ants, the soldiers—are thirsting for elementary and advanced instruction. But they are also thirsting for education. Not the government, nor the intellectuals, nor any other power outside of themselves, can give it to them. The school, the book, the theatre, the museum, etc., may here be only aids. They have their own ideas formed by their social position, so different from the position of those ruling classes and intellectuals who have hitherto created culture. They have their own ideas, their own emotions, their own ways of approaching the problems of personality and society. The city laborer, according to his own fashion, the rural toiler according to his, will each build his clear world-concept permeated with the class-idea of the workers. There is no more superb or beautiful phenomenon than the one of which our nearest descendants will be both witnesses and participants: the building by collective Labor of its own general, rich and free soul."
There is here no intimation of any narrow or temporary purpose—even the purpose to perpetuate the insurrection, which might at that time have dominated every mind. It is only the broadest and fullest expression of the impulse of mankind in social communion to grow. We do not yet know how strong or general that impulse is, nor how much the inexorable facts of nature may impede it, but we see it at last set free from the one age-long, dark, compressive force of economic tyranny, and we are justified in feeling an emotion of joyful and creative hope.
"The problems that face us are great, responsible and pressing," says the appeal of the Proletarian Cultural Organization, "but we believe that the forces which will come to our assistance are also great." To that message of courageous faith it is the duty of every understanding idealist in every land to respond.
MAX EASTMAN.
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