Various

“ As it is, we bid all men welcome in our markets and none are aggrieved.... Foreign powers may hate us for our wealth and prosperity, but not one of them would care to spoil their best market. How would the commerce of France, or Germany, or Russia get on if England were ruined and the English market destroyed? The principle of maintaining a free and open market, coupled with our moral and physical energy, and our liberal aims and aspirations have given us a great and splendid empire. ”

“ Such a fact further implies "the eternal persistence on the face of the land of those hideous monstrosities—our manufacturing towns; those excrescences which, like the dragon of old, are daily vomiting fire and smoke, and by their foulness are blasting and cursing the lives of the people and causing the physical, mental, and moral deterioration of the race.... It banishes the poetry, the music, and the glories of an agricultural life, and condemns untold millions to the artificial and unhealthy moral atmosphere of our towns." ”

“ Killing and being killed are serious matters, and everybody understands that the business can not safely be trifled with. That is why science is allowed to have its own way almost entirely in the navy, and to exercise a large measure of control in the army, with the effect of rendering the first a nearly perfect machine, and giving to the latter a high degree of efficiency for its own purposes. But have we not here object lessons which ought to be applied to other departments of the Government? Is it only in the matter of killing that the aid of science is required? ”

“ A law so constantly broken and with impunity provides little protection for the young of both sexes, in whose interest it is framed, and it is a dead letter because of the indifference of the public. To spread abroad a knowledge of and help to enforce these laws, which so intimately affect the purity of the home, is worthy the consecrated effort of the noblest and most cultivated women in our land. For this and other like ends the number of protective agencies should be largely increased. In every town, or at least in every county, such an association might be formed. ”

“ The institution of the leisure class, which is defined generally as that class whose occupation is not industrial, is found in its best development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture, as in feudal Europe or feudal Japan. Whichever way we go from this point it is modified. Its origin appears at a very early stage in history, and appears in the germ in the savage division of the occupations of men and women. The women carried on the industries, and the men went to the hunt or to war—occupations with which the idea of prowess or exploit was associated, giving the stamp of aristocracy. ”

“ It is indeed a very serious question whether the appropriation of public money to private institutions has not become so great an evil that it would be better to put a stop to it once for all. And yet I must confess to a doubt whether, upon a complete survey of all the facts, this would be the judgment of the most practical and far-seeing men. ”

“ He points out that a knowledge of the scientific principles of agriculture is of fundamental importance, and that whatever else is taught in the national schools, the sciences on which farming rests—physics, chemistry, mechanics, and the physiology of plants and animals—should hold a principal place. He observes that in order to know agriculture it is necessary to understand, first of all, the elements and the action of the soil and the air. There is urgent need, he contends, for teaching what is known on these subjects and for pursuing research into the much larger field of the unknown. ”

“ That they were so and that our empire could not possibly have grown up except with the help of free trade and a market always open must be clear to all whose eyes are not blinded by that evil and foolish spirit of commercial jealousy under which a man, in order to injure his neighbor, wounds himself. Free trade made our empire possible and created what the world before had never seen, overwhelming commercial power wielded without jealousy or narrowness and based on wide and liberal ideas. ”

“ We Europeans, or rather our nations and states, already judge one another harshly and in a more than partisan manner, because we see first only the weaknesses, often even only the fancied weaknesses, of our neighbors. How, then, could we expect anything better when a European has to pass an opinion on a brown man? We [Pg 476] should not forget that only those Europeans go to the tropics who display special energy and force of will—a kind of chosen lot among our race—while the natives there include all the levels of the people. ”

“ The foremost men in all the societies, our leaders in the branches represented there, owe it to themselves, owe it much more to the great name of American science, to maintain and magnify their connection with, their service to, the American Association. ”

“ We are far from holding the opinion that men of high education should dissociate themselves from the political life of the country; but it is unhappily true that the kind of interest which an intelligent man who places the nation above party can take in politics is not likely to recommend him to those who have the dispensing of places. The fact should, however, be emphasized that if science does not receive due recognition in connection with the public services, it is not because of any lack of native-born citizens capable of representing it with credit and even with distinction. ”

“ But if the reproach is cast against the Filipinos that they have tried to Europeanize themselves in plastic art as well as in music, they have not done differently from the Europeans—that is, they denationalize themselves and come into the great international circle of civilization, a thing that can hardly be charged as a sin against them. It is very remarkable, they say, that Europeans condemn in the Filipinos, as a mark of inferiority that which they regard in themselves as a sign of progress. ”

“ The pride of ownership and a plant coming from a spoonful of earth had the charm of a creation all the pupil's own, and it was much more real to study the thing itself than to read about it and make a recitation. ”

“ Krauss, in human ontogeny, "where we can regard a normal man as possessing a certain number of units of strength capable of supplying or exerting a certain number of units of work or force, varying of course according to the environment, education, and fixity of purpose of the individual. It would be obviously unfair to compare a professional man or a brain-worker, whose units of work are intuitively manifold more than a hand-worker, and declare the latter a degenerate because his force and energy, as measured by the world's standard, are not as productive as the former. ”

“ The specialist is under a strong temptation to limit himself to a language of his own, which is an unknown tongue even to the rest of the scientific world. Technical terms, carried out to minute subdivisions, are indispensable in every branch of modern science, but the student of any science is in an evil state who can not present his results to the world without appealing to the technical jargon of the branch which he cultivates. ”

