which the very foresight and will power that mark the higher race dig a pit beneath its feet.

In the presence of the plenty produced by its triumphant energy the superior race forms what the economists call a standard of comfort, and refuses to multiply save upon this plane. With his native ambition stimulated by the opportunity to rise and his natural foresight reinforced by education, the American, for example, overrules his strongest instincts and refrains from marrying or from increasing his family until he can realize his subjective standard of comfort or decency. The power to form and cling to such a standard is not only one of the noblest triumphs of reason over passion, but is, in sooth, the only sure hope for the elevation of the mass of men from the abyss of want and struggle. The progress of invention held out such a hope but it has proven a mockery. Steam and machinery, it is true, ease for a little the strain of population on resources; but if the birth rate starts forward and the slack is soon taken up by the increase of mouths, the final result is simply more people living on the old plane. The rosy glow thrown upon the future by progress in the industrial arts proves but a false dawn unless the common people acquire new wants and raise the plane upon which they multiply.

Now, this rising standard which alone can pilot us toward the golden age, is a fatal weakness when a race comes to compete industrially with a capable race that multiplies on a lower plane. Suppose, for example, Asiatics flock to this country and, enjoying equal opportunities under our laws, learn our methods and compete actively with Americans. They may be able to produce and therefore carn in the ordinary occupations, say three fourths as much as Americans; but if their standard of life is only half as high, the Asiatic will marry before the American feels able to marry. The Asiatic will rear two children while his competitor feels able to rear but one. The Asiatic will increase his children to six under conditions that will not encourage the American to raise more than four. Both, perhaps, are forward looking and influenced by the worldly prospects of their children; but where the Oriental is satisfied with the outlook the American, who expects to school his children longer and place them better, shakes his head.

Now, to such a competition there are three possible results. First, the American, becoming discouraged, may relinquish his exacting standard of decency and begin to multiply as freely as the Asiatic. This, however, is likely to occur only among the more reckless and worthless elements of our population. Second, the Asiatic may catch up our wants as well as our arts, and acquire the higher standard and lower rate of increase of the American. This is just what contact and education are doing for the French Canadians in New England, for the immigrants in the west, and for the negro in some parts of the south; but the members of a great culture race like the Chinese show no disposition, even when scattered sparsely among us, to assimilate to us or to adopt our standards. Not until their self complacency has been undermined at home and an extensive intellectual ferment has taken place in China itself will the Chinese become assimilable elements. Thirdly, the standards may remain distinct, the rates of increase unequal, and the silent replacement of Americans by Asiatics go on unopposed until the latter monopolize all industrial occupations, and the Americans shrink to a superior caste able perhaps by virtue of its genius, its organization, and its vantage of position to retain for a while its hold on government, education, finance, and the direction of industry, but hopelessly beaten and displaced as a race. In other words, the American farm hand, mechanic and operative might wither away before the heavy influx of a prolific race from the Orient, just as in classic times the Latin husbandman vanished before the endless stream of slaves poured into Italy by her triumphant generals.

For a case like this I can find no words so apt as race suicide. There is no bloodshed, no violence, no assault of the race that waxes upon the race that wanes. The higher race quietly and unmurmuringly eliminates itself rather than endure individually the bitter competition it has failed to ward off from itself by collective action. The working classes gradually delay marriage and restrict the size of the family as the opportunities hitherto reserved for their children are eagerly snapped up by the numerous progeny of the foreigner. The prudent, self respecting natives first cease to expand, and then,

as the struggle for existence grows sterner and the outlook for their children darker, they fail even to recruit their own numbers. It is probably the visible narrowing of the circle of opportunity through the infiltration of Irish and French Canadians that has brought so low the native birth rate in New England.

