grant sees, is not the whole of America. The great heart of America, its humanity and idealism, its sanity and common sense, its attachment to the old conceptions of liberty and equal opportunity-these are to be found still (or will be, let us hope, when the unreason of the war frenzy shall have subsided) in the great mass of the people outside the large cities, in the quiet towns and villages and farming communities. What Mr. Wells and the immigrant see is not the whole of America. We must have faith to believe that it is not America at all. But at least it is a tendency in American life, and it is a tendency which must be recognized, and, being recognized, must be combated. If this is not so, then America, in any ideal or spiritual sense, and all she has meant for the world, will cease to be.

The problem of immigration is but part of a larger problem: it is part of the problem created by the disappearance of free land, by the rapid industrialization of America, and by the concentration of wealth and industrial power; it is part of the problem of industrial democracy-a problem which we, in company with the rest of the world, have yet to solve. That the United States-even the fortunate United States-must meet this problem has not escaped the penetrating eye of America's

most competent as well as ner most friendly critic. In the latest edition of The American Commonwealth Lord Bryce has this to say:

There is a part of the Atlantic where the westwardspeeding steam-vessel always expects to encounter fogs. On the fourth or fifth day of the voyage while still in bright sunlight, one sees at a distance a long, low, dark-gray line across the bows, and is told that this is the first of the fog-banks which have to be traversed. Presently the vessel is upon the cloud, and rushes into its chilling embrace, not knowing what perils of icebergs may be shrouded within its encompassing gloom.

So America, in her swift onward progress, sees, looming on the horizon and now no longer distant, a time of mists and shadows, wherein dangers may be concealed whose form and magnitude she can scarcely yet conjecture. As she fills up her Western regions with inhabitants, she sees the time approach when all the best land . . . will have been occupied, and when the land now under cultivation will have been so far exhausted as to yield scantier crops even to more expensive culture. Although transportation may also have become cheaper, the price of food will rise; farms will be less easily obtained and will need more capital to work them with profit; the struggle for existence will become more severe. And while the outlet which the West now provides for the overflow of the great cities will have become less available, the cities will have grown immensely more populous; pauperism . . . may be more widely spread; and even if wages do not sink work may be less abundant. In fact, the chronic evils and problems of old societies and crowded countries, such as we see them to-day in Europe, will have reappeared in this new soil, while the demand of the

multitude to have a larger share in the nation's collective wealth may well have grown more insistent.

High economic authorities pronounce that the beginnings of this time of pressure lie not more than twenty years ahead. . . . It may be the time of trial for democratic institutions.

One may well contrast or compare this picture of the future of America, drawn by one of the most intelligent and one of the sanest minds of our age, as well as one of the best informed in all matters respecting America, with the picture drawn by Mr. Wells. The words are different, but the picture, although less highly colored, is much the same. Into this time of pressure described by Mr. Bryce, the pressure created in every country which undergoes the industrial revolution, the United States is already passing. What dangers will we encounter? With what preparation, in intelligence and knowledge, in high courage and in civic virtue, will we meet them?

IX

DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION

I

easy confidence, that

W the rapidity with which the immigrants

are Americanized is due to our "institutions,' we have in mind, among other things, the public schools. If it is pointed out that in many places the process of Americanization is slow and incomplete, or that it does not go on at all, we are likely to say, "The remedy for this is education." In America, while we have not too much respect for the educated, we have unlimited faith in education. Whatever ills democracy may be suffering from, the reply is always forthcoming, "The remedy for that is more and better education."

This attitude of mind is at bottom a sound one, in so far as it leads to a serious and intelligent interest in the schools-and it is not by any means confined to America. Wherever democracy exists, or wherever intelligent

people desire to have it exist, there the desirability of free education for the masses is likely to be insisted upon. The ruling class must be educated in some fashion; it may be badly educated, but at least it must have the sort of education that is suited to the kind of government that is in its keeping. If the ideal of government is an absolute monarchy, or a landowning aristocracy, or an ecclesiastical priesthood, or a combination of all three, then no doubt education should be confined to these classes. But if the idea that the people are to rule is frankly accepted, then it is obvious that the people should be as intelligent and well informed as possible; from which it follows that the state should provide free education for all its citizens.

This, at all events, is the theory which has accompanied the spread of democracy in Europe. Whereas in the Middle Ages and early modern period education was largely confined to the clergy, in the later modern period, and in proportion as the ideal of democracy has made headway, the State has replaced the Church in the control of education, and free public schools for the people have been widely established. Which was cause and which was effect in this process cannot be inquired into here; but, generally speaking, it is true that the ideal of popular education under the con