years of the nineteenth century, an energetic campaign was waged for free public education, the wellto-do uttered a frightened protest. "These people would not appreciate an education; they were not fit for it. Besides, if they are educated they will no longer be willing to work! The obvious thing was to deny them education.

The spirit of democracy and the exigencies of the new and highly specialized industry both demanded that opportunity be equalized and education be provided for all. Thence grew the public school system.

The people who live in the newer parts of America express their confidence in democracy by sending their children to public school, but in the large eastern cities there are many families that consider their children too good for the public schools. The result is a large number of private schools, maintained by the well-to-do for their children. If these private schools are better than the public schools, the students in them are given an unfair advantage at the beginning of their lives. If the private schools are not so good as the public schools, the children who attend them are handicapped. In either case, the private school works against equality of opportunity. Whatever their intention or their intrinsic worth, most private schools develop in their pupils an idea that they are "better" than the public school children, thus laying the basis for a vicious system of class-conscious snobbery.

A NOTORIOUS ALLEY SLUM NEAR THE NATIONAL CAPITOL

This remarkable photograph shows the capitol at Washington two blocks distant from one of the worst districts. It illustrates literally some of Dr. Nearing's statements. "In this rich land the avenues of wealth and the alleys of poverty lie side by side. With ease, comfort and luxury in abundance, poverty lurks and snarls. What is poverty? Poverty is found wherever a family is living on an income that will not provide for physical health and social decency." by Hine from "Neglected Neighbors.")

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The equalization of educational opportunity would seem to demand that all children, of whatever status in life, attend the public schools and there match their talents against those of the other children in the same neighborhood. There will still be differences between neighborhoods, particularly in the elementary schools, yet the sending of all children to public educational institutions will be a long step in the direction of equality of opportunity.

Where children have been given an equal opportunity for life in the form of food and clothing, and an equal opportunity for education in the form of a generally attended public school system, there remains the necessity for establishing an equality of opportunity for achievement. That means that there must be no endowed youths and maidens in the community. At the present time the sons and daughters of the rich have a start in life that enables them to outstrip others who have no greater abilities. It is idle to contend that Rockefeller's son and the son of a Colorado miner have equal opportunity, even though they have equal ability. The opportunity of the one is immeasurably greater than that of the other. The system of parental endowment of untried youth is opposed to every concept of democracy as equal opportunity.

Until all of the children in the community have an equal opportunity to get a healthy start in life, until all have like opportunities for education, and until there is an equalization of the conditions surround

ing the livelihood struggle, it is idle to talk of equality of opportunity for life. And since equality of opportunity for life-physical, intellectual, vocational-is one of the elemental ideals of democracy, democracy in any form is impossible until this equality is assured.

5. Liberty as Opportunity

Liberty, to those who love it, is one of the most precious words in the language. To those who fear it, liberty is one of the most hateful.

What is liberty?

It is opportunity to come and go, to speak, to write, to think, subject always to the law of equal liberty, that makes the liberty of each man depend on the manner in which liberty is exercised by his neighbors. Liberty is thus a form of opportunity that is not directly concerned with the economic interests of life, and yet it is just where liberty contravenes economic interests that it is most seriously curtailed.

The curtailment of liberty that is involved in sending a man to jail for having in his possession, and giving to a stranger, a pamphlet on birth control is scandalous in the extreme; yet it is not of farreaching importance, nor will it result in serious consequences to many people. The prohibition

which places a heavy penalty on doctors who give information regarding birth control is a serious one and one that stands directly in the path of progress.