Chapter 11

Many of us feel that crime is the striking feature of modern life, that this century sits among the skulls of crime's victims, and that Father Time, after all his ages of travel, sees no improvement.

But those discouraged by modern crime misunderstand the meaning of events and fail to make a just comparison between the past and the present.

It is true that crime to-day is shocking in its frequency. Each day we see spread out before us murders.

But first of all remember this:

We often mistake widespread NEWS of crime for increase in crime itself. The newspapers are multiplied in number by tens of thousands, and they all tell what happens. It seems as though crime had increased, whereas in reality we have simply increased facilities for letting all the people know what goes on among us. ----

We are shocked occasionally by crimes of poisoning. Go back a few centuries and you find men and women making a regular business of selling poison to those who want to commit murder. The crimes that fill us with horror would not have been noticed in those days.

We hear of a father killing his own child, and we declare that humanity is going to destruction. Yet but a few centuries back and THE LAW RECOGNIZED EVERY FATHER'S RIGHT TO KILL HIS CHILD IF HE CHOSE.

We shudder when we hear that a mother has exposed a new-born child on a doorstep or thrown it into an ash barrel. That is a horrid and unbelievable crime.

But in Rome, before the days of Christianity, there were appointed places where mothers might legally expose their children to destruction. The wild beasts or dogs ate the children thus exposed, and no one was shocked. Whoever might care to take such an exposed child could keep that child for a slave forever. That kind of crime we have outgrown certainly.

The Presbyterian teaching of infant damnation seems to us horrible. We shudder at the statement that God would condemn a helpless baby to eternal punishment simply because it had not been baptized. The idea seems cruel now. But it was invented by the well-meaning early Christians in order to make women give up the legal practice of infanticide. The mother was made to believe that her unbaptized child went to hell, and that she must follow later on for not having had it baptized. Thus women were afraid to expose their children secretly, and infanticide was stamped out by a Christian doctrine which now seems so brutal. ----

And note one thing above all: Crime still lingers among us. But it is now LABELED AS CRIME. We no longer have horrible crimes sanctioned by law.

We read that a criminal has tortured some old man or woman for money--and then murdered the victim. We can scarcely believe in such atrocity. But only a little while ago--barely two centuries-- IT WAS THE REGULAR LEGAL CUSTOM TO TORTURE OLD PEOPLE AND YOUNG.

Poor old women, falsely accused of witchcraft, were burned alive and ducked in this country, while clergymen and magistrates looked on and applauded.

All over Europe innocent witnesses could be tortured to make them give testimony at a trial.

Men accused of no crime whatever were tortured to make them give testimony against others--often when they had no testimony to give. They were hung up by the thumbs, the bones of their legs were crushed in a boot of steel, the soles of the feet were roasted over a brazier of red-hot coals--to make them help convict another.

The noble leaders of the French Revolution abolished such torture of witnesses in France, and they were criticised for doing so by the respectabilities.

"How are you going to convict criminals if you do not torture witnesses?" the respectable element asked. We have got beyond that state of affairs. We hear of murders based on jealousy-- perverted affection. We hear of crimes based on envy--perverted ambition. All of the best elements in man, when perverted and thwarted, lead to crime.

And these perverted passions will continue to breed crime until men shall have learned to regulate society on a basis that will give full and natural play to the forces within us. But organized murder on a really vast scale is practically done away with.

Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon and others like them had great ambition. To gratify their ambitions they forced millions of men to die for them.

Human beings have protected themselves against the murderous ambitions of their great leaders.

The Napoleon of to-day must get a Congress to give him his soldiers.

Public opinion, the ballot and financial science have pulled the teeth of the greatest instrument of crime--the conquering army of ambition.

It is horrible to witness the assassination of a national leader.

The murder of McKinley or Carnot makes republican hopes seem chimerical.

But it must be remembered that not so long ago the head of a government who ESCAPED assassination was the exception. A few centuries back, and murder was the natural end of the average ruler. ----

Murder results first from control of the brain by animal passions. Almost every animal is a murderer, and at stated times murders its own kind. Primitive man is always murderous. Murder results, in the second place, from misdirected forces within us.

Crime will diminish through education, as the mind takes control of us, and through society better organized, which shall give men a chance to develop normally. Thanks to education and to improving social conditions, crime is disappearing, NOT increasing. Even our despondency is comforting. It proves that we have progressed so far as to be horrified at that which we should have taken for granted a few centuries back.

THE VALUE OF POVERTY TO THE WORLD ASK YOUR FRIEND WHAT HE WOULD DO IF HE HAD A MILLION

A majority of men long for a great deal of money.

Each man will tell you that he is struggling along in uncongenial employment; that if he had his way his life would be arranged very differently.

