The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-09
MANY HEAR
DR.. ELIOT
Talks to Crowd at The
Grand.
HUNDREDS ARE TURNED AWAY
Takes Subject Of "The Uplifting Of
the People"
Harvard Educator Gives q Dignined
Talk without Any Sensational
ism or Appeal. to tn. bmo-
HUNDREDS ARE TURNED AWAY

0VGEY seat Liz IEdhu ohN
occupying every inch of standing room
listened to an hour and a quarter lee
ture By President Eliot, of Harvard, or
The Uplifting of the People" yester-
day at noon. 1t was q calm, dignif1eo
talk, without any sensationalism OF
appeal to the emotions, and yet all
whether men, women or children
wished that he had talked even longer
and expressed even more fully his
ideas of democracy in education. indus
try and politics.
Fully as many persons as succeed
ed In getting inside the theatre were
turned away. The parquet the bal
cony and galleries were all full q
quarter of an hour before the lecture
began.
The eminent educator was intro
duced by DR.. Benjamin J. Baldwin
president Of the Montgomery board OF
education.
On the stage from which President
Eliot made his address, there were
seated several hundred prominent bus
mess and professional men of this
city and all parts OF the State. The
faculties Of the various colleges and
Universities OF the State were all rep
resented.
1t was without doubt the most sue
cessful lecture ever given In Montgom-
cry. Certainly no larger number of
people or more influential citizens ever
gathered to hear a single address.
u want to speak of a peculiar de-
sire and purpose of the American peo-
ple." began DR.. Eliot, 1.-THE purpose to
lift up the whole body of people to
make the whole body Of people hap
pier. richer, better. For over a hun
dred years We have been trying to do
a~A L., 49,
government
I'm Piatos republic. the freedom ap-
Piled to only small class. the rest
were enslaved. distinctly said that the
Iaooring classes need no education.
This conception Of a republic is en-
tirely different from our own.
Again in the Roman republic. edu-
Gated people formed but a small class
Inc rest had little hope of rising or
improving themselves. VI
In the great feudal svstems NJ
Europe and Japan, there was another
FORM or society where the distinctions
between people were most marka1
among the people ruling In those DAYS
mere was no thought Of uplifting tho
whole people. Indeed. this idea of mn
nIIIns the whole people has been y,
Ey recent date. Not until 1871 did
Ghsiahd get general school hill tn
HIting. we have to go to the iittia ~
public of Switzerland .''e re-
40 nave universal uplifting tboro
must be collective interest bebind ~
uhiess we nave this collective Interest
we FORBID individual freedom. From
sis CORRECTIVE interest. grows all sorts
or collective efforts to promote coIIoot
I've welfare. In the last twentv ,,ea -.
we have learned that 1t is imnoSsthie
TO advance individual welfare with
out developing collective welfare
FOR instance. II is tmnossih1a 20
check the spread OF contagious die.
eases In community without all that
community working together. In Mas
sachusetts, we found that we could not
deal with insect pests, If every indiyid :
ual 10 allowed to do as he pleases. The
only way that we can succeed in
stamping out the gypsy and brown-tail
moth. Is by awakening the collective
interest and arousing collective effort.
need different education. We have not
realized this until lately. Germany
in this phase has gone ahead of us.
The city or Munich. one of moderate
size, not only provides common
school education up to the age of a.,
but provides a system whereby chill
dren older than that spend half their
time at labor and the other half at a
specialized school. There are no less
than sixty trode schools there These
provide education absolutely appro
pirate for the calling that the children
have chosen. We must take UP the
study of this specialized instruction
much more extensively in this country.
This Is not an aristocratic move
ment, but a democratic movement. 1t
seeks to taut the prblic school sys-
tenn 70 the real needs of democracy.
Otherwise we cannot obtain the best
moral. political and industrial results.
"There Is another important feature
Of education that we forget. and neg
lect. I speak of the training of lead
ers in our democracy. In the last fifty
years, we find that the greatest ad-
vances In society proceeds from few
leaders or rather from groups of lead
ers.
LEADERS are just as indispensable
as ever and they are not opposed to
Democracy. rather it is through them
that the best Democratic results can
he obtained. Often It is said that
real Democracy can not produce lead
ers any more than a prairie can rear
a mountain peak. But this is merely
rhetoric. How to produce good lead
ers is the main problem of Democracy.
How Leaders Arise.
.srhere are two ways in which lead
ers arise. He may be born a genius.
who despite all handicaps, will lift
bimself ahead, of all others. BenJa-
min Franklin was a genius VINO rose
from the lowest circumstances to nigh
station. Abraham Lincoln was anoth-
err genius who developed himself and
1yas In turn development OF the stress
80 nar,od in which he worked. Charles
Darwin came from well-to-do parents
and everything was done to assist him.
mt he would haye succeeded had he
been born poor. Pasteur. born of ex-
ceedinrly humble parents. the son of
a common soldier, became the leader
Of scientific thought throughout the
whole world.
has need of bringing us more leaders
than those who rise up anyway. de-
spite all odds. Schools in a Democ-
racy have no higher field than finding
am bilious children of promise. But
usually Democratic schools tend more
and more to an average product. Ihls
is the worst fault imaginable. We
should try to get the most gifted emil.
dren and train them into leaders. If
we do this, 1t Is the best evidence OF
a democratic education in a democratic
Democratic eucation should make
careful provision for/ professional
training of all sorts. including bust
ness. Business in its higher positions
is Just as much professional as law or
medicine. The last graduate school
that Harvard has founded is the School
OF Business Administration.
ut Is delightful to me to see how
the American States one after anoth-
er, are competing to build up their ed
vocational systems on broad lines.
I'm education, particularly, we learn
of the tremendous impetus given by
collective efforts.
..0reatar nro1resa has bean made In