great duty of

civism, or conformity to coöperative organization and obedience to the

Board of Ethical Control.

There is complete equality and no distinction of class in the

Coöperative Commonwealth. Every man, woman, and child is eligible

to the Board of Ethical Control. The only distinction is of merit

and service to the Commonwealth. In this the members of the Board

of Ethical Control stand first. There is no second. Outside of the

Coöperative Committee are, in order of demerit and detestation,

probationers (coöperators who have forfeited their coöperative tickets

for fault but who may be restored to membership), survivals (employers,

capitalists, landlords, usurers, subject to the Commonwealth and

continuing the ancient functions of such persons), nonconformists

(stubborn persons who refuse to conform to the new order),

recalcitrants (any of the former who have been subject to discipline

five times), incorrigibles (after twenty cases of discipline), suspects

(so decreed if charged but not convicted of incivism), reactionists

(once coöperators but convicted of disorganization) and convicts

(under boycott or plan of campaign). Every person must be registered

and have always on his person a brass medal hung by a chain about his

neck, bearing his designation and number, with the letters designating

his group, domicile, also district, ward, and arrondissement. This

constitutes his social designation. These medals are given out by

the Board of Ethical Supervision. The fee is 1000 coöperative units,

repeated each time that the person is re-classified and a new medal

issued.

* * * * *

Advertisements are included, as, for example:

John Moon, licensed to sell pistols and ammunition. A few revolvers

newly imported from the commune of Hartford at great difficulty and

expense. Bliss Bldg.

Henry Black, pistols and bowie-knives. Sales strictly within the

ordinances. Every purchaser required to show coöperator’s ticket, and

sales registered. 268 Felicity Boulevard.

Elias Israel, pawn broker, loans at 10% per month on coöperative

private property only. Sales of forfeited goods every Sunday. 618 Joy

Avenue.

* * * * *

The editor has no compunction about publishing these extracts, though

it may be objected that they can be at most of historical or personal

interest. Perhaps, in the light of the antics of the Bolsheviki, even

such a parody as the foregoing may seem less wide of the potentialities

of the socialistic system. In any case, if modern socialism has

renounced some of the wild dreams of its past, that is largely owing

to the criticism and ridicule poured upon them by vigorous opponents

of the Sumner type. Says a prominent American, writing to the editor

subsequently to the publication of one of the foregoing volumes of this

series: “I have for many years publicly and privately urged socialists

to read--_really_ read--Sumner--as the most doughty and competent foe

with whom they have to reckon.”

THE FORGOTTEN MAN

[1883]

I propose in this lecture to discuss one of the most subtile and

widespread social fallacies. It consists in the impression made on the

mind for the time being by a particular fact, or by the interests of

a particular group of persons, to which attention is directed while

other facts or the interests of other persons are entirely left out of

account. I shall give a number of instances and illustrations of this

in a moment, and I cannot expect you to understand what is meant from

an abstract statement until these illustrations are before you, but

just by way of a general illustration I will put one or two cases.

Whenever a pestilence like yellow fever breaks out in any city, our

attention is especially attracted towards it, and our sympathies are

excited for the sufferers. If contributions are called for, we readily

respond. Yet the number of persons who die prematurely from consumption

every year greatly exceeds the deaths from yellow fever or any similar

disease when it occurs, and the suffering entailed by consumption is

very much greater. The suffering from consumption, however, never

constitutes a public question or a subject of social discussion. If an

inundation takes place anywhere, constituting a public calamity (and an

inundation takes place somewhere in the civilized world nearly every

year), public attention is attracted and public appeals are made, but

the losses by great inundations must be insignificant compared with

the losses by runaway horses, which, taken separately, scarcely obtain

mention in a local newspaper. In hard times insolvent debtors are

a large class. They constitute an interest and are able to attract

public attention, so that social philosophers discuss their troubles

and legislatures plan measures of relief. Insolvent debtors, however,

are an insignificant body compared with the victims of commonplace

misfortune, or accident, who are isolated, scattered, ungrouped and

ungeneralized, and so are never made the object of discussion or

relief. In seasons of ordinary prosperity, persons who become insolvent

have to get out of their troubles as they can. They have no hope of

relief from the legislature. The number of insolvents during a series

of years of general prosperity, and their losses, greatly exceed the

number and losses during a special period of distress.

