The higher education is part of the social ideal which we have
derived from the past, from Europe. It is part of the provision for the
life of leisure, the life of the aristocrat, which nobody of our
generation leads, except women. Our women really have some use for the
education of a gentleman, but our men have none. How will that do for a
generalization?" the banker asked of me.
"Oh," I admitted, with a laugh, "it is a good deal like one of my own. I
have always been struck with that phase of our civilization."
"Well, then," the banker resumed, "take the lower education. That is part
of the civic ideal which, I suppose, I may say we evolved from the depths
of our inner consciousness of what an American citizen ought to be. It
includes instruction in all the R's, and in several other letters of the
alphabet. It is given free by the state, and no one can deny that it is
thoroughly socialistic in conception and application."
"Distinctly so," said the professor. "Now that the text-books are
furnished by the state, we have only to go a step further and provide a
good, hot lunch for the children every day, as they do in Paris.
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