§ 22

They deserve good wages, that is to say, wages which enable them to lead decent lives under decent environment. They deserve a better education than they get, and, above all, better guides in their early school days, guides who shall furnish the sensitive period of the first stages of youth with first principles of conduct; taught that they are citizens of no mean country, hence that a grave responsibility is theirs, not only to themselves but to their neighbours. Taught that thou as well as I is an essential pronoun; that civilisation is based upon Fraternity, not Equality, because there is no such thing and never can be. That one’s neighbour is a bit of oneself is a moral truth beyond question. It is a truth that is in the very foundation of society. It is the root of the tree of all progress, it is as the water that feeds it, and as the sun which ripens its fruit. Duty to God is implied in duty to the neighbour. God made the neighbour, the thou as well as the I is His design; the two are really inseparable. This principle, driven home in the earliest years, will form a guide for life, because the mental impressions then received are never wholly eradicated. “I must take care of myself to take care of you” is a truism. But “I must prop you in failure, stand by you in trouble, and joy in your joy” is surely a higher form of ethics! This simple principle of life is the summing up of Christian teaching, and not only of that, but of the writings of such great pagan philosophers as Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, to name only two of many. To be able to read is one thing, what is read is another. Bad books are more detrimental than no books, as bad education is worse than none. To know one book well is better than to have superficially read a hundred. There are essential and not essential as well as positively destructive books; plenty, indeed, of the last named, and they grow like weeds! Only two or three of the best books should be set before children. “Robinson Crusoe,” “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” and carefully selected portions of the Bible would not be a bad selection. Teachers must not be hacks or machines, but wise and sympathetic guides. History is a complicated study, and one which the busy worker, agricultural or craftsman, has not time to master. But the chief events, those which have moulded social life and profoundly led progress, can be tabulated and learned by heart. The young should be taught that presently they will be called to make history, and that in its making absolute honesty is the first condition of success. The agricultural labourer is helping to feed his country, the craftsman is making desirable and durable goods for his own as well as foreign markets, and they must be the best he can turn out to his honour!