Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-01-18

the race IL not to the swift by ma
ture, but the battle is to the drilled,
and the race is to the trained and
disciplined.
"As a consequence modern ideals
Of education are not content with
the simple rudiments of q former
era. They aim at the development
of the powers of the body and of the
mind, the quickening of the masses,
the refining of the tastes, the train
ing of the aptitudes. But realize
the effec. of this universal higher
education upon the habits and am
billions, and upon the work of the
people. Conceive the youth of a
time close at hand, who is familiar
with the thoughts and the language
of shakespeare, can understand the
gay worldliness and the debonair
grace of Horace, is able TO recall and
sum up the results of the past his
tory OF his own race, and to look out
on the world with an understanding
of its strategic geographical posi-
tions, is not only deft in the use Of
tools put into his hands In the public
schools, but is also quick and sensi-
tive to things beautiful.
What kind of life will such a
youth demand? What kind of work
will he aspire to do? What inevi-
table tasks and tolls will he endeav-
or to escape? If any man declares
that this more highly educated popu-
lace will bend its back to the work
of the scavenger and the toll of the
stevedore, except under the influ-
ence of religious sanction, he seems
to be speaking without warrant"
Somewhat TO the same purpose
was an utterance of Prof. Harry
Thurston Pack, of Columbia univer-
sity, a~few years ago. Discussing in
a magazine article Modern Educa-
tion," he deprecated the idea almost
universal among our people that ed
ucation in itself and for all human
beings is a good and thoroughly de-
sirable possession. Contending
that this idea is fraught with $50
cial and political PERIL" Prof. Peck
said:
Education means ambition and
ambition means discomfort. We see
on every hand great masses of men
stirred by a vague dissatisfaction
with their lot, their brains added
and confused by doctrine that is only
half truth and vaguely understood,
yet thoroughly adapted to make them
ripe for the work OF the agitator
and the enemy of public order. Such
education as these possess can never
qualify for any serious role; IL only
makes for grievous disappointment
and final heart-break. Nor Is there
any moral safeguard in a limited de-
gree of education. Quite the con-
trary. It only makes the naturally
criminal person far more dangerous,
converting the potential sneak-thief
into the actual forger and embezzler
and the bar-room brawler into the
anarchist bomb-thrower."
Prof. Peck exemplified in the trag-
edy of his life and death the truth
of what he said. His culture con-
tanned no moral quality to safe
guard its effect, and he died as a
suicide, two women claiming his body
by a wife's right to bury her hus-
band.
but the remedy for the dangers
which Prof. Peck pointed out is not
less education, but a higher kind OF
education. A poultice of ignorance
will not draw out the dangerous in
plantations which afflict and imperil
the social system, even If the people
were willing to submit to us appH-
cation. The cure must be found by
restoring the religious element to
the educational prescription. Here
by the educated men VIII be inspired
to self-sacrifice and restrained from
a self-centered life,-a result which
religion alone can secure.
Secularized education means self
ishness equipped with the greatest
power to work it's own ends, and that
means discomfort and disorder.
Secularized education is modern
thing, and even now it is confined
for the most part to- the United
States. The experiment OF such ed
ucation has produced already very
unsatisfactory consequences, and 1t
promises worse results in the culture.
without the religious element the
prescription of education is poison
Gus and perilous.