However this may be, it is certain that if we venture to apply to the American people of to-day the series of tests of superiority I have set forth at such length, the result is most gratifying to our pride. It is true that our average of energy and character is lowered by the presence in the south of several millions of an inferior race. It is true that the last twenty years have diluted us with masses of fecund but beaten humanity from the hovels of far Lombardy and Galicia. It is true that our free land is gone and our opportunities will henceforth attract immigrants chiefly from the humbler strata of east European peoples. Yet, while there are here problems that only high statesmanship can solve, I believe there is at the present moment no people in the world that is, man for man, equal to the Americans in capacity and efficiency. We stand now at the moment when the gradual westward migration has done its work. The tonic selections of the frontier have brought us as far as they can bring us. The testing individualizing struggle with the wilderness has developed in us what it would of body, brain and character.

Moreover, free institutions and universal education have keyed to the highest tension the ambitions of the American. He has been chiefly farmer and is only beginning to expose himself to the deteriorating influences of city and factory. He is now probably at the climax of his energy and everything promises that in the centuries to come he is destined to play a brilliant and leading rôle on the stage of history.

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES OF THE COMMUNITY.

BY SAMUEL T. DUTTON.

[Samuel Train Dutton, professor of the school of administration and superintendent of the Teachers' college connected with Columbia university; born Oct. 16, 1849; was graduated from Yale in 1873, and the same year was put in charge of the schools of South Norwalk, Connecticut; in 1878 he became principal of the Eaton school of New Haven, Conn.; in 1882 he was made superintendent of schools of New Haven; in 1895-97 was lecturer in pedagogy at Harvard, 1897-98, at the University of Chicago and Vassar college, and in 1898, at Boston university; he is the author of the Morse Speller, Social Phases of Education, and is the editor of the Historical Series, published by Morse Co., and other writings.]

Copyright 1901 by Educational Review Publishing Company

The word education stands for much more than it did half a century ago. Then the term, in its common acceptance, was made to include schools and teaching and little else. It has generally come to be understood that education is the name of a process which begins at birth and continues to the end of this life, and probably far beyond. It is seen that this process is carried on through many channels and is subject to a great variety of influences. Man is educated by means of all the institutions and forces that operate upon him and which affect his life and character. In other words, education, both as regards man and society, is the means whereby civilization is attained. That we are painfully conscious of the defects of our civilization only leads us to give larger significance to education in order that these defects may be overcome. Mr. Edward Carpenter, in his book, The Cause and Cure of Civilization, takes an exceedingly pessimistic view. He treats it as a disease, and declares that human society in its movement forward has never yet been able to pass successfully this crisis. Nation after nation has arisen and achieved wonderful heights in learning, in art, and in statecraft, but has finally succumbed to the enervating influences of a highly civilized life. Those peoples which to-day are proudest of the past and have the greatest faith in their destiny are, probably, less blind than the nations of ancient and mediæval times to the dangers which lie in their pathway. They have faith to believe that with universal education, made free to

all, the forces that make for progress may prove superior to those of degeneration and decay, so that the catastrophes which have darkened the pages of history may in the future be averted, and that peace and enlightenment may finally reign supreme.

One fact is patent to us all, that educational activity is a dominant force in modern life. In this country and in Europe there is a growing sense that national strength and greatness must rest upon the intelligence and character of all the people.

It is timely, therefore, to inquire what are our educational resources and how can we economize them to the best advantage, so that the whole American people may become sensitive to their opportunities and earnest in their pursuit of a higher life; in short, how may they become truly educated?

From one cause and another we have become a nation of large towns and cities. It is customary to ascribe this social change from rural to urban conditions, which has been going on so rapidly, entirely to the influence of industry. This, no doubt, is a potent factor, but people are naturally gregarious. They have always been so. The valleys of the Tigris, of the Euphrates, and of the Nile contained vast cities when industrial conditions were distinctly different from what they are to-day. The same thing is noticeable among the early Oriental nations as well as in later times. Any effort, therefore, to inventory the educational resources of a modern community leads us directly to the cities in which the larger number of our people dwell.

These resources may, for convenience, be grouped in three general classes: First, homes, churches, schools, and libraries; second, newspapers, magazines, museums, the drama, industry, and government; third, those intellectual and ethical aptitudes of the people which make it possible for them to be quickened and influenced in the right direction. The impulses, ambitions, and emotions common to us all constitute the most powerful element in our capacity to be improved. These, then, are some of the most important educational

resources.