Report of the Annual Lake Mohonk Conference on the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908. Excerpt: ... And just here we find the lesson that white men are learning for their own education from their efforts to educate dependent races. For it is astonishingly clear that these dark men ought to have an education that will grapple directly with such evils as have been mentioned. Our traditional education does not grapple directly with daily needs, but approaches them by a long and roundabout course. The education of the schools has been mainly an education for the higher life. It has prepared only indirectly and remotely for every-day life. The conspicuous need of an education for every-day life in the training of dependent peoples brings out sharply the need of training for everyday life in the education of any people. Education, to be sure, must concern itself with the higher life. Unless it does that it does not amount to much for any purpose. But what is needed is that the education for the higher life shall be securely hooked up and dovetailed in with an equally good education for everyday life. The higher will then give life to the lower, and the lower will furnish a point of contact for the higher. It is those who are dealing with dependent peoples and backward individuals who are really getting the first firm grasp upon this problem. It is well that they should understand that their successes will count not only for the benefit of the people with whom they are dealing, but for the benefit also of those people that pride themselves on their civilization and their zeal for the uplift of those less favored. The problems, accordingly, with which this Conference is concerned are problems of peculiar interest for the educational world and for the whole educational world. Without further preface we will now turn to the discussions which are to deal with thes...