The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1903-05-19
knowledge and Service.

Let me dwell for a moment upon this correla-
ton of knowledge and service, for it is full of in
structlon both for those who have to teach and
for those who have to work. On the one hand the
call to service demOcratizes the world of knowl-
edge. A generation ago knowledge stood quite
apart from service. Education, like beauty, seemed
its own excuse for being. Educated people were a
privileged, separated, patrician, Brahmin caste.
They spoke the same dialect. They quoted from
the sane classics. They even held that edncaz
tional value in study was decreased as one ap-
preached the bread and butter sciences. Then one
day the modern world was touched and trans
formed by the spirit of democracy. A new test
was applied for the worth of life, the test of SER
vice. A man must be not only good, but good fol-
something. We speak of a rich man as worth a
certain sum, but the spirit of democracy first asks,
how much is he worth? Is he worth having? Does
the rich man perform a public service? If he is
not a serviceable instrument of public good, then
he IS a public nuisance and must be in some way
abated. Are his riches, as Mr.. Ruskin once said,
his wealth because it is we'll with him, or should
they be called his filth because it is i'll with him?
Or, as Mr.. Ruskin remarked in another place, sup
pose a man in a wrecked vessel tied a bag of gold
pieces round his waist with which later he was
found at the bottom, should we say that as he was
sinking he had his gold, or should we say that his
gold had him? Precisely the same test is to be
applied to education. How much is it worth? Is
it creating a fit instrument for the service of the
modern world? 1t is not a question of the higher
or of the lower education. It is a question of a
person, rich or poor, North or South, white or
black, who is to be drawn out-as the word 'educa-
tom means, discovered, shaped, broadened and
tempered for the service of the world, and the
best education for each person is that which draws
out the most of that person and applies him most
effectively to the worlds service. This is democ-
racy in education and how searching is the test
which it applies to ones own life as one considers
his own education. Democracy, says Mr.. Lowell,
means not I am as good as you are but you are
as good as I am
ct means mutual respect and reverence in the
practice of the diverse ways of service in the mod
ern world. I was talking two years ago with a
Hampton student, Who was mending a wagon
wheel, and said to him, T should not like that task
to be set before me- to which the boy with perfect
simplicity answered, Yes, sir, but there are many
things which you can do which I cannot Was
not that a fair statement of the principle of ser
vice democratizing the world of knowledge? Many
a man to-day thinks himself educated when in
reality he is a mere survivor of a prehistoric type
among the needs of the modern world.
"The high ideal of Christly service is set forth
in the words of the Master: For their sakes +
sanctify myself What is the aim of the Christian
life but to guide knowledge to the feet of service
and to lift service to the height of knowledge!
What is the picture of an effective modern life
which the Conference cherishes and desires to re-
produce? 1t is a picture of a fertilizing river
flowing through a thirsty plain. Up in the hills
where the stream first rises is the task of educa-
ton, the quiet fidelity of the teachers work, but
all the while the stream hears the call to service
that summons it to the plains below, and to give