The Educational Problems and Responsibilities of the Empire

Mr. President and Gentlemen,--No words that I could possibly use could express the happiness and pleasure that it always gives me to come back to this city where I spent some of the most strenuous and most interesting years of my life, and to see the faces of old friends, and to hope that the new faces which I see have the same cordial welcome for me that the old have.

A thousand things rush back upon one's recollection when he comes back to a place where his life and those of his family have been spent so long, but of course in a gathering like this where time is extremely limited one must not dwell upon that at all.

The subject upon which I am going to speak to you is not one of my own choice, but one suggested to me by the authorities of your Club. In accepting the invitation I knew perfectly well that in the limit of an afterluncheon speech it was absolutely impossible to deal in anything like detail with the vast question which was placed before me.

The very most I can hope to do is to pick out a few of the salient points of the question and try to give them to you for consideration in the light of experience which I have gained in travelling over almost every part of the Empire and in the light also of such reflection as I have been able to give in the course of a life which has been chiefly devoted to educational ideas and educational ideals.

In the first place I want to say one word in regard to the title of this educational subject. You all know that in almost every walk of public life we are now compelled to think in terms of the Empire. (Hear, bear) his is true, as you know, in political relations; it is true in naval and military questions; it is true in trade and commerce; it is true in all the great questions of religious and social organization. On every one of these great questions during the last few years we have found consultation between representatives from every part of the Empire to be necessary; and, as things now stand, to weigh these questions adequately without consultation or without comparing experience is not merely impossible, but would be the very height of national foolishness. This is just as true in regard to educational matters as in regard to anything else.

Last summer we had in London a great Congress of Universities of the Empire. In a paper which I read before that Congress, I pointed out that the fifty-four Universities of the Empire which were represented there were responsible for the higher educational interests of countries which covered four fifths of the area of the world and nearly one fifth of its population. What did this mean? It meant that in University life, just as in political life, our British people are gaining the most wonderful range of experience that any nation has ever known in the whole range of human history. They are getting this experience on the political side in every form of administration, sometimes in the freest democracies that exist and again in methods of government which involve paternal despotism. So in educational matters we are having experience under almost every condition. We have experience with the ancient Universities of the old world, which have hundreds of years of tradition behind them. We have the new Universities of the newly settled continents, dealing with different problems in Canada, in South Africa, in Australia, or New Zealand. We are dealing with the question of giving some degree of university education to the immense body of other races over whom the circumstances of history have given us control. Now what I pointed out to that great Congress of Universities was this, that it would be absolute folly for a nation like ours not to compare our experiences in different parts of the world, and see where some were failing and others succeeding, what methods were the best, and which inadequate, and in that way try to combine our experiences for the advantage of the whole. You would be surprised to know how this interchange of experience acts over the world even at the present time. I happen, from my peculiar position, to have an opportunity to see it as not many can. A friend of mine is just now engaged in organizing a University in Western Australia, while an old pupil of mine is doing the same thing out in Saskatchewan for a prospective population of perhaps five millions of people. I am as a go-between giving my friend in West Australia the results that my friend in North-west Canada is achieving in carrying out his scheme. This same thing is going on in many parts of the world. As a result of the discussion in the Congress, the Universities resolved to form a central bureau for the collection and distribution of all ideas with regard to University education, to arrange for the easy transfer of students from one University in the Empire to another, for exchange of professors, and for a wide comparison of University experience by recurring conferences. No other nation in the world has ever had such an opportunity as that.