Put to any friend this question:

"What would you do if you had a million dollars?"

You will learn that, first of all, he would get rid of the useful daily plodding that occupies him. Instead of living to work he would live to enjoy himself.

A majority of men are usefully employed because they must work to live.

If we all had our way we should do as we chose, and there would be no progress. Fortunately, the wisdom of Providence keeps the great majority of men poor and usefully busy. ----

This writer asked an able business man, who manages the material success of a great newspaper, what he would do if he had a million dollars. He replied without hesitation: "I would go abroad and spend the rest of my life collecting artistic things and enjoying them."

By his newspaper work, which helps to disseminate truth and to fight privilege, this man renders the greatest possible service to the world. He is head of the commissariat department of an army of righteousness. How fortunate that he cannot abandon his useful work to collect artistic trash that would only make him useless and enrich a few unscrupulous dealers! ----

Joseph Jefferson as an actor has done great good for the world. He has filled hundreds of thousands of young and old hearts with kindly sympathy. He has set a good example to all the actors of the world. He is truly a public benefactor.

If Joseph Jefferson had had a great fortune he would have spent his life painting pictures, for he believes that he was meant to be a painter.

He was not meant to be a painter; if his life had been devoted to painting it would have been wasted.

How lucky that he was not rich enough to be able to waste his life! ----

Often the world marvels that the sons of great and successful men accomplish so little.

The world is foolish. It should marvel that the sons of the rich accomplish anything at all.

For genius has truly been called the capacity to take infinite pains. It is the splendid fruit that grows on the tree of HARD WORK.

Infinite pains and hard work are distasteful to human beings. They are avoided by those who can avoid them. It is lucky for the world that the number of those who can shirk is limited. ----

Dryden tells you in four lines what the actual man would amount to if he had his way.

"My next desire is, void of care and strife, To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life. A country cottage near a crystal flood, A winding valley and a lofty wood."

Every man who could afford it would live for himself, to indulge some useless little tenth-rate part of his brain activity. ----

The world progresses because the wisdom of the universe compels every man to work directly or indirectly for every other man.

If we had our way, if hard necessity did not compel us to do the disagreeable work for which we are fitted, we should all live for ourselves; we should all be mere human sponges, absorbing personal gratification--the progress of the human race would stop.

Let this fact console you when you contemplate with bitterness the few who accumulate great fortunes.

You are a disappointed drop in a great ocean of useful human beings. The interest of the whole ocean demands that you and the vast majority of all other drops should fail to get what you crave--

THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE USELESS.

600 TEACHERS NOW, 600,000 GOOD AMERICANS IN THE FUTURE

On one single day 600 teachers, representing and devoted to the American public school system, sailed for the Philippine Islands.

These 600 teachers, men and women, will do more than 6,000 or 6,000,000 soldiers could do with cannon and Gatling guns to civilize and Americanize the new possessions.

They will teach the inhabitants FACTS. They will give them solid knowledge in place of degrading ignorance and superstition.

They will teach them that the world is round and that every man on it has the same chance, if he will use his brain; that if he himself cannot seize the opportunity it can he seized by the children whose success is as dear to him as his own.

Like all wars, the conquest of the Philippines has had many discouraging and some disgraceful features. The killing of ignorant men and women, the burning of houses, the unnecessary severity, will all be forgotten when the school teachers of America shall have done their work. ----

A great many thoughtless people imagine that the world is retrograding, that times are not as good as they used to be.

We are still far from perfect. But as a matter of fact we are angels compared to the men of olden times. A few years ago the usual course was as follows:

First, soldiers were sent to subdue the people.

Then tax collectors followed with the public executioner, the noose and various ingenious instruments of torture to extract cash payments.

We still send soldiers, but with them we send physicians to cure the wounded; and when the soldiers' work is done we do not send tax collectors or other civil vampires.

We send school teachers, publishers of newspapers, organizers of labor unions. We send those agencies which shall enable the people conquered to make themselves equal or superior to their conquerors.

EDUCATION--THE FIRST DUTY OF GOVERNMENT

We wish to discuss with our readers in this and in later editions of this newspaper the great and serious question of education.

It is a question as broad as the ocean, and as deep. It is a question so vast that organized discussion of it seems hopeless.

The greatest minds of the world have devoted their powers to the intricate question of developing the human brain, and the problem has been scarcely touched.

The greatest works on education in the history of the world are undoubtedly Plato's "Republic," Spencer's "Education" and Rousseau's "Emile." The last is the greatest of all. It should be read by every father and mother and by every earnest citizen.

Other works that may be earnestly recommended are Aristotle's "Politics," Pestalozzi's "How Gertrude Teaches Her Children" and Froebel's "Education of Man."

