When a child, leaving school
behind, develops into a citizen, what tests are applied to him? The
questions submitted to his judgment in his relations to the family and
to society call for a quick and varied knowledge of men, insight into
character, and for a large amount of practical information of natural
science. He is asked to vote intelligently on social, political,
sanitary, and economic questions; to judge of men's motives, opinions,
and character; to vote upon or perhaps to direct the management of
poor-houses, asylums, and penitentiaries; in towns to decide questions
of drainage, police, water supply, public health, and school
administration; to make contracts for public buildings, and bridges; to
grant licenses and franchises; to serve on juries or as representatives
of the people. These are not professional matters alone; they are the
common duties of all citizens of a sound mind. These things each
person should know how to judge, whether he be a blacksmith, a
merchant, or a house keeper. In all such matters he must be not only a
judge of others but an actor under the guidance of right motives and
information. Again, in the bringing up of children, in the domestic
arrangements of every home and in a proper care for the minds and
bodies of both parents and children, a multitude of practical problems
from each of the great fields of real knowledge must be met and solved.
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