changes which
were taking place. The Goulds, Stanfords, Vanderbilts, Floods, Carnegies
and Schwabs had all been lifted from the level of the masses to
financial grandeur before the eyes of the multitude, and democratic
ambitions drove parents who thought themselves in the line of financial
advancement to secure culture for their girls in time. If the daughter
was destined to live on Fifth Avenue, or to marry a duke, it was best to
get her ready while young. In all our industrial democracies, armies of
American parents have devoted themselves to labor, and even sacrificed
comforts and necessities, that the daughters might get ready to live
easier and fuller lives than the parents had known. If the choice had to
be made between the girl and her brother, the chivalry of the father and
the ambition of the mother very often gave the opportunity to the girl.

And so an emancipated army of leisure has been formed which has
transformed the very nature of the culture with which it has busied
itself. Books, periodicals, musical instruments, travel became cheaper
and cheaper as the demand increased. Wholesale production makes almost
any luxury accessible to every one. It is also possible to find modern
and agreeable forms for older academic exercises. If Greek and Latin
were too full or too difficult, courses in Romanic and Germanic
philology would do as well. Anglo-Saxon gave way to Old English; and
Chaucer to the Lake Poets. Philosophy struggled for favor with the
English novel on equal terms. The works of Raphael were photographed and
lithographed until the Sistine Madonna became as commonly known as the
face of any strenuous and popular statesman of the day. With the aid of
these art productions, and John Addington Symonds, every woman with
leisure became an art critic. If economics was not interesting,
sociology was available; and it could be democratized to any degree
desired. If travel was troublesome, one could leave it to Cook; buy a
ticket and he would do the rest.

If these awakening hungers and corresponding opportunities had affected
only the period of life formerly thought available for education, these
changes would have come about much more slowly than they have. But the
genetic conception of life, steadily popularized since 1870, has led us
to see that education is coterminous with life. It seems strange that we
should have ever thought that mental activity belongs alone to youth.
Dorland's study shows that in a