It is, I think therefore, an urgently desirable undertaking. It is also a very practicable one. The creation of such a Bible, its printing and its translation, and a propaganda that would carry it into the homes and schools of most of the world, could I think all be achieved by a few hundred resolute and capable people at a cost of thirty or forty million dollars. That is a less sum than that the United States--in a time when they have no enemy to fear in all the world--are prepared to spend upon the building of what is for them an entirely superfluous and extravagant toy, a great navy. You may, you probably will, differ very widely upon much that I have here put before you. Let me ask you not to let any of the details of my sketching set you against the fundamental idea, that old creative idea of the Bohemian educationist who was the pupil of Bacon and the friend of Milton, the idea of Komensky, the idea of creating and using a common book, a book of knowledge and wisdom, as the necessary foundation for any enduring human unanimity. VI THE SCHOOLING OF THE WORLD And now I am going on to a review of the broad facts of the educational organization of our present world. I am myself a very under-educated person. It is a constant trouble to me. Like seeks like in this world. I propose to ask the question whether the whole world is not under-educated, and I warn you in advance that I am going to answer in the affirmative. I am going to discuss the possibility of raising the general educational level very considerably, and I am going to consider what such a raising of the educational level would mean in human life. I propose to adopt rather a vulgar, business-like tone about all this. I am going to apply to the human community much the same sort of tests that a manufacturer applies to his factory. His factory has some distinctive product, and when he looks into his affairs he tries to find out whether he gets the utmost quantity of the product, whether he gets the best possible quality of the product, whether he gets it as efficiently and inexpensively as possible, and constantly how he can improve his factory and his processes in all these matters. Now the human community may be regarded as a concern engaged in the production of human life. And it may be judged very largely by the question whether the human life it produces is abundant and full and intense and beautiful. Most of the tests that we apply to a state or a city or a period or a nation resolve themselves, you will find, into these questions:-- What was the life it produced? What is the life it produces?