CHAPTER LXIV

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY [Sidenote: An Intimate Book] The old idea of an encyclopaedia as a remote book, distant from every-day needs and the real public questions of the day, and to be consulted only for information about ancient history and medieval philosophy, was a wrong one. It was wrong _in theory_, if an encyclopaedia is to be a live and valuable book. And it was wrong _in practice_. It is not the case with the new Britannica. For the Britannica is full of information about current public questions; and even its treatment of the past, remote or near, is from a fresh and modern view-point, and is of the utmost value as throwing the light of history on the problems of modern politics and every-day life. The spirit of to-day is an intensely wide-awake and inquisitive one, and people are no longer willing to believe that “whatever is, is right”—much less that a thing is right because it _has been_, no matter how long. Indeed the very phrase “has been” as now used in the vernacular implies the outworn, the discarded. The Britannica, a book for intimate use on the questions of the day, is a record _of what is_, as well as of what has been, and of the great changes, the constant flux, of the past and of the present. [Sidenote: Sociology] One of our symptoms of health is the development of a social sense, or, better, a social conscience. This is due in no small degree to the work of Herbert Spencer in founding a new science, called by him Sociology. For an inspiring and stimulating starting-point for the study in the Britannica of the great social and political questions of the day let the reader study the article SOCIOLOGY (Vol. 25, p. 322), by Benjamin Kidd, who wrote _Social Evolution_, and _Principles of Western Civilization_. [Sidenote: Education] Evolution, sociology, Spencerian psychology and the closer relation of the state to the individual are all important factors in the educational changes of the last few years; and their study is indispensable to a clear understanding of the great questions of education. A more concrete study may be based on the article EDUCATION (Vol. 8, p. 951) and particularly the part on education in the United States by Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University. An elaborate course of reading on education is given in another chapter of this Guide _For Teachers_. But it may be well to call attention here to the fact that there are in the articles on individual states sections on the educational system of each state; and in the separate articles on each city similar descriptions of schools in those cities; and also that either in the article on the city or town in which it is situated, or in a separate article there is an estimate, a description, and a historical sketch of each of the great universities and colleges of the country. This information is not merely of value if one wishes to understand in a general way the trend of education, but of particular interest to one who is choosing the school best adapted to a special need. In the same way there are articles on other great educational institutions—for example a general article on MUSEUMS OF SCIENCE (Vol. 19, p. 64) and one on LIBRARIES (Vol. 16, p. 545), as well as articles on such special institutions as the Smithsonian, or treatment of them in the article on the places where the institution is—as in the article on Washington for the Library of Congress, the article on New York City for the Metropolitan Museum, etc. [Sidenote: Defectives and Their Training] But government, particularly in America, besides taking a direct interest and responsibility in the education of its youth, has begun within the last few years to assume the task of uplifting those of its citizens who are below the normal. Modern methods of dealing with criminals and of caring for defectives and the insane are based on a principle entirely different from that which obtained 50, or even 20, years ago. The whole article _Insanity_ (Vol. 14, p. 597) might well be read as a preliminary to a study of this topic, since it treats of idiocy and imbecility as well as of the more violent forms of mental disorder, and since it treats them all as forms of disease—the basis of the modern method of treatment which has substituted the hospital and the school for the mere place of detention. In particular, however, the last part of this article dealing with _Hospital Treatment_ should be studied. It is by Dr. Frederick Peterson, the American specialist, and it describes the improved conditions of modern asylums. “Physical restraint is no longer practised.... The general progress of medical science in all directions has been manifested in the department of psychiatry by improved methods of treatment, in