On the Firing Line in Education Part 6

Exactly what is G.o.d's ultimate purpose for the human race, I think no one knows. And I am not sure that we need to know. Where clear vision is not granted we walk by faith. But even if the ultimate end is not clearly portrayed, even if we are kept in the dark as to the great outcome, we do know pretty well His method of procedure. A careful study of the past and a critical a.n.a.lysis of the data now at hand looking to the future enable us to grasp with some clearness the leading outlines of the program. From generation to generation, from century to century, from age to age, as time has rolled on, there has been a gradual moving onward and upward, a steady improvement both in the refining and civilizing of man's own being and in bringing that being into sympathetic relations with the external world, that is, a gradual development of man's own powers, and an ever increasing control of the forces of nature. In spite of the fact that this progress has been, at times, painfully slow, it has never once ceased, and during the last century it has moved on with constantly accelerating speed until to-day the human race stands upon the highest point ever reached. I have absolutely no sympathy with that narrow pessimism which is always talking about "the good old times." All in all, there never was a time in the history of the world when man knew so much as to-day; there never was a time when his life was so ministered to by the forces of nature; never a time when his heart was so tender, when it responded so quickly to human suffering, never a time when all forms of evil were so quickly condemned nor when so much good was being done. The long program seems to have been for each age and each generation to hand on to its successors the legacy received, but increased and strengthened and bettered. How much longer this upward movement is to continue, how much more the race is to know and do, how much better it is to be, no one knows. G.o.d's ultimate purpose, His great object in view--we may not be able to grasp, but certainly it is not difficult for us to note the general direction of the movement. It is upward.

In all this, wherein does the home come, and what is its function? Is it not, has it not been from the very beginning the Divine agency used for doing this great work? Was not the home inst.i.tuted, endowed with the divine power of love, and consecrated for the perpetuation of the race?

"Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." True, as many times pointed out, our toils and our struggles, our earnings and our productions, incidentally give us pleasure and satisfaction and power, but yet even these are but a means to an end,--that parents may beget, rear, and educate their children in such a way that they can carry the banner of civilization a little higher--lift society to a higher level and draw mankind nearer to G.o.d.

So it is that the center and circ.u.mference of the home is the child. In the child the home finds its meaning, its excuse, and its justification.

It exists, then, that the child may be adequately prepared for doing its great work in the world. Whatever else it may do, on the side, it has one great problem. The child! The child! The best crop the farmer raises, the best article the manufacturer puts on the market, the best ware the merchant handles, the best case the lawyer pleads, the best sermon the minister preaches--or at least that which gives meaning to all of these--the child! "The fruit of all the past and the seed of all the future." G.o.d bless the home and G.o.d bless its best fruitage--the child!

THE CHURCH

Thus the home--G.o.d's simple yet mighty agent in His great work of developing the human race. Its work was accepted and for a time all went well. Such preparation, mostly physical, as the child needed for its future work the home gave without difficulty. But this simple life could not continue indefinitely. One of the fundamental principles of life absolutely forbade man's standing still. The laws of growth and development pushed him on. Whether he would or not, he was compelled to move forward, just as the acorn, obeying the law of its being, changes its form, its size, and adds to its complexity. Little by little man, obeying these inexorable laws, began to develop. His mental, his moral, and his physical natures gradually a.s.sumed new forms--new needs and desires were born. More and more his vision became expanded until he could see into and mesurably appreciate the forces of nature. His life was becoming more complex. Now, this larger life, this greater complexity of life, in addition to its own complexity, added materially to the work of preparing the child for playing its part in this great onward movement.

Such preparation as was needed by the child of the primitive home to equip it for playing its part as an adult would no longer suffice. The home must now do something more than satisfy the needs of the body--provide food, clothing, and shelter, and incidentally give opportunity to learn, mostly by imitation, how to do this for another generation of children. The spiritual life needed attention and, as well, the intellectual. Compet.i.tion was growing keen, and each felt the need of a better equipment that he might play his part well in the larger life that was surely before him. And this larger outlook upon life was itself growing by what it was feeding upon and making its own demands for better things.

