PHILOSOPHICAL MUSINGS.                  453

"The size and power of the digestive organs are not
measures of worth and greatness, however necessary they
are to existence. If so the anaconda would shine resplend-
ent in the fanes of terrestrial glory. To produce thought,
not meat and bread, to form character, not accumulate
riches, should be the aim of our educational system. "All
men as brothers were better than gold." Until you get a
man to thinking right any other help rendered him is bound
to be temporary and inefficient. Mental and spiritual de-
velopment alone elevate individuals and make nations great.
Mechanical and industrial skill is valuable only as a sustainer
of mentality, which is the real race-power that makes for
ethnic respectability.  Though essential to race-power, in-
dustrialism is not that power. The fertilizer is necessary
to the soil but is not the crop which the soil is expected to
produce.   China is an awful example of the inability of
"manual training," industrial education or any mere physi-
cal power, whatever, to give ethnic force. Great physical
strength, numerical preponderance, unsurpassed mechanical
dexterity, (Chinamen make anything from a needle to a bat-
tleship), advantageous geographical position, inexhaustible
natural resources, immense chronological priority, all com-
bined are not sufficient to prevent that unfortunate country
from being the plaything and spoil of nations. Why? The
Chinaman persists in looking to the spirits of his ancestors
for guidance, instead of regulating his conduct by the un-
controllable laws of nature.
  But look at Japan! what a transformation between the
appearance of Perry's fleet before Tokio, and Togo's fleet
before Port Arthur! What was the difference between the
people who feared the one and those who breathlessly
awaited news from the other? Progress, we call it; and
marvel at so much progress in so little space of time. When
we get at the bottom of it there is nothing marvelous about
it but its rarity. Japanese thinkers saw they were wrong
and faced about.   The people followed; and hence that




			

OHS/National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center Serial Collection

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 1

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  01
Date:  07/1911