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DUCATE only the fit,” says Dr. Nicholas
Murray Butler, president of Columbia Uni
versity, and college presidents all over the
country echo his sentiments. They reason
E
from a standpoint of economics that it is a waste
of time, effort and money to put the facilities of
the colleges at the disposal of the physically weak.—
The New York American.”
Staggering verbal blows often fall from the lips
of intellectual giants just as terrific physical blows
come from the fists of pugilists. The assertion.on
education, quoted above and taken from a recent
issue of the New York American, is less staggering
or startling, probably, because of its source, as it
seems that this particular university is manned by
a crowd of learned professors who make a specialty
of getting into the limelight.
“Educate only the fit.” That statement must
stand upon the strength of its own merits. But the
concomitant thought is, Who are the unfit? Edu
cation is the art of developing the intellectual and
moral faculties of man. Therefore, if education is
mental development he who is “unfit” is he whose
mind is not capable of being developed. Thus the
“unfit” are the idiots, imbeciles and feeble-minded,
and not those who through misfortune have been
deprived Os physical perfection. On the other hand,
if one should say that a certain person was fit for
an athlete he would mean that the person was
particularly fit on account of his physical strength.
A “weakling” is an “unfit” in athletic circles.
But why should one who occupies such an im
portant and influential position make such an asser
tion as might lead many thoughtless and uninform
ed people to believe it a waste of time, effort and
money to put the facilities of the colleges at the
disposal of the physically weak but mentally strong,
when the world knows that this col’ege president
is cognizant of the fact that in the last analysis
human history resolves itself into a history of the
human brain and that everything that has really
happened first happened in the brain and, that
whenever brute force proves itself undeniably val
uable, as in war or in great engineering undertak
ings, it is because of the creating, watching, direct
ing brain?
When one admits the prime importance of the
human brain in the affairs of the world, one must
again admit the often mysterious choice of nature
in its selection of a house for the brain. For. in
fact, much of the dynamic greatness that has
brought man to his present state of being has been
domiciled in bodies very frail and according to Dr.
Butler, “unfit.”
Just casualty glance over the field of human ad
vancement and there will loom up before the his
toric eye manifold proof that the brain often seems
to develop and make good in the most ramshackle
sort of habitat and that it only requires a physical
apparatus that will merely hold together. There
is no great necessity to search diligently the pages
of history to find that some of the greatest con
tributions to the world came from those whom Dr.
Butler would have judged “unfit” and not deserv
ing of an education because of their physical “un
fitness.”
A very great sufferer himself. Shelley gave to
the world this excellent explanation:
“Most wretched men are cradled into poetry by
wrong:
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.”
He may not have meant altogether physical suf
fering, but there is no mistaking Darwin, who gave
the thinkers of the world a stimulus such as was
uncommon when he said, “If I had not been so great
an invalid, I should not have done so much work.”
The single-word answer that Reboul gave Dumas
who asked why he was a poet, was, “Suffering!”
Os the hundreds of “unfit” immortals, Dr. Butler,
think of Gibbon, the historian, Beethoven, Moliere,
WHO ARE THE UNFIT?
By Joe F. Sullivan, author of “The Unheard Cry,” Heber Springs, Ark.
THE GOLDEN AGE
Calvin, Carlyle, Ruskin, who said: “God gives us
always strength enough and sense enough to do
what He wants us to do,” Alexander Stephens, By
ron, Scott, Disciple Paul and Robert Louis Steven
son all physically “unfit” yet every one made the
world richer because of the stimulus afforded their
mental efforts by their “unfitness.” Their philoso
phy, their songs, their poetry, their literature, their
music, their religion, you teach in your college, Dr.
Butler, although you would not be willing to throw
open the doors of the same to other “unfits” whom
God has probably destined to succeed those that
have long since gone on.
No doubt, Dr. Butler, you would have judged
"unfit” the body that housed possibly the greatest
brain in human history had you seen Socrates
rambling and shuffling clumsily about the streets of
Athens in search of persons who would talk about
the deep things of life, for does not the historian
describe him in these words: “His presence was
mean and his countenance grotesque; short of
stature, thick-necked, somewhat corpulent, coarse
lipped, he seemed the embodiment of stupidity and
sensuality.’ Also another “unfit” subject may be
found in the unsightly, stammering Demosthenes,
who, through humiliation at his own affliction hid
himseit tor weeks in a cave near the sea and with
mouth filled with gravel endeavored to overcome
his deplorable stammering, which he finally did and
thereby laid up for himself a crown of immortality.
It would seem that the philosophers of the wor.d
have among their ranks a few renown “unfit.”
Over-shadowing their respective periods like two
mighty towers in the plains, are Voltaire and Kant.
Their history is their names. Never has such dyna
mic minds been so poorly housed. Living at a time
when it was not safe to think or express thoughts,
Voltaire did so and yet had only his brain for pro
tection. His physical appearance would never have
been accepted by the eugenist as “fit.” But he
demonstrated to the world how much a pinch of
that high explosive called brains means and how
little the “physically fit” can avail against it.
