The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 08 (of 12): Dresden Edition—InterviewsIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 08 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Interviews
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
_Answer_. The great trouble with the public school is that many
things are taught that are of no immediate use. I believe in manual
training schools. I believe in the kindergarten system. Every
person ought to be taught how to do something--ought to be taught
the use of their hands. They should endeavor to put in palpable
form the ideas that they gain. Such an education gives them a
confidence in themselves, a confidence in the future--gives them
a spirit and feeling of independence that they do not now have.
Men go through college studying for many years, and when graduated
have not the slightest conception of how to make a living in any
department of human effort. Thousands of them are to-day doing
manual labor and doing it very poorly, whereas, if they had been
taught the use of tools, the use of their hands, they would derive
a certain pleasure from their work. It is splendid to do anything
well. One can be just as poetic working with iron and wood as
working with words and colors.
_Question_. What ought to be done, or what is to be the end?
_Answer_. The great thing is for the people to know the facts.
There are thousands and millions of splendid and sympathetic people
who would willingly help, if they only knew; but they go through
the world in such a way that they know but little of it. They go
to their place of business; they stay in their offices for a few
hours; they go home; they spend the evening there or at a club;
they come in contact with the well-to-do, with the successful, with
the satisfied, and they know nothing of the thousands and millions
on every side. They have not the least idea how the world lives,
how it works, how it suffers. They read, of course, now and then,
some paragraph in which the misfortune of some wretch is set forth,
but the wretch is a kind of steel engraving, an unreal shadow, a
something utterly unlike themselves. The real facts should be
brought home, the sympathies of men awakened, and awakened to such
a degree that they will go and see how these people live, see how
they work, see how they suffer.
_Question_. Does exposure do any good?
_Answer_. I hope that _The World_ will keep on. I hope that it
will express every horror that it can, connected with the robbery
of poor and helpless girls, and I hope that it will publish the
names of all the robbers it can find, and the wretches who oppress
the poor and who live upon the misfortunes of women.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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