The Soul of Democracy: The Philosophy of the World War in Relation to Human LibertyGriggs, Edward Howard
Philosophy
The Soul of Democracy: The Philosophy of the World War in Relation to Human Liberty
Griggs, Edward Howard
Democracy; World War, 1914-1918 -- Influence
One who has stood with Socrates in the common criminal prison in Athens
and watched him drink the hemlock poison, saying "No evil can happen to
a good man in life or after death," who has heard the oration of Paul on
Mars Hill or that of Pericles over the Athenian dead, who has thrilled
to the heroism of Joan of Arc and Edith Cavell, the noble service of
Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale, the high appeal of Helen Hunt
Jackson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who has heard Giordano Bruno
exclaim as the flames crept up about him, "I die a martyr, and
willingly," who has responded to the calm elevation of Marcus Aurelius,
the cosmopolitan wisdom of Goethe, the sweet gentleness of Maeterlinck's
spirit and the titan dreams of Ibsen, can scarcely fail to appreciate
the brotherhood of all men and to learn that reverence for the true
moral leader, that dignifies alike giver and recipient.
XX
TRAINING FOR MORAL LEADERSHIP
Since the path of democracy is education, moral leadership is more
necessary to it, than in any other form of society; yet there are
exceptional obstacles to its development. We speak of "the white light
that beats upon a throne": it is nothing compared to the search light
played upon every leader of democracy. With our lack of reverence, we
delight in pulling to pieces the personalities of those who lead us.
Thus it is increasingly difficult to get men of sensitive spirit to pay
the price of leadership for democracy.
Is it not possible to do more than we have done, consciously to develop
such leadership? Where is it trained? In life, the college and
university, the normal school, the schools of law, medicine and
theology. Yes, but if not one boy and girl in ten graduates from the
high school, surely we want one man and woman in ten to fulfill some
measure of moral leadership, and the high school is directly concerned
with the task of furnishing such leadership for American democracy.
If that is true, is it not a pity that the high school is so largely
dominated from above by the demand of the college upon the entering
freshman? It is not to be taken for granted that the particular regimen
of studies, best fitting the student to pass the entrance examinations
of a college or university, is the best possible for the nine out of ten
students, who go directly from the high school into the world, and must
fulfill some measure of moral leadership for American democracy. The
presumption is to the contrary. College professors are human--some of
them. They want students prepared to enter as smoothly as possible into
the somewhat artificial curricula of academic studies they have
arranged. The Latin professor wishes not to go back and start with the
rudiments of his subject, as the professor of mathematics with the
beginnings of Algebra and Geometry. The result is they demand of the
high school what fits most smoothly into their scheme.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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