By way of illustration, if a bully were kicking a little tot, my friend
would rather have his boy fight the bully and get licked and rolled in
the dust, than to see his boy win first prize and much applause, for
out-boxing a boy smaller than himself.
Of course that is quite contrary to up-to-date principles and scientific
enlightenment. There is no course in any of the high schools which
teaches that sentiment, and the whole tendency of scientific training is
to judge things by their tangible results. Moreover, the rule of reason
would decide that your boy is not justified in resorting to a fight,
under any circumstances. He might get hurt, or hurt somebody else. The
propriety and right of the bully to do his kicking, should be settled by
arbitration. An impartial investigation might determine that the little
tot had done something to irritate the bully to such an extent that his
display of anger and brutality was but a natural reaction.
Again and again, we arrive at the same underlying observation and
explanation. The intellect, scientifically enlightened, would argue away
and take the place of innate, inspired feelings, whose faith has been
correspondingly impaired and shaken by the breaking down of religious
shelter and sustenance.
The relative passing away of honor in the business affairs of man, and
its replacement by technical and hair-splitting calculations of
legality, which pass for honesty; the system of graft and pull and
private benefit, which appears to have permeated and fastened itself
upon most of the political machines in most of the cities of our land;
the personal immorality, or unmorality, and practical cynicism, which
are so much in evidence, even among the best educated and most
enlightened--especially among the best educated and most enlightened--in
public and in private, in their own homes and in their neighbors' homes,
as well as in the divorce courts; the conduct of the up-to-date young
men, turned out by our most progressive schools--those of the leading
families, no less than those in humbler walks of life--their increasing
readiness to treat every pretty girl they meet as a proper field of
endeavor and a possible instrument of pleasure; and the corresponding
attitude among thoroughly educated and up-to-date girls, in accepting
and welcoming such treatment; all these characteristic symptoms of the
modern spirit, of the so-called "unrest," need not be referred, in any
but a secondary and accessory way, to the after effects of a war, which
did not begin until their line of progress was already plainly
indicated.
Instead of that, with all these symptoms in mind, let us sum up the
logical effect upon the average individual of our progressive methods
and training.
Does he not say to himself, and should he not be expected to say to
himself:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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