Social problems; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
Nor can it be doubted that there are thousands in the clerical
profession who, if they do not subsist on each other, subsist in a
"mysterious way" on salaries entirely inadequate to their support. It
would seem that the supply of professional men in this country exceeds
the demand. For this there may be no remedy. Yet a step in the right
direction should be taken by advancing the standard of professional
attainments so as to exclude mediocrity and shallow pretence from
registration on the "roll of honor." Wide as the world is, it has no
room for idlers or pretenders.
This over-supply of professional men not only indicates a false estimate
of what really constitutes a true manhood, but clearly proves that in
American education and in American public sentiment there are prevalent
errors which are inconsistent with the welfare of man and the democratic
character of our institutions. These errors can be corrected only
through the influence of a well-directed course of popular education;
but nothing is more difficult than the correction of popular errors. It
is a task the reformer often attempts, but seldom accomplishes. In most
cases it must be a work of time, perhaps of ages. In every school there
should be a regular system of physical as well as mental exercises
established. Health and strength of body are pre-requisites to health
and strength of mind.
In most of our colleges and boarding-schools the physical development of
the pupil receives but little attention; and consequently he is
enfeebled in body if not in mind, and is then sent out into the world to
endure its hardships without the physical ability to take care of
himself. All this is radically wrong, and calls loudly for reform. An
exclusive culture of the mental powers can never produce a strong man or
woman. This fact is painfully illustrated in all our large towns and
cities. The kind of education, therefore, which attempts to refine our
young men and young ladies by giving them an artificial nature too
delicate to endure soiled hands will never do. The coarse as well as the
fine work of practical life must be done by somebody. Though some may be
too proud, none are too good to work, however elevated may be their
social position. There is really nothing in our daily routine of
duty--in the coarse work of the world--from which an enlightened mind
should shrink.
It is to be hoped the time will soon come when all our public schools,
colleges, and universities will have their workshops and gardens,
affording the necessary facilities for instructing our youth, male and
female, in some industrial art or trade, as well as in books, and thus
give them a relish for labor, and the physical ability to endure it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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