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8 The Conservative.
TIIK STATIC AND T1IK SCHOOL.
f A piiper read before the Nntioniil Ansociu-
tion of Toaclicrs for tJio Blind , ( it Lansing ,
Midi. , July l.'l , 181 > 8 , by Win. A. .Tones , Super
intendent of tinNcbruHkn Institute for the
Blind , Nobrnskn City , Neb. ]
I nin to discuss two of the great insti
tutions of civilized society.
When one looks over the daily activ
ities of organized and highly civilized
communities , he is bewildered at first by
the multiplicity of the different forms
of men's activities. The people are
hunting , fishing , plowing , planting ,
manufacturing , transporting commod
ities , traveling , washing , baking , mend
ing , preaching , praying , singing , teach
ing , learning , reading , legislating , ad
judicating , executing laws , waging war ,
and making peace.
StiU in all these thousands of forms of
men's activities there is law and order ,
not confusion.
A careful examination of these activ
ities will show that they all fall into five
great lines or classes , because of five
great central ideas , around which they
cluster and which they express.
All social life has the family for its
center , and the family becomes one of
the great institutions of society.
Territory and property are the central
ideas of the civil or industrial system ,
and of man's industrial life.
The school is the central idea of all
cultural and.educational influences , and
is the institution through which these
ends are attained.
The state , manifesting itself through
the government , is the center of politi
cal life.
The church is the institution of re
ligion , and is the highest institution in
the series , because it furnishes the ideals
of the world , and of human destiny ,
which give sanction to all other institu
tions.
There are hundreds of organizations
and institutions in society as we
see it today , collateral to , and supple
mentary of , these five great institutions
the family , the industrial society , the
school , the political state and the church ,
but they are all related to them as parts
to the whole.
Wo are all born into these institutions
without any consultation on our own
part. It is in them that we live and
move and have our being. It is by
means of them that one achieves his
destiny. They are his environment.
But all these institutions have their
unity in man. They are evolved from
man by man. They are the expressions
of his spiritual existence and life. They
are man. They have no existence apart
from man. They were not made by
man but are the evolution and expres
sions of his nature.
One does not live today a family life
and tomorrow an industrial life , and the
next day a school life , and the next a
political life , and the next a religious life
He lives all these lives in one and the
Mime day , if ho lives a full and complete
ifo. And his life is complete and full
only as he lives all these lives in one and
e same day. Only in the degree into
which each man enters into these institu-
jous and their ideas enter into him ,
Iocs he live a full and complete life.
The man who is absorbed in industrial
ifo and has only a legal connection with
lis family life and none at all with a
religious life is only a partially devel
oped man.
The man who lives conspiciously a
* life and audindus-
eligious , no political -
; rial life , is just as lopsided and in-
: onvplete.
A teacher , or pedagogue , who lives
only in the institution of the school and
ts technicalities is a dwarfed and in
complete man. He shows it by his ego
ism and pedantry. Only as the teacher ,
or anyone else , outers into the ideas of
; he other institutions of society and
ives them does he become an all
rounded man.
Only thus does the teacher become a
proper leader of the young-pedagogue.
We often hear the expression , "man
of the world. " In the popular sense the
phrase seems to mean , one who has
traveled , seen much of all phases of
life and has becoinelax in his views of
moral life and action. But it seems to
me the expression should mean one who
has mastered the ideas of the great
social institutionsjmd realized them in
aiinself , in which cose he will be any
thing but lax.
The study of these institutions is the
study of man himself. They are the
objective forms of man's spiritual life.
They embody , and thus reveal , the na
ture of his spirit , i. e. , of man himself.
The French philosopher , Cousin , ex
pressed this thought somewhat like this :
"If anyone in his introspective study of
the human inmd thinks ho has found
some fact that cannot bo found in hu
man history he had better reread his-
story. If , on the other hand , he thinks
he has found in history some fact
which ho has not found in the human
mind ho had better restudy the human
iniud. "
In this thought of Cousin is involved
the fact that the human mind in civil
ized society has reached its present
stage by a process of evolution , and that
this evolution is made manifest or ob
jective in the institutions of society , anc
that history is the investigation and
statement of this development in both
its objective and subjective phases
But wo are not to look upon these insti
tutions , as to the degree of their perfec
tion , as complete.
They are not static. They are still ii
process of evolution , because man him
self is in process of evolution. Mai
himself is still in process of socia
creation.
You call these achievements of the
human spirit as manifested in social in
stitutions , civilization. But you do no
ihink of civilization as perfected or as
arrested.
Skipping the chapters in the scientific
heory of evolution which trace step by
top the evolution of physical man , and
beginning at the point at which the pro
cess of zoological changes had come to
an end and a process of psychological
changes was to take its place we may
ee the process of man's creation and
liereby infer at least his goal or destiny.
It is this insight that gives meaning to
he process of social evolution and hence
o the institutions of society "To the
State and the School , " our theme.
The scientific theory of evolution as
elated to man seems to be an investi
gation and statement of the objective
'acts in detail that have actually oc-
jurred in the evolution of man both as to
ais pscyhical and physical being.
The actual changes that have taken
) lace are the evolution. The investi
gation and statement of them are the
u'story of evolution.
This gives us the standpoint from
which to view man's place in Nature.
Lei us follow for a moment the results
of scientific investigation in regard to
the evolution of man. By so doing we
shall get a better insight into the genesis
of social institutions and thereby into
; he nature of man himself. We will
skip all that fascinating part which con
nects man zoologically with his animal
ancestors , and begin at the moment at
which the creation of mankind began
the moment when psychological varia
tions became so much more useful to
our ancestors , than physical variations ,
that they were seized upon and enhanced
by natural selection to the comparative
neglect of the latter.
Increase of intellectual capacity in
connection with the developing train of
a single race of creatures , now became
the chief work of natural selection in
orginatiiig man. John Fisk says : "This
event was the opening of a new chapter
the last and most wonderful chapter
in the history of creation. "
All those visceral actions which keep
us alive from moment to moment the
movement of heart and lungs , contract
ing of arteries , secretion of glands , the
digestive processes of the stomach and
liver all 'go on unconsciously to the
self. They are involuntary and belong
to the class reflex actions. Throughout
the animal kingdom these acts are re
peated from birth till death with little
or no variations. The tendency to per
form these is completely organized in
the nervous system before birth. They
go on independently of our thought or
will. "Who by talcing thought can add
one cubit to his stature ? "
These actions are not characterized as
psychicalbecause they are carried on un
consciously. They are classed as in
stinctive they are an inherent urgency
to an end without consciousness of the
purpose. The tendency to perform them
is completely organized in the nervous