of education, to say
nothing of culture, which should be required of every intelligent human
being if he is to be but a journeyman in society. In an unconvincing
defense of our own ignorance we loudly insist that detailed knowledge of
any subject is mere pedagogy, a hindrance to clear thinking, a
superfluity. We do not say so, to be sure, with respect to knowledge in
general; but that is our attitude in regard to any particular subject
that may be brought up. Yet to deny the value of special information is
tantamount to an assertion of the desirability of general ignorance. It
is only the politician who can afford to say: "Wide knowledge is a fatal
handicap to forcible expression."

This is not true of the older countries. In Germany, for instance, a
knowledge of natural philosophy, languages and history is insisted on.
To the German schoolboy, George Washington is almost as familiar a
character as Columbus; but how many American children know anything of
Bismarck? The ordinary educated foreigner speaks at least two languages
and usually three, is fairly well grounded in science, and is perfectly
familiar with ancient and modern history. The American college graduate
seems like a child beside him so far as these things are concerned.

We are content to live a hand-to-mouth mental existence on a haphazard
diet of newspapers and the lightest novels. We are too lazy to take the
trouble either to discipline our minds or to acquire, as adults, the
elementary knowledge necessary to enable us to read intelligently even
rather superficial books on important questions vitally affecting our
own social, physical intellectual or moral existences.

If somebody refers to Huss or Wyclif ten to one we do not know of whom
he is talking; the same thing is apt to be true about the draft of the
hot-water furnace or the ball and cock of the tank in the bathroom.
Inertia and ignorance are the handmaidens of futility. Heaven forbid
that we should let anybody discover this aridity of our minds!

My wife admits privately that she has forgotten all the French she ever
knew--could not even order a meal from a _carte de jour_; yet she is a
never-failing source of revenue to the counts and marquises who yearly
rush over to New York to replenish their bank accounts by giving parlor
lectures in their native tongue on _Le XIIIme Siecle_ or Madame Lebrun.
No one would ever guess that she understands no more than one word out
of twenty and that she