ciently large to be self-explanatory, will give occupation when he is idle, rest when he is weary, distraction when he is bored, comfort when he is cast down, and through all a much larger peace; for only knowledge can create a vital peace. And the peace that cometh of understanding is not the privilege of the scholar; it is not a private but a social good, and should be as freely offered for use as are the wares of the artisan. A growing insight into the nature of the human being will at length turn its possession as completely into a necessity as it is now a luxury.

These are not vast claims, but they run the risk of seeming to be words alone. More in detail, what will a larger and more vital education do for men? It will substitute productive thinking for destructive hallucinations. It will close the saloon. It will substitute great human perplexing problems-the risks, the darings of the race-for extemporized games of chance. It will remove the vices of blind impulse by making blind impulse to see. It will rationalize consumption by enabling men to discover the necessary and to separate it from the wasteful. It will bring the whole man to his work, not a protesting part of him. It will identify the interest of the employer and employee --and anything short of such intellectual discernment is an abstract and incomplete identification. Socialism, law, accidentnothing besides will do this, not because they demand too much but because they demand too little.

I have noticed that the best carpenters, the best iron-workers, the best cigar-makers, the best street-sweepers were those who knew most, not of their business alone, but of the hopes and aspirations and successes of other men, who had a sense of the social value of their labor. The eight-hour day is in large part a failure. Why? Because the worker cannot use his spare time and so abuses it; but the eight-hour day and the six-hour day begin to be economic necessities. There is a point beyond which civilization cannot extend save by intension beyond which it cannot broaden save by deepening. Why are our manufactures of so poor a kind, and why are wages so low? Not alone because manufacturers make and pay so poorly, but be

cause the consumer is compelled to select upon the criteria of price alone-in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred knowing neither his real need nor what will satisfy it. Bad money drives out good money. Bad taste drives out good taste. Ignorance fights with knowledge for control.

John Ruskin, that great philosopher of the spirit if not of the form, has well said that "there is no wealth but life-life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration." "Whatsoever ye do to the least of these ye do it unto me" is not limited to cups of water. Socrates, that master spirit of the Greeks, thought it worth while to spend his life in bringing home to the minds of the shoemakers, the carpenters, and the armorers of Athens principles of private conduct and political judgment such as they were wont to use in their trades. He thought it worth while to spend his life in extending their, interests to include society, the State, and God. He spent as much time with them as he devoted to the rich young men of Athens. He was a cosmopolitan teacher. Surely that is not an advance beyond him which has made or tends to make the teacher a respecter of persons! A government that names itself democracy, by that act chooses to advance by the way of education alone. One is not educated in it because he may one day be President. He is judge, lawmaker, and executioner Can all men be educated? All who are men can. Will universal education dethrone the scholar? No more than it will dethrone the truth which is his scholarship. He cannot afford to allow a single talent to go unearthed that will work with him in his mighty task. The keenest lack that the scholar feels is lack of discoverers, and next to it is the lack that compels him not only to find the truth but also to drive it hometo make it operative. Universal education will free him from the dead weight of custom and convention, which, perceiving nothing but the static present, weighs upon discovery like a pall.

now.

It is objected to Extension work and to the Settlement movement that there is not a royal road to knowledge that these movements are fraudulent if they claim to offer such a road.

It is because of this very failure of anything but the education of the schools to educate that that education must become universal.

Few will deny that education as ordinarily practised is not intended to serve such ends as these. Unfortunately, it is still in the Sophistic stage of shaping men to conform to the demands of a given social convention rather than to express themselves. But that there is a Socratic education that will enable a man to come to his true stature, and that it can be and is even now being applied, the work of a multitude of teachers will attest. For them culture has once again taken on its better meaning. It is not formal-not mere possession of the dry husks of anything. Culture is domesticity. The cultured man is one whose heart is no longer skin-bounded, but beats in things outside himself. True culture will make him at home in the world as he is at home in the family. The oracular words of Socrates are as true for the laborer as for the prince: "An unexamined life is not one which is fit to be lived by man." Surely it is his due to have all of human acquisition striving with him to abet its examination.

ERNEST CARROLL MOORE.

Berkeley, Cal.

IT

THE ICONOCLAST AS A BUILDER.

T has often been charged against freethinkers and agnostics that they are ready enough to tear down but are not very ready to build up. The charge has been a just one, and for this reason thousands of men who agree substantially with the agnostics are to-day quietly holding their places in the churches. It is better, they argue, and with some reason, to remain with their families, beneath this time-honored shelter, than to wander forth into a world whose only shelter is the uncertain heavens. The old homes may be rife with superstitions and may teach "facts" at variance with science and logic; yet, along with the false, they teach much that is true, and very much that is helpful. In fact, outside of private homes, they are almost the only places where a strict morality is strenuously taught. There are many thoughtful men who agree with the old Roman, Numa Pompilius, that religion fosters culture, and also with him that it is better to receive it "miraculously"from some divine Egeria-than not to have it at all. Moreover, it is conceded that the setting apart of one day in seven for the better cultivation of our moral sense is eminently wise. These things being so, it is not strange that conservative men have been slow to leave their places in the churches.

But, suppose it to be possible-yea, that it prove on trial easy of accomplishment—to erect a temple wherein only truth shall be taught, wherein men may be drawn from the material to the spiritual side of life, wherein a pure morality will be strenuously contended for, and wherein will be inculcated a love for whatsoever things are honest, high, beautiful; and suppose, further, that in conjunction with this new worship (we may well call it so) the Christian Sunday, perhaps with some slight modifications, be still maintained-what, let me ask, would be the effect upon those who still retain their seats in the old churches but not their beliefs in the old faith? It would not

empty the churches, for there is, and perhaps there will always be, a large number of people who have no difficulty in accepting the supernatural; but, in my opinion, there would be a large exodus of intelligent men and women from them, and these uniting with others of like mind in the community would erect a temple wherein they would feel at home, and would establish therein a worship whereby they and their children would grow in all the graces of the spirit.

In some cities there are associations that have taken the name of The Secular League. They are made up for the most part of intelligent persons that have lost their religious beliefs. But I like not their name. We are too prone now to follow secular things; what we need, and are now seeking, is how, at times, to get away from the world-from secularism-and how to find in its stead spirituality.

Let us suppose that a meeting was called in one of our large cities say Washington; that the call was to all those who think for themselves in matters of religion; that it was extensively advertised, and then that it was duly held and was in every respect a success: that an organization was effected by the election of the usual officers and the selection of certain committees. First, there is a building committee, whose duty will be to select a lot in the central part of the city and erect thereon a house suitable for the purposes of the association. This temple should be beautiful without and within. The auditorium should be modeled after that of the modern theater, except that the stage would have less space; there would be no boxes, and there would be an organ. There would be also space in front of the stage for an orchestra. In the decoration of the interior, including the windows, the legends and incidents portrayed would not be confined to any one race or to any one period of time.

Adjoining the auditorium, as in many modern churches, should be a room for the Sunday-school. It could be used also as a lecture-room and as a place for social gatherings. There should also be fitted up a reading-room, to be open to all the congregation, including the larger children. It should be