--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Tanner, Joseph M. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 21 number: 7 published: 1918-05 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Tanner, Joseph M., "Problems of the Age," *Improvement Era* 21, no. 7 (May 1918): 591–602.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2107unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera2107unse start_page: 591 end_page: 602 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1918-05) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2107unse publication_year: 1918 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1918, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Problems of the Age Problems of the Age Dealing with Religious, Social and Economic Questions and their Solution. A Study for the Quorums and Classes of the Melchizedek Priesthood By Dr. Joseph M. Tanner XV— A Pleasure Loving Age — Pleasure and Joy. Shall we have pleasure? "What is pleasure? It isi the one thing the age is striving for. Toward it men and women in all lands are bending their energies and for it they are consuming their wealth. But pleasure is neither joy, nor happiness. The latter words may be used interchangeably. The Book of Mormon teaches that "Man is that he may have joy." Pleasure is an experience, chiefly one of selfishness. It is also physical and administers to the sensations of the body. It is intoxicating to the mind and produces the dizziness of hilarious pastimes. But what is joy? "It is the rebound of sorrow," says Straghan. "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." Comfort is joy. If we read what gave joy to the holy men and women of the Bible we shall get perhaps the best interpretation of it. But pleasure is not happiness. It may be well to keep that distinction, paradoxical as it may seem. It is often said that those who pursue pleasure never find it. They may find pleasure but not joy. Do we want pleasure, do we need it? Undoubtedly, there are wholesome pleasures, physical, intellectual, and spiritual. They are such as come from a healthy state of our being. They are never an aim in themselves. They are scattered along the way of life, and are experiences that come from wholesome living. Is happiness the rebound of sorrow? We have a beautiful example in Sarah, who through a long life sorrowed for children. "My heart," she said, "exulteth in the Lord." The Hebrew poet sings the praises felt by the sorrowing exiles after their long years of separation from their beloved country, "When the Lord brought home again the captives of Zion. We were like them that dream, Then was our mouth filled with laughter, And our tongue with melody." Joy expresses itself nowhere better than in manifestations of gratitude. It praises God in an exultarit spirit. In Nehemiah the Jews were told that "the joy of the Lord is your strength." What a sorrow hangs over the world today! Will it bring comfort to those who mourn? There is no happiness withoul work. It is work that brings to the human soul the satisfaction of a great reward. It is not so much the satis- faction of a material reward as it is the ability to enjoy what God has provided for us. Work brings fatigue which makes sleep, food and rest so enjoyable. If we are drifting away from the God ordained duties of life we curtail our joy whatever the momentary pleasures may be. A pleasure loving world becomes sensational. Its ideals are misshapen, and distortion dis- turbs seriously all the functions of life. The conscience is deadened; the of the body give pain. The rebound from excessive pleasure is pain. organs 592 IMPROVEMENT ERA — Temptations of Pleasure. Pleasure lends itself to temptations that in turn lead to pleasures that are iniquitous. It greatly disturbs the serious nature of man, and unfits him for the higher duties of life. There is no age set apart for pleasure. To the young it is a snare and robs the soul of youth of its preparation for the struggles of life. It weakens the young in the presence of responsibilities. Bodily strength gives way in the midst of it. Has God, in his infinite mercy, called a halt upon the frivolities of human life by throwing it into the whirl of a destructive war? The young manhood of our nation is in a process of decay. The great majority, we are told, are not fit for service. We are marshaling our young into training camps that they may be finished by strenuous exercise for service. It is possible that the great army of unfits shall be left to perish by its own hands. Can some means not be found for regeneration? What a dismal outlook confronts the world. Self-destruction and war threaten the world with annihilation. Is universal destruction decreed? In the midst of it all the excessive worldly pleasures go on. Men and women refuse to become serious minded. There is no stop to "hear and hush" to the roar of cannon. Out of the harrowing scenes of the battlefield writers seek to feed the morbid curiosity of millions who have no thought of consequences. Fashions. —Fashions are displayed through public print for an age that is more absorbed in the fancies of the world than in its sobriety. "Suggestive" dress enamours the