The Gary Schools and many of the new schools are public schools.  And the principle of the new education that the state is primarily responsible for the health of pupils—­because an unsound body is apt to make an unsound citizen of backward intelligence—­is now being generally adopted by public schools all over the country.  This idea is essentially an element of the democratic contention that all citizens must be given an equality of opportunity—­though all may not be created equal—­now becoming a positive rather than a negative right, guaranteed by the state itself.  An earnest attempt is thus made by the state to give every citizen a fair start that in later years he may have no ground for discontent or complaint.  He stands on his own feet, he rises in proportion to his ability and industry.  Hence the program of the British Labour Party rightly lays stress on education, on “freedom of mental opportunity.”  The vast sums it proposes to spend for this purpose are justified.

If such a system of education as that briefly outlined above is carefully and impartially considered, the objection that democratic government founded on modern social science is coercive must disappear.  So far as the intention and effort of the state is able to confer it, every citizen will have his choice of the task he is to perform for society, his opportunity for self-realization.  For freedom without education is a myth.  By degrees men and women are making ready to take their places in an emulative rather than a materialistically competitive order.  But the experimental aspect of this system should always be borne in mind, with the fact that its introduction and progress, like that of other elements in the democratic program, must be gradual, though always proceeding along sound lines.  For we have arrived at that stage of enlightenment when we realize that the only mundane perfection lies in progress rather than achievement.  The millennium is always a lap ahead.  There would be no satisfaction in overtaking it, for then we should have nothing more to do, nothing more to work for.

The German Junkers have prostituted science by employing it for the destruction of humanity.  In the name of Christianity they have waged the most barbaric war in history.  Yet if they shall have demonstrated to mankind the futility of efficiency achieved merely for material ends; if, by throwing them on a world screen, they shall have revealed the evils of power upheld alone by ruthlessness and force, they will unwittingly have performed a world service.  Privilege and dominion, powers and principalities acquired by force must be sustained by force.  To fail will be fatal.  Even a duped people, trained in servility, will not consent to be governed by an unsuccessful autocracy.  Arrogantly Germany has staked her all on world domination.  Hence a victory for the Allies must mean a democratic Germany.