To Rousseau undoubtedly belongs the high honor of having thought and written most powerfully, most originally and most practically on the greatest of problems. His brain is the cornerstone of the structure of intelligent educational methods.

He foreshadowed in his "Emile" Fourier's splendid principle of "attractive industry." ----

THE PROGRESS OF HUMANITY DEPENDS UPON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN BRAIN THROUGH EDUCATION.

The intricate processes of thinking separate mankind from other members of the animal creation.

Man is far from the animal in proportion as his brain is cultivated. Even the animals themselves rank in their kingdom in proportion to their brain activity.

William T. Harris said truly: "If man had let himself alone he would have remained the monkey that he was. Not only this, but if the monkey had let himself alone he would have remained a lemur, or a bat, or a bear, or some other creature that now offers only a faint suggestion of what the ape has become."

The elephant and the ape, among our humble animal brothers, appear to have reached their limits of possibility in the way of educational development. They still remain, and always will remain, vastly inferior to their microscopic comrades--the ants and bees and other insects.

The human race has barely begun the systematic study of the problem of application, and systematic application of the truths discovered and agreed upon. In proportion to our stature and possibilities we are hideous ignoramuses compared with the ant in the garden path.

The education of children is regulated not by their brain formation and possible development, but by the wealth of their parents, the parsimony of municipalities, the baleful influences of tradition and the colossally stupid idea that thorough brain cultivation is in some way antagonistic to material success.

The greatness of a nation depends upon the average mental power of the nation's citizens, and mental power depends absolutely upon education.

The man who doubts the importance of educating his son thoroughly--if any such man now exists--is invited to consider the following brief statement of facts:

The holders of slaves in the Southern States and outside of America desired to keep their slaves down. They wanted them to be content with slavery. They wanted them and their children to remain willing, humble, helpless machines.

THEY PUNISHED AS A CRIMINAL ANY MAN WHO TAUGHT A SLAVE TO READ. THEY KNEW THAT SLAVERY AND EDUCATION COULD NOT LONG ENDURE IN THE SAME HUMAN BEING. ----

The ignorant man who has succeeded through natural force and lucky opportunity is fond of asking these questions:

"What is the good of education? Of what practical use is scientific training?" These men are admirably answered by Herbert Spencer, to whose work they are referred.

A collection of Englishmen ruined themselves in the sinking of mines in search of coal. They might have saved their money had they known that a certain fossil which they dug up in abundance belongs to a geological stratum below which no coal is ever found. They went on digging cheerfully and wasting their money. An acquaintance with that fossil and its meaning would have saved their cash.

Some individuals spent one hundred thousand dollars trying to save the alcoholic byproduct that distils from bread in baking. They would have saved their money had they known that only a hundredth part of the flour is changed through fermentation.

The study of biology is essential in the successful fattening of cattle.

An "entozoon" seems to the practical man a foolish, imaginary creature. But millions of sheep have been saved by the discovery that one of these fancy scientific entozoa, pressing on the brain, caused the sheep's death. When you know the entozoon you can dig him out and save the sheep's life.

"My son's going to be an artist," says one proud father. "He does not need to study a lot of scientific rubbish."

This parent does not know that the difference between a good and a bad sculptor or painter is often based on knowledge or ignorance of anatomy and mechanical principles. ----

Education is important to the individual because it means development of the brain, development of capacity for production and increased chances of success.

Education is important to the State because it means not only COMPETENT citizens, but MORAL citizens.

The animal in us yields to the influence of education. Knowledge and brutality are enemies. They do not dwell together.

The most important institutions in this country are the public schools--the gymnasiums of human brains. The most important citizens of the nation are the teachers.

The greatest criminals are the employers of child labor, because they deny education, cut down in childhood the citizen's chance of progress and success.

Work and vote for more and better public schools.

POVERTY IS THE FATHER OF VICE, CRIME AND FAILURE

These are days when men do their hardest work for money, when they scramble and struggle and strike each other down in the effort to reach wealth. And it is not possible to blame them. They are trying to escape from poverty, from a disaster worse than any prairie fire or other physical danger.

Dire poverty is the worst of curses. It combines every kind of suffering, physical, mental, moral, and in the end it means either death or degradation.

The great task of humanity is the abolition of poverty. The great benefactors of humanity are the great industrial organizers of this day, because, in spite of individual selshness,{sic} they are planning production on a scale that will in the end provide for all.

It is worth while to discuss and to realize what real poverty means. If we can realize its meaning every one of us must be more anxious to relieve, as far as we can, the poverty around us, and especially anxious to work for the social betterment that shall one day wipe out poverty forever

Poverty means dirt.