the way of sleep-producing and alleviating drugs, dietetics, physical culture, hydrotherapy and the like. There are few asylums now without pathological and clinical laboratories.... The colony scheme has been successfully adopted by the state of New York at the Craig Colony for Epileptics at Sonyea and elsewhere.... Many asylums have, as it were, thrown off detached cottages for the better care of certain patients.... But the ideal system is that of the psychopathic hospital and the colony for the insane.” It is with the “colony” plan that Dr. Peterson’s name is intimately connected, especially in New York state. In the Britannica article on New York state there is a full treatment (Vol. 19, p. 601) of the state’s charitable institutions, including its hospitals for the insane, the Craig Colony already mentioned, the Letchworth Village custodial asylum for epileptics and feeble-minded, and other institutions of the same kind. And in the same way the system in each state is described in the separate article on that state with special attention to the peculiar features in its administration of its hospitals and schools for insane and imbeciles. [Sidenote: The Blind] There has been a similar change in the education of the blind and the deaf—or rather education is now provided for these classes, whereas they formerly received none at all. And this education is coming under state control and, once under governmental supervision, is being transferred from departments in charge of penal or charitable institutions to the department of public schools. For the most striking instances of what has been accomplished by improved systems of training under private supervision see the articles on SAMUEL GRIDLEY HOWE (Vol. 13, p. 837), the great teacher of the blind at the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston; on his blind and deaf pupil, LAURA BRIDGMAN (Vol. 4, p. 559), and on HELEN ADAMS KELLER (Vol. 15, p. 718), another and even more remarkable blind and deaf student, whose education, coming as a product of a new sociology, has made her a most efficient social helper and social worker. From these articles the student should go to _Blindness_ (Vol. 4, p. 59), by Sir Francis J. Campbell, principal of the Royal Normal College for the Blind, Norwood, London; an article equivalent in length to 40 pages of this Guide. Its author, the founder of the college, is himself a blind man, who, born in Tennessee, in 1832, and educated at the Nashville school, and afterwards in music at Leipzig and Berlin, had from 1858 to 1869 been associated with Dr. Howe at the Perkins Institution, Boston, and was knighted in 1909 for his services to the education of the blind. The part of his article dealing with the education of the blind is, therefore, doubly valuable and interesting. The main topics with which it deals are: early training—other senses of the blind not _naturally_ sharper than those of the seeing, but developed by cultivation of hearing and touch from early childhood; physical training to increase the average of vitality; mental training; early manual training; choice of occupation; piano-forte tuning; musical training; deaf-mutes should not be educated with the blind as their needs are so different; blind boys and blind girls should not be taught together, as coeducation promotes intermarriage, which is a calamity. The remainder of the article deals with types and books for the blind, appliances for educational work, employment, and biographical matter, with a list of prominent blind people. See also, for literary men who were blind, the articles on JOHN MILTON, WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT, and PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. [Sidenote: The Deaf] DEAF AND DUMB (Vol. 7, p. 880) is by the Rev. Arnold Hill Payne, chaplain to the Oxford Diocesan Mission to the deaf and dumb, late normal fellow of the National Deaf Mute College, Washington, D. C., and author of many books on the subject. He points out the mistaken use of the word “dumb”—“In the case of the deaf and dumb, as these words are generally understood, dumbness is merely the result of ignorance in the use of the voice, this ignorance being due to deafness.” After discussing causes of deafness, the condition of the deaf in childhood, their natural language, which the contributor thinks is “sign” rather than purely oral, and their social status, he deals with education of the deaf, giving an elaborate historical account including the “oral” revival in Germany and the work in the United States of Dr. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet—see also the separate article on him and his two sons (Vol. 11, p. 416)—and of the National Deaf-Mute College at Washington, D. C. (on which see also the article WASHINGTON, D. C.). This interesting article closes with a section on the blind-deaf, telling the story of several remarkable cases in England less well-known and more recent than Laura Bridgman or Helen Keller. [Sidenote: Psychology] This chapter began with a reference to the article on SOCIOLOGY with the recommendation that it be used as a basis for the study of present-day problems. The reader will often have heard vague allusions to sociology, and his reading this article in the Britannica will certainly sharpen and define his own idea of the meaning and the value of the science. Has he not heard much oftener of psychology, and heard it mentioned as if it were some sort of magic spell to charm away many of the difficulties of our modern complex world? But has he a full comprehension of the meaning of psychology and of the knowledge newly gained in regard to the “psychology of the senses”? The corrective for any vagueness of ideas about psychology is best found in the article PSYCHOLOGY (Vol. 22, p. 547) by Professor James Ward, whose articles for the Britannica have been reprinted and used as text-books in schools and colleges all over the country. Put in a few words, the lesson of psychology is that the senses, sensations, thoughts and feelings, which, even when they are our own, we too often speak of as if they were things apart and independent, are subject to certain natural laws in much the same way as are the forces treated by the science of physics. The reader who would study the subject of psychology in the Britannica should make use of the analysis of many articles in the chapter in this Guide _For Teachers_. [Sidenote: Crime] As with general education, special education of defectives, state training of feeble-minded, and restraint of the insane, so with the state’s attitude toward the criminal there has been in recent years a great change which is still working toward full fruition, so that prison administration, children’s courts, delinquency, probation, etc., are live topics of interest. Just as the whole new science of sociology was based by Spencer on biology and on the Darwinian theory of evolution, so in this field of delinquency a “science” has been devised called criminology by its “inventor” Cesare Lombroso. The article LOMBROSO (Vol. 16, p. 936) in the Britannica criticizes his theories as showing “an exaggerated tendency to refer all mental facts to biological causes.” His theory of a criminal type points to a “practical reform ... a classification of offenders, so that the born criminal may receive a different kind of punishment from the offender who is tempted into crime.” The article CRIMINOLOGY (Vol. 7, p. 464), by Major Arthur Griffiths, Inspector of Prisons, should be read carefully. It lists the supposed criminal traits as follows: Various brain and cerebral anomalies; receding foreheads; massive jaws, prognathous chins; skulls without symmetry; ears long, large and projecting; noses rectilinear, wrinkles strongly marked, even in the young and in both sexes, hair abundant on the head, scanty on the cheeks and chin; eyes feline, fixed, cold, glassy, ferocious; bad repellent faces.... Other peculiarities are:—great width of the extended arms, extraordinary ape-like agility; left-handedness as well as ambi-dexterism; obtuse sense of smell, taste and sometimes of hearing, although the eyesight is superior to that of normal people.... So much for the anatomical and physiological peculiarities of the criminal. There remain the psychological or mental characteristics, so far as they have been observed. Moral insensibility is attributed to him, a dull conscience that never pricks and a general freedom from remorse. He is said to be generally lacking in intelligence, hence his stupidity, the want of proper precautions, both before and after an offence, which leads so often to his detection and capture. His vanity is strongly marked and shown in the pride taken in infamous achievements rather than personal appearance. Although Major Griffiths thinks that criminality is oftener due to environment than to congenital defects, he closes his article with this estimate of what has been accomplished by Lombroso and his followers: The criminologists have strengthened the hands of administrators, have emphasized the paramount importance of child-rescue and judicious direction of adults, have held the balance between penal methods, advocating the moralizing effect of open-air labour as opposed to prolonged isolation, and have insisted upon the desirability of indefinite detention for all who have obstinately determined to wage perpetual war against society by the persistent perpetration of crime. The article CRIME (Vol. 7, p. 447) is full of interesting statistics and facts. It tells us that “the growth of criminals is greatly stimulated where people are badly fed, morally and physically unhealthy, infected with any forms of disease and vice,” and after proving by the records of various countries that men everywhere are more addicted to crime than are women, ends with this statement: “It has been well said that women are less criminal according to the figures, because when a woman wants a crime committed she can generally find a man to do it for her.” Other important articles on the subject are DEPORTATION (Vol. 8, p. 56) and PRISON (Vol. 22, p. 361). For English prison reforms, see also the article on JOHN HOWARD and that on ELIZABETH FRY, with an outline of the growth in Pennsylvania and New York (Auburn and Sing Sing), of the method of solitary confinement and of its adoption in England, and of the development in New York (see also the article on ELMIRA for the work of Zebulon R. Brockway), and in Massachusetts (Concord), of distinct and different treatment for first offenders. [Sidenote: Children’s Courts] JUVENILE OFFENDERS (Vol. 15, p. 613) describes the work of Charles Dickens and others in England, the reform in Europe and in the United States; the philanthropic criminal code proposed by EDWARD LIVINGSTON (see the biographical article, Vol. 16, p. 811); the Randall’s Island House of Refuge, the Elmira (N. Y.) Reformatory, the reformatory for women at Sherborn, Massachusetts, and the George Junior Republic at Freeville, New York, and its offshoots—see also the separate article GEORGE JUNIOR REPUBLIC (Vol. 11, p. 749); and the Borstal scheme, a modification of the American state reformatory system adopted in England in 1902. CHILDREN’S COURTS (Vol. 6, p. 140) calls attention to the origin of these tribunals in the United States, in Massachusetts and Illinois, and their success in Chicago, Indianapolis, Denver and Washington, leading to their adoption in England; see also the article PROBATION (Vol. 22, p. 404) in general and, for particular and local methods, the articles on BIRMINGHAM (Vol. 3, p. 985), BOSTON (Vol. 4, p. 294), CHICAGO (Vol. 6, p. 124), COLORADO (Vol. 6, p. 722), EGYPT (Vol. 9, p. 29), ILLINOIS (Vol. 14, p. 308), and UTAH (Vol. 27, p. 818). The articles on individual states also contain detailed information about local penal institutions of all kinds. The reader should also study the articles POLICE (Vol. 21, p. 978), FINGER PRINTS (Vol. 10, p. 376), IDENTIFICATION (Vol. 14, p. 287), PUNISHMENT (Vol. 22, p. 653), CAPITAL PUNISHMENT (Vol. 5, p. 279), GUILLOTINE (Vol. 12, p. 694), HANGING (Vol. 12, p. 917), and ELECTROCUTION (Vol. 9, p. 210), the last by Professor Edward Anthony Spitzka, the American authority on the subject. In the article on Utah, already mentioned, the reader will find that “a person sentenced to death may choose one of two methods of execution—hanging or shooting.” [Sidenote: Alcohol] If a respectable citizen of a century ago could return to earth he could not fail to be greatly surprised at dinner, whether in a private home or in a hotel, to see how much less alcoholic beverages are used, how much lighter they are, and how much more common are other drinks. If he “returned” to certain parts of the United States he would find that he could get no alcohol except on a doctor’s prescription stating the reason why the patient needed it, and he would learn that such a prescription could be filled only once, and then only by a registered pharmacist of good character. No matter to what place he came back, he would find a constant interference with or supervision of the manufacture, sale and consumption of alcoholic liquors on the part of the government. He would probably wonder why the state should interfere with private and personal liberty in such matters. We have already pointed out that the state now _does_ interfere, and that this is one of the distinguishing marks of the government of the day. For information on this particular form of interference, its prevalence, its necessity, and its advisability, the student may confidently turn to the Britannica. The hygienic side of the question is outlined in the chapter of this Guide on _Health and Disease_. The social or sociological side claims our attention here. Read the article DRUNKENNESS (Vol. 8, p. 601), and for the relation between alcohol and mental disease, the section _Toxic Insanity_ (Vol. 14, p. 609) in the article on INSANITY already mentioned, and also NEUROPATHOLOGY (Vol. 19, p. 429); then the article INEBRIETY, LAW OF (Vol. 14, p. 409); that on LIQUOR LAWS (Vol. 16, p. 759), with a special section referring to the United States, which deals with local prohibition, state prohibition, public dispensaries, and taxation; and for a general and elaborate summary of the whole question the article TEMPERANCE (Vol. 26, p. 578) equivalent to about 50 pages of this Guide, by Dr. Arthur Shadwell, author of _Drink, Temperance and Legislation_. In the section on the _Use and Abuse of Alcohol_ Dr. Shadwell summarizes the results of modern scientific investigation of the abuse in its bearings upon crime, poverty, insanity, mortality, longevity, and heredity. In such articles as those on THEOBALD MATHEW (“Father Mathew”) (Vol. 17, p. 886), NEAL DOW (Vol. 8, p. 456), JOHN B. GOUGH (Vol. 12, p. 282), and FRANCES E. WILLARD (Vol. 28, p. 658) the reader will find biographies relating to the temperance movement; and in the separate articles on states there is information about state prohibition, local option, and the state dispensary system. [Sidenote: Heredity and Eugenics] Dr. Shadwell’s remarks on the relation of alcoholism to heredity may remind us that the very word “heredity” would seem strange to the typical man of a century ago, whose return to life we have imagined. We should be no more shocked by the occasional crudeness of his intimate and excited phraseology than he would be at our frankness in discussing even in mixed company such subjects as birth, reproduction, sexual morality, the social evil and the white slave trade. The growth of interest in these topics may be traced in part to Darwin, Huxley and Mendel, to what they did to make biology a science. Read in the Britannica the interesting story, in the article MENDELISM (Vol. 18, p. 115), of the investigations of Gregor Mendel, Abbot of Brünn, in his cloister garden, in crossing peas and classifying the inheritance of peculiarities. Then read the articles HEREDITY (Vol. 13, p. 530), by Prof. Chalmers Mitchell, and HYBRIDISM (Vol. 14, p. 26), by the same contributor, and turn to the articles EUGENICS (Vol. 9, p. 855) and SIR FRANCIS GALTON (Vol. 11, p. 427), for an account of the attempt to found a practical science to improve the breed of men. Especially within the last few years has the public conscience been aroused on the white slave traffic and prostitution, both in Great Britain and the United States, and particularly in the great cities, where this form of vice, if left under the jurisdiction of the police, gives rise to a singularly dangerous form of corruption and to the general disrepute of the defenders of public safety. The many important aspects of the subject, which need not be rehearsed here, are to be found in Dr. Shadwell’s article PROSTITUTION (Vol. 22, p. 457) and Dr. Edmund Owen’s article VENEREAL DISEASES (Vol. 27, p. 983). One of the remedies most commonly suggested for the evils of prostitution in general and of the white slave trade in particular is a minimum wage. Dr. Shadwell’s article on prostitution gives “excessively laborious and ill-paid work” as only one of many secondary causes for women’s taking to a life of evil repute. Indolence, love of excitement, dislike of restraint, and abnormal sexual appetite, he counts as primary causes; and among secondary causes he names the difficulty of finding employment; harsh treatment at home, promiscuous living among the overcrowded poor; overcrowding in factories; the example of luxury, self-indulgence and loose manners set by the wealthy; demoralizing literature and amusements; and the arts of profligate men. But the subject of wages is an important one in itself, and as an introduction to the study of the labour question, it may well be taken up here, even if the efficacy of minimum-wage laws, or of any legislation, in producing a higher sexual morality has been exaggerated. [Sidenote: Wages and Labour] Read the article WAGES (Vol. 28, p. 229, equivalent to 20 pages of this Guide), by Joseph Shield Nicholson, professor of political economy at Edinburgh University. The difficulty of an exact definition, and, specifically, of one that distinguishes between “wages” and “profits,” leads the author to adopt as the best the definition of Gen. Francis A. Walker, the American economist, “the reward of those who are employed in production with a view to the profit of their employers and are paid at stipulated rates.” The distinction between a nominal and real wage is based on the difference between the money value and the purchasing value of the wage as affected by variation in the cost of living. Irregularity of employment and other elements of uncertainty, such as liability to accident or to occupational diseases, are factors to be considered in estimating real wages. Professor Nicholson discusses the wage-fund theory, corrects it by Adam Smith’s observation that wages are paid from the product of labour; and treats “relative” wages, the state-regulation of wages (which he does not consider feasible); poor relief in aid of wages; factory legislation; trade unions; the effects of machinery on