With that, a teacher who
had failed to educate even the generation of 1870, dared not
interfere. The new forces would educate. History saw few lessons
in the past that would be useful in the future; but one, at
least, it did see. The attempt of the American of 1800 to educate
the American of 1900 had not often been surpassed for folly; and
since 1800 the forces and their complications had increased a
thousand times or more. The attempt of the American of 1900 to
educate the American of 2000, must be even blinder than that of
the Congressman of 1800, except so far as he had learned his
ignorance. During a million or two of years, every generation in
turn had toiled with endless agony to attain and apply power, all
the while betraying the deepest alarm and horror at the power
they created. The teacher of 1900, if foolhardy, might stimulate;
if foolish, might resist; if intelligent, might balance, as wise
and foolish have often tried to do from the beginning; but the
forces would continue to educate, and the mind would continue to
react. All the teacher could hope was to teach it reaction.
Even there his difficulty was extreme. The most elementary
books of science betrayed the inadequacy of old implements of
thought. Chapter after chapter closed with phrases such as one
never met in older literature: "The cause of this phenomenon is
not understood"; "science no longer ventures to explain causes";
"the first step towards a causal explanation still remains to be
taken"; "opinions are very much divided"; "in spite of the
contradictions involved"; "science gets on only by adopting
different theories, sometimes contradictory.
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