public eye. The spirit of the world is "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." The headlong rush into earthly pleasures foredooms the world to its own destruction. As I write, I take up the London Times df August 17, and in the Fashions column there appears the following: "A very dull old rose velvet looked well in a little dress trimmed with brown fur and a touch of old gold embroidery. For evening wear some are rather bright when black and black-and-white are set on one side, but black and black-and-white models abound. Fina pale rose taffetas, delicately embroidered in silver, with puffy short sleeves in white tulle sprinkled with silver, make a youthful dance dress, and a regular Court dress was in torquoise blue velvet and tulle. But the black satin, black messeline, black net and black velvet dresses with jet trimmings, were more frequent. The embroidery at a certain house is extraordinarily fine and eighteenth century in style. No coarse woolen embroidery is to be seen, but delicate silk and thread and silver and gold work on silks, satins, and messelines, and fine serge." This is England in war, England in distress. It reads like a page from Ancient Rome, when women were doing their full share to bring a universal destruction of the Empire. The fashions and follies of the age suffer little restraint in the presence of calamities which threaten even social existence. Pleasure will not surrender its indulgences, however grave the situation. — Rivalry. Excessive social pleasures are sources of jealousy, envy and quarrelsome relations among the young. They do much to destroy the cordiality that should exist in social life. They break up young couples in courtship and bring dissension in the home. They beget a selfish spirit that is destructive of useful service in all the walks of life. The thought beneath a pleasure loving age is what others do for me, not what service I may render to others. Pleasure breeds discontent and ingratitude. Social PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 593 disruptions and bickerings grow out of it. When sacrifices come, as they must come to the lives of all, they are borne with impatience and hatreds. There can be no ultimate satisfaction in a pleasure loving life, which creates disappointment rather than joy. First comes envy of others, then hatred of them, and more deadly still, hatred of one's self. Such a life poisons the soul, warps the judgment, and embitters the hearts of men and women. It leads to quarrels in the home, and often ends in divorce. What is perhaps the most serious result of a life given to pleasure is the destruction in mature years and in old age of the peace and satisfaction which advancing years must have if life is to become tolerable. In the end pleasure strives for social distinction, and the advancing generation finds itself thrust aside by the new. More and more the devotees of pleasure learn that the fruits of their efforts and ambition are bitter; their attitude to life is one of regret and sorrow. — Pleasure and Learning. Disappointment and emptiness teach pleasure nothing. When excessive it cannot learn, for it is self-absorbed. It enters into school life and robs the young of that application which they need so much for their intellectual advancement. It robs boys and girls of their efficiency, and leaves them the victims of an unreal world. They lose the power which enables them to resist temptation and it creates habits of life that often lead to despair. On the other hand, happiness has a well-founded reason for its existence. It represents the fruit of right living. It is the reward of truth, service and devotion. Those who see nothing in their lives for which they may hope for happiness try worldly pleasures as a substitute. There is no way of drowning sorrow by a plunge into the whirl of a pleasure loving age. "Drowning sorrow" is the philosophy of despair. How shall this world-wide evil that is destroying usefulness and happiness be corrected? The spirit of duty and responsibility is the antidote for the idolatrous pleasure of the age. Sometimes our young people are heard to complain that they have too many organizations in the Church. Night after night some meeting makes its demands for them. There are home preparations to absorb their leisure hours. To them duty sometimes grows irksome and some escape the responsibilities which the Church puts upon all who will work. To escape responsibility is to court failure. To shirk a duty is to all the enter a temptation. A life of responsibility and duty is full of good things which God has in store for his children. A life of pleasure is evils full of emptiness. If the temptations of life with the long train of growing out of them are to be withstood, a great effort must be made to sin of the correct the excessive love for pleasure which is a besetting present age. . , . , above an- "But it is not given that one man should possess that which is other, wherefore the world lieth in sin" (Doc. and Cov. 49:20). cheerful "And inasmuch as ye do these things with thanksgiving, with for this is sin, but with hearts and countenances; not with much laughter, * * * * the fulness of the a glad heart and a cheerful countenance earth is yours" (Doc. and Cov. 59:15,16). XVI— Financial Respectability is demanded and must Definition.