" [Footnote: H. G. Wells, "Future in America," p. 205.] A little
florid, you may say. "But think," said the English visitor, even as he
passed out into the filthy street, "think of the promise of it! Think of
the flower of belief that may spring from this warm sowing!"
And what gives most promise now is that this tuition has assumed a more
positive interest in the nation of to-morrow. The pioneer school was a
place of discipline, a place of fraternity, and it had the cooperation of
the home discipline and of the discipline of the primitive industrial life
in which the boy joined even during his school years. But that tuition was
in a sense as unsocialized as was the democracy of that day. It was
assumed that this meagre training would equip the boy with all the tools
of citizenship. Being able to read, write, and cipher, his own instincts
and interests would somehow procure good government and happiness.
Whatever patriotic stimulus his school gave him, as I recall out of my
experience, was through a history which engendered a feeling of hostility
toward England.
Pages:
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529