But the home was handicapped. It felt the need, but with all other things that it had to do, had no time to take up these new duties. And again, the most of the homes, even if time had been abundant, did not know how to do the new work. So it set about finding a solution to its problem. This was found in the principle of the division of labor. It was seen that time would be saved and results much more satisfactorily reached by delegating to persons definitely prepared and set aside for that purpose certain phases of this work. So the church was inst.i.tuted and, a little later, the school. To the church was delegated, speaking broadly, the religious and moral development of the child and to the school, the intellectual development.

It was exactly the same principle that, later on, took from the home the weaving of cloth and the making of shoes and other industrial pursuits.

With this added complexity of life, the homes could not profitably carry on all these varied activities--be, in addition to a home, also a tailor shop and a shoe factory, a church and a school. And so the homes of a community combined, selecting one man particularly adapted to that work to make all the shoes for the community, another the cloth, etc. And, in like manner, earlier in history, one was set aside to minister to the spiritual life, and one to teach the children. Both were offshoots of the home, delegated by the home to do a certain very definite portion of its work. Each took directions from the collective home and looked to it as the source of its authority. And such it was. The point is this: the home was the original educational inst.i.tution and, as well, the original religious inst.i.tution. At first it alone performed the work of all three: it was our home, our church, and school all in one. It finally established the others and merely delegated work to these supplemental agencies, so, at any time, it may withdraw that work from them. It is master of the situation. This withdrawal may be done either by the collective home or by any individual home. If any home represented here this evening, for any reason whatever, wishes to resume the religious function and alone direct the religious development of the children, no one can say it nay. And it is the same in regard to the school. If any parent here wishes to withdraw his children from the school and himself, either directly or indirectly, provide for their intellectual development, he has a perfect right to do so. Our compulsory attendance laws are satisfied when evidence is furnished of the child's advancement. Of course the church and the school, in this primitive stage, were both exceedingly crude--corresponding to the crude notions of religious and intellectual development then held by man, yet playing the same great part as now in the drama of life. I suppose it is true that these differentiations were at first only semi-conscious, but nevertheless they were real differentiations and had large influence upon the development of man.

To trace the development of the church thru its early stages is not necessary for the purpose of this address, so I pa.s.s at once to the establishment of the Christian church which is in reality our representative of the same fundamental inst.i.tution. Like the home and the school, the church began in a very humble way, and during the progress of the centuries pa.s.sed thru many vicissitudes and underwent many changes. Let me speak very briefly of four stages, or periods, of the history of the Christian church: first, the primitive stage, that period of about 350 years following its birth when, in the main, motives were pure, ambitions unselfish, and ideals high. But, tho it was founded to provide the means of securing the religious development of the child and the race thru the perpetuation and extension of the teachings of Christ, and tho it was launched forth into its great career in the spirit of love and meekness and fellowship that characterized His life, it was not long, as history counts time, before that worthy function was entirely lost sight of, that spirit wholly cast aside, and the new inst.i.tution entered upon its second period, becoming a mere political machine which, in its utter disregard of rights and justice, in the shrewdness and daring of its schemes, and in the blackness of its methods, almost surpa.s.sed even our own most skilful efforts in those directions. "My kingdom is not of this world," Christ had said, and yet the church, founded upon His teachings and led by men pretending to be His true representatives, had become, in very deed, a kingdom of this world. The possession and use of worldly power by the church had so blunted its moral sense that Dante, in the early part of the fourteenth century, felt forced to exclaim, and exclaimed with truth:

"The Church of Rome, Mixing two governments that ill a.s.sort, Hath missed her footing, fall'n into the mire, And there herself and burden much defiled."