—What is financial respectability? It Each has, perhaps, his own interpretation though he may be be defined. Prac- public opinion and his social business life actuated very greatly by tically, it consists of a man's business activities—what he does,-and is not be if he were forced into always governed by what his balance would 594 IMPROVEMENT ERA liquidation. Appearances, however, he must maintain. Should he have an auto, should his home life be based upon some good round sum of money for a residence, and is it necessary to know how much he owes? — Credits. One thing is certain, however. Our credit system is enlarging by leaps and bounds. It touches almost every man in business life. The farmers owe their billions. Also the merchant. All are dependent upon our banking system and their credit at the bank is of course an important asset. Financial respectability, however, is setting higher and higher yearly its social standards. It brings along in its train envy, jealousy, and often bickerings. National jealousy and rivalry had much to do with the present war. If such rivalry is dangerous to the nation at large, it is also dangerous to the individual. Should a panic follow the present period of expansion and extravagance it would be more ruinous than anything which the world has ever heretofore experienced. A post-war panic is quite a probability. It will be a miracle if we escape it, and now while times are good and money plentiful is a good time to establish ourselves for coming events. Methods. —The problems which today affect us are the methods of financial gain. The advice of the father to the son, if it ever holds good, holds good now more than ever: "Get money. Get it honestly, if you can, but get money." In such an age as we now have it is almost possible to do business, to launch an enterprise, without capital; and that means, of course, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, credit. There are some aspects, however, of the financial fever from which we are suffering that deeply concern the Latter-day Saints. It should be stated that the credit system is in itself dangerous. Men start by borrowing for the needs of their business. Money at hand then leads them into extravagance. They take bounds and are unable to recover themselves and there are literally millions throughout the United States over whose financial head the sword of Damacles hangs. Psychology of Business.—We have also what might be called the psychology of business. This consists of a certain training and a certain instinct by which men are not only able to judge others, but by which they are able, by their persuasions, to convince. In other words, people are often literally talked out of their money. People's peculiarities are played upon. Advantages are taken of their frame of mind and enthusiasm is promoted by a class who understand the method of its creation. In this condition of business life exaggerations, if not right down falsehoods, are growing altogether too common. A man in Salt Lake City was called into an office some time ago by a gentleman who had a wonderful invention to show his friend. It was a railroad signal apparatus which, according to his representation, every railroad in the country was anxious to get hold of. The agent was very enthusiastic, pleasing in his demeanor, and convincing in the tones of his voice. He boldly declared that he would guarantee his friend that inside of six months he could double his money. The man from the street was not without some experience. He said he thought he would take a block of that stock and the agent was then, of course, anxious to know how many thousand dollars he wanted. He could have any amount. But his friend said, "I would like to know who the — guarantors are to be, whether they are able to respond to the guarantee in case your representations do not prove true." Of course, that ended the effort. The agent's declarations of guarantee were given for psychological effect. They were not to be taken literally. Today we have all sorts of promoters, especially in the organization of corporations. They exploit the people, sell many thousand dollars worth of PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 595 stock, and too often it turns out that the whole business was only a psychological enterprise. — Mining Exploitations. Perhaps one of the most fertile fields of exploitation is to be found in mining stocks. I quote from Collier's editorials, edited by Mark Sullivan: "Have you bought mining stocks? Sell them. Offer them back to the man who sold them. Offer them at the same price. Offer them at ten per cent less. Offer them at twenty per cent less. This will accomplish your own disillusionment, and save you money, for you might have bought more. It will also effect exposure to the person who sold you the stock. Are you thinking of buying shares in Poodle- dog Inflated or Hoptoad Jump Along? Don't. And this "don't" is without qualification of any kind. To women chiefly, wives of hus- bands of the high wage-earning class, this paragraph is commended. They are the