I believe that university education will soon be free to every boy and
girl in America, and this without going far from home. Esoteric
education is always more or less of a sham. Our public-school system is
purely exoteric, only we stop too soon. We also give our teachers too
much work and too little pay. Stop building warships, and use the money
to double the teachers' salaries, making the profession respectable,
raise the standard of efficiency, and the free university with the old
Greek Lyceum will be here.
America must do this--the Old World can't. We have the money, and we
have the men and the women; all that is needed is the desire, and this
is fast awakening.
* * * * *
When Alexander died, of acute success, aged thirty-two, Aristotle's
sustaining prop was gone. The Athenians never thought much of the
Macedonians--not much more than Saint Paul did, he having tried to
convert both and failed.
Athens was jealous of the power of Alexander: that a provincial should
thus rule the Mother-Country was unforgivable. It was as if a Canadian
should make himself King of England!
Everybody knew that Aristotle had been the tutor of Alexander, and that
they were close friends. And that a Macedonian should be the chief
school-teacher in Athens was an affront. The very greatness of the man
was his offense: Athens had none to match him, and the world has never
since matched him, either. How to get rid of the Macedonian philosopher
was the question.
And so our old friend, heresy, comes in again. A poem was found, written
by Aristotle many years before, on the death of his friend, King
Hermias, wherein Apollo was disrespectfully mentioned. It was the old
charge against Socrates come back--the hemlock was brewing. But life was
sweet to Aristotle; he chose discretion to valor, and fled to his
country home at Chalcis in Euboea.
The humiliation of being driven from his work, and the sudden change
from active life to exile, undermined his strength, and he died in a
year, aged sixty-two.
In morals the world has added nothing new to the philosophy of
Aristotle: gentleness, consideration, moderation, mutual helpfulness,
and the principle that one man's privileges end where another man's
rights begin--these make up the sum. And on them, all authorities agree,
and have for twenty-five hundred years.
The family relations of Aristotle were most exemplary. The unseemly
wrangles of Philip and his wife were never repeated in the home of
Aristotle. Yet we will have to offer this fact in the interests of
stirpiculture: the inconstant Philip and the termagant Olympias brought
into the world Alexander; whereas the sons of Aristotle lived their day
and died, without making a ripple on the surface of history.
As in the scientific study of the horse, no progress was made from the
time of Aristotle to that of Leonardo, so Hegel says there was no
advancement in philosophy from the time of Aristotle to that of Spinoza.