be the
privilege of every man.
This is a problem that Boston has before it today: Shall free speech be
allowed on the Common? William Morris tried it in Trafalgar Square, to
his sorrow; but in Hyde Park, if you think you have a message, London
will let you give it. But this is not considered good form, and the
"Best Society" listen to no speeches in the park. However, there are
signs that Aristotle's outdoor school may come back. Phillips Brooks
tried outdoor preaching, and if his health had not failed, he might have
popularized it. It only wants a man who is big enough to inaugurate it.
Aristotle had various helpers, and arranged to give his lectures and
conferences daily in certain porches or promenades. These lectures
covered the whole range of human thought--logic, rhetoric, oratory,
physics, ethics, politics, esthetics, and physical culture. These
outdoor talks were called exoteric, and there gradually grew up esoteric
lessons, which were for the rich or luxurious and the dainty. And there
being money in the esoteric lessons, these gradually took the place of
the exoteric, and so we get the genesis of our modern private school or
college, where we send our children to be taught great things by great
men, for a consideration.
Will the exoteric, peripatetic school come back?
I think so.
I believe that university education will soon be free to every boy and
girl in America, and this without going far from home. Esoteric
education is always more or less of a sham. Our public-school system is
purely exoteric, only we stop too soon. We also give our teachers too
much work and too little pay. Stop building warships, and use the money
to double the teachers' salaries, making the profession respectable,
raise the standard of efficiency, and the free university with the old
Greek Lyceum will be here.
America must do this--the Old World can't. We have the money, and we
have the men and the women; all that is needed is the desire, and this
is fast awakening.
* * * * *
When Alexander died, of acute success, aged thirty-two, Aristotle's
sustaining prop was gone. The Athenians never thought much of the
Macedonians--not much more than Saint Paul did, he having tried to
convert both and failed.
Athens was jealous of the power of Alexander: that a provincial should
thus rule the Mother-Country was unforgivable. It was as if a Canadian
should make himself King of England!
Everybo
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