“The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive-tree, ‘Reign thou over us.’

“But the olive-tree said unto them, ’Should I leave my fatness wherewith by me they honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?’

“And the trees said to the fig-tree, ‘Come thou and reign over us.’

“But the fig-tree said unto them, ’Should I forsake my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees?’

“Then said the trees unto the vine, ‘Come thou and reign over us.’

“And the vine said unto them, ’Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?’

“Then said the trees unto the bramble, ‘Come thou and reign over us.’

“And the bramble said to the trees, ’If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow; and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.’”

In our day a conflagration of the cedars of Lebanon has been the only result of the kingship of the bramble.

In the opinion of many, our universal education is one of the chief causes of the discontent.  This might be true and not be an argument against education, for a certain amount of discontent is essential to self-development and if, as we believe, the development of the best powers of every human being is a good in itself, education ought not to be held responsible for the evils attending a transitional period.  Yet we cannot ignore the danger, in the present stage, of an education that is necessarily superficial, that engenders conceit of knowledge and power, rather than real knowledge and power, and that breeds in two-thirds of those who have it a distaste for useful labor.  We believe in education; but there must be something wrong in an education that sets so many people at odds with the facts of life, and, above all, does not furnish them with any protection against the wildest illusions.  There is something wanting in the education that only half educates people.

Whether there is the relation of cause and effect between the two I do not pretend to say, but universal and superficial education in this country has been accompanied with the most extraordinary delusions and the evolution of the wildest theories.  It is only necessary to refer, by way of illustration, to the greenback illusion, and to the whole group of spiritualistic disturbances and psychological epidemics.  It sometimes seems as if half the American people were losing the power to apply logical processes to the ordinary affairs of life.