course," she says, "there is the other side of the medal, stamped with the ugly crest of materialism, which has set its seal upon all of our most productive commonwealths. Too much prosperity, too many moving-picture shows, too much gaudy fiction have colored the taste and manners of so many of these Nebraskans of the future. There, as elsewhere, one finds the frenzy to be showy; farmer boys who wish to be spenders before they are earners, girls who try to look like the heroines of the cinema screen; a coming generation which tries to cheat its æsthetic sense by buying things instead of making anything. There is even danger that that fine institution, the University of Nebraska, may become a gigantic trade school. The men who control its destiny, the regents and the lawmakers, wish their sons and daughters to study machines, mercantile processes, 'the principles of business'; everything that has to do with the game of getting on in the world - and nothing else. The classics, the humanities, are having their dark hour. They are in eclipse. Studies that develop taste and enrich personality are not encouraged. But the 'Classics' have a way of revenging themselves. One may venture to hope that the children, or the grandchildren of a generation that goes to a university to select only the most utilitarian subjects in the course of study among them, salesmanship and dressmaking — will revolt against all the heaped-up, machine-made materialism about them. They will back to the old sources of culture and wisdom — not as go a duty, but with burning desire." This picture I believe is transitory. The West swings wide but returns from afar and a little Gallic gaiety may do no harm to Puritanic severity. America is fundamentally Puritanic, and surface changes come and go.

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Simplicity in life has not yet been banished from America. It still exists in countless homes, east, west, north, and south. It will preserve and re-create the old-time American character. The craving for excitement, luxury, display, and pleasure does

not yet dominate this nation. In time those things will be understood at their true value and want of value. The same thing happened at Rome. After excessive wealth had done its worst, in fact, wrecked the republic, the old Roman spirit was revived and restored by Stoicism and kept the Roman Empire alive for four hundred years. In America the stake is the preservation of American institutions, the American republic. The force, however, the living, driving power, is American character. On that at present the history of the world is turning. The very responsibility has a chastening effect.

The West is not shackled by blocs. There is no Irish bloc, or Jewish bloc, or Italian bloc, or even German bloc except in a few localities and a few large cities. The farmers and the citizens of the small towns dominate and make public sentiment. In fact, throughout the United States as a whole nearly half of our population is found on the farms and in the little towns of less than 2500 people. In the West still more so. To the West the country will ultimately look to meet the problems and dangers which threaten American institutions.

The two types of American character- Massachusetts and Virginia - the one ascetic, the other chivalric, both ideal and of equal value, still govern this nation and mold its characteristics. Neither could be spared. Those two types have met and blended in the West. The English stock from Massachusetts and Virginia is the warp and woof of the Western American- the stock that produced Lincoln. At the roots of the Western people lies that lineage- no better anywhere. It may not be brilliant, but it is highly intelligent and is absolutely reliable. There lies the safety of the republic. There also lies the final aim of nature so far as we can understand nature the production of character.

CHAPTER XXXIX

EDUCATION

THIS is the acid which dissolves racial differences and class distinctions. Hence it is feared by immigrant leaders who oppose their followers becoming thorough Americans. Especially do they fear the fact that the American common school education teaches the English language and thus weakens the tie between the young and their European antecedents. The compulsory school law is doing more than all other influences combined to Americanize the vast mass of unassimilated foreigners in our midst. The magnitude of the task is shown by the figures relative to education already given.* All attempts to weaken the system of common school education in English have broken down. The public sentiment of America is fixed on that subject and will tolerate no dissent. The mistake of admitting the millions of impossible people from southern and eastern Europe cannot be undone nor can those people be driven out, but at least they can be compelled to send their children to school and learn the English language and absorb American ideas. Even then it will be long before they will make real Americans, but that is the best we can do.

A recent book by Speranza on "Race or Nation" - himself of Italian descent-points out with great clearness the necessity of insisting that separate masses of immigrants from Europe, retaining their own language and customs and rejecting the English language and American customs, shall be obliged by law to accept and adopt the American compulsory common school system, and secondly, the teaching of the English language and See pp. 32, 33, supra.

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that language only in that system. These two things will go far towards unifying the American people and in the course of time may break up the present dangerous class divisions based on race. Speranza points out that "Every such attempt at making English the language of our country, has been fought in some twenty different states of the Union, by culturally alien groups who bitterly opposed any predominance of English over their 'mother-tongue.' Every man who can read English will at least read American newspapers and learn the American point of view. It will help to break down the barriers that separate him from American institutions.

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The necessity of education needs no comment. It is a part of our heritage. Any attempt to restrict it or weaken it will be crushed without hesitation or mercy. Whosoever, whether individual or race or denomination, stands in the way of universal education, will be swept aside and ruthlessly overridden. A common school education is here referred to. Coit, an able English writer, well says, "Democrats, if their cause is to prosper, must proclaim upon the housetops that the diffusion of social intelligence is the only basis of democracy. . . . That diffusion of practical reason which prevailed among the American colonists in 1776 was adequate. So was that among the new voters in England in 1832. Popular government does not ask its electors to be geniuses, experts, specialists, scientific discoverers, inventors, philosophers, or creative statesmen. Of these it needs only a number sufficient to design, invent, regulate, and inspire its various institutions. From the vast residue of men it exacts an easier kind and a far lower degree of knowledge and skill. It exacts only the capacity to recognize and appreciate preeminent ability and attainment when they appear. Fortunately for democracy, and therefore for humanity, persons who know nothing special of any one art or science and have no originality to create or discover anything new, can, if on the whole wellinformed and well-trained to observe and to judge, easily detect

the signs of special superiorities in others. For this end only a general education and only the capacity to appreciate the values of things after they are presented are required. Common-sense people, of all-around experience and with a general schooling, can, at least on the whole and in a rough sort of way, select from their own village, and when leisure allows, and a motive drives them to consider the facts, the best doctor, the best lawyer, the best preacher, the best teacher, architect, singer, actor, shoemaker and whom not? For this purpose probably no higher degree of general mental discipline and knowledge in youth is needed for the masses at large than that attained by the average public school boy of eighteen. After the school days, no further systematic education is needed than leisure hours would afford after a fair day's work." Webster said, "On the diffusion of education among the people rests the preservation and perpetuity of our free institutions." 2

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Nor is the influence of the universities and colleges to be overlooked. They give knowledge, discipline of mind, power of concentration and high principles, to the good of the public. And they are becoming more efficient every year. They are the leaven of the lump and their graduates come straight from the ranks of the people. It is true that on the average only one out of four hundred common school children proceeds to college and finishes his college course, but his influence runs like quicksilver throughout the body politic. Unpretentious and unseen the silent power of the universities and colleges works ceaselessly and untiringly for the preservation of American institutions against foreign and domestic foes. Judge Baldwin says, "A statistician of authority has ascertained that there are two States which lead and have long led all others, relatively to their population, in respect to the number of their citizens to whom distinction for their merits is accorded by common consent. They are Massachusetts and Connecticut. It can hardly be doubted that the cause is the possession by each of an ancient university."

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