th the materials involved; involving
constant reflection upon hidden meanings, painful investigations into
hidden causes, and mastery of a vast body of specialized knowledge which
it takes years of study to digest and assimilate.

It is not every stevedore upon the docks, nor every stoker upon the
steamers, nor every brakeman upon the railroads, who comprehends what
commerce really means. It is not every banker's clerk who knows the
meaning of business. It is not every petty holder of public office who
knows what government really means. But this, at least, is true: in
proportion as the worker knows the meaning of the work that he does,--in
proportion as he sees it in its largest relations to society and to
life,--his work is no longer the drudgery of routine toil. It becomes
instead an intelligent process directed toward a definite goal. It has
acquired that touch of artistry which, so far as human testimony goes,
is the only pure and uncontaminated source of human happiness.

And the chief blessing for which you and I should be thankful to-day is
that this larger view of our calling has been vouchsafed to us as it has
been vouchsafed no former generation of teachers. Education as the
conventional prerogative of the rich,--as the garment which separated
the higher from the lower classes of society,--this could scarcely be
looked upon as a fascinating and uplifting ideal from which to derive
hope and inspiration in the day's work; and yet this was the commonly
accepted function of education for thousands of years, and the teachers
who did the actual work of instruction could not but reflect in their
attitude and bearing the servile character of the task that they
performed. Education to fit the child to earn a better living, to
command a higher wage,--this myopic view of the function of the school
could do but little to make the work of teaching anything but drudgery;
and yet it is this narrow and materialistic view that has dominated our
educational system to within a comparatively few years.

So silently and yet so insistently have our craft ideals been
transformed in the last two decades that you and I are scarcely aware
that our point of view has been changed and that we are looking upon our
work from a much higher point of vantage and in a light entirely new.
And yet this is the change that has been wrought. That education, in its
widest meaning, is the sole conservator and transmitter of civilization
to successi