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6 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