Page:Education and Life; (IA educationlife00bakerich).pdf/147

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part from the traditions of the Old World, so the new states of the West became the field for a still more liberal growth of the tendencies of the age. There is a recognized tendency in our institutions toward a broader community of interests in respect to many things that affect the common welfare, and in no way does this tendency find a grander expression than in the means for elevating the people at the expense of the people to a better citizenship, higher usefulness, and wiser and nobler manhood. The safety of the state depends upon giving the brightest and best of all classes and conditions an opportunity to rise to the surface of affairs.

In Prussia, Switzerland, and Italy a healthy organization of society is held to depend upon public control of both secondary and higher education. England's system of education tends to maintain social distinctions and an intellectual conservatism that are harmful both to the aristocracy and to the common people. Education in Germany shows its superiority in that it reaches a larger number of the poor classes and develops greater freedom of thought. The public control of education makes it democratic and progressive, and strengthens its influence with the people. It makes the scholar a leader in the line of advance indicated by the ideals of the people. In the American state university, men come together as a faculty, bringing with them training and educational ideals gained in the best universities of the world. They place themselves in touch with the public schools, the press, and all the state agencies of influence and control. Knowing the needs and demands of the people, they take the lead in the line of natural progress. The state university is insepa-