But Dante's criticism and other forces brought to bear drew back the erring leaders to some slight conception of their function and to some slight effort toward the performance of duty, tho neither conception nor performance took them back to their pristine merit. And the church entered another historical stage, the third, and one whose dominant thought and purpose prevails even up to modern times. Indeed, so recently has it pa.s.sed that its dark outlines are even yet discoverable as we glance backward. In this new conception of the church and its work we find the function of the inst.i.tution to be not religious development of the individual and of the race, as it had been at first, but merely technical salvation. And the inst.i.tution may be pictured as a great lifeboat thrust out into the storm to save from destruction those who can be drawn within--_while all others perish_.

You remember the painting of the picture, foreground and background, how the emphasis was thrown upon the world to come! This world was not man's home. He was a sojourner here, a wanderer. His citizenship was in Heaven. He was a pilgrim pa.s.sing thru a strange and weary land, and the only purpose of the pilgrimage was a preparation for the life to come.

The nature of man himself was corrupt. The world around him was evil.

Alone and unaided he was powerless. He was lost both for this world and the next. The storms of life were about him, the great waves were ready to engulf him. But the church, as a lifeboat, was thrust out into the breakers, and upon certain stipulated conditions was ready to take him in. The church was represented as having received direct from the hands of G.o.d "the keys of heaven and h.e.l.l," and as being able to open the gates of a better world to all true believers. But true believers, you know, were no longer the pure followers of the crucified Christ, simply those who would accept the man-made dogmas of the church. No matter how full of error the church was, no matter how corrupt her leaders, there could be no safety outside of her fold. Accept the dogma, salvation was sure; once within, all was well. Religious development was not sought.

The character of the life, previous or prospective, mattered not.

Acceptance of the dogma was the only requirement. So she taught--having departed Oh! so far from her character and program when given existence by the home and started out on her beneficent work. And so tight had her grip become that none dared dispute her claims. The child had outgrown her mother, that is, the church had, in its own conception, outgrown the home, and it repudiated her control. Indeed, she held the keys--she was the ark of safety.

I have dwelt upon this because, with varying degrees of emphasis, that has been the conception of the church from medieval times almost to our own day. Indeed, I am not sure that it has entirely pa.s.sed even at the present time. There are doubtless some people who continue thus to regard the church, and there is more than one branch of the inst.i.tution whose definitely formulated statements of belief can be interpreted in no other way however much, as a practical fact, the members have departed from them.

There are some branches of the church that still teach that the child, newly born into the world, fresh from the hand of G.o.d, is already corrupt, p.r.o.ne to evil, of its own volition choosing evil in preference to good. And, believing that, they require the parents when presenting the babe at the altar for holy baptism, to affirm that that pure and innocent babe has inherited an evil and corrupt nature, and that it was conceived and born in sin. A monstrous doctrine, violating not only every parental instinct, but as well all the principles of psychology and ethics. Yea, verily, the Dark Ages are not yet wholly past! Yes, there are doubtless some who still look upon the church as a lifeboat, and who think that that lifeboat should offer safety and protection to those alone who already have on the life preserver. In other words, there are still some who seem to think that church membership should be granted only to those whose character and belief already a.s.sure them of abundant entrance into the heavenly kingdom and who, therefore, do not really need church membership.

But yet, on the whole, as a working conception, we have discarded the lifeboat idea and are now regarding the church rather as a great school, so to speak, in which all the children of men, thru the grace of G.o.d and mutual helpfulness, may gradually develop the Christian character and eventually come to be the very elect of G.o.d. No longer is it being regarded as merely an ark of safety, a lifeboat, ministering to the few, but as a great social beneficent inst.i.tution shedding abroad upon all people its life-giving light and lifting all men nearer to G.o.d; true, giving her choicest blessings to those who come closest and partake most fully of her nature, but yet like the sun which shines upon all and both by direct and indirect rays warms and lightens all. Between the two views, what a contrast! And that change can not be better seen than by a contrast of the methods of work--the methods used to replenish the ranks, to offer the boon of membership to those deemed worthy or to those whom such boon could help.