The thoughtless and comfortable have a way of saying: "The poor might at least be clean." But cleanliness is a LUXURY; it demands leisure and peace of mind, as well as bathtub, soap, hot water and good plumbing. The very poor cannot be clean.

Poverty means ignorance, and it means ignorance handed down from father to son.

Poverty means drunkenness. The pennies of POOR men and POOR women pay for more than half the vile whiskey, gin and other poisons that men buy to help them forget.

Poverty and its sister, Ignorance, fill the jails and the insane asylums.

Poverty is the mother of disease, and it fills the hospitals.

Tens of thousands of consumptives alone are murdered every year by poverty. They are too poor to do that which is required to save their lives. ----

The great men of the world do not emerge from poverty, from squalor.

They come from very modest homes, from the log cabin, and from the towpath, as advertised. They come from those whose fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers had at least enough to eat, and enough fresh air to give them pure blood and proper nourishment for their brains.

Poverty destroys ambition, inventive power and the capacity to struggle.

A starved body produces a starved brain. The greatest genius that ever lived could not think better than a child of ten if you deprived him of food for ten days.

What can you expect of the inferior minds that have been half fed through a lifetime, or through several generations?

Do you know what made the Revolution and changed conditions in France? It was not poverty. Not a single poor man was a leader in that Revolution. Every one of them was well fed, had a well- nourished brain--Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Desmoulins, Mirabeau--every one a well-fed brain in a vigorous body.

The labor unions and the great strikes, although sometimes unwise and unreasonable, are great blessings to the Nation. They compel the worker to get such pay as will feed himself and his children, giving the Nation well-fed brains. The Union is the enemy of poverty, and for that reason especially it is an agent for good. ----

As poverty breeds ignorance, so ignorance breeds poverty. The greatest enemy of poverty is the Public School. Work and vote, therefore, for public school betterment.

Miserable women walk the streets by thousands on cold Winter nights--poverty has put them there.

Hundreds of thousands of children are born only to struggle for a few years through a stunted infancy--poverty digs their graves.

For one genius that has fought and conquered in spite of poverty ten thousand have sunk out of sight in the fight against the worst of enemies.

Don't waste time extolling the blessings of poverty--use your energies to diminish poverty's curse, and to improve humanity by giving it the full efficiency which freedom from worry alone can give.

THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION PROVED IN LINCOLN'S CASE

The very old and very foolish saying, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing," is disproved every day. Whenever you hear a man talk about "a little knowledge" ask him what he thinks about the danger of a great deal of IGNORANCE. Tell him this:

"THE SCHOOLING OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, ALL TOLD DID NOT AMOUNT TO AS MUCH AS ONE YEAR."

The teaching was elementary, including reading, writing, ciphering, and very little of each one. It was picked up at odd times, when he could be spared from daily labor. Remember that when he was a lad his father used to hire him out to work on other men's farms for very little money.

With that little learning he built himself up into one of the greatest men in history, saved the nation, ended once and for all civilized recognition of slavery.

A little learning might possibly have been dangerous had he been one of the idiotic kind of men. It might have made him feel dissatisfied with the hard labor for which he was fit, without stimulating him to better things.

But Lincoln's little learning gave him no rest--it kept him constantly adding more learning to his little supply. ----

The self-pitying young man who thinks he has no chance may be interested in Lincoln's methods of getting ahead. He walked about twenty miles through the wilderness to borrow an English grammar. He could get no other books, so he read and re-read the statutes of Indiana. He wanted to teach himself to write well and think closely. He had never heard Bacon's saying: "Writing maketh an exact man," but he felt the truth of the fact for himself, and he was bound to write. He had no paper and could not afford to buy any.

At night, when his work was done, he would bend his huge six-foot-four frame close down by the firelight to write and cipher ON THE BACK OF A WOODEN SHOVEL.

When the back of the shovel was covered with writing he would shave a thin layer from it and begin writing once more. ----

It is a very useful thing for men occasionally to feel ashamed of themselves. If you want to feel ashamed of yourself, if you are complaining and whining, just picture to yourself Abraham Lincoln in his father's little hut, with no windows and no flooring, crouching by the fire and developing his mind by laborious writing on the back of a wooden shovel.

Children of twelve in schools, precocious little girls even of seven or eight, know much more than Abraham Lincoln knew when he was twenty-one years old.

With his "little knowledge" he grew and did the work that was to improve the condition of millions of men.

Don't be ashamed of your "little knowledge."

But do be ashamed if you do not add to it whenever you can, and especially if you fail to make it useful to your fellow-men.

KNOWLEDGE IS GROWTH

Consider to-day the CHEERFUL side of conditions on earth.

Every human being has his troubles and worries. The luckiest of us all yearns for what cannot be had, and sees much to regret.