wages; and the progress of the working-classes. [Sidenote: Labour Legislation] The subject of factory legislation brings us back to the general topic of “state interference with private matters” as the old school of political scientists would have called it. Two treatises in the Britannica are important for the study of this subject—the general article LABOUR LEGISLATION (Vol. 16, p. 7), equivalent to 70 pages of this Guide, by Adelaide Mary Anderson, principal lady inspector of factories to the British Home Office, and Carroll D. Wright, late U. S. Commissioner of Labor; and the article EMPLOYERS’ LIABILITY AND WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION (Vol. 9, p. 356), which is of peculiar interest now that in the United States recent laws in regard to employers’ liability and workmen’s compensation have shown a change in legislative theory and practice. Statutes of this kind have been passed by the legislatures of several states where nothing of the sort would have been attempted a generation ago, although legislatures have always been readier than courts to approve radical laws, and have been far more readily influenced by popular sentiment. After their passage they have in some states been held unconstitutional, and in other states the highest court has recognized them as valid; the decisions perhaps depending to some extent on the attitude of the court toward the opposed claims of capital and labour. Here as elsewhere the student should remember that much information of a local character is to be found in the articles on different states of the Union. The article LABOR DAY (Vol. 16, p. 6) describes an official recognition of the claims of labour in the United States. [Sidenote: Organized Labour] On labour organizations and their work see the articles: TRADE UNIONS (Vol. 27, p. 140), and particularly the section _Economic Effects of Trade Unionism_, and the section on trade unions in the United States, by Carroll D. Wright, late U. S. Commissioner of Labor, who deals with such topics as railway brotherhoods, national unions, the “International,” Knights of Labor, American Railway Union, federations of labour, especially the American Federation of Labor, and estimated strength of trade unions. For the earlier history of trade unions or similar organizations see TRADE ORGANIZATION (Vol. 27, p. 135), GILDS (Vol. 12, p. 14), LIVERY COMPANIES (Vol. 16, p. 809), and APPRENTICESHIP (Vol. 2, p. 228). STRIKES AND LOCK OUTS, particularly the sections _Economic Effects_ (Vol. 25, p. 1028), _Important British Strikes and Lock Outs_ (p. 1029), and on strikes in the United States (p. 1033),—the last by Dr. Carroll D. Wright, who describes, among others, the Homestead strike of 1892, the Pullman strike of 1894, the steel strike of 1901, and the coal strike of 1902. For these and other strikes see the local articles on such storm-centres as Homestead, Pullman, Leadville, Cripple Creek, Chicago. See also BOYCOTT (Vol. 4, p. 353); and INJUNCTION (Vol. 14, p. 570), and, for a “classic” use of the injunction against boycott, the article on WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT (Vol. 26, p. 354); ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION (Vol. 2, p. 331) for attempts by the state to regulate the relations of capital and labour at variance. Related topics which have not been analyzed here will be found in the articles UNEMPLOYMENT (Vol. 27, p. 578), LABOUR EXCHANGE (Vol. 16, p. 7), and VAGRANCY (Vol. 27, p. 837). [Sidenote: Immigration] Closely connected with the American labour problems, since growing American industries demand a supply of workmen that cannot be filled by natural increase in the population, is the question of immigration. The article MIGRATION (Vol. 18, p. 427) is divided into two parts, the second dealing with migration in zoology. The first section, dealing with emigration and immigration and internal migration of populations, is for the most part by Richmond Mayo-Smith, late professor of political economy and social science in Columbia University, New York City. It is appropriate that the subject should be treated by an American and with special attention to the United States, since this country owes its origin to an immigration three centuries ago; as the presence of many recent immigrants puts a strain on our powers of assimilation and gives rise to other serious problems; and as internal migrations are markedly affecting social conditions. In a preliminary historical sketch the author deals with: prehistoric migrations in search of booty, through the desire of the stronger to take possession of the lands of the weaker, or by pressure of population on the food supply; Greek and Roman colonization; the German conquest; minor migratory movements such as the