He was scarcely five feet high and his bodv
seemed to have received from nature an impress
of feebleness as its characteristic; his bones were
small and weak but proportionately his muscles
were still weaker,” says the historian in describing
the fragile and frail house that provided the “unfit”
abode of the great brain of Kant. The mythical
Greek philosopher who was so small and light that
he was compelled to carry weights in his pockets
lest the wind blow him away was no less a weak
ling physically than Kant, of whom it has been said
that the dampness emanating from the ink on a
freshly printed newspaper would give a cold. Yet
his trained brain made for him a place that any
physical giant might well afford to envy.
Too, there comes Samuel Johnson, the half-blind,
epileptic genius, who was harassed, handicapped and
humiliated throughout life by his scrofulous disease.
Still all this “unfitness” could not hold in captivity
the wonderful brain nor prevent the out-break of
the masterful mind in works so notable as those
which won him his deserved and enduring fame.
It remained for this afflicted Johnson, of the “un
fit” class to write of his famous “unfit” brother.
Alexander Pope, in this manner: “He was so weak
as to be unable to rise to dress himself without
he’p. He was so sensitive to cold that he had to
wear a kind of fur doublet under a course linen
shirt; one of his sides was contracted, and he could
scarcely stand upright until he was laced in a bodice
made of stiff canvas; his legs were, so slender that
lie had to wear three pairs of stockings, which he
was unable to draw on and off without help. His
seat had to be raised to bring him to a level with
common tables. A lively little spider with long
l egs and arms; his face was not displeasing, and
the thin, drawn features wore the expression of
habitual pain, but were brightened up by vivid and
penetrating eyes.” Who would envy his place in
the way of health and strength, and who would
not envy his honor and immortality in the field of
letters? Pope was somewhat like Shakespeare’s
toad, w-ith still “that precious jewel in his head.”
And, too he belonged to that horrible and mysteri
ous army of “hunchbacks,” of whom Richard 111
was an illustrious representative, and the unlucky
Scarron another, who won for his wife one of the
“elites” of France, Mme de Maintenon.
Lying for year in and year out in his “mattress
grave” in Paris, partially paralyzed and tortured
terribly by pain, Heinrich Heine gave birth to those
lyrics whose melodies have gone flittering and fly
ing around the world only to elicit envy of the
birds.
A frail, pallid flower-like woman, all eyes and
brain, and fluttering heart, unable to have the
neighbors visit her, Elizabeth Browning lay help
less in her darkened room in a narrow street of
London and created jewels no less precious to the
.iterary world. She was physically “unfit,” yet her
education was not wasted by any means.
When a darkened room is mentioned there comes
instantly to one’s mind that gloomy looking cell
of a prison-like home of Robert Louis Stevenson,
where he in rbbZ had gone in seclusion on account
ui la.img iiLaitn. Consumptive from boyhood, and
in iattr me being attacked by ophthalmia, he was
truly a pays.cal wreck, although still a mental giant,
ire cnose mis shadowed room in which to write,
amicist al. trie suffering and singing, the happiest
book of children’s song, "A Child’s Garden of
Verse” —at the time his right arm being in a sling
on account of a severe hemorrhage. Stevenson in
speaking of such grit said, “It delights the great
heart of man,” and truly it does.
tracing on down the tracks of time in search of
those “great, towering intellects that have made
the world tremble,” we discover that the “unfit”
even existed among the soldiers. Caesar is said to
have been an epileptic; Richlieu was wasted by
disease; Louis II had an insignificant sort of body.
Back to the philosophers, the broad-minded, frail
bodied Diogenes, on account of his weakness, sat
in a tub tQ watch the legions of Alexander sweep
by.
It is not necessary to delve altogether in the
archives of Europe to find record of distinct suc
cesses under affliction and handicaps severe. In
America there may be found many striking illustra r
lions of my argument that the mind is no respecter
of bodies, only requiring in many instances a place
mere’y strong enough to hold the brain in place. At
one’s tongue’s end is the name of Alexander Steph
ens of Georgia—a born weakling, beardless through
out life, apparently bloodless—but a mental her
culcs. Because a woman rescued him from the
throes of poverty and educated him, he became
through the strength of his own brain, pluck and
untiring energy, statesman, historian, lawyer, pol
itician and writer. Stephens was e’ected to con
gress and it has been said that one of the most
wonderful sights ever witnessed by that august
body was the carrying of his helpless body up
the flight of steps, the assistance being rendered by
negro slaves who had an improvised conveyance
made of hickory slits. He was elected vice-presi
dent of the Confederacy, and later Governor of
Georgia, being the only governor ever inaugurated
in the United States while sitting in a wheel cha*ir.
He will live longer in history than many of his
strong brothers and associates. Why? Because of
the dynamic greatness with which he was ob
sessed.
Scores of others who have helped materially in
making America what it is might be named to prove
(Continued on page 16.)
March 4, 1915