The same thing I believe ought to be applied to the whole educational methods of our Empire. I wonder if we ever try to concentrate into some brief formulae what the essential aims of education are. What are the main objects we must keep in view? I should say perhaps this could be put under two or three heads in a broad way. I think we may say that to maintain a high standard of morality in all the relations of public, commercial, and social life is one of the main objects of education. In the next place, undoubtedly another object of education is to increase the efficiency of the individual citizen for whatever work he has to do, and to deepen his sense of public duty and responsibility for unselfish service to the whole community. In the third place; I am inclined to say that the object of our national education should be to increase the happiness and welfare of the individual citizen, and of the whole community to which we belong. Now, if you take that view, you will see w-hat a weight of responsibility lies upon the shoulders of those who have to think upon educational questions, and carry out educational systems. And, as in many other things, that sense of responsibility must rest on the shoulders of the man of British race more heavily than upon any other people or any other race in the world. Why do I say that? Let me state the main lines of this responsibility. First, the responsibility of the Mother Land; next, the responsibility of the great selfgoverning Colonies to which the people of the Mother Land go; and next, the responsibility which both Mother Land and Colonies owe to those three hundred and fifty millions of the weaker races that, in the course of our history, have been placed under our control and who look to us for development, wise government, justice, and whatever else makes for their highest good.

First let me speak about the responsibility of the Mother Land. Very often in England I am asked to speak upon the educational, political, or religious relations of the different parts of the Empire. Now, I never do, this in England without being impressed in almost an overwhelming way with the burden of responsibility towards the rest of the world that lies upon the people of the United Kingdom. Do you ever think what it means? Here is a nation inhabiting but a small country that is every year sending out three hundred thousand people or more into every corner of the world. To do what? To sow the seed of Nations. Every man of them that goes out is going to help establish the moral, the religious, the social, the political standards of the countries to which they go. Three hundred thousand a year. Never has there been anything like this in the world. To sow the seed of Nations! I say to my English audience, "What does that mean?" I got hold of an illustration the other day which I have used in addressing an English audience, one of a very ,penetrating kind. I live up near Reading, on the Thames, where some of the great seed-growers have their business. "Do you ever," I said, "notice what these great seed-growers put as the first line in their advertisements: 'All seeds tested before they are sent out.'" Imagine the responsibility of a,nation that above all others of the world is sowing the seed of new nations on new continents. There is yet another aspect of the matter. That same nation has to maintain in India 150,000 people, of whom 75,000 are soldiers and 75,000 civilians. These soldiers and civilians are among three hundred millions, and every man of them has to stand for English civilization and English christianity. Where do they come from? Out of the little English villages, out of the slums of the English cities and the crowded centres of industry in England. Again, in every port English ships form perhaps seventy-five percent of all there are. England has 250,000 sailors going to every port in the world, and there they too have to stand for the civilization and the christianity of England. I have said to English audiences, that if there is anything in the world that gives dignity to the work of the poorest schoolmaster or humblest clergyman in this country of England, it is the possibility that the boys who have received their training under him may some day be standing in the remotest parts of the Empire to represent what the nation stands for. I do not think I ever felt more deeply on any subject than on this when I have tried to impress upon English people the wonderful range of opportunity given to them to fulfill high responsibilities and obligations in this way. If anything should inspire them to new activity and new effort it is that thought.

But there is another side to the question. Let me give you an illustration. I was in Boston last week. I was told by an educational man there with whom I was talking that today in that old representative blew England State more than seventy percent of the population were foreign born, or the sons of foreign born. That was the old Puritan State of Massachusetts. That experience is being repeated in many parts of the United States, and while I almost stand aghast at the vast burden that is being put on our British Empire by having to deal with three or four hundred millions of other races in different parts of the world, I don't know but what, if I were an American citizen, I would be still more staggered with the problem of having to assimilate a million a year of the people that pour especially from the great Mediterranean and other regions-Poles, Bulgarians, Greeks, Italians, and other countries of Europe. Now, we in Canada and in the Colonies are to a degree face to face with a problem somewhat of the same kind. In the future we shall have to assimilate not only the tested or untested seeds that come to us from Great Britain, but also vast numbers of people untrained to political self-government, untrained to our ideas of social and religious life, and who have to be brought in some way up to the standard of those political, commercial, and religious conceptions which have made our race what it is, have given it its influence and strength in the world, and on which the future of our nation and of our race depends. That again, is a responsibility which is as great, it seems to me, as that almost of the Mother Land. It has hurt me lately when I have been travelling through the West where large populations of foreigners have gone in, to find in contested elections that the first introduction of the immigrant to the ideals of British Government comes sometimes through the temptation to sell his vote. At any rate this is true if what one sees in the leading papers of the country are true. Few countries in the world have had such an opportunity of setting a high example as Canada has in that particular.