ones who Not that it is their folly we inveigh against. know the value of savings, and they may be in time to save a fatuous husband from an act of inexcusable folly. "If you are tempted by the full-page advertisements published by the newspaper partners of mining swindlers, don't! If some acquaint- ance is urging you to buy shares, he either profits by the sale or is himself deceived. Daniel Guggenheim is the greatest miner in the world. He and his six brothers own mines that aggregate a billion dollars. That family knows more about mines than most of the rest of the world combined. The other day Mr. Guggenheim uttered a solemn warning against "the flimsy character of the mining stocks now finding a ready market." "One in three hundred," he said, "is a conservative estimate of the proportion of prospects that eventually fulfiltheir promise." Within a week after he uttered that warning Mr. Guggenheim made public announcement that he had himself been caught. He had bought a famous and widely-talked-of mine; and when he discovered he had been deceived, he backed out of the trap at a cash loss of $2,500,000." to the Facts that Read Like Fairy Stories.—That which gives zest business the wonderful stories that agents have about the psychology of is enterprise. marvelous gains of men who have entered into various classes of Some of them read like fairy stories. It is often said that more gold and silver are expended in the quest for gold and silver mines than is taken out of them. , As a rule, corporations are not satisfactory unless a man has some their guidance. The mere love for gain becomes very sordid when voice in direction of the means by which it is obtained. with it there is no intelligent In large corporations the ordinary stockholder has nothing to say. tie may are bona fide and have be squeezed out in time. Some of these companies stockholders. On the other hand, a pride in promoting the interest of their public by one means or there is a multitude of them that exploit the sometimes by enormous another, get control of the stock, take its profits salaries which are paid to its manager and directors They regulate the dividends in their own interest. Such are often the dangers of new cor- invest in well established porate bodies and it is, of course, always safer to companies. I quote again from Collier's: in the early nineties, sub "It has been estimated that a man who, scribed to one share of stock in Mr. James J. HUPs Great Northern kept ever since, has made in the intervening fifteen Railway and has it a profit of over nine hundred years, in cash dividends and 'privileges', The best that could have been done by a workman on Mr. per cent 596 IMPROVEMENT ERA Hill's railroad, who put his earnings in a savings bank for the same period, would be less than one hundred per cent. Mr. Forrest F. Dry- den, a son of the President of the Prudential Insurance Company, stated under oath that one of the owners of that company who, in the late seventies, paid in, in cash, $2,200, had made a profit, twenty-five years later, of $327,163.60. The rate of profit in this case is 14,800 — per cent a rate which must seem colossal to the policy-holder who has taken advantage of the savings feature of that company and bought an endowment policy. For the policy-holder has never re- ceived as much as four per cent." — Talents Sacrificed for Financial Gain. The present glamour of financial standing in the world is leading many of our young people away from those careers in life which their talents best fit them to pursue. Today very many of the very best teachers we have in the Church and State are leaving the school room because of "financial inducement." Our political system does not repay our highest and best talent. Many of our young men would make most competent physicians and surgeons, attorneys, agriculturists, and stock men, and thus benefit the world by reason of their superior pro- ductive powers. They do not respond to their inborn qualities of life. The love of money compels them to bury their God-given talents. Again from Collier's: "Recently a young and successful banker withdrew from his firm to accept an appointment as an assistant in a department in our oldest university. The banking career, of course, would have been vastly more remunerative in money. Moreover, the bank was a family insti- tution, and there was every inclination of pride and tradition against leaving it. It strikes us as a fine thing to have done. Possibly we would all be better off if business in this country were less remunera- tive as compared with other careers. If business did not offer a re- ward so vastly greater in money, young men choosing their careers would feel more free to follow their natural talents toward the arts or toward other careers. One of the most successful bankers in the United States would have been a very great musician if he had felt free to follow his tastes. In spite of the disparity of the money re- wards, more and more men are realizing that money is not to be weighed against what President Eliot once called 'the durable satisfac- tions of life.' Among these durable satisfactions, congeniality of work is one of the most important." It is unfortunately true that men have lost much of the spirit of stewardship. They do not hold in trust as those responsible to God for beneficent use of means at their command, and there are direct temptations in financial enterprise that are too severe for many to overcome. Revelations.