U
b f m r y
* 8
1904
The University Journal^
V< L. I.
WASHINGTON, D. C., MARCH i, 1904.
No. 7.
CASTE IN EDUCATION;
B
y
HON. HI,LIS H. ROBKRTS,
T
k
EASUKEK OF THE U S.
I I M U I II V | y i U V I I I V . V , . 7
H 11.1
(I £ I 1 111 j
froi which exhaled the perfumes of
Mafathon, Plataea, Hycenae, IJclphi.
mil* blazed tlie beacons which told of
( Years ago it was my privilege to visit Athens and to
make a tour of Greece. The dream of my youth had
been to stand 011 the shores of the Phalerum, to lock up
on the waters ofSalamis, to wander in the groves of the
Ac demy, to meditate on the Areopagus and the Pnyx
lo 1 udy on the Acropolis and to admire the Parthenon
Tin reality was more inspiring than any fancy. An ex
cur ion into the provinces was a glimpse upon scenes
history, Salamis
From the sum
the fall of Trov
Here were kindled more enduring fires ol art and culture
and literature and philosophy which have illuminated the
worfd for centuries.
Among the matters which I tried to investigate in
j
tbal jlorious country was its present popular education ^
ill v lages as well as in the cities. Not methods, not I
resit s, not details of any kind stood forth in clearest
ligh
The vital impression came trout the criticism,
I
shut 1, hostile, passionate,-of the efforts to extend higher
cdut itiou among the plain people. In official quaiters,
11110 g private persons in the higher ranks, the prevail
ing ! liniment loudly proclaimed was that such education
was blunder. I11 Athens the charge was thrust forward
that be university with its 1.200 students cost too much
money, that its graduates were in excess of the demand
(dr the professions, and especially that they are spoiled
lor
tfle vocations essential to national development
lid
tovathui above the simplest brandies, it was urged, drew
0111 the shops and farms and turned them into pol
iid idleness. With women, the trouble alleged is
1
that l ley learn in school to hate domestic and industrial
dotic , and lo be less useful as wives, daughters and
noth rs, and even to sink into immorality.
‘ 'he indictment is broad and gtave : in a word, that
genejous intellectual training except for a select and
tlvofed class is harmful and may he degrading. Some
are shocked as we are at such opinions. The
is that they should prevail at all on the soil where
y slaves were trained to be teachers of rhetoric
lilosopliy to the conquering Romans, where Plato
is academy, where Socrates taught in the mar-
E&Vmen n
S
(tics
I
*
bet-place, where Pericles reared the proudest structure
known to man, where Demosthenes thundered against
Philip, where the triumphs of Sophocles and yEscliylus
were won on the steps of the Acropolis, where straight
democracy had its most brilliant and most edifying man
ifestation.
Let us not be overproud. In Central New York
where colleges are numerous and bear worthy fruits, the
like theories are advanced. More than once, thrifty
men have argued in my presence that farmers were
working mischief to their families by sending their chil
dren away lo boarding academies and colleges. Tin -
pointed to examples where parents were scrimping them
selves in the necessaries of life, while their sous were
wearing pumps and silk stockings in training for the
pulpit, and students were taking charity 011 the way to
professions for which they have no aptitude and were
sure to lose their self respect and to serve as fearful e x
amples of barren fig trees.
Such heresies arc not local. English fiction does
not lack warnings against educating hoys and girls be
yond their class. Thackeray in Becky Sharp portrays
an articled pupil who by intrigue and artifice wins a Mar
quis.
Kipling’s Kim is an Eurasian orphan of the bar
racks, whose school training leaves him, with all his
shrewdness on the level of his birth.
Thus the pessimism of Charles Dudley Warner in his
address as President of the American Social Science As
sociation, is not original.
His intimations that attempts
to give higher education to the Negro, not only fail, hut
tend to injure him for his proper sphere, are only fasten
ing upon a single race, theories which have been set
forth in Greece, in Central New York, in England, in
India. Here on the Potomac are the simple echoes of
prejudices of caste which have been expressed beside
the Cepliissus and the Ilissus, and the Mohawk and the
Hudson, along the Thames and the Ganges.
Mr..War-
ner simply adds the antagonism of race to that of caste,
of brutal aristocracy. His plea is a distinction hard and
seveie drawn between men, based 011 quality and merit
and possibilities. It is a cruel denial of equal rights and
privileges and equal duties. By this scheme, a great
gulf is fixed here on earth across which no Lazarus can
give help to Dives.v Dante placed over the gate of the
Inferno:
“ Abandon hope who enter here.”
This
hercsey bids those horn in poverty to have no hope at
birth, no hope in youth, no hope in age. Over nature’s
verdant park of opportunity these cynics everywhere set