out into institutions, customs, and
other practical values.

When we think of Emerson as a prophet, we at once become interested in
the dates at which he uttered certain doctrines, or wrote certain
pregnant sentences; but just here the inquirer meets a serious
difficulty. He can sometimes ascertain that a given doctrine or sentence
was published at a given date; but he may be quite unable to ascertain
how much earlier the doctrine was really formulated, or the sentence
written. Emerson has been dead twenty-one years, and it is thirty years
since he wrote anything new; but his whole philosophy of life was
developed by the time he was forty years old, and it may be doubted if
he wrote anything after 1843, the germinal expression of which may not
be found in his journals, sermons, or lectures written before that date.
If, therefore, we find in the accepted thought, or established
institutions, of to-day recent developments of principles and maxims
laid down by Emerson, we may fairly say that his thought outran his
times certainly by one, and probably by two generations of men.

* * * * *

I take up now the prophetic teachings of Emerson with regard to
education. In the first place, he saw, with a clearness to which very
few people have yet attained, the fundamental necessity of the school as
the best civilizing agency, next to steady labor, and the only sure
means of permanent and progressive reform. He says outright: "We shall
one day learn to supersede politics by education. What we call our
root-and-branch reforms, of slavery, war, gambling, intemperance, is
only medicating the symptoms. We must begin higher up--namely, in
education." He taught that if we hope to reform mankind, we must begin
not with adults, but with children: we must begin in the school. There
are some signs that this doctrine has now at last entered the minds of
the so-called practical men. The Cubans are to be raised in the scale of
civilization and public happiness; so both they and we think they must
have more and better schools. The Filipinos, too, are to be developed
after the American fashion; so we send them a thousand teachers of
English. The Southern states are to be rescued from the persistent
poison of slavery; and, after forty years of failure with political
methods, we at last accept Emerson's doctrine, and say: We must begin
earlier,--at school. The city slums are to be redeemed; and the
scientific cha