The old evangelism--you remember its key-note, the old revival meeting, in which skilful word painting presented the two extremes, heaven and h.e.l.l. And when the emotional nature was wrought up to the desired pitch and fear to the right degree, a choice was demanded,--conversion, it was called. The newer evangelism--Christian nurture in the home and school, and the various agencies of the church--is not as spectacular as the old. It doesn't make as much noise nor draw to itself so much attention.

Nor do results so readily lend themselves to figures and tabulation. It does not bring about certain times when large accessions are made to the church membership, feeling rather that a continuous stream, tho smaller, indicates a more healthy growth. But it recognizes the fact that human nature is not necessarily depraved, that, on the other hand, the Christian life is the natural life and that the child under the sweet influences of the home and school and church pa.s.ses naturally from one stage to another often not knowing when the transitions take place.

Christian nurture--_a continuous process_--in which development is the key-note, not conversion, a sudden transformation, a terrible wrenching of the whole being, is the church's present method of growth. Oh! the old has not entirely gone--here and there we occasionally see evidences of its presence. Professional evangelism we call it to-day. I ran across it in a recent trip East. A big, barnlike structure had been erected which was called "the tabernacle." Its floor was of sawdust sprinkled on the ground. Here for about a month a professional evangelist had harangued the curious crowds in immoderate, and oftentimes immodest language. Wit and sarcasm and slang and emotion had been freely used in his efforts to make sinners "hit the sawdust trail," to use his own spectacular language, as well as to extort money from the pockets of the attendants. He left the town $5,000 richer than when he entered and also carried with him, as advertising material, a long list of so-called converts. A travesty on the sacred work of the church! But such methods are to-day the exception and not the rule, and the exceptions merely prove the rule.

And to-day church membership is graciously held out to all who need help in the work of perfecting character--to all who need a.s.sistance in leading the Christian life, as well as to those whose battles have already been fought and won. The question asked is no longer, "Have you attained?" but rather, "Do you wish to attain?" When an individual, child or adult, seeks entrance at the doors of an educational inst.i.tution, the only condition imposed is a.s.surance of his desire to be a learner. The doors swing open. And thank G.o.d the church is at last coming to the same position. And so we see her to-day well started upon the fourth stage of her development, accepting as her one great work that given her at birth so long ago--the religious development of the child and the race.

THE SCHOOL

The American school is a wonderful inst.i.tution. In its absolute universality and impartiality, in its fine spirit of democracy both of teachers and pupils, there is nothing like it elsewhere in the world. It is a product of the genius of our people. Product? Yes, but, also, successively, the most influential cause of the genius of our people.

From the first, in a somewhat remarkable degree, we have been a people knowing no social cla.s.ses or distinctions. The caste idea, so prevalent in European countries, has ever been repugnant to us. And our schools, emanating from such a people, have had a powerful reflex influence in shaping the people and keeping those fine ideals ever before us. But let us go back and see whence it came--trace the connection between the complex, highly influential inst.i.tution of to-day and the simple offshoot of the home of primitive times. Just when it was first inst.i.tuted, n.o.body knows; but in essential features it is very ancient.

Long before the beginning of the Christian era, as a supplementary agent of the home having in charge that one portion of its work, it was a well-recognized and highly esteemed inst.i.tution.

I have already called attention to the great changes that have taken place in the home and in the church as the centuries have pa.s.sed. The school likewise has changed, and is to-day as far removed from its original prototype as either of the others. It has changed because the home has changed, and in its changes has kept pace with the changing ideals and added complexities of home life. At the very first, only the essentials--teacher and boy--were present: no building, the great out-of-doors furnished the room and the friendly tree the only protection from sun and storm; no course of study, no book--the teacher was all in all. But this stage pa.s.sed and the next, that continued so long and is more characteristic, followed. Here we find the building and the book as well as the teacher and the boy. The boy's one task is to transfer the contents of the book to his own mental storehouse and the teacher's function to see that the transfer is made. Knowledge was the main element of the child's preparation, that the home demanded of its school. And this often but ill-fitted him for the performance of the duties of life. This period continued for many centuries, down almost to the present time. But another and a greater followed--a period in which not merely knowledge was demanded as an outcome of the school's activities, but something else very different, including that, it is true, but finer and greater than that--something toward which they are the contributing agents--a somewhat harmonious development of the entire life--physical, mental, and moral.