I have been travelling lately through many parts of the United States. An anxious people are those of the United States today. They find that the methods of government which they have relied upon and which have served their purposes in the past are breaking down under the weight of pressure put upon them. They are looking with interest to our British countries to see what we are doing and how we accomplish our purposes. Two years ago four of the great Universities in the west asked me to give a course of lectures to their political students on the management of our great British Empire. They were anxious to find out how the British people were working out the problems of self-government, and how it was they secured effect for the will of the people so much more easily than is done in the United States. I do not hesitate to say that if Canada could give, on this Continent, an example of uncorrupt selfgovernment it would have a more profound effect on our American neighbours than any other influence that could be brought to bear upon them. They admire already our judicial system, but we want to add to that a political purity which would make every individual citizen of Canada feel that to sell his vote was to sell his soul. If we can have that, Canada with her increasing millions of people will have an immense moral influence on this Continent. What is the responsibility, then, that comes under my second division, that of these great Dominions? It is that we must make the most of the great institutions we have inherited from the Mother Land. We must not let them degenerate, we must show them at their best, and show that we are resolved to make our political system as pure as possible. That will lift up these people who come to us to the highest idea of political and public life they can have. The same is true of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and other Colonies.

Now let me turn aside to the other vast problem, which is thrust upon one as he travels around the Empire. We are responsible-our British peoples-for millions of the weaker races. It is no use for Canadians to think that off in this section of the world we can shirk the responsibility of the race. We are, on the Pacific, coming already face to face with these hundreds of millions of Asia; we are going to be in touch with them; we are just as much involved in their future as people in the British Isles. If we try to shirk our responsibilities, we are unworthy of the race from which we are sprung or the blood that flows within us. (Applause)

Let me give you an illustration of how we are responsible for these hundreds of millions of the weaker races of the world. Two years ago I had to go and practically circumnavigate the continent of Africa. I went down the east coast, got into Rhodesia, went down through the centre of the country, and then came back on the west side, and as I did so I watched the map of that country. Up the Nile a railway is being built up to Khartoum and beyond it. On the east coast the railway is being driven right into the heart of the Continent; from the Cape it extends nearly 2,000 miles, and in various other directions the country is being opened up. What does that mean? It means that our English people in their eagerness for commerce and money-making are driving their way right into the heart of some scores of millions of the black races of the world, races which hitherto have only known the presence of men they respected, missionaries and administrators who had a deep sense of responsibility; but now make acquaintance with the greedy trader and drunken navy or miner? Do you think we can shirk our responsibility to those millions of people there? Not a bit of it! I have told people in England that a man ought not to be allowed to go to South Africa unless he is a man of strong moral purpose. Go to Johannesburg and you will find in the mines about two hundred thousand natives drawn from all parts of Africa to pick up the vices of our race and then to be thrown back among their own people.

Look at this problem from the educational side. You know the trouble with the negro is that he wants an idle life, wants to work just as little as he can; he does not want, at least in his native state, to do a thing more than he can possibly help. I merely mention this as an illustration of the kind of educational problem we meet there. I was in South Africa a while ago and I went to Lovedale, where there is the great institution which some of you have heard of, where they have several hundreds of coloured young men and women drawn from the very heart of Africa. There were among them the children of many of the great chiefs. After I had looked around the place all day, the principal with whom I was staying asked me if I would mind addressing them. I don't think I ever felt more perplexed in my life than when I went to address these men. The hall was packed with several hundreds of these black faces looking up at me, absolutely impassive but with open ears and eyes to hear what I had to say. I took the Gospel of Work for my text. I said: "You have come here to get our civilization and you see sowing-machines, reaping machines, steamboats, railways, and engines. Every one of these things represents not only men who got up early in the morning and worked until late at night during their lives, but this work has gone on for generation after generation, and every one of these products of civilization is the result of generations of people who took everything out of themselves to produce these things. I know of no other way in which you can get it; it is by working morning, noon, and night." (Laughter) I went away not knowing at all whether I had even reached their thoughts, but six months later one of the professors from Lovedale stepped into my office in London, and the first remark he made to me was, "Dr. Parkin, we got more manual labour out of our fellows at Lovedale the first fortnight after you were there than we ever got before."

