The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1896-04-18


Full compliance with the request Of
A-was impossible A number of
facts were given him and he was advised
to arrange and express them in his own
way Even if his speech limped it would
be more Strengthening for future effort, If
it represented definite investigation and
thought on his part. There is such a
thing too as literary honesty and man OF
strong, definite convictions on the affirma-
tive side would be slow and unwilling to
spin negative arguments out of mere intel
lectuality.
TO the man with the jaundiced eye
everything is yellow. If any of us lie
stranded and wrecked along the stream Of
progress we must not therefore make our
selves believe that all Others are in like
straits Our own helmless hulk may in
deed be fast fixed in the sands but there
are more who sail free, freighted with good
for the world. We should enjoy much
happier atmosphere of thought and realize
what blessed old world this is after all
if we could all stop estimating It's condition
by inner feelings or indigestion, gloom, dis
appointment. We fail to dissociate Oul
views of the world progress from oar own
individual failures and difficulties Little
wonder then that the outlook is depressing.
We too often judge not by the lights we
have, but by the liver.
Space is very limited and the straws that
Indicate the onward of the stream of the
world improvement are many. Only
briefest mention will be possible therefore,
and many things unmentioned here will
suggest themselves to your readers.
Increasing care and understanding Of
child life. The century has shown pro-
gress immeasurable in this direction, largely
to be credited to German influence, with its
Froebel and its Herbart. Each year the
tendency increases to adapt the teaching
to the individual rather than the individual
to the teaching. Advanced educators no
longer regard a roomfull of children as so
much material to be ground into one homo
geneous mass, but as made up of distinct
Municipalities, needing for their best de-
velopment special thought and adaptation
of studies The semi humorous dictum
of Holmes The training of child begins
a hundred years before is born, which
expresses in a pleasanter way the dIetum
of the Almighty in Exodus XX Visiting
the sins of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth generations is
receiving constant confirmation from our
better understanding of heredity. We
recognize the rights of children now A
hundred years ago what rights had they?
They have right to be called into exist
ence by parents at their best and not at
their worst, and the State which is the
foster parent to take care of the idiotic,
the imperfect, the decadent, the deformed
is tending more and more to demand
that they shall be.
Increasing care of the unfortunates:
The savage militarism of Sparta called for
the slaughter of the puny and the feeble
Viewed from the stand point of heartless
commercialism ''twere better that our nom
producers were plunged into the sea, for
they are money burden ON us ALL But
the world moves We are coming to real
ize that the care, the sympathy, the tender
kindness, called forth by these helpless and
dependent ones is humane leayen in our
communities Of greater real value to the
higher progress of the world than streams
of gold and rubies without measure. In
the philosopher scales the -tuppence'
of the good Samaritan would outweigh a
hundred fold the whole of Herod' s temple
Increasing humanity toward criminals:
The efforts of penologists are more and
more directed towards reform and less
towards more detention Even the crimi-
nal is recognized to have rights. He is a
human beingr, abnormal perhaps, but yet
one of us
Increasing international sympathy and
agreement: When the japanese in their
moment Of victorious excitement slew the
defenceless inhabitants of Port Arthur,
the whole civilized world raised voice OF
protest The far away sufferers in Ar
menia cause throb of agony in our own
breasts and touch our pocket book The
world each year becomes more closely knit
together If one nation suffer, all suffer
with it. India stopped her coinage of de-
preciatsd rupees and in two months America
was in financial panic: Not because we
were under one political party or the Other
but because the whole world is becoming
one vast brain, complex and sensitive al
each point for every other point within it.
In IS45 James Russell Lowell wrote:
For mankind are one in spirit, and an in
stinct bears along,
Round the earth electric circle. the swift
fash of right or wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, vel
Humanity $ vast frame
Through its ocean-sundred fibres feels the
gush of JOY or shame;-
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest
have equal claim.
Ii true then, how much truer now with
80 years of advancement and of blending.
In the past 100 years over 80 international
disputes have been settled BY arbitration.
In earlier days every one of these would
have been left to the arbitrament of the
sword and the shedding of blood And
furthermore, children of this land of Free
dom, the United States, was the arbiter
in most of these cases because of its repu-
tation for fairness and freedom from pas
sion. Let US pronounce woe upon our
retrogressive and fre-eating statesmen who
would set us back one hair breadth from
what we have gained
Increasing power of woman in the home,
in the school, in morals, and in politics:
Enlarge upon the finery of the Romans,
the chiyalry Of the Middle Ages, the lux
uFy Of the 18th century as much as you
viii. Still after all the woman was moth
ing more than the appanage Of the man,
his toy, his chattel, most deity and glori-
ously wooed yet most yoefuIly wed. The
laws that controlled her were his laws