The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-05-10
OUR ANCIENT ECONOMIC ERROR.

"Ihls, then, is the central thought OF the whole
matter. It pays an individual to be trained. 1t
also pays the community. It not only pays a com
munity but is is absolutely necessary for a COM
munity that all the people be trained. And this
simple and obvious truth leads far.
"1t brings a new conception of society to us.
A satisfactory society in our modern democracy
cannot be made up of educated men and 'un-
educated men. So long as education is regarded
as a privilege and not as a right and a universal
necessity, the community will stand still in ac-
tivity, in thought, in character. The proper
standard to judge men by is an economic stand
ard, not an academic one. This changes the whole
view of life, and makes our whole system of social
thought face another way.
CHOW, it is this economic and not the privileged
structure of society in the United States-as far
as it has yet been worked out--that has given
our country it's great place in the world. And
it is this economic and non-privileged structure
of society that has given the Northern and the
Western States the lead of the Southern States.
"Now, the idea which we inherited was that it
made no particular matter about the training OF
the mass of men provided we properly trained
some men as leaders. Although it is easy to I'M
derstand the advantage of training to an lnd1-
vidual, we are just beginning to see that 1t IS
necessary also to a community that all men should
be trained. Our great task lies right hereto per-
suade the community that it is bound to train
every child for the community's own sake.
UNIVERSAL TRAINING AT PUBLIC EXPENSE.
"Let us go on without finching and see where
this leads us. We run now squarely into the doc
trine of universal training at the community's
expense Compulsory if need Beg, which is neces-
sary in a democracy. There is no escape from it.
We may obscure the question as we please. We
may befog it with big words. We may drag it in
to political discussion. We may hatch big theo-
ries to cackle it down. We may smear it over
with charity. We may impoverish the State be-
cause we are afraid of pauperizing men who are
already so lean that they can't distinguish hunger
from headache. But there it stands-stark eco
nomic fact-the State must train every child at
the public expense; and it must train him to use
fulness. And an economic fact is also a moral
fact.
"And the right training of all the people would
come pretty near to ending all our trouble-to re-
moving our difficulties, economic, political and
chronological. For instance, you have seldom
known a well-trained white man and a we'll
trained negro in Alabama-both men Of economic
worth-to have a difficulty because one is white
and the other is black, or for any other reason;
and you will seldom know such cases. But one
unframed, worthless white man or one unframed,
worthless negro may cause trouble throughout
a whole country. For this reason it is important
to train the child of every hill-billy, of every
politician, of every negro in Alabama. In every
case it is an economic reason, not a merely per-
sonal reason, not a race reason, not a class reason.
In an ideal economic state, if we were to con-
struct it as ruthlessly as Plato constructed his
ideal republic, we should kill every unframed man;
for he is in the way. He is a burden and he brings
down the level of the economic efficiency of the