The Iron Puddler [64]
of our young. Education is of two kinds, one kind is good and the other is poison. A poisonous education took but one generation to turn the German working men into a race of blood-letters. Wrong education tears a nation down. Right education will build it up. One generation of right education will remake the world. Who will furnish this new education? I, for one, will do my share, and more. My heart is in this one cause, and my whole life from now on shall be devoted to it.
"You will hear me speaking for it on every rostrum and in every schoolhouse in America. I have been handicapped in life because I had no education. But it is better to have no education than a false one, for I was left free to know the truth when I found it. I went into the mills when I should have been in school. As a working man I have helped get better conditions for the worker. Think how much more I could have done if I had had an education. Your leaders have done much for the iron workers because they could see farther than the common man. The worker with an education can see far. He can judge quickly and be guided rightly, for he has knowledge to guide him. I have knelt and prayed to God to direct me. Now I know He has answered my prayer. My mission is to bring to the poor man's boy the ample education that the rich man gives his son. Equal education will make men equal in the gaining of wealth. Education is Democracy.
"A French soldier lay dying on the battle-field, and a comrade kneeling by him asked what last word he wished carried to his wife and children. And the dying man said with his last breath: 'Tell them that I gave my body to the earth, I gave my heart to France and I gave my soul to God.'
"And so I say to you in the spirit of the French soldier that this, my body, I will give at last back to the iron earth, in whose deep mines and smoking metal shops my muscles took their form. This heart of mine that beats for liberty and equality I give--and give to its last beat--to the cause of equal education for our young. And my soul at last I shall render back unto my Maker knowing that I have served His cause as He has given me to see it."
CHAPTER XLIX
CONCLUSION
H. G. Wells has asked all scholars to unite in writing a "Bible of the New Education." I am no scholar, but if Wells will take suggestions from an iron puddler, I offer him these random thoughts.
This generation is rich because the preceding generation stored up lots of capital. We are living in the houses and using the railroads that our fathers built by working overtime.
When labor loafs on the job it makes itself poor. We are not building fast enough to keep ourselves housed. Were it not for the houses our fathers built this generation would be out-of- doors right now, with no roof but the sky.
No matter who owns the capital, capital works for everybody. Ford owns the flivver factory, but everybody owns the flivvers. The oil king owns the gasoline, but he has to tote it to the roadside where every one can get it. Equal division is the goal that capitalism constantly approaches. No man wants all the gasoline. He wants six gallons at a time, with a service station every few miles. Capital performs this service for him. Under "capitalism," so?called wealth is more equally divided than under any other system ever known.
Work is a blessing, not a curse. This country had the good luck to be settled by the hardest workers in the world. Their big production made us rich. If we slacken production we will soon be poor. The Indians owned everything in common. They did not work. And they were so poor that this whole continent would support less than two million of them. Thousands of Indians used to starve and freeze to death every hard winter.
The white man who doesn't want to work is sick. He needs a dose of medicine, not a dose of the millennium. The Bible says that in the sweat of his face man shall eat bread. When labor loafs, it injures labor first and capital last. For labor grows poor to-day while the capitalist gets poor to-morrow. But to-morrow
"You will hear me speaking for it on every rostrum and in every schoolhouse in America. I have been handicapped in life because I had no education. But it is better to have no education than a false one, for I was left free to know the truth when I found it. I went into the mills when I should have been in school. As a working man I have helped get better conditions for the worker. Think how much more I could have done if I had had an education. Your leaders have done much for the iron workers because they could see farther than the common man. The worker with an education can see far. He can judge quickly and be guided rightly, for he has knowledge to guide him. I have knelt and prayed to God to direct me. Now I know He has answered my prayer. My mission is to bring to the poor man's boy the ample education that the rich man gives his son. Equal education will make men equal in the gaining of wealth. Education is Democracy.
"A French soldier lay dying on the battle-field, and a comrade kneeling by him asked what last word he wished carried to his wife and children. And the dying man said with his last breath: 'Tell them that I gave my body to the earth, I gave my heart to France and I gave my soul to God.'
"And so I say to you in the spirit of the French soldier that this, my body, I will give at last back to the iron earth, in whose deep mines and smoking metal shops my muscles took their form. This heart of mine that beats for liberty and equality I give--and give to its last beat--to the cause of equal education for our young. And my soul at last I shall render back unto my Maker knowing that I have served His cause as He has given me to see it."
CHAPTER XLIX
CONCLUSION
H. G. Wells has asked all scholars to unite in writing a "Bible of the New Education." I am no scholar, but if Wells will take suggestions from an iron puddler, I offer him these random thoughts.
This generation is rich because the preceding generation stored up lots of capital. We are living in the houses and using the railroads that our fathers built by working overtime.
When labor loafs on the job it makes itself poor. We are not building fast enough to keep ourselves housed. Were it not for the houses our fathers built this generation would be out-of- doors right now, with no roof but the sky.
No matter who owns the capital, capital works for everybody. Ford owns the flivver factory, but everybody owns the flivvers. The oil king owns the gasoline, but he has to tote it to the roadside where every one can get it. Equal division is the goal that capitalism constantly approaches. No man wants all the gasoline. He wants six gallons at a time, with a service station every few miles. Capital performs this service for him. Under "capitalism," so?called wealth is more equally divided than under any other system ever known.
Work is a blessing, not a curse. This country had the good luck to be settled by the hardest workers in the world. Their big production made us rich. If we slacken production we will soon be poor. The Indians owned everything in common. They did not work. And they were so poor that this whole continent would support less than two million of them. Thousands of Indians used to starve and freeze to death every hard winter.
The white man who doesn't want to work is sick. He needs a dose of medicine, not a dose of the millennium. The Bible says that in the sweat of his face man shall eat bread. When labor loafs, it injures labor first and capital last. For labor grows poor to-day while the capitalist gets poor to-morrow. But to-morrow