4. Nationalism, as commonly understood, could mean nothing else but
the tyranny of the commonplace. Democracy, as we know it, is limited
in all sorts of ways. It only looks after certain public affairs,
while the main part of the life of the individual is free. But suppose
the majority undertook to manage all the business of the country,
appoint each man his place and keep him in it, determine what should
be known, and taught, and done--it fairly stifles one only to think of
it! There has never been a time in the history of the world, when the
wisest and best things would not have been voted down. For it is
always the few who lead in religion, in morals, in art, in literature,
in learning, in all high service. But these few now do it, not by
despotic power, but only by influence; so all may be free. And there
has never been a time in the world's history when the most important
things that were being done were of apparent utility in the eyes of
the crowd. Consider Homer and Virgil, Isaiah and Jesus, Dante,
Shakespeare, Angelo, Copernicus, Galileo, Goethe, Luther, Servetus,
Newton, Darwin, Spencer, Galvani,--had nationalism been dominant in
their days, how long would it have been before the "intelligent public
opinion" of the governing board of their departments would have had
them up to show cause why they should not "go to work for a living"?
The progress of the world, up to the present hour, has always meant
the larger and still larger freedom of the individual. This freedom
has always had its evils. So all life has its disadvantages. But only
a few people, in any generation, believe in suicide as a cure.
Nationalism, freely chosen, would be the murder of liberty and social
suicide. When people have thought about it enough to comprehend its
meaning, they will choose to bear what ills they must, and seek some
more helpful method of cure, rather than adopt such an "heroic"
treatment as kills the patient in the hope of getting rid of the
disease.
INDIVIDUALITY IN EDUCATION.
BY PROF. MARY L. DICKINSON.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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