LAST GRADUATES MAGAZINE DISCUSSES MOOTED PROBLEMS

In these days of constantly shifting opinion, when the one thing our statesmen, politicians, and publicists seem certain of is that they cannot tell what the morrow will bring forth when we turn in vain to our journals of considered comment for any solution of the welter about us, it is with something of relief that we pick up a magazine which may be fairly taken to represent the opinions of such a body of citizens as the graduates of Harvard University. Surely here, if anywhere, we may expect to find sanity and an enlightened conservatism. And we are not disappointed.

Directly or indirectly the articles in the March number of the Harvard Graduate's Magazine touch on most of the disputed problems of the moment. As regards education itself we learn with growing hopefulness for the future that the prophesied revolution in the colleges shows no signs of materializing. Although the returning men recognize the enhanced value the war has placed on technical education, they acknowledge that the most important aim of education is, as President Lowell has said, to turn out men who by "their adaptability and resourcefulness," can adjust themselves to whatever conditions the future may bring forth: to prepare natural leaders not technical experts. Linked with the recognition of the value of general education should be the university editors' sane protest against those who would deny to Harvard teachers that freedom to form and express their own opinions which has been one of the more cherished rights of English and American tradition. Advancement of society in the past has been wrought by its critics not by its admirers. It is essential, particularly in this time of readjustment, that our universities shall fully recognize this fact. Some compromise between warring classes and ideas can only be reached by the fullest discussion of their rival claims.

The problems of capital and labor are dealt with in three short articles: "The New Industrial Era--Federal vs. Private Control of Business"; "Democracy and Capital"; Radical Reforms and the Laboring-man's Liberties." In the first is treated the control of monopoly in a democratic state; in the second, the value of capital and labor to the state and to each other; in the third, possible methods of ameliorating the lot of the poor classes,--surely three of the most pressing questions in our industrial life. Unlike most treatments of these topics, the opinions advanced are based on carefully thought out analyses of all sides of the question, they are controlled by sanity of judgment and freedom from pet theories or that delight in monkeying with things so rampant today, and in each case they not only point out the difficulties but suggest solutions of these difficulties. Is there not in these judgments the ring of sound judicial opinion?

"The remedy" for the deep rooted antagonism of capital and labor "lies not in the destruction of capital, which is vital to our existence and beneficent in proportion to its abundance, but in taking out of the hands of a small class the duty of providing it, in recognizing its fundamental importance, and in having the community itself, and every man in it; according to his ability, provide the capital necessary to our life and well-being." Then "every man would be a capitalist and the war of class against class would disappear."

"True reform will never be effected by law and force, but only by education healthy public sentiment, and moral suasion. We can no more establish by law ideal relations between capital and labor than between husband and wife or between parent and child. All we can do by law is to keep the peace, protect private property, personal liberty and freedom of contract; and punish pal- pable breaches of obligations which freemen have 'voluntarily assumed."

In the philosophical and ethical field we have Mr. Mercier's able review of Professor Babbitt's new humanism--"A Renaissance of the Law for Man"--as the governing principle of life in place of a sentimental romanticism or the equally sentimental naturalism. The easy road of laudatory self-indulgence is no longer to be justified by an appeal to nature as the final law. Reason is again to assert its kingship in the domain of life; man is to turn from "the anarchistic ideal of unchecked self-expression to the practice of the disciplines which humanize the individual and make him socially and righteously efficient." To the aid of a "positive and ethical humanism" is to be brought a "positive and critical religion," for "humanism cannot get along without religion, because, as Burke pointed out, the whole ethical life of man has its root in humility.

Finally, as an example of useful citizenship, we have portrayed in an admirable sketch and poem the life of that "high minded gentleman" and benefactor of Harvard University, Henry Lee Higginson.

"He was so rich in all by which men live,

So free from all that makes men base and mean;

He ever sought the best each had to give,

Touching the chord which springs from the unseen.

* * * *

Onward from youth the beacon of his years

Was more impassioned service for mankind."

If only more of those who are so busily engaged in reconstructing the world would bring to their task this spirit of service, the intellectual humility and sanity of the new humanism, an open minded but well informed liberalism in dealing with individual problems, and due recognition of the value of tradition in education, we could look to the future with more confidence and hope