—"Verily, verily, I say unto you, wo be unto him that lieth to deceive, because he supposeth that another lieth to deceive, for such are not exempt from the justice of God" (Doc. and Cov. 10:28). "And again, I will give unto you a pattern in all things, that ye may not be deceived, for Satan is abroad in the land, and he goeth forth deceiving the nations" (Doc. and Cov. 52:14) XVII—Survival of the Fittest A Fallacy.— Much has been written and said about the survival of the httest, as though men were an exact counterpart of nature, even in the ZZ7Z LI vegetable world, T" C y whether - it - • is ft is doubtful > even in the animal and the true that the fittest always survive, because PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 597 life issubject to such a variety of conditions that .what is the fittest depends after all upon a multitude of conditions so complex that we cannot say really that anything living will survive. In the case of man it is really less true, because man has his locomotion and agency, so that he may change his conditions and place himself from time to time in such environments as make for his advantage or disadvantage in the world. — A Simple Example. Some time ago the writer, who has been occupied in the sheep industry for some time, during a severe storm at the lambing season, undertook so to place his sheep as to suffer the smallest possible loss. The older and larger ones were placed where they were compelled to take the brunt of the storm, in the hope that they had vitality enough to withstand it. The weaker and younger ones were given a securer place within the sheds, and thus the lambs were prepared at night within for the storm that was raging without. In the morning the oldest and strongest had suffered the greatest loss. Among the weakest only one or two died. The survival here was not a question of the fittest. It was a question of environment, of human protection. The survival of the fittest presupposes equalities of opportunities, of environments, of conditions that do not exist in either animal or human life. And so, if we speak of the survival of the we are bound to make so many explanations, so many exceptions, fittest, that the rule becomes practically worthless as a working principle. Survival of the Fittest in War. — There is just now going on in the world a war of unparalleled human destruction. It is pointed to as an illustration, as a pitiful evidence that the best in our national life is sacrificed, and that the world, after the war, will be made up of those less fitted to assume family, social, and national responsibilities. It is doubtful, even in the case of war, that the fittest are killed off because the best of our physical manhood is called into the conflict. A Definition of the Fittest. — Who can really say what the fittest in life is? Usually the statement is made from the standpoint of our physical being. Let us take an example: Two young men entering manhood possess different physical qualifications at the same age of life. One is powerful, has known no sickness from his infancy, and in his body the functions of life are healthy and strong. The other has been somewhat frail; he has started life handicapped by pain, suffering, and imperfect conditions of his body. He has, however, been compelled to take care of himself. He has been cautious in his diet, in his habits, and strong in his moral attitude to life. There is no question about which of the two the world would consider the fitter. The former may plunge into excesses, may feel contempt for human weakness, and be indifferent to moral rectitude. But he starts out with great physical powers. In time they are sure to be undermined. His life becomes sinful and his "children's teeth are on edge because the father hath eaten sour grapes." How shall human wisdom determine whiclr is the fitter of the two when the one that was handicapped at the beginning leads an exemplary life and makes good what he lacked at the beginning, and his children perhaps inherit the blessings of a correct living that has made him in the long race of life the more successful of the two? — Inheritance under the Rule. We take the ground that our birth is not our beginning. We come into the world with certain inheritances, and though we come into the world often poorly equipped, yet we come with a moral inheritance that puts us on the upward grade, and we may ascend by force of correct living in the physical scale of well-being. The whole matter, however, is so complex that it is difficult to say who are and who are not the fittest. 