Evening star., 1899-01-03

for reasons 50 remarkable that ii is neces-
sary that few words of his text be quoted
to show the spasm Of misconception under
which he Is evidently laboring:
There could no greater calamity befal
and they are the ones that ought to fill
such school-than to have them spend
from fou- to six years of the formation
period OF their lives at the national cap
ital That town is filled to the point of
rankness With the political driftwood of
the nation. L don't go back on the repre-
SeEtatives of our government who must
perforce live there-the President, cabinet
department folks, Congress and all; l have
nothing against them. Take them as a
whole, and they will size up fairly well
with an equal bulk of people almost any
where. But ii is the people that surround
all these that 1 am afraid of. and these
make up the general bulk of Washington
population. These are the people whose
every thought, word and deed are grounded
in one word, namely, pull They have
lost faith in everybody and everything.
They do not believe that there is, any
where, such thing genuine merit and
sterling integrity that can live on what it
really is, but they base all their hopes on
earth. ana any that they may have of
heaven. on pull We all know this. We
all have friends there whom we have seen
go away down in the scale of manhood be-
cause of the influence of their environ
ment.
Mr.. Smith of Peoria notes the fact that
the students at the university would be
forced into association with these local
degenerates in boarding houses and else
where and shudders at the consequences of
this contamination with the evils of pull
He has no objection to locating the uni
versity in New York, for instance, where
the watchwold is push which has for
basis virility and sterling worth, while in
his conception. pull is bedded i'm syco-
phancy, duplicity and perpetual pretend
ing that is first cousin to dirty lying" He
says further:
THE air of New York Cor any big busi-
ness city-Boston Philadelphia. Chicago.
ST. Louis. New Orleans) is bracing What
one breathes in Washington is poisonous
gas There is no business in Washington.
There is beggary, fawning, treachery and
any -thing-to-get-tO- -the-fore."
Such scurrility, of course is its own an
swer. 1t finds its refutation in its mendac-
ity. The reputation of the people of Wash
iEgton requires no defense. But the Wash
ingtonian is tempted to ask whether these
malevolent influences have ever been shifted
by the eminent churchmen-Baptists, Cath
olics, Methodists, Epscopalians-who have
established great educational institutions
here and by the thousands of students who
have attended these institutions. The ques-
tion strikes at the root of some of the most
important educational enterprises of today,
so closely associated with the religious life
of the republic that there arises on the
basis of Mr.. Smiths apprehensions. a grave
suspicion that the theology of the rising
generation, now exposed to the baleful in
fuences of pull is in danger of decad-
ence.
Mr. Smith of Peoria ignores the history
OF the recent past as we'll as that of the
nations beginnings. He has evidently not
heard of such a thing civil service re-
form with its anti'pull effects and ten
dencies, nor of the remarkable growth of
the nations city, nor of the influx into its
population-as a leaven in the lump of
alleged degeneracy-of some of the most
eminent participants in the country's COM
merce, some of the most notable producers
of literature. some of the most lofty-minded
citizens in all lines of effort. Mr. Smith of
Peoria is unfortunate in his comparative
references to New York. the home of Tam
many. to Chicago, the city of such recent
aldermanic boodling and other degrading
influences, and to other communities where
the local conditions are, for political and
other reasons, so hostile to the true educa-
tional atmosphere. 1t is somewhat surrris-
ing that the Educational Review should
malevolence.