I believe that all forms of vocational and professional education are not so strong in this respect as they should be.  Again you say to me, What can education do when the spirit of the times speaks so strongly on the other side?  But what is education for if it is not to preserve midst the chaos and confusion of troublous times the great truths that the race has wrung from its experience?  How different might have been the fate of Rome, if Rome had possessed an educational system touching every child in the Empire, and if, during the years that witnessed her decay and downfall, those schools could have kept steadily, persistently at work, impressing upon every member of each successive generation the virtues that made the old Romans strong and virile—­the virtues that enabled them to lay the foundations of an empire that crumbled in ruins once these truths were forgotten.  Is it not the specific task of education to represent in each generation the human experiences that have been tried and tested and found to work,—­to represent these in the face of opposition if need be,—­to be faithful to the trusteeship of the most priceless legacy that the past has left to the present and to the future?  If this is not our function in the scheme of things, then what is our function?  Is it to stand with bated breath to catch the first whisper that will usher in the next change?  Is it to surrender all initiative and simply allow ourselves to be tossed hither and yon by the waves and cross-waves of a fickle public opinion?  Is it to cower in dread of a criticism that is not only unjust but often ill-advised of the real conditions under which we are doing our work?

I take it that none of us is ready to answer these questions in the affirmative.  Deep down in our hearts we know that we have a useful work to do, and we know that we are doing it passably well.  We also know our defects and shortcomings at least as well as one who has never faced our problems and tried to solve them.  And it is from this latter type that most of the drastic criticism, especially of the elementary and secondary school, emanates.  I confess that my gorge rises within me when I read or hear the invectives that are being hurled against teaching as a profession (and against the work of the elementary and secondary school in particular) by men who know nothing of this work at first hand.  This is the greatest handicap under which the profession of teaching labors.  In every other important field of human activity a man must present his credentials before he takes his seat at the council table, and even then he must sit and listen respectfully to his elders for a while before he ventures a criticism or even a suggestion.  This plan may have its defects.  It may keep things on too conservative a basis; but it avoids the danger into which we as a profession have fallen,—­the danger of “half-baked” theories and unmatured policies.  To-day the only man that can get a respectable hearing at our great national educational meetings is the man who has something new and bizarre to propose.  And the more startling the proposal, the greater is the measure of adulation that he receives.  The result of this is a continual straining for effect, an enormous annual crop of fads and fancies, which, though most of them are happily short-lived, keep us in a state of continual turmoil and confusion.