598 IMPROVEMENT ERA Rut the theory is bad from the fact that the word is taken to apply to our physical well-being, coupled with our intellectual attainments. These two parts of our natures are held up as the most important things in life. As a matter of fact, they are both highly dependent upon our moral natures. It may be that our intellectuality will persist for two or three generations in spite of weakened moral natures, but in the end morality must win over both the intellectual and the physical life of man. Bad Effect of the Theory. —The theory of the survival of the fittest is an effect as well as a cause. the effect of swollen pride, of the belief of It is certain classes of people in the world that the superior advantages which they enjoy are the result of their superior natures and greater abilities, whereas they may have been the result largely of environment. The theory is bad because it is applied chiefly to our physical lives, as though our physical well-being were the most momentous question of a man's conduct in the world. It is so easy to undermine our physical lives, to make them abortive and ruinous not only to ourselves, but to our posterity, that physical values are after all not so important as we too often imagine. A man may be physically fit today and physically ruined tomorrow, because behind him and about him there was no moral rectitude to support the physical advantages which he enjoyed. The theory is also bad because it permits men to drift; it robs them of that effort which men in their weakness feel that they must put forward. — The Battle of Life. "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to him that endureth to the end." Such is the teaching of our religion, which is striving constantly so to fortify man's moral nature as to make man a self-improved being. Such doctrine presupposes human weakness and the inclination of human beings to sinful lives. Such a religion aims to establish character in mind, something that will endure from one generation to another, something upon which posterity may build an enduring structure. The followers of Christ were frequently the blind, the lame, and the halt. He sarcastically reminds his critics that those who are well have no need of a physician. Those who had survived, as the fittest, might die in their own conceit. And what became of those pharisaical people in Christ's time who boasted of their superiority? They passed away, while the followers of Christ survived and brought down through their generations to us something of the character and quality of a Christian life. Which were the fittest? That is a question of divine judgment. Let us ask our descendants, our children and our children's children, and their children after them. We do not stand for ourselves so much as we stand for future generations. The Calling of the Saints.—The calling of the Latter-day Saints is that of a chosen people. Their important mission is not simply the physical advantages of a single generation; their mission is partly procreation, the duty to give to the world the best in physical manhood and womanhood, not simply something that shall survive. We are not trusting to our survival; we are planning for the triumph of that right living that shall give to our descendants a higher and better life than that which we possess. Survival is a bad conception of our place in the world. It is growth, progress, all in the direction of the fulfilment of a mission to be God's chosen people. XVIII— The New Education Crumbling of Our Old Educational Systems.-Will our modern system of education be also shot to pieces? While the great guns on the battlefields are tearing up the earth m the most terrible manner, the forces behind PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 599 them are at work everywhere in our social structure. Great wars make great changes, and there are ample evidences that new educational demands will soon be made upon all the nations of the earth. If changes come there must be a breaking up of our modern system. What is wrong with it will be revealed in the great emergencies that confront the world today. They are testing out the fortress of man for new responsibilities. We must think of education in the making and stability of man, and in his preparedness for the emergencies and rapid changes that are overtaking the world today. What have we found wanting in our present world demand for the high level of efficiency? First of all we are reminded that we are physically unfit. We must, according to present estimates, examine 2,500,000 men to raise an army of 500,000. It did not require a war to bring* home to us the fact that there has been for a long time a deterioration in our physical manhood. Not long since we had forced upon our notice that there was a great increase in the death of men along about the ages of from 45 to 50. It speaks of a race rapidly run. — Physical Side of Education. The city is gathering into its great maelstrom of vice an ever increasing percentage of youth who seek employment of a genial nature, employment as free from physical toil as possible. Vice, impure atmospheric conditions, and ease, are making great inroads into the physical powers of life. It is the business of education to give the proper direction to life. Our educators seem to think that if they give a young man a start he will keep on going. Do they help him to move along the road of his permanent well-being, or do they simply give him a vision of things that he may think about or talk about without doing them? Educators are forever focusing the eyes of the youth upon the pages of a book, till they not only force an ever increasing number to wear glasses, but actually force them more and more to see by the vision of others. Evils of Our Present System.