But I shouldn't really like to
prophesy which will adapt itself to the other--education or business. Let
us hope there will be mutual concessions. There are some pessimists who
say that business methods, especially on the large scale of the trusts and
combinations, have grown worse instead of better; but this may be merely
what is called a 'transition state.' Hamlet must be cruel to be kind; the
darkest hour comes before dawn--and so on. Perhaps when business gets
the whole affair of life into its hands, and runs the republic, as its
enemies now accuse it of doing, the process of purging and living cleanly
will begin. I have known lots of fellows who started in life rather
scampishly; but when they felt secure of themselves, and believed that
they could afford to be honest, they became so. There's no reason why the
same thing shouldn't happen on a large scale. We must never forget that we
are still a very novel experiment, though we have matured so rapidly in
some respects that we have come to regard ourselves as an accomplished
fact. We are really less so than we were forty years ago, with all the
tremendous changes since the war.
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