Adult education is a way of living which should be open to all who care for it for its own sake. It is not surprising that it frequently fails of its true aims. Education has always been regarded as a mere means to ends that have nothing to do with it. It is to be expected, therefore, that education in our day should be regarded primarily as a means of entrance to the already overcrowded professions, or to material gain or better social position. Doubtless it must remain so until the community becomes sufficiently civilized so that some degree of liberal education is the expected thing in all classes, an interest and a goal, a spiritual bond of union somewhat like the idea of catholic religion in the middle ages. This is an ideal which will not be realized by magic. There is no cheap popular substitute for education. Nor are we nearing the goal while as now almost anything passes for education. Almost any method of salesmanship or trick of influencing people for any ends whatever is now “education.” Every one educates the public. It is marvelous how large a portion of the population of these states is qualified to instruct. Education has become the game men perpetually work to convert their neighbors. It is the cure for every social ill. How shall we put an end to the crime wave, abolish war, how to prevent social revolution,--or bring revolution about, how induce unwilling people to accept cheerfully the coercion of national prohibition or give lip service to some one’s favorite brand of patriotism? The answer is in all cases--education. If you are engaged in increasing the sale of a certain soap, in putting everyone on guard against that social disability of which one’s best friend will not tell him, if you can frighten a multitude with the danger of pyorrhea and thus increase your profit in tooth paste--all this is now called education. Many see in the general movement for more education a great hope for humanity. It was the belief in its political benefits that led to the compulsory education of children in the nineteenth century. Men were sure that all that held the world back was ignorance. People would surely wish to have their ignorance removed. Remove it, teach men the laws of a reasonable and beneficent nature, and mankind in general would be wise and happy and good. Ingersoll used to rejoice whenever he visited a town where the schoolhouse was larger than the church. As the humanitarians of the nineteenth century held that public school education must inevitably put an end to tyranny and superstition, so many of our contemporaries look upon adult education as the guarantor of a new and better civilization. There is to be an end of bigotry and partisan strife and of crowd hysteria and of the vulgarities which beset democracy. They see genius appreciated, a selection by the masses of a sincere and competent leadership. Men everywhere are to learn “not only how to make a living, but how to live.”