“ How plain was the expression of astonishment among the gentlemen of the saloons that the brown man behaved in his eating just as the whites did! They had apparently anticipated that the "black" would act as if he were tearing live pigeons to pieces and swallowing them. The indolence of the Europeans is shown up no less amusingly. Luna finds it apparent in all conditions, prevailing in the highest and the lowest social strata. He asks what would become of the industry and activity of the European peoples if they were suddenly given the climate and the fruitfulness of his native land. ”

“ The question whether they are willing to be represented by the museum as it is to-day is one that the American people should consider and decide at an early date; meantime, it is the duty of all interested in the advancement of science and education to aid by every means in their power the development of a National Museum that will be truly national and American. ”

“ The mother, a peasant woman from across the sea, had passed her childhood and youth in the fields, and, like many of her class, had received no training for the responsibilities of motherhood. To the large number of foreigners, who are constantly seeking homes in our free land, the privileges of the kitchen garden and the free cooking school would prove an inestimable blessing. When housework shall take its proper place among the professions, the chaos which now abounds in a majority of American homes will be forever banished. ”

“ We can conceive nothing more profitable and conducive to real pleasure in a vacation than the tour in the company of men having a common interest in the pursuit of knowledge of Nature and art, through such magnificent regions as that of the Pyrenees or through a country so full of natural wonders and novelties as that of last year's excursion. ”

“ It is well recognized that a public museum is a necessity in every highly civilized community, and that, as has been so well stated by Dr. Goode, "the degree of civilization which any nation, city, or province has attained is best shown by the character of its public museums and the liberality with which they are maintained." At present New York city is, in this respect, in advance of all other American cities and of the national Government. Whether the latter will take its proper place by developing the National Museum as it has developed the National Library remains to be seen. ”

“ One who observes little children in their spontaneous activities can not fail to note evidences in plenty in illustration of this principle. It should be apparent, then, why a school programme so arranged that a lesson in writing is followed by one in written language, this by written number, and this in turn by written spelling, or possibly by a written reproduction of a lesson in Nature or literature, is admirably suited to exhaust the overused areas of pupils' brains, whereupon the mental and physical effects of fatigue make their appearance. ”

“ If it is found that, as a rule, each race, and even each people, tends to have a uniform cephalic index, that would merely imply that the sociological conditions of the said race or people were tolerably uniform as regards intellectual development. Australians, who have had no opportunity of pitting their wits against any other competing race, and have depended for their existence on the fleetness of their legs and the capacity of their stomachs to carry food from one orgy to another, have used their brains less than all other human races, and have the narrowest skulls of all. ”

“ They are thus led to see more clearly than they could otherwise see the unity of the universe, that knowledge is one, and that each science is but a facet cut on the crystal sphere of natural truth, touching other facets at many points, and by no means independent, but supported by the integrity of the sphere. ”

“ The danger of permitting taxation to be employed by either State or Federal Government for a purpose other than that of raising necessary revenue has been dwelt upon. When a police power is exercised in conjunction with a tax framed for revenue, and is regarded as the more important function to be performed, the policy requires careful examination. If revenue is the real object, the method of imposing the tax and the determination of the rate which will give the highest return with the least interference in the production, distribution, and export of the commodity taxed remains to be defined. ”

“ It is not at all easy to say, however, how much of the excess of mortality of Europeans in tropical and subtropical countries is simply attributable to climatic heat per se, and is consequently inevitable and not the effect of malaria, or how much of it is the direct consequence of habits of life and of the neglect of sanitary laws and of personal hygiene. As Arnould rightly said, the habitudes alimentaires of the Anglo-Saxon constitute one of the stumbling-blocks to health, but by far the most important is malaria, compared with which the rest are relatively insignificant. ”

“ The agitation of the question of "equal pay for equal work," if it has not as yet accomplished much for the woman wage-earner, has at least revealed the fact that women as a class are not as well trained for the work they attempt as men. The number of unskilled women in all branches of trade presents a problem which may well engage the attention of the philanthropist. ”

“ Education.—The public school and kindergarten, free libraries, art galleries and museums, cheap literature, and compulsory education laws would seem, to the casual observer, to leave little need for the philanthropist in the field of education. A philosopher of to-day looks forward to the time when "the object of all free education shall be the emancipation of the individual," and to the time "when general education shall be supplemented by special schools for the special vocations of life." ”

“ Any reference to the remediable causes of mental fatigue would be incomplete without allusion to the harmful influence of certain personal characteristics in the people with whom we associate. By virtue of a great law of our being, that of suggestion, the importance of which we are appreciating more fully from day to day, we tend ever to reproduce within ourselves the activities of the things in our environment. ”

“ The Comptroller of the City of New York deserves the thanks of all good citizens for his serious indictment of the abuses of public charity that have grown up in this city and State within the past ten years. Probably very few of the more intelligent men and women of the community were aware that three million dollars, raised by taxation, are annually appropriated to the assistance of private charitable institutions, over which the public has no real control and only the most shadowy authority through the inspection of the State Board of Charities. ”

“ In a popular government the greatest safeguard against soft money—we may fairly say the only real safeguard—is to prevent the growth of a demand for soft money. And of all the means of prevention at our command the most effective is the encouragement of the habit of paying by checks. The habit of paying by check is very general in all large business centers, and has been rapidly extending into the smaller centers, and the most serious public danger in the action of the New York banks is that it seems [Pg 568] likely to deal a severe blow to such progress. ”