Excerpt from Vocational Education in Europe, 1914: Report to the Commercial Club of Chicago
The superiority of the civilization of today to that of the Middle Ages is not due to any superiority of modern brains to medieval brains. There is no reason to think that there has been the slightest increase in brain power.
The improvement is due solely to improved means of transmitting knowledge, ideals, and methods of thinking and working. Recent centuries have seen a tremendous increase in the number and effectiveness of these means.
This improvement in methods accounts both for the singular achievements of individuals in particular lines of thought and work, and for the immensely larger proportion of the community which now shares in the best thought and the most effective methods of our time.
But these advantages are or should be the inheritance of the whole human race. In point of fact they belong at present to the very few who can afford to take all the education provided by our public school system. While it is impossible for all the members of any society to utilize to the same degree this common fund of education, on the other hand no society can be sound to the core unless all its members have access to the means of self-development long enough to enable them to take what they need to make them efficient and useful citizens. When the great majority of a nation consists of untrained, inefficient, dissatisfied workmen, it is time for that nation to look for the remedy.
This fact has long been recognized by those nations that make provision for the compulsory education of all children up to the age of fourteen.
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