That is an illustration of the kind of thing we have to deal with. The problem in South Africa is infinitely greater than that of India. In India you have ancient religions that fill the people's mind, ancient industries that keep them busy, and you have their literature; but in South Africa you have many millions of people whom we have known for two or three hundred years, not one of whom ever wrote a book, invented a machine; or did anything that pointed in the way of civilization, and we are making ourselves responsible for them. It is an immense and difficult task.

Now, let me say that we have got to turn on these problems the strength of our race, and I ask you people in Canada to think upon these great questions. One thing has struck me much in a trip which I have just made from Halifax to Vancouver. I have been in the railway trains, in the hotels, and elsewhere, meeting a wide range of people, but it is quite extraordinary how seldom, in the western part of this Continent, at the present time you meet with any one who talks of anything but dollars. It is striking and it is ominous. I don't hesitate to say it is ominous for our young people to grow up in an atmosphere where the dollar reigns supreme. But there are redeeming features even in what people have come to characterize as a materialistic age. It is that, but I find consolations in it. Have you noticed that the men who have piled up their millions, when they come to spend them, get the assistance of those who never knew how to put together ten thousand dollars? Mr. Rockefeller with his oil, Mr. Carnegie with his steel, and Mr. Rhodes with his diamonds, and many others, have done this. They never hand their money over to other millionaires to manage. Mr. Carnegie has given my friend Dr. Pritchett many millions of dollars to handle as a pension fund, and with that fund he is working out a marked development in the colleges and universities of the United States. He has handed over other millions to another comparatively poor friend to spend on Scottish education. Mr. Stanford handed over thirty millions of dollars to another educational friend for his great institution in California and left him with a free hand to spend it as he thought best for the cause of education. What I say is this: that the only thing money is worth working for is when it is going to be used for some high end. You remember what Mr. Rhodes said to General Gordon. General Gordon wanted him to join him in managing the Soudan. Rhodes said, "No, I am going to stay here and make money." "Why," said Gordon? "Well," said Rhodes, "what is the use of having big ideas without you have money to work them out?"

I have had to speak within the last year or two to many thousands of American students. I have said to them: "By all means work for money; put all your energies into it, make all you can, but be sure you have the big idea to start with."

The conclusion I have come to in passing from one end of Canada to another is that no young country in the world ever had before it a greater opportunity or a grander future than this country has. I believe that it is due partly to the races which we started with, partly with conditions of nature; our stern climate is going to squeeze out the unfit and keep them away; it is going to bring to us the hardy races of the north. We should inherit the virtues and characteristics of the best races of the world. The opportunity is immense, and you will only make the most of it by facing also the great educational, moral, philanthropic, and social problems of the world; taking your part in the great duties of the world; not selling your souls entirely for the dollar; but if you make the dollar, resolve every dollar shall be worked for all it is worth to make Canada better and greater in the higher sense.

Let me apply that to the whole of the Empire. I have studied the Empire in a great many directions. I have had occasion to speak in most parts of it on its educational, commercial, political, and other problems, and I have come to this conclusion, that while questions of political reform, of naval and military defence, of finance, of tariff, of trade and commerce and communications must play a very important part in the development and consolidation of the British Empire, that there is something higher still that will prove a greater cement than any of these, and that is the acceptance by our British people of the high place that God seems to have intended they shall play in the world, that they shall acknowledge the educational and moral responsibilities laid upon them. If we can get the great Mother Land, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the other Colonies all united in a strong resolve that the responsibilities of the Empire shall be fully met and that we shall deal conscientiously with the great social, religious, and political problems of this vast mass of people given once to our care; if we train our people to public service and make them willing to give their lives in that service, not merely on the battlefield, but their lives and their life's effort, give their unselfish effort for the highest good of the communities in which they live,-if we can get our people to do that, the future of this British Empire may be infinitely greater than the thousand years of glorious history it has had in the past. (Prolonged applause)