— Not long since I picked up a so-called curricula of studies for our public schools. It contained thirteen subjects to be taught to children under fourteen years of age. What a lot of superficial dabblers our schools must turn out in an age of intensive application! If you object, you are told that the law makes it so. Who made the law? It was put through by our legislators. But who told our legislators it was what we really needed? A bill was deferentially put into their hands by some committee of school men. Who are these school men? They are those who have studied books during all the years of their youth, and in manhood went back to teach from the same books with which they had been educated. The people have grown to think that what our educators recommend must be for the best good of our children. It is just as if we started out to make all our children school teachers. Only a few become such, and the great masses of them are thrown out into the struggle of life after they had been fitted not for what they really have to do, but for the things they rarely think about after they leave the school room. If we further object, we are sagely counseled that the real mission of education is culture, an intellectual refinement. — Culture. Some years ago a number of young men knocked at the doors of Harvard University for admittance. They were duly referred to a dean who would pass upon their entrance. In assigning the young men to their work, one of them asked about some "cultural" subject. The dean was unsympathetic, and told them plainly what he thought of culture. He was a man of affairs who had been in active life and knew something of what men really needed in a partical world. To emphasize his point he related the following story of two farmers. "These men," said he, "had met one day at a partition fence between their farms to talk. One addressing the other, 600 IMPROVEMENT ERA asked John what culture was; 'these people going up to Arlington for a summer outing are always talking about culture. They say, he's cultured, she's cultured, and oh my, how I do love culture! What do they mean?' 'Well, you know what wheat culture and potato culture is, don't you?' came the prompt reply. 'If you take out the wheat and the potatoes, then you have culture.' The story had a very pronounced effect. Some effort has been made along the line of industrial training in recent years, but there has been a constant opposition to any suggestion that such a training should bear any relationship to a trade-school. In agricultural training, men fit themselves, more frequently for a position in private or governmental employment rather than for the farm, thus keeping theory and practice as far apart as possible. — A Suggestion. A change is certain to come. It would be hazardous to prophesy just what that change will be. It is not unlikely that at some future time we may witness a school something on the following plan: Let us imagine a school on a 10,000 acre tract of land divided into lots of from five to twenty acres each. These lots might be set apart for the growth of wheat, alfalfa, fruit, sugar beets and a variety of other farm and orchard products. In the center of the farm could be located administration and school buildings. About the farm could be located houses for the boys and barns for live stock. Here each boy, upon entering the school, would be assigned to a lot according to the class of industry preferred by him and his parents. Under a skilful teacher he would begin his work at the school farm in such a practical way as to make him master of the kind of work he had chosen. If he raised beets a certain share would be turned over to him as a remuneration, and the balance kept by the school for its support. During a number of successive years he would change from one lot to another and thus acquire special knowledge in fruit raising, animal industry, or farming. Certain hours of the day he might receive class instruction from seed time to harvest along the lines of his professional work. In winter the school room would be open to him where, during certain hours of the day, he would enjoy scholastic and manual training. Such a school might be confined to summer work and the boy return to his home for the regular school, provided always that manual training be a compulsory part of his education. His physical upkeep would thus be assured, and the artificial training in a gymnasium would be eliminated. — A Change Needed. Another reformation that is likely to come is the introduction of men of affairs into the preparation of our school curricula. They should not be left entirely to school teachers. Such a body of men might well act as a sifting committee in all work to be submitteed to the legislature, and to be adopted by school superintendents for the use of schools. We must educate into life, not away from it. Too much time is given to books and too little to the practical side of our natures. From the age of twelve, half