Nothing should satisfy us, nothing will fulfill the visions of the founders of the Republic, short of the best educational system, the highest educational attendance, and the lowest illiteracy rate, in the world. Indeed, there is no excuse for illiteracy at all; it should be stamped out like a plague. There is no excuse even for the stopping of the schooling of any boy or girl, save in exceptional cases, short of highschool graduation. Nothing less than that is consonant with our ideal of Equality of opportunity. Yet as things are, the average schooling of Americans lasts but a little over six years-and the school "years" are often very short. The average schooling! That means, since so many go on through the eight years of the elementary school, the four years of high school, and the four years of college, that very many of our children have considerably less than six years' schooling. As a matter of fact, a little over half of the children who enter the elementary schools reach the fourth grade; something over a quarter reach the eighth grade; about an eighth get to high school, and less than a twentieth graduate from high school. About two per cent go to some college or higher institution of learning, and only a fraction of those graduate therefrom.

To relieve the gloom of these statistics we should add that there are many hopeful signs on the educational horizon. The number of pupils in high schools is increasing far faster than the increase in the population. And most of our colleges and universities are badly overcrowded. The national Bureau of Education is doing a great deal to raise standards and to encourage the extension of opportunities. It is earnestly to be hoped that Congress will authorize bigger and bigger appropriations from the national

treasury, to be used by the several States on condition of their appropriating equal or larger amounts. Our educational system is very decentralized, as compared with some European systems; and our plan, that throws the burden of organization and finance upon the local communities, has its advantages. But in the manner above indicated, and by its constant supervision and advice, the Federal Government can do much to equalize the now very unequal educational facilities of the different sections of the country, and to raise the general level of efficiency.

Among the most important tendencies is the movement which is opening the school-houses to the adult population. More and more the schools are becoming community-centers, from which radiate educational, cultural, socializing influences of the highest importance. We are realizing that education is something not merely for the child but for every citizen. Farmers are being taught, through the public schools and State universities, to raise bigger crops; craftsmen are taught to improve the technique of their profession; housewives are taught better methods of cooking and canning, groups of men and women are taught a readier use of the English language, are instructed in current events, and in the various branches, history, economics, sociology, and the like, that will help to make them more intelligent voters. This "extension" work of the schools and Universities is only in its infancy, but it is gathering momentum; we may hope eventually to see practically the whole nation. at school.

The old idea was that only the select few were capable of intelligence or deserving of education. The American idea was that practically all the people would respond to education and become intelligent

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.
R. S. Bourne, The Gary Schools.

John Dewey, Schools of Tomorrow.
C. A. Scott, Social Education.

H. S. Person, Industrial Education.

A. Flexner, The American College.

J. W. Hudson, The College and New America.

Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in 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