These illustrations bring out only one side of my subject, and that

only partially. It is when we come to the proposed measures of relief

for the evils which have caught public attention that we reach the real

subject which deserves our attention. As soon as A observes something

which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it

over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the

evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do

for X or, in the better case, what A, B and C shall do for X. As for A

and B, who get a law to make themselves do for X what they are willing

to do for him, we have nothing to say except that they might better

have done it without any law, but what I want to do is to look up C.

I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten

Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man

who never is thought of. He is the victim of the reformer, social

speculator and philanthropist, and I hope to show you before I get

through that he deserves your notice both for his character and for the

many burdens which are laid upon him.

No doubt one great reason for the phenomenon which I bring to your

attention is the passion for reflection and generalization which marks

our period. Since the printing press has come into such wide use, we

have all been encouraged to philosophize about things in a way which

was unknown to our ancestors. They lived their lives out in positive

contact with actual cases as they arose. They had little of this

analysis, introspection, reflection and speculation which have passed

into a habit and almost into a disease with us. Of all things which

tempt to generalization and to philosophizing, social topics stand

foremost. Each one of us gets some experience of social forces. Each

one has some chance for observation of social phenomena. There is

certainly no domain in which generalization is easier. There is nothing

about which people dogmatize more freely. Even men of scientific

training in some department in which they would not tolerate dogmatism

at all will not hesitate to dogmatize in the most reckless manner about

social topics. The truth is, however, that science, as yet, has won

less control of social phenomena than of any other class of phenomena.

The most complex and difficult subject which we now have to study is

the constitution of human society, the forces which operate in it,

and the laws by which they act, and we know less about these things

than about any others which demand our attention. In such a state of

things, over-hasty generalization is sure to be extremely mischievous.

You cannot take up a magazine or newspaper without being struck by

the feverish interest with which social topics and problems are

discussed, and if you were a student of social science, you would find

in almost all these discussions evidence, not only that the essential

preparation for the discussion is wanting, but that the disputants do

not even know that there is any preparation to be gained. Consequently

we are bewildered by contradictory dogmatizing. We find in all these

discussions only the application of pet notions and the clashing of

contradictory “views.” Remedies are confidently proposed for which

there is no guarantee offered except that the person who prescribes

the remedy says that he is sure it will work. We hear constantly of

“reform,” and the reformers turn out to be people who do not like

things as they are and wish that they could be made nicer. We hear a

great many exhortations to make progress from people who do not know in

what direction they want to go. Consequently social reform is the most

barren and tiresome subject of discussion amongst us, except æsthetics.

I suppose that the first chemists seemed to be very hard-hearted

and unpoetical persons when they scouted the glorious dream of the

alchemists that there must be some process for turning base metals into

gold. I suppose that the men who first said, in plain, cold assertion,

there is no fountain of eternal youth, seemed to be the most cruel and

cold-hearted adversaries of human happiness. I know that the economists

who say that if we could transmute lead into gold, it would certainly

do us no good and might do great harm, are still regarded as unworthy

of belief. Do not the money articles of the newspapers yet ring with

the doctrine that we are getting rich when we give cotton and wheat for

gold rather than when we give cotton and wheat for iron?

Let us put down now the cold, hard fact and look at it just as it is.

There is no device whatever to be invented for securing happiness

without industry, economy, and virtue. We are yet in the empirical

stage as regards all our social devices. We have done something in

science and art in the domain of production, transportation and

exchange. But when you come to the laws of the social order, we know

very little about them. Our laws and institutions by which we attempt

to regulate our lives under the laws of nature which control society

are merely a series of haphazard experiments. We come into collision

with the laws and are not intelligent enough to understand wherein

we are mistaken and how to correct our errors. We persist in our

experiments instead of patiently setting about the study of the laws

and facts in order to see where we are wrong. Traditions and formulæ

have a dominion over us in legislation and social customs which we seem

unable to break or even to modify.

For my present purpose I ask your attention for a few moments to

the notion of liberty, because the Forgotten Man would no longer be

forgotten where there was true liberty. You will say that you know what

liberty is. There is no term of more common or prouder use. None is

more current, as if it were quite beyond the need of definition. Even

as I write, however, I find in a leading review a new definition of

civil liberty. Civil liberty the writer declares to be “the result of

the restraint exercised by the sovereign people on the more powerful

individuals and classes of the community, preventing them from availing

themselves of the excess of their power to the detriment of the other

classes.” You notice here the use of the words “sovereign people” to

designate a class of the population, not the nation as a political

and civil whole. Wherever “people” is used in such a sense, there is

always fallacy. Furthermore, you will recognize in this definition a

very superficial and fallacious construction of English constitutional

history. The writer goes on to elaborate that construction and he comes

out at last with the conclusion that “a government by the people can,

in no case, become a paternal government, since its law-makers are its

mandataries and servants carrying out its will, and not its fathers or

its masters.” This, then, is the point at which he desires to arrive,

and he has followed a familiar device in setting up a definition to

start with which would produce the desired deduction at the end.