Little by little, as time has pa.s.sed, the home seems to have been throwing added burdens upon the school until now it sometimes looks as if the school is expected to give the entire preparation of the child--moral, physical, and manual, as well as mental. It sometimes seems as if the home had gone off on a vacation and left the school to do its work. Now, that statement implies a criticism of the home. On the other hand, it is frequently said by unfriendly critics of our public schools that the schools are all the time reaching out and, in a grasping way, more and more taking unto themselves the sacred rights and privileges of the home, even setting themselves up in authority over the home, aye, even alienating the affections of the children, making the home of none effect. Where does the truth lie? Has the home been so negligent of its duty, or has the school forgotten that it is the creature of the home? Which is the usurper? That is an interesting question. We can not go into it in detail, but let me suggest that it has all come about not so much from the unwarranted a.s.sumption of the school, nor the conscious and wilful neglect of the home as from the unconscious working out of a great principle fundamental in human development--namely, that the three phases of a child's life--the physical, the moral, and the intellectual,--can not be separately developed.

At first the home had the three lines of work. Soon it delegated two of them to other agencies and then, thru inexperience or thoughtlessness, made the fatal mistake of withdrawing supervision, a.s.suming that no oversight was necessary. Unwise and short-sighted! No individual would thus deal with any other interest. The farm, the store, the financial interest of any kind, even the thing that ministers to the pleasure of life, often receives more personal attention from the parent than does the school. And this situation is not peculiar to our own day. When I was a boy, in another and distant state, we used to sing a song called "The Parent and the School." The various verses showed that parents were in the habit of visiting every other known place--the theater, the concert, the fair, the sea, the neighbors, and each verse closed with the refrain, "And why don't they visit the school?" They should, but they did not then, nor do they to-day. Somehow, all along the line, the home has seemed to think that if it should satisfy the physical needs of the child in providing food and clothing and shelter, the school should develop the intellectual and the church the moral natures in different places and at different times, and under different conditions, and that in some mysterious manner the three could become satisfactorily blended into a harmonious life. Impossible! The three natures are so clearly interrelated, each depends so much upon the others, that the separate and independent development of any one is impossible.

The spiritual _depends_ upon the intellectual as the house _rests_ upon the foundation. Its mental pictures, its concepts, its beliefs, come out of it, and are marred, misshapen, untrue, just to the extent to which that is faulty. Intelligence is necessary to religious belief and religious life. And the _intellectual_, in its foundation laying, can not stop short at that point any more than a plant can stop growing when its roots are well developed. The process once well begun is pushed on by the force from behind and must enter the higher realm. So I am not surprised that the school at times seems to be in charge of the entire work. And _physical conditions_ have so much to do with success in both fields that they must be considered by both. The three processes are not only interrelated, they are interlaced, intertwined, as the strands of a braided cord. And just as the cord would be incomplete, just as it would lack strength, if any of the strands were to be omitted, or if the braiding were to be haphazard, so the life would be incomplete, one-sided, weak, should these three processes not go on side by side under the fostering care of an intelligent unifying agency. Indeed, if there is any one thing that has been demonstrated beyond the peradventure of a doubt by modern research in the physical and psychical realms, it is the significant fact that life is a unity. The physical, the intellectual, and the moral are like the three leaves of the clover.

And just as with the clover we must apply the nourishment to the root and not to the separated branches, so with the child we must so select and use our educative material that the three-fold development shall result from the single application.

