The Meaning of Education. VIII

The Meaning of Education By Dr. E. G. Peterson, President, Utah Agricultural College VIII. To be a Servant "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." "Cursed is the ground for thy sake." The great curse is at once the greatest blessing ; man's happiness is bound up with toil. Have you noted the eagerness with which the intelligent mechanic does his work? Have you seen the glow upon the face of the wise husbandman who walks his fields? Have you felt the exaltation of the musician who has worked out new harmony, or the writer who has phrased new thoughts? The architect, the farmer, the carpenter, the plumber, the lawyer, the mason, the merchant, the teacher, the scientific investigator — to these and all others who toil is given the privilege of accomplishment and the promise of happiness in achievement. Work will alleviate or cure any ailment of mind or body. Tolstoi, the great Russian, advocated that all should work with their hands each day, and he and all his family went into the fields in regular employment. Crime follows idleness. An idle brain is indeed the devil's workshop. You have probably seen men and women seemingly in the prime of years approaching senility and mental decay. They were sallow, irritable, nerves on edge, digestion gone, and faith in God and their fellows gone. — Work will heal them work in which they are interested, work that causes the blood to rush through their veins, work that stimulates them in body, mind and soul. They will sweat and drink and eat heartily; they will be tired and sleep soundly. Faith will spring up again. Charity and tolerance will replace selfishness and viciousness. Every person should do manual labor every day, except Sunday. Our modern civilization, having so much to do with offices and indoor work, makes this hard. Yet every man's welfare is best served by such work. This is the glory of the farm. While admitting, and for success demanding, constant, intellectual activity of very high order, it yet makes necessary daily work with the hands. It therefore insures health and happiness, and free and independent spirits and normal family life which always follows health. That is why patriotism, idealism, and simple nobility reside on our farms, and are not found so conspicuously on our city streets. Have you met the great char-

148 IMPROVEMENT ERA acters which our farms are producing under modern conditions? They are clean and sound —the men and women who will save our civilization, in the times ahead, so full of intemperance and freakishness, and so permeated with decay which comes in a measure from our ill-smelling city streets and alleys. To be a servant. What does this mean? It means, of course, to work for others. It was once and still is to a great extent a stigma to be called a servant. Yet the development of science has brought very prominently to notice the fact that he who serves must be intelligent or disaster follows. The person who prepares our food must be clean and intelligent, or we who eat the food may contract his or her disease. The servant girl who cares for our child must be clean and intelligent, or our child may be infected with her disease. The person who washes and otherwise handles the knives, forks and the dishes we use at the table, must be clean and intelligent, or we may become infected with the disease which such a person harbors. I saw a waiter in a Salt Lake cafe attending a table at which a clean looking young man and woman were sitting, accompanied by a small child. The waiter was diseased with the most loathesome disease known to man, and on his lip was a terrible ulcer which was exuding its deadly poison. He moistened his finger on his lips in tearing the price slip from his tab. The father took up the slip and thereby communicated to his fingers the deadly germ which had already made wreckage of the waiter's body. The next moment he took up his little child. He did not, of course, know the risk he was running, and society did not protect him as it should and as it will in the near future. We must honor labor. Nature has stipulated that the person who serves must be clean and intelligent. In the days ahead of us, the wisest, the noblest, the cleanest will be the servants. Society need not be so much concerned about those who are served. To be waited upon requires neither intelligence nor demands cleanliness. So our education must be directed toward those who are to be the workers, the servants. In the foregoing, I have remarked upon certain physical things which science has made so plain. If the worker must be clean, in order not to spread disease, it is eoruallv important that he, the servant, have tho«e other good dualities of mind and spirit which make him a teacher and a leader. Temperance, charity, faith, — these are also infections transmitted like disease. You have shaken hands and looked into the eyes of men who stimulated vou to greater things. Science has not vet revealed, in detail, how we gain in faith and other great aualities, from association with others, as it has revealed how we contract disease from others. But we know that the power of such qualities does pass from one to another.