Before our investments can be enduring, our educational system in America must be entirely reformed. Moreover, this applies to investments in the broadest and most vital sense; that is, investments in life and the things worth while. Such investments rest primarily not upon banking houses and security vaults, not upon courts and police officers, - not upon material wealth of any kind; but rather, such investments rest upon the motives of the people. When 51 per cent. of the people are actuated with the right motives, our civilization is improving and our investments are enduring; but when 51 per cent. of the people are actuated by false motives, then trouble is ahead.

There are many difficulties with the present educational system. The work of our schools and colleges is not made interesting. It is not close enough to life; it is not practical enough. It presents facts instead of principles; it treats our young people as phonographs to be filled up with data instead of as Divine creatures with wonderful and unexplainable powers of reasoning.

The Greatest Fault

A hundred criticisms could be made of our educational system; but the foremost is that it does not succeed in directing the purposes and motives of the students. Very few students graduate from a school or college with better motives and higher ideals than they entered; while many graduate with more selfish and frivolous ambitions. This is such a great criminal error that business men often wonder if the country would not be better off with many of our schools and colleges closed.

Instead of developing producers, we are developing consumers; instead of training young people to serve, we are training them to be lazy; instead of training them regarding their responsibilities, we are training them regarding their so-called "rights." Unless people can be actuated by high motives, education is a source of danger.

To give ammunition, in the form of education, to a person with wrong motives, is like putting a gun in the hand of one's enemy.

The Conventional Reason For Education

The ordinary inducement which is held out to young people for going to school and college is absolutely wrong. These young people are told that further education will help them to "get on"; meaning, of course, to get on financially. In short, this means to get ahead of the other fellow. This is the selling talk which runs between the lines of almost all school and college catalogues. It is a vital error, and indicates that many schools and colleges have entirely lost sight of the original functions for which they were organized. Such talk shows that the trustees and teaching staff are not fit to operate an educational institution. Of course, such inducements are most wickedly overdrawn in connection with some advertising of correspondence schools and business colleges, but universities and other established educational institutions are beginning to make the same error in connection with their race for funds and students.

Even the "Endowment Drives," which some of our best colleges have recently been operating, are smirched with this commercial spirit. It is all right to talk about investments and investments in education, but in order for these investments to be enduring, education must devote its primary purpose to motives and its secondary purpose to facts.

Religion And Education

The reason why our public school system utterly fails in its fundamental work of developing proper motives, is because of its elimination of religion. I refer not necessarily to the elimination of reading the Bible and opening the day with the Lord's Prayer, although devotional exercises for all public schools should be encouraged. Instead devotional exercises have been legislated out of existence by many states. Due to the conflict which has raged in many cities and states between the Catholic and Protestant denominations this has resulted in tremendous harm to our school system. The greatest harm, however, has come from a disregard of the religious ideals in teachers.

Could not we avoid conflict by recognizing that religious ideals should be fundamentally the same in the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish religions. Sectarian feeling has run so violently between the different sects that for fear some one of the three major groups would have a slight advantage, all religion has been ruled out of the public schools. Even the state of Massachusetts, which stands so high both in connection with its schools and churches, has the following law relative to the employment of school teachers. In simple English this means that it is against the state laws of Massachusetts for a school superintendent or principal even to inquire of a teacher applying for a position whether she is Christian, Jewish, or Atheist. The law reads:

"Religious or political belief not to be asked of applicants for positions. It shall be unlawful to inquire concerning, or to require or solicit from an applicant for a position any information as to the religious belief, creed or practice, or as to the political opinions or affiliations of the applicant; and no appointment to such a position shall be made, withheld or in any manner affected by the said considerations. Violation of the provisions of this act shall be punished by a fine of not more than $50 for each offense." (Gen. Acts, 1917, c. 84, p. 2.)

We have been taught that our ancestors came to America in order to separate church and state. Technically, this may be true; but they never dreamed that the thing would develop along present lines. History shows that the real difficulty in England and Europe was that the state controlled the church. Our forefathers - however - did not wish to bring about a separation of church and state. Rather, they desired to have the church control the state. This means that the settlers of America desired to have more religion in their government rather than less. They desired to have a religious state rather than a state religion. All history shows this to be the real fact, although we have been led to believe something entirely different.

Schools and colleges were not organized to help one fellow get the better of his neighbor, nor were they organized to help our young people get rich or take life easy. Our schools and colleges were organized primarily to train young people in the right motives. Religion was the principal work in the early days and the Bible was the principal text-book. In order for our investments to endure we must get back to these fundamental principles. Instead of further separating church and state or religion and education, we must weld them closer together. Only religion must control the state instead of having the state control the religion. Only religion can teach men their obligations to the community and develop within them those higher motives of which civilization is so much in need. As H. G. Wells says:

"It is a modern error that education exists for the individual. Education exists for the community and the race. It exists to subdue the individual for the good of the world and his own ultimate happiness."

In order for our investments of every kind to endure - whether they are material, intellectual, or spiritual - our educational system must be reformed by putting religion in the foreground. Religion must be the basis of our educational system and the primary purpose must be to arouse within men and women a desire to serve and a desire for the things worth while.

Ruskin said something like this: Tell me what a person likes and I will tell you what he is. This suggests a great fundamental truth and applies to nations, communities, families, and individuals. The actions of all groups and persons are determined by their tastes and their tastes are determined by their religion. Hence, the primary work of an educational system should be to develop in the student a taste for the things worth while.