A simple ill.u.s.tration or two will help to make the point clear. All children study arithmetic in school. It is an intellectual activity and so clearly belongs to the school. Why do all study it? Because for the practical duties of life they need to know how to handle numbers. It is a practical study. Yes, but there is something else that the subject is supposed to yield or the extended time given to it could not be justified. It yields large fruitage in the development of the power of concentration and intellectual keenness. Yes, but better than that. All mathematical subjects, in that they require absolute accuracy and definiteness in their operations, are particularly helpful in developing those fine moral qualities of honesty, integrity, and upright dealing.

Again, history is taught in the schools as an intellectual subject. In intellectual development alone it is worth all it costs. But over and above the value as a mental quickener it is to be placed as a builder of character, and ministering to the development of the moral and even the spiritual life. Nowhere else can the young so well learn that "righteousness exalteth a nation" and that "sin is a reproach to any people." In no other way so well as by the study of history can desired examples of n.o.ble character be placed before the young for imitation.

Take but one other ill.u.s.tration, that of gymnastics and athletics--the entire program of play. For physical development? Yes, but in addition to that and finer than that, intellectual development of a high order thru the keener activity of the senses, the quicker and more accurate vision, the developed judgment, and finer discriminations. Yes, but better even than mere intellectual keenness there result from such activities the rare moral qualities of tolerance, respect for others, and self-control. And so I might go on and give ill.u.s.tration after ill.u.s.tration. It is not necessary. You catch my point. I am merely trying to demonstrate two facts: first, that the great breadth of the work of the school--embracing as it does, the development of the entire nature of the child, mental, moral, and physical, instead of merely the mental, that which was given her at first, is hers now not because of the home's neglect nor because the school has been unduly ambitious and grasping, but because we have come to see that life is a unity and can not be cut up into parts each separately developed. And secondly, I have tried to show that the school does interest itself in the moral life of the pupil. As a matter of fact, the school does more to develop morality and to lead toward a sane religious life than all other agencies combined. Our modern American school is a wonderful inst.i.tution.

But in spite of the fact that the school is broad in its ministrations, it can not stand alone. All three inst.i.tutions are needed. But the three must work together and in harmony and intelligently, each a.s.sisting the others. And one of the three must act as the centralizing, the unifying, the combining agency and bring order out of that which would otherwise be chaos by recognizing the value of each contribution of each of the others, a.s.signing it to its proper place and thus aptly blending the work of the three. Now, which shall be the centralizing force? Really, is there any question? Must it not be the original inst.i.tution--the home--the one which saw the need of the others and called them into being--the one upon which the responsibility finally rests? And even tho many individual homes are weak, wholly incapable of doing themselves all the varied kinds of work needed, yet the collective inst.i.tution can and must act. And even the individual home, efficient or inefficient, should, much more than it does, thus act within the limits of its own jurisdiction and up to the limits of its own power.

And to whom does the school belong, anyway? To the Board of Education?

Is it the private possession of the teachers? Does it exist to give teachers positions? Why, no, of course not. It is yours, and yours, and yours. They, both Board and teachers, are your servants, hired men and women, if you and they please--hired for pay to do your work, just as much as are the clerks in your stores, the harvest hands on the farms, or the maids in the kitchen. A different kind of work to be sure but, nevertheless, we are workmen for pay. And we need watching just as much as do the other workers. But let us put it in this way--we need intelligent, sympathetic co-operation, as an opportunity and as a spur for our best work and as a joy in it all--your constant kindly interest and your intelligent co-operation. I suppose that the situation is quite different in a city of this size from what it is in the large centers. I remember of talking, at one time, to an audience of teachers in a large city. I was astounded to learn that those teachers did not know, by sight even, the parents of one-half of their pupils, and many of them had been in the schools for a period of from three to four years. Whose fault was it? The teacher's or the parents? Why, what is the school? And whose is it? And what is it for? Whose fault was it? The question does not need an answer. It answers itself. But I urged those teachers to visit the homes--to become acquainted with the parents of their pupils so that they could know the atmosphere surrounding them and thus be better able to guide their development and minister to their varied needs. But I did not thus urge them because they had, up to that time, neglected their duty, rather because there seemed no prospect that the homes would embrace their opportunity and take the initiative.

