Now, since the masses of the people form the bulk of the nation, and are ultimately the determining factor in the nation’s character and achievements, nothing could possibly be more important than working-class education. State education of the masses, therefore, offers the finest opportunity that the legislature could obtain, to express its concern about the nation’s welfare, and to secure that welfare by inculcating upon everyone, except the minority constituting the well-to-do, who cannot matter nearly as much, decent manners, sound views, and a proper, adequate means of intercourse. It is certainly one of the most ugly features of our elementary education in this country, that manners--which ought to be the first among the foremost objects of all education--are entirely omitted from the curriculum. As if, forsooth, it were better for master Tommy and his sister Jane, to know of the existence of the trade winds, than to know how to behave when an adult addresses them! In this way the legislature imposes quite an unnecessary burden of discomfort and sorrow upon the poor, because without good manners life is made so very much more difficult and wretched, and so very much less smooth and harmonious. How the idea of education ever came to be divorced from manners, it is hard to explain; but that it has been thus divorced is unquestionable. The consequences of this gross [p129] initial error fall with greater severity upon the poor, or the masses, than upon the rich; perhaps that is why so little is done to correct it. The reason of this unfair incidence of the evils resulting from a lack of manners, is not, however, due to the fact that the rich are necessarily good mannered, or better educated in manners than the poor; for there is ample evidence to the contrary; but that the lack of manners of the rich is not so keenly felt by those in their immediate circle, because they live in larger rooms, larger houses, larger areas, and they are thus able to get away from one another’s bad manners--an escape which is denied the poor.