n, addressing himself
to Martin with an assumption of politeness that the latter understood was
for the benefit of the ladies. Even this added to his anger. Was there
no honesty in the world?

"You can't discuss Spencer with me," he cried. "You do not know any more
about Spencer than do his own countrymen. But it is no fault of yours, I
grant. It is just a phase of the contemptible ignorance of the times. I
ran across a sample of it on my way here this evening. I was reading an
essay by Saleeby on Spencer. You should read it. It is accessible to
all men. You can buy it in any book-store or draw it from the public
library. You would feel ashamed of your paucity of abuse and ignorance
of that noble man compared with what Saleeby has collected on the
subject. It is a record of shame that would shame your shame."

"'The philosopher of the half-educated,' he was called by an academic
Philosopher who was not worthy to pollute the atmosphere he breathed. I
don't think you have read ten pages of Spencer, but there have been
critics, assumably more intelligent than you, who have read no more than
you of Spencer, who publicly challenged his followers to adduce one
single idea from all his writings--from Herbert Spencer's writings, the
man who has impressed the stamp of his genius over the whole field of
scientific research and modern thought; the father of psychology; the man
who revolutionized pedagogy, so that to-day the child of the French
peasant is taught the three R's according to principles laid down by him.
And the little gnats of men sting his memory when they get their very
bread and butter from the technical application of his ideas. What
little of worth resides in their brains is largely due to him. It is
certain that had he never lived, most of what is correct in their parrot-
learned knowledge would be absent."

"And yet a man like Principal Fairbanks of Oxford--a man who sits in an
even higher place than you, Judge Blount--has said that Spencer will be
dismissed by posterity as a poet and dreamer rather than a thinker.
Yappers and blatherskites, the whole brood of them! '"First Principles"
is not wholly destitute of a certain literary power,' said one of them.
And others of them have said that he was an industrious plodder rather
than an original thinker. Yappers and blatherskites! Yappers and
blatherskites!"

Martin ceased abruptly, in a dead silence. Everybody in Ruth's family
looked up to