I fancy that here in the smaller place where everybody knows everybody it is very different. Doubtless there is not a teacher here whose acquaintance has not been made by both parents of every child in her or his room. Probably there is not one who has not been entertained in every home represented in the room. This should be the situation not primarily because parents owe teachers such attention, not because any such social responsibility rests upon them, but rather because the relationship thus created gives parents the best possible opportunity to co-operate with the school in doing that portion of the home's great work. No, parents do not "owe" it to the teachers, rather do they "owe"

it to their children and the next generation. I am urging this program because it is the only way by which you can get the most and best service from the schools.

It is true that parents may not understand all the subjects that are taught in the schools. Parents may not be acquainted with the methods of teaching so that they can be intelligent critics of schoolroom procedure. Never mind. That is not necessary. You do know boys and girls. Many of you could give us teachers valuable suggestions on the best ways of dealing with boys and girls. And there isn't one of you who could not a.s.sist the teacher in the work with your own children. And then there is another way to look upon it. It is altogether possible that this closer acquaintance with the school and with the teachers--with men and women who have made a careful, scientific study of boys and girls and of the art of teaching--it is altogether possible, I say, that this contact might react helpfully upon you and the home.

You might possibly get suggestions from us that would help you in the home. The closer contact might be mutually helpful.

And so, in this necessarily hurried manner we have pa.s.sed in review these three great age-old yet very modern inst.i.tutions--the home, the church, and the school. We have seen whence each has arisen, have noted the pathway trod, and caught a glimpse of its present-day function. And the close relationship, too, must have become plain as we pa.s.sed along.

No one of the three, we have seen, could stand alone. Each depends upon both the others and likewise lends them both a.s.sistance. For sane, all-round, constructive work in any one field, the contributions of all are seen to be needed.

Let us, therefore, take an account of stock, as the business man says, and note our individual att.i.tude and responsibility. As representing the home, let us look upon the other two as creatures of our own building still requiring direction and fostering care. Let our att.i.tude toward them be neither patronizing nor coldly critical. As representing the church and the school, let us not forget the source of our being. We should not ignore the home nor attempt to dominate it. Let us, rather, seek to carry out its program, rendering a good account of our stewardship. Thus and thus only can the great work originally entrusted to the home be accomplished.

VI

n.o.bLESSE OBLIGE

_A Convocation Address delivered at the University of North Dakota, January 29, 1916_

There is no audience before which a speaker should have greater reason for apprehension than an audience made up largely of university students. There is no audience for which a speaker should more carefully choose his thoughts and the words for their expression than a university audience, nor one more worthy of earnest treatment. On the other hand, there is no audience that a speaker can address more inspiring than an audience made up of young men and women in the heyday of young life preparing for better and larger usefulness.

All this is true because there is no other audience that can be gathered together whose future work can begin to compare, in far-reaching consequences, in possibilities for usefulness, with that of such an audience. There is no other company of people of equal number within whose keeping there is more of potential weal or woe for coming generations. And these things are true because university students of to-day are the world's leaders of to-morrow.

This is not so trite a saying as the one that declares that the boys and girls of one generation are to be the men and women of the next, but it is just as true and just as significant. Indeed, I suppose it can not be called a trite saying in the true sense of the term. It has not been uttered so many times, is not now being used so commonly, as to indicate its universal acceptance. It is not so obviously true as to preclude challenge and argument. It is my purpose very briefly to examine the statement and from the conclusion reached connect the same with the thought of a beautiful proverb that has come down to us thru a long lapse of years--_n.o.blesse Oblige_--our privileges compel us.

So far as I know there is no way of seeing the future save thru a study of the facts of the past and the indications of the present. The university students of a generation ago--where are they to-day?

Positions of leadership to-day--filled by whom?

Exhaustive and thoroly satisfactory statistics are not at hand, but such as we have speak eloquently in favor of the statement in question.