however, to nearly the
extent of which it is capable. Too much it has become a mere machine,
a mill for grinding out graduates. As such it is unworthy its high
estate. As such it now exists, in multitudes of cases. As such it
should no longer be tolerated. From such a condition it must be
redeemed.

The system has largely lost sight of the grandest thing in all the
world, namely, the individual soul. It addresses itself to humanity
collectively, as a herd. In this it makes a fatal mistake, one that
must be corrected, and that speedily.

And for you, teachers, you who have the destinies of these schools in
your hands, keep your eyes and ears open, and your souls alive to the
possibilities of your profession. Let no machine nor method crush out
your own individuality, and suffer no power to induce, or to force you
to make a business of turning a crank that runs a mill whose office it
is to grind humanity to one common form, each individual like every
other, interchangeable like the parts of a government musket!

Understand, first, last, and all the time, that characters cannot be
manufactured like pins, by the million, and all alike; neither can
salvation be handled in job lots. It is also true that wholesaling
education can never be made a success.

Because, personal character is all there is in this world that amounts
to anything in the final resolution of things. It is not money, nor
governments, nor machines, that are of value in the last analysis. It
is character! It is individuality! It is men!

To secure these things this old world turns over once in twenty-four
hours, and swings around the sun in yearly revolution. For these,
tides ebb and flow, the land brings forth, and the clouds float in the
sky. To these all forces are but servants. For these Christ died.

And like begets like, in the public schools as elsewhere. It is
character in the teacher that begets character in the pupil. The
machine makes after its own kind also, and both it and its products can
be measured with a line.

The soul cannot be measured with a line.

So the ultimatum is personality, individuality, and character, in every
teacher and pupil in the public schools, and freedom of each to develop
in his own way, and not after a pattern made and prepared by a pattern
maker.

If the public school live long, its friends must take these items into
account and act on them. It is its only salvation.

THE END.