ied to the
problems of government, this means such a method of educating the
young as will make all susceptible to and appreciative of the superior
qualities of mind and character that may be exhibited in public life.
Such responsiveness being itself creative and a powerful factor in
producing and bringing to the front the superior man, it must be
regarded as one of the most necessary and fundamental qualities of a
democracy.

We might single out the teaching of history and biography as the best
means of educating the appreciative powers in regard to values in
human life, and the best means of facilitating the emergence of the
best individuals and the best principles, and of making their
influence powerful, but after all it is something more than any or all
teaching that is required. Most fundamentally, no one can refuse to
admit it is such an organization of the whole educational situation as
will allow, or rather cause and encourage, precisely the total of the
good and progressive life of the world to play upon the mood and the
spirit of the school. Assuredly the school is not to-day so
fortunately situated. It is too much removed from some influences and
far too closely joined to others. Much of the good of society is
walled out from the school by barriers that arise in politics, City
ways, all the bad life of the streets, the trivial interests of the
day, affect the school too much. We are greatly at fault in all this,
because we do not take education as yet seriously enough. There must
be now a decision. Either the school must be content to remain what it
is now, a local institution performing a very limited service, or it
must arise to quite new heights, and mean far more as a civilizing and
creative force than it has thus far. The school must occupy more hours
of the day and more days in the year. It must claim the child more
completely. It must extend its influences further, and draw its life
from a deeper soil. We certainly shall never allow the school to
become a great evil in society, but it is almost as bad morally to
leave it but a feeble good. Let no one speak any longer of good
schools. Our schools were good for yesterday, perhaps. But of
to-morrow's needs they are not yet even fully aware. The school has
yet to learn with certainty to lay hold upon the fundamental things in
the nature of the child, and to appreciate the child's real and
greatest needs. Continuity and creativeness are still for the most