VI TO THE LEAGUE OF POLITICAL EDUCATION, NEW YORK

Standing here, privileged to address my betters—I, the least politically educated person in the world, have two thoughts to leave on the air. They arise from the title of your League.

I wish I did not feel, speaking in the large, that politics and education have but a bowing acquaintanceship in the modern State; and I wish I did feel that either education or politics had any definite idea of what they were out to attain; in other words, had a clear image of the ideal State. It seems to me that their object at present is just to keep the heads of the citizens of the modern State above water; to keep them alive, without real concern as to what kind of life they are being preserved for. We seem, in fact, to be letting our civilisation run us, instead of running our civilisation. If a man does not know where he wants to go, he goes where circumstances and the telephone take him. Where do we want to go? Can you answer me? Have you any definite idea? What is the Ultima Thule of our longings? I suppose one ought to say, roughly, that the modern ideal is: Maximum production of wealth to the square mile of a country—an ideal which, seeing that a man normally produces wealth in surplus to his own requirements, signifies logically a maximum head of population to the square mile. And it seems to me that the great modern fallacy is the identification of the word wealth with the word welfare. Granted that demand creates supply, and that it is impossible to stop human nature from demanding, the problem is surely to direct demand into the best channels for securing health and happiness. And I venture to say that the mere blind production of wealth and population by no means fills that bill. We ought to produce wealth only in such ways and to such an extent as shall make us all good, clean, healthy, intelligent, and beautiful to look at. That is the end, and production whether of wealth or population only the means to that end, to be regulated accordingly. As things are, we confuse the means with the end, and make of production a fetich.

Let me take a parallel from the fields of Art. What kind of good in the world is an artist who sets to work to cover the utmost possible acreage of canvas, or to spoil the greatest possible number of reams of paper, in deference to the call from a vulgar and undiscriminating market for all he can produce? Do we admire him—a man whose ideal is blind supply to meet blind demand?

The most urgent need of the world to-day is to learn—or is it to re-learn?—the love of quality. And how are we to learn that in a democratic age, unless we so perfect our electoral machineries as to be sure that we secure for our leaders, and especially for our leaders of education, men and women who, themselves worshipping quality, will see that the love of quality is instilled into the boys and girls of the nation.

After all, we have some common sense, and we really cannot contemplate much longer the grimy, grinding monster of modern industrialism without feeling that we are becoming disinherited, instead of—as we are brought up to think—heirs to an ever-increasing fortune.

It seems to me that no amount of political evolution or revolution is going to do us any good unless it is accompanied by evolution or revolution in ideals. What does it matter whether one class holds the reins, or another class holds the reins, if the dominant impulse in the population remains the craving for wealth without the power of discriminating whether or not that wealth is taking forms which promote health and happiness.

A new educational charter—a charter of taste, affirming the rule of dignity, beauty, and simplicity, is wanted before political change can turn out to be anything but cheap-jack nostrums, and a mere shuffling around.

I would just cite three of the many changes necessary for any advance:

(1) The reduction of working hours to a point that would enable men and women to live lives of wider interest.

(2) The abolition of smoke—which surely should not be beyond attainment in this scientific age.

(3) The rescue of educational forces from the grip of vested interests.

I would have all educational institutions financed by the State, but give all the directing power to heads of education elected by the main body of teachers themselves. I would not have education dependent on advertisement or on charity. I would not even have newspapers, which are an educational force—though you might not always think so—dependent on advertisements. A newspaper man told me the other day that his paper had printed an article drawing attention to the deleteriousness of a certain product. The manufacturers of that product sent an ultimatum drawing the editor’s attention to the deleteriousness of their advertising in a journal which printed such articles. The result was perfect peace. What chance is there of rescuing newspapers, for instance, until education has implanted in the rising generation the feeling that to accept money for what you know is doing harm to your neighbours, is not playing the game. Or take another instance: Not long ago in England a College for the training of school-teachers desired to make certain excellent advances in their curriculum, which did not meet with the approval of the municipal powers controlling the College. A short, sharp fight, and again perfect peace.

I suppose it would be too sweeping to say that a vested interest never yet held an enlightened view, but I think one may fairly say that their enlightened views are rare birds.

How, then, is any emancipation to come? I know not, unless we take to looking on Education as the hub of the wheel—the Schools, the Arts, the Press; and concentrate our thoughts on the best means of manning these agencies with men and women of real honesty and vision, and giving them real power to effect in the rising generation the evolution of ethics and taste, in accordance with the rules of dignity, beauty, and simplicity.