The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-04-03
Democracy and Education.

In the April number of The Citizen,
organ of the American Society for the
Extension of University Teaching, Rev.
w. Hudson Shaw, who has just COM
pleted in our city an admirable series
of lectures upon Venetian history, has
an article headed Democracy and Edu-
cation" which contains much whole
some thinking. After observing that
the nineteenth century, by reason of
the fast and furious pace at which it
has latterly moved, is suffering from
nervous prostration, he illustrates his
meaning in this wise:
In literature, we luckless moderns have
passed from the neurotic horrors of
Tolstoi and lola to the physiological mon
strosities of Ibsen'S Ghost and the hys-
terical morbidities of Sarah Grand and
New Women of that ilk. American
maidens by the hundred thousand desert
Jearnie Deans for the fin-de-siecle heroine
of virtue, "Trilby." English clerics dis
course to admiring congregations of Chris
tians concerning "Tess of the D'Urber-
villes" and the Second Mrs. Tanqueray."
Blavatsky and Theosophy, the revelations
of W. r. Stead's Julia" and the credible
miracles of the Christian Scientists. In
art, we are hidden to rejoice in the in
antics of Aubrey Beardsley and. "The
Yellow Book" succinctly though unpo-
litely characterized by a Philistine critic
insufficently up-to-date as 'erotlc, neur-
otic and Tommyrot-ic." What wonder Is
it that we have drawn down upon us the
righteous Indignation of Max Nordau,
who in his striking book. Degeneration,
has reminded us that nations. like indi-
viduals may suffer from overwrought
nerves and carry intellectual excitement
to the verge of mental disease? 90.
This unhealthy condition of our
brain centers" has also, in Mr.. Shaws
opinion, seriously affected our politics,
ual succession of academic jeremiads"
against the ability of the people TO
govern themselves, which proceeds
from "men who evolve theories in their
studies and know little of the real life
and thought Of the mass of men," The
writer shows how these prophecies of
evil have been repeatedly disproved in
England, and then adds:
America, the chosen home of democ-
racy, has had n longer experience of gov
ernment by the people, and here, In spite
of difficulties caused by her too hasty
grant of citizenship to foreigners and the
too frequent dumping OF the scum of Eu
rope upon her Shores the general average
of human happiness is probably higher
than in any considerable nation of ancient
or modern times. 1t Is true, American
streets are not over-clean, her municipal
councillors are not always persons of i'm
maculate virtue, nor her senators entirely
disinterested in their political actions.
But these evils are not inseparable from
democracy. Aristocratic England CEN
tury ago, experienced them more than the
United States do now Some day, when
business will permit, the Lady Columbia
will hang contractor or two, clear both
her streets and her councils, and remem-
Der the bosses and the spoilsmen no more
The fact is that the era of democracy
has arrived; that it is useless to try to
fight it back, even were it desirable
that democracy should be fought back:
and that both the policy and duty of
common sense are TO so educate the peo"
pie as to fit them for their responsible
ties as sovereign governors. Upon this
subject Mr.. Shaw says:
We need, however, something more
than the training of children and the
bestowal of the tools Of knowledge. If
democracy is not to end In unutterable
disaster and ruin, we must take in hand
the training of the adult. Citizenship
does not come by the light of nature, nor
will the workman learn 1t from the ltera-
'ture to which at present he Is chiefly ad-
dcted--the Sunday newspaper and the
sporting chronicle. We shall have to
teach It, We shall have TO place within
his reach, In every town and village of
the land what Carlyle called the "true
modern university of books" With what
amazement Will our descendants read that
civilized nations like England and the
United States, boasting of their enlight-
eminent, cared greatly about gas and troll
leys, and were Indifferent to the need Of
public libraries!
1t is something Of coincidence that
upon the day that this article saw light,
which was likewise the date Of its au-
thotss final visit tn Scranton n Scrau-