see the process as a comprehensive whole.  But our fellow men and women have their own interests and their own departments of technical knowledge and skill; they see the schoolhouse and the pupils’ desks and the books and other various material symbols of our work,—­they see these things and call them education; just as we see a freight train thundering across the viaduct or a steamer swinging out in the lake and call these things commerce.  In both cases, the nontechnical mind associates the word with something concrete and tangible; in both cases, the technical mind associates the same word with an abstract process, comprehending a movement of vast proportions.

To compress such a movement—­whether it be commerce or government or education—­in a single conception requires a multitude of experiences involving actual adjustments with the materials involved; involving constant reflection upon hidden meanings, painful investigations into hidden causes, and mastery of a vast body of specialized knowledge which it takes years of study to digest and assimilate.

It is not every stevedore upon the docks, nor every stoker upon the steamers, nor every brakeman upon the railroads, who comprehends what commerce really means.  It is not every banker’s clerk who knows the meaning of business.  It is not every petty holder of public office who knows what government really means.  But this, at least, is true:  in proportion as the worker knows the meaning of the work that he does,—­in proportion as he sees it in its largest relations to society and to life,—­his work is no longer the drudgery of routine toil.  It becomes instead an intelligent process directed toward a definite goal.  It has acquired that touch of artistry which, so far as human testimony goes, is the only pure and uncontaminated source of human happiness.

And the chief blessing for which you and I should be thankful to-day is that this larger view of our calling has been vouchsafed to us as it has been vouchsafed no former generation of teachers.  Education as the conventional prerogative of the rich,—­as the garment which separated the higher from the lower classes of society,—­this could scarcely be looked upon as a fascinating and uplifting ideal from which to derive hope and inspiration in the day’s work; and yet this was the commonly accepted function of education for thousands of years, and the teachers who did the actual work of instruction could not but reflect in their attitude and bearing the servile character of the task that they performed.  Education to fit the child to earn a better living, to command a higher wage,—­this myopic view of the function of the school could do but little to make the work of teaching anything but drudgery; and yet it is this narrow and materialistic view that has dominated our educational system to within a comparatively few years.