Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1889-07-11
Prof. Smails Address.

.
and passion fuel. The mist Of unthought
thought of unfelt feeling of unwillei will
became self -consi0us potentiality of crafty
| ing origuation and creation, Imagination Of
the possible charged the actnal into the mis-
cradle Ennui became mai1ening lack
became ravening Then will wrought that
appetite might gorge, and passion burn and
misery re loice, Thus the will. euticed by
the unrealzed, began to fashion the cosmos
of matter into the cosmos of mind. The
leverage of desire began TO lift the real
towards the ideal
To translate these distractions into more
concrete terms social progress so far as il
IS not the resultant of physical action or
something closely analogous. is the reorgan-
lZation of human relations by more or less
ntelligently drecte efforts to exchange dis
comfort of some sort for comfort. All revo-
lutions from discharges of thunderbolts to
dethronements of dynasties are evOlutions.
ldealists are the social nerve centres, both
sersory and motor The iiealists of whom
am thinking are men who have thought
out something more perfect which they are
impatient TO put in the place of something
less perfect The iieallst Is no more a Wis
iOnary than is the architect. The ilealist
is not a dreamer, constructing worlds in
health, and lazIuess instead of labor is the |
source of wealth. The idealist is man of
strong understanding of present realities
He sees that If some particular means were
gesred to their work with more reference TO
their nature. the world would be "A more com
Portable and profitable place To live 10
Herein is all that is true Of the great man /
theory of history Great men are locaiza-
lions of social sensations and perceptions.
In them society sees itself in new phases !
In so far society first attsins self-cOnscIous- |
ness in them They the most c0mpre-
hensible self assertions
II have made the thought intelligble |
thus far, assent will be easy to the future
proposition, that social progress under dem
oCratic government involves first the Ievel- 4
opment of the popular talent for misery and
second or conversely, the development Of
popular idealism. Democrsces can progress |
only when consciousness of misery and i'm
agitation of means of relief sway masses \
numerous enough to control a permanent
balance of power; nay in many cases intelli- |
gent AMI determined iIeslists must compose
an actual majority our nation in arms
could destroy the legal institution Of negro |
slavery, but our nation in peace has not 50 |
much as heard that there is the economic
institution of industrial slavery more mex
ora5ie and more goddess than the slavery we |
have destroyed. Peoples will remain the |
sport Of demagogneisn until majorities know
enough of moral fact to resent unrighteous- !
mes. AS an outrage against the hygiene of |
society.
Political quackery will continue to dose !
us with the nostrum popular education
compounded of reading writing and srith-
metic, until We learn that such prescription
no more strikes at the root of the matter
thsn injections of morphine cure the opium .
habit. The fulcrum Of social progress is
consciousness of misery distributed among
the social atoms. The desirable misery re-
suits from perception thai any truth affecting
human welfare is dsre zariei in the social
order That man is spiritual being. but in
the vast aggregate confined by convention .
and satanic contriyance, rather than necessity,
TO the existence of thing; that man is
moral being. with no right to sensuous graft
fication which limits his or snother's spiritual \
development, or annul. or weakens moral
obligations that man is an industrial being,
designated by faculty and capacity to the
exploitation of material resource-nOt to the
end that warehouse and palace AMI bank
vault may loom and bulge with material /
products or their representatives. but that
this footstool of God NAV become the foot
stool Of a race of men grown like God that
man is political being, associatiug with bis
kind not as gamesters congregate to plunder /
each other by combination Of wit and chance,
hut constituted in nationality in order to find .
the means, which would otherwise fail. to .
demonstrate spiritual worth and exert spirit
ual power these are some of the knovl- |
edges which belong of right to all men,
| ia n tbar han
tate upward and onward according to the un-
formulated law of moral attraction, its teach |
ers must be its great men, Large ideality |
precision in anal sis Of social status alert |
discrimination of social tendency; accuracy /
in detection and Interpretation of social
signs; sympathy vi the victims of social
wrongs, and with the sufferers of hsriships3 4
entailei by irrational social organization !
vigorous constructive Imagination trained to
recombine social materials into designs for
better organizations.
maintain that the mind of child can
take in profouni,r truths about the struc-
tursl facts of societr than our school system,
have ever allowed it to confront. child
may learn about morals as exactly as about
muscl $ at all evenls He may understand
social as well As animal physiology.
For an all round view of the subject upon
which have entered. examination of the ed
ucaticnsi function and value of other social
forces, especially church and press, would
be necessary. The time allotted me permits
only these hints upon the possible dynamic
importance of schools alone | plead for a
broader outlook than se habitually take over
the iehl ~h ch our position commands
+ Mental cshsthenics can never lift civilizs-
tons II they could. an age Of the School
9 Il ] A.,-- IL Ill
[ nor would the keen classical scholarship of
nineteenth century Russian universities and
/ Spanish cloisters be useless to the world
The secret Of human progress lies in deeiph-
ering the thoughts stereotypei in physical
properties and moral fitness. We have hard
ly formulated the comprehensive question eff
all science, viz Is the world that man has
made, the world which these thoughts prove
that God intended him to make?
| Society has progressed thus far by butting
against nature and being bufeted into pre-
cautions. The educators prerogstive i'm
poses the duty of accelersting progress BY
chow ing society bo~ to anticipate collisions
with nature. The educators who grasp the
situation and adapt their work to its demands
will be the helmsmen of futare ci civilizstious.
! Evening sessiou.
Teachers ar, still coming 20 the meeting
, of the American Institute Of Instruction
One of the largest audiences in the histos,
! of the institute greeted Superintendea
, James Mc4nster Of Philadelphia this even
ing AMI listened to his paper on ''the adjust
ment of recent tendencies in education.
Among the tendencies alluded to BY til
: speaker are tendencies TO enlarge the seoo.
2 and purpose of our early primary education t
4 obiectify methods of instruction in the "a,
ious branches: TO connect the system Q
: manual training with the inrelle stuAl develop
uent Of the child, increasing the tendency {
4 correct the secular character of public edt
e cation by larger dsgree of attention to III
moral culture Of pupils. There appears