But it is no fault of yours, I grant.
It is just a phase of the contemptible ignorance of the times. I ran across a
sample of it on my way here this evening. I was reading an essay by Saleeby on
Spencer. You should read it. It is accessible to all men. You can buy it in any
book-store or draw it from the public library. You would feel ashamed of your
paucity of abuse and ignorance of that noble man compared with what Saleeby has
collected on the subject. It is a record of shame that would shame your shame.
    The philosopher of the half-educated, he was called by an academic
philosopher who was not worthy to pollute the atmosphere he breathed. I don't
think you have read ten pages of Spencer, but there have been critics, assumably
more intelligent than you, who have read no more than you of Spencer, who
publicly challenged his followers to adduce one single idea from all his
writings - from