citizens. This idea is corroborated by modern sociology. Professor Lester Ward, for example, in his wellknown work on Applied Sociology, affirms that "capacity is latent everywhere. It is opportunity that is rare, not ability." As it is, "only ten per cent of [our human] resources have been developed. Another ten per cent are somewhat developed. There remain eighty per cent as yet almost undeveloped." Education is really the fundamental human need, and the one great hope for the future. The task of progress is not so much in devising progressive laws, or a just and efficient industrial and political order, it is in getting people to want the laws, to realize the defects in our present social order and the means by which they can be remedied. The danger to America consists far less in any lack of patriotism or loyalty among its citizens, in any destructive intent of "Bolshevists" or "reds"; the danger to America can be summed up in one word-ignorance. Let the people know the facts, understand the situations with which they have to deal, let their minds be trained to think clearly and dispassionately, to weigh the evidence pro and con, let them be taught to appreciate the meaning and value of old institutions, and at the same time to realize the necessity for continual criticism and the application of new ideas-in short, let them be truly educated, and we may breathe freely when we think of the future of the Republic. SUGGESTED READINGS R. W. Emerson, The American Scholar. C. S. Cooper, American Ideals, Chap. VI. C. R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, Chapters XII, XIII, A. S. Draper, American Education. C. W. Eliot, Education for Efficiency. Scott Nearing, The New Education. G. Kerschensteiner, Schools and the Nation; Education for Citizenship. Irving King, Education for Social Efficiency. G. H. Betts, Social Principles of Education. H. S. Person, Industrial Education. A. Flexner, The American College. J. W. Hudson, The College and New America. CHAPTER XI HEALTH FOR ALL It is only in recent years that health has come to be thought of as in any considerable degree the concern of the State. In fact, our fathers thought very little about health. When half of their children died in infancy, when their wives showed the marks of age at forty, when epidemics decimated the population, they resigned themselves to the workings of a mysterious Providence. Physical exercise most of them got in abundance, sanitation was less necessary in the sparsely settled communities of the pioneer days, and so the evils of a careless individualism were less serious than now. Today we are made to realize that no man liveth to himself alone; that individual illhealth is a community loss and a community danger; that a large part of the illness and premature death of our people is preventable, and that it is the duty of the community to prevent it. In the words of Dr. Thomas Wood of Columbia University, "Better health is to a striking extent a purchasable commodity; and national economy demands that we purchase it." Certainly there is no more important natural right than the right to health and long life. And an organization of society which practically denies that right to a large part of the population is seriously inconsistent with our ideal of Equality. Not only does health constitute itself a large part of the intrinsic worth of life, it means opportunity for range of ex perience, and for the formation of those qualities of character that come through a rich and normal lifeexperience. Health is one of the most important factors that make for morality; bodily depression warps the judgment, causes irritability and discouragement, lowers resistance to temptation, weakens the will. It affects immediately the interest in one's work and the quality, as well as quantity of work done. As Horace Mann, our great educator, wrote, "All through the life of a feeble-bodied man, his path is lined with memory's gravestones which mark the spots where noble enterprises perished for lack of physical vigor to embody them in deeds." From a purely utilitarian and financial point of view, the conservation of health is of extreme importance. As compared with most other peoples, the American average of health and longevity is good. Yet thirty million American wage earners lose from sickness every year an average of nine days each, a wage loss, at $3.50 a day, of nearly a billion dollars, besides a cost for treatment of perhaps $200,000,000. Three hundred thousand babies die annually in this country; it is estimated that at least half of these deaths in infancy could be easily prevented. Tuberculosis alone costs the country $350,000,000 a year, and malaria $100,000,000. Both of these diseases are preventable by known means. The annual death rate for the United States as a whole has been, in recent years, about 14 per thousand population. Some States have rates as high as 16 or 17, in normal years, and some cities have rates over 20 per thousand. On the other hand, some States have rates around 10; the State of Washington has kept close to 8. Australia has kept close to 10, New Zealand between 9 and 10. With proper care, the rate might be lowered through out the country to the level attained in these more advanced communities. To lower it from 14 to 10 per thousand would mean an annual saving of 400,000 lives. So Secretary of Commerce Redfield was hardly too sanguine when he declared that "we can save the lives of 500,000 people a year if we choose." The two prime causes of this needlessly high deathrate are poverty and ignorance. The importance of the latter factor is revealed by the fact that while in our cities there has been in general a marked decline in the death-rate in recent years, the rate in the country, where hygienic knowledge has been less disseminated, remains close to the older levels. Country folks as a whole pay less attention to ventilation, and to the provision of a normal and wholesome diet. There is much malnutrition found in rural districts, and a startling ignorance of the proper care of children. Country people are more apt to ignore defects of the eyes, ears, teeth, or throat. A recent investigation sums up its conclusions in the following words: "The standards of living on the American farm, when tested by the accepted principles of physiology, sanitation, and hygiene, are alarmingly defective." In some parts of the South, conditions are intolerable. Dr. Frederic T. Gates of the General Education Board, writing in 1916, estimated that there were two million children in the South between six and sixteen years of age stunted physically and mentally by the hookworm disease, while many thousands died annually from its effects. School-inspectors have in some districts found over half of the school children defective or more or less disabled from other preventable or curable ailments. The effect of poverty upon the death-rate can be clearly seen in available statistics. A bulletin issued |