the training should be on a school farm and only half the time in the school rooms. Life in action should be the aim of all our education. Our young people enter the public school at the age of six. At about fifteen they pass into the high school, and at about twenty into the university, where they remain till they are twenty-four. Then, if they want a professional training, they take four or five vears abroad. At thirty they take up the real work of life. They really begin life too late. The business or economic side of life has been wholly neglected. As they naturally become leaders of thought they are poorly equipped for the practical leadership of those whom they greatly influence. Our peculiar system of state education eliminates religious instruction which is after all the basis of moral force PROBLEMS OF THE AGE 601 Education is not simply a business that has to do with the intellectual side of life. To supplement our imperfect methods, the Latter-day Saints have introduced the religion class movement where children after regular school hours may receive instruction in religion and morals. There is a new awakening to the fact that our youth are deficient in spiritual insight. All the God-given attributes of man's life must be cultivated if he is to fulfil the law of his creation. It is further a fact that our schools are making dangerous inroad into the nervous energy of our young people. Whether nervous energy is lacking in them, or whether the call upon their energy is too great, the fact remains the same. Our educational system grinds all children alike through the same mill, because the system has become a machine that must work at a given speed. — Revelation of God to Joseph Smith. "That whoso having knowledge, have I not commanded to repent?" (Doc. and Cov. 29:49). It is devoutly to be wished that some of our educators having knowledge would repent. "And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come" (Doc. and Cov. 93:24). The words are put in italics by the writer to accent the value of the knowledge of things. We prattle too much about ideals that have little reality in them. The slogan of our educators is ambition for those intellectual refinements which relate more 10 the speculative side of life, than to the useful and practical. "And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedince than anothr he will have so much the advantage in the world to come" (Doc. and Cov. 130:19). We believe in the eternal value of things, a knowledge we may take with us to another world, a world in which we shall work, and not sit and fold our hands and sing forever. "Faith without works is dead," so is knowledge. To the Instructors and Members o/ the Melchizedek Priesthood Classes: Salt Lake City, Utah, March 30, 1918. Dear Brethren: — Having received information that some of the articles appearing in the Era, on Problems of the Age have provoked unprofitable discussion, and having learned, upon investigation, that the purposes of the articles have not been understood, and by some have been misconstrued, we deem it advisable to offer the following suggestions: In the first place, it should be distinctly stated that the essays are not intended to convey the doctrines of the Church. They are what the title purports them to be, viz., a presentation of some of the problems confronting the world today. The ideas conveyed regarding the nature of these problems are those of the writer, and are not authoritative, nor the acceptance or study of them in any way binding. The purpose of having the Priesthood classes read them was to have the members consider the solution of these questions as it is found in the revelations of the Lord, as contained in the standard books of the Church. If there be classes which object to studying the subjects set forth in these lessons, we suggest that instead of the essays the Doctrine and Covenants be made the text book. The truth to be emphasized is that obedience to the Gospel with strict 602 IMPROVEMENT ERA conformity to the requirements and regulations of the Church of Christ is the s lution of the difficulties and problems now vexing the nations. So, in considering these essays, in classes that use them, the problem should be merely stated and the time then occupied in considering its solution in the light of the revealed word. Let no construction or any statement be given in class that will create discord, or in the least degree be antago- nistic to the principles of the gospel or to the spirit of patriotism cherished by every true American, and especially by the Latter-day Saints. Sincerely your brethren, The General Committee on Courses of Study for the Priesthood. Rudger Clawson, Chairman. David A. Smith, Secretary. © Underwood & Underwood, New York ODESSA, GATEWAY OF VAST RUSSIAN STORES Great supply of wheat ready for export at Odessa, Russia Tnis the greatest of Black Sea ports, has been entered by the Germans Odessa long has been known as the "back door of Russia" and ir it t£ ui' port that the great volume of wheat from Southern Russia find -? g t* the world markets. The Teutonic army had liul 'dimcul«y iJ^kST way through Bessarabia towards Odessa, there i,°. being little or no ^position