Putnam patriot., 1909-11-19

fools of themselves; and his conserva- tisms were always respected because.as in the promotion of the kindergarten and so much besides, he had again and again shown himself the resolute and fertile pioneer. Above all he stood for genuine culture and thoroughness, for a broadening and real education for every American child; and our most pious regard for his memory will be shown in firm and steady resistance to the present popular clamor for stealing time from the scant grammar school cultural opportunities, which are all that most of our children get for teach ing them some "practicala expertness or other whereby they will be able the easier to get job, at a dollar more week, at the age of fourteen. The prac- ticai trai ming, the trade inst ruction, by all means; but let us raise the age for compulsory education everywhere to sixteen years, and learn from sound educational thinkers like Dr. Harris and from truly practical educational countries like Germany that the pri. mary condition of successful competi- ton in every field of life Is ignored and violated when technical work is super imposed upon crude foundations and an undeveloped intelligence.
 Yet 1t Is not ss an educator that pr. Harris will in my judgment be longest remembered and most influential, great as his work as an educatori was, but as . philosopher. His philosophic life was his most real life. The story Is told of Rubens that when, in the time of Charles the First, he was smbassa- dor from the Netherlands to England, a fellow diplomat found him one day hard at work at his canN as. "Ah, Monsieur the ambassador plays the paintera "No," retorted the proud artist, "the painter plays the ambassa- dor.' With equal ptopriety and war. rant might pr. Harris have responded to visitor al his hotel during some meeting of the National Educational Association, finding him absorbed in Aristotle and exclaiming, "So the edu. calor indulges in philosophyv' "No, the philosopher Iatlends educational conventions. His philosophy was with him the central and bottom inter est, and from Ii he made his excursions into every realm of practical activity to which duty invited or commanded him. His services for philosophic thought and culture in America in his
 lifetime were as preeminent as his ser vices for education, and if so many did not directly feel their influence, that is only as few feel directly the influence of quiet but profound thinkers like
 Elisha Mulford and Alexander Allen, although tindirectly through their teachers multiiudes feel their influence every day. Such men are the teachers of the teachers; and such teacher m far higher degree than ,Mulford or Al len was nf. Harris. IL Is not too much te say that for the generation following lsss, when he established in St- Louis his Journal of Speculative Philosophy, nF. Harris did far more than any other scholar in America to promote the study of the worlds best philosophic thought, Frederick N. Holls, the sec retars of our American delegation si the First Hague Conference, used To tell of visit 10 MT. Ralfour, at the time prime minister of England, in his library, when the talk turned on Dr. Harris. Turning to a shelf beside him, he swept his hand across The twenty volumes there of The Journal Of Specu- latise Philosophy and said; Il have reaa them all. Their existence Is a tribute so America. Ne could not sus- tain such s journal in England.a In deed IL was but poorly that America