dge through books, periodicals, and the
newspaper press has made it possible to keep alive the spirit of
learning among the people and to assure that degree of intelligence
necessary for a self-governed people.

The freedom of the press is one of the cardinal principles of progress,
for it brings into fulness the fundamental fact of freedom of
discussion advocated by the early Greeks, which was the line of
demarcation between despotism and dogmatism and the freedom of the mind
and will. In common with all human institutions, its power has
sometimes been abused. But its defect cannot be remedied by repression
or by force, but by the elevation of the thought, judgment,
intelligence, and good-will of a people by an education which causes
them to {485} demand better things. The press in recent years has been
too susceptible to commercial dominance--a power, by the way, which has
seriously affected all of our institutions. Here, as in all other
phases of progress, wealth should be a means rather than an end of
civilization.

_Public Opinion_.--Universal education in school and out, freedom of
discussion, freedom of thought and will to do are necessary to social
progress. Public opinion is an expression of the combined judgments of
many minds working in conscious or unconscious co-operation. Laws,
government, standards of right action, and the type of social order are
dependent upon it. The attempt to form a League of Nations or a Court
of International Justice depends upon the support of an intelligent
public opinion. War cannot be ended by force of arms, for that makes
more war, but by the force of mutually acquired opinion of all nations
based on good-will. Every year in the United States there are examples
of the failure of the attempt to enforce laws which are not well
supported by public opinion. Such laws are made effective by a gradual
education of those for whom they are made to the standard expressed in
the laws, or they become obsolete.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. Show from observations in your own neighborhood the influence of
education on social progress.

2. Imperfections of public schools and the difficulties confronting
educators.

3. Should all children in the United States be compelled to attend the
public schools?

4. What part do newspapers and periodicals play in education?

5. Relation of education to public opinion.

6. Should people who cannot read and write be permitt