In the definition the word “people” was used for a class or section

of the population. It is now asserted that if _that_ section rules,

there can be no paternal, that is, undue, government. That doctrine,

however, is the very opposite of liberty and contains the most vicious

error possible in politics. The truth is that cupidity, selfishness,

envy, malice, lust, vindictiveness, are constant vices of human nature.

They are not confined to classes or to nations or particular ages of

the world. They present themselves in the palace, in the parliament,

in the academy, in the church, in the workshop, and in the hovel. They

appear in autocracies, theocracies, aristocracies, democracies, and

ochlocracies all alike. They change their masks somewhat from age to

age and from one form of society to another. All history is only one

long story to this effect: men have struggled for power over their

fellow-men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the

expense of others and might shift the burdens of life from their own

shoulders upon those of others. It is true that, until this time, the

proletariat, the mass of mankind, have rarely had the power and they

have not made such a record as kings and nobles and priests have made

of the abuses they would perpetrate against their fellow-men when they

could and dared. But what folly it is to think that vice and passion

are limited by classes, that liberty consists only in taking power away

from nobles and priests and giving it to artisans and peasants and that

these latter will never abuse it! They will abuse it just as all others

have done unless they are put under checks and guarantees, and there

can be no civil liberty anywhere unless rights are guaranteed against

all abuses, as well from proletarians as from generals, aristocrats,

and ecclesiastics.

Now what has been amiss in all the old arrangements? The evils of the

old military and aristocratic governments was that some men enjoyed

the fruits of other men’s labor; that some persons’ lives, rights,

interests and happiness were sacrificed to other persons’ cupidity and

lust. What have our ancestors been striving for, under the name of

civil liberty, for the last five hundred years? They have been striving

to bring it about that each man and woman might live out his or her

life according to his or her own notions of happiness and up to the

measure of his or her own virtue and wisdom. How have they sought to

accomplish this? They have sought to accomplish it by setting aside

all arbitrary personal or class elements and introducing the reign of

law and the supremacy of constitutional institutions like the jury,

the habeas corpus, the independent judiciary, the separation of church

and state, and the ballot. Note right here one point which will be

important and valuable when I come more especially to the case of the

Forgotten Man: whenever you talk of liberty, you must have _two_ men in

mind. The sphere of rights of one of these men trenches upon that of

the other, and whenever you establish liberty for the one, you repress

the other. Whenever absolute sovereigns are subjected to constitutional

restraints, you always hear them remonstrate that their liberty is

curtailed. So it is, in the sense that their power of determining what

shall be done in the state is limited below what it was before and the

similar power of other organs in the state is widened. Whenever the

privileges of an aristocracy are curtailed, there is heard a similar

complaint. The truth is that the line of limit or demarcation between

classes as regards civil power has been moved and what has been taken

from one class is given to another.

We may now, then, advance a step in our conception of civil liberty. It

is the status in which we find the true adjustment of rights between

classes and individuals. Historically, the conception of civil liberty

has been constantly changing. The notion of rights changes from one

generation to another and the conception of civil liberty changes with

it. If we try to formulate a true definition of civil liberty as an

ideal thing towards which the development of political institutions is

all the time tending, it would be this: Civil liberty is the status of

the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive

employment of all his own powers for his own welfare.

This definition of liberty or civil liberty, you see, deals only with

concrete and actual relations of the civil order. There is some sort

of a poetical and metaphysical notion of liberty afloat in men’s minds

which some people dream about but which nobody can define. In popular

language it means that a man may do as he has a mind to. When people

get this notion of liberty into their heads and combine with it the

notion that they live in a free country and ought to have liberty,

they sometimes make strange demands upon the state. If liberty means

to be able to do as you have a mind to, there is no such thing in this

world. Can the Czar of Russia do as he has a mind to? Can the Pope

do as he has a mind to? Can the President of the United States do

as he has a mind to? Can Rothschild do as he has a mind to? Could a

Humboldt or a Faraday do as he had a mind to? Could a Shakespeare or

a Raphael do as he had a mind to? Can a tramp do as he has a mind to?

Where is the man, whatever his station, possessions, or talents, who

can get any such liberty? There is none. There is a doctrine floating

about in our literature that we are born to the inheritance of certain

rights. That is another glorious dream, for it would mean that there

was something in this world which we got for nothing. But what is the

truth? We are born into no right whatever but what has an equivalent

and corresponding duty right alongside of it. There is no such thing

on this earth as something for nothing. Whatever we inherit of wealth,

knowledge, or institutions from the past has been paid for by the labor

and sacrifice of preceding generations; and the fact that these gains

are carried on, that the race lives and that the race can, at least

within some cycle, accumulate its gains, is one of the facts on which

civilization rests. The law of the conservation of energy is not simply

a law of physics; it is a law of the whole moral universe, and the

order and truth of all things conceivable by man depends upon it. If

there were any such liberty as that of doing as you have a mind to, the

human race would be condemned to everlasting anarchy and war as these

erratic wills crossed and clashed against each other. True liberty

lies in the equilibrium of rights and duties, producing peace, order,

and harmony. As I have defined it, it means that a man’s right to take

power and wealth out of the social product is measured by the energy

and wisdom which he has contributed to the social effort.

Now if I have set this idea before you with any distinctness and

success, you see that civil liberty consists of a set of civil

institutions and laws which are arranged to act as impersonally

as possible. It does not consist in majority rule or in universal

suffrage or in elective systems at all. These are devices which are

good or better just in the degree in which they secure liberty. The

institutions of civil liberty leave each man to run his career in life

in his own way, only guaranteeing to him that whatever he does in

the way of industry, economy, prudence, sound judgment, etc., shall

redound to his own welfare and shall not be diverted to some one else’s

benefit. Of course it is a necessary corollary that each man shall also

bear the penalty of his own vices and his own mistakes. If I want to be

free from any other man’s dictation, I must understand that I can have

no other man under my control.

Now with these definitions and general conceptions in mind, let us

turn to the special class of facts to which, as I said at the outset,

I invite your attention. We see that under a régime of liberty and

equality before the law, we get the highest possible development of

independence, self-reliance, individual energy, and enterprise, but we

get these high social virtues at the expense of the old sentimental

ties which used to unite baron and retainer, master and servant, sage

and disciple, comrade and comrade. We are agreed that the son shall not

be disgraced even by the crime of the father, much less by the crime

of a more distant relative. It is a humane and rational view of things

that each life shall stand for itself alone and not be weighted by the

faults of another, but it is useless to deny that this view of things

is possible only in a society where the ties of kinship have lost

nearly all the intensity of poetry and romance which once characterized

them. The ties of sentiment and sympathy also have faded out. We have

come, under the régime of liberty and equality before the law, to a

form of society which is based not on status, but on free contract. Now

a society based on status is one in which classes, ranks, interests,

industries, guilds, associations, etc., hold men in permanent relations

to each other. Custom and prescription create, under status, ties, the

strength of which lies in sentiment. Feeble remains of this may be seen

in some of our academical societies to-day, and it is unquestionably

a great privilege and advantage for any man in our society to win

an experience of the sentiments which belong to a strong and close

association, just because the chances for such experience are nowadays

very rare. In a society based on free contract, men come together

as free and independent parties to an agreement which is of mutual

advantage. The relation is rational, even rationalistic. It is not

poetical. It does not exist from use and custom, but for reasons given,

and it does not endure by prescription but ceases when the reason for

it ceases. There is no sentiment in it at all. The fact is that, under

the régime of liberty and equality before the law, there is no place

for sentiment in trade or politics as public interests. Sentiment is

thrown back into private life, into personal relations, and if ever

it comes into a public discussion of an impersonal and general public

question it always produces mischief.

Now you know that “the poor and the weak” are continually put forward

as objects of public interest and public obligation. In the appeals

which are made, the terms “the poor” and “the weak” are used as if they

were terms of exact definition. Except the pauper, that is to say, the

man who cannot earn his living or pay his way, there is no possible

definition of a poor man. Except a man who is incapacitated by vice

or by physical infirmity, there is no definition of a weak man. The

paupers and the physically incapacitated are an inevitable charge on

society. About them no more need be said. But the weak who constantly

arouse the pity of humanitarians and philanthropists are the shiftless,

the imprudent, the negligent, the impractical, and the inefficient,

or they are the idle, the intemperate, the extravagant, and the

vicious. Now the troubles of these persons are constantly forced upon

public attention, as if they and their interests deserved especial

consideration, and a great portion of all organized and unorganized

effort for the common welfare consists in attempts to relieve these

classes of people. I do not wish to be understood now as saying that

nothing ought to be done for these people by those who are stronger

and wiser. That is not my point. What I want to do is to point out the

thing which is overlooked and the error which is made in all these

charitable efforts. The notion is accepted as if it were not open to

any question that if you help the inefficient and vicious you may gain

something for society or you may not, but that you lose nothing. This

is a complete mistake. Whatever capital you divert to the support of

a shiftless and good-for-nothing person is so much diverted from some

other employment, and that means from somebody else. I would spend any

conceivable amount of zeal and eloquence if I possessed it to try to

make people grasp this idea. Capital is force. If it goes one way it

cannot go another. If you give a loaf to a pauper you cannot give the

same loaf to a laborer. Now this other man who would have got it but

for the charitable sentiment which bestowed it on a worthless member

of society is the Forgotten Man. The philanthropists and humanitarians

have their minds all full of the wretched and miserable whose case

appeals to compassion, attacks the sympathies, takes possession of

the imagination, and excites the emotions. They push on towards the

quickest and easiest remedies and they forget the real victim.

Now who is the Forgotten Man? He is the simple, honest laborer,

ready to earn his living by productive work. We pass him by because

he is independent, self-supporting, and asks no favors. He does not

appeal to the emotions or excite the sentiments. He only wants to

make a contract and fulfill it, with respect on both sides and favor

on neither side. He must get his living out of the capital of the

country. The larger the capital is, the better living he can get. Every

particle of capital which is wasted on the vicious, the idle, and the

shiftless is so much taken from the capital available to reward the

independent and productive laborer. But we stand with our backs to the

independent and productive laborer all the time. We do not remember

him because he makes no clamor; but I appeal to you whether he is not

the man who ought to be remembered first of all, and whether, on any

sound social theory, we ought not to protect him against the burdens

of the good-for-nothing. In these last years I have read hundreds of

articles and heard scores of sermons and speeches which were really

glorifications of the good-for-nothing, as if these were the charge

of society, recommended by right reason to its care and protection.

We are addressed all the time as if those who are respectable were

to blame because some are not so, and as if there were an obligation

on the part of those who have done their duty towards those who have

not done their duty. Every man is bound to take care of himself and

his family and to do his share in the work of society. It is totally

false that one who has done so is bound to bear the care and charge

of those who are wretched because they have not done so. The silly

popular notion is that the beggars live at the expense of the rich, but

the truth is that those who eat and produce not, live at the expense

of those who labor and produce. The next time that you are tempted

to subscribe a dollar to a charity, I do not tell you not to do it,

because after you have fairly considered the matter, you may think it

right to do it, but I do ask you to stop and remember the Forgotten Man

and understand that if you put your dollar in the savings bank it will

go to swell the capital of the country which is available for division

amongst those who, while they earn it, will reproduce it with increase.

Let us now go on to another class of cases. There are a great many

schemes brought forward for “improving the condition of the working

classes.” I have shown already that a free man cannot take a favor. One

who takes a favor or submits to patronage demeans himself. He falls

under obligation. He cannot be free and he cannot assert a station of

equality with the man who confers the favor on him. The only exception

is where there are exceptional bonds of affection or friendship, that

is, where the sentimental relation supersedes the free relation.

Therefore, in a country which is a free democracy, all propositions

to do something for the working classes have an air of patronage and

superiority which is impertinent and out of place. No one can do

anything for anybody else unless he has a surplus of energy to dispose

of after taking care of himself. In the United States, the working

classes, technically so called, are the strongest classes. It is they

who have a surplus to dispose of if anybody has. Why should anybody

else offer to take care of them or to serve them? They can get whatever

they think worth having and, at any rate, if they are free men in a

free state, it is ignominious and unbecoming to introduce fashions of

patronage and favoritism here. A man who, by superior education and

experience of business, is in a position to advise a struggling man of

the wages class, is certainly held to do so and will, I believe, always

be willing and glad to do so; but this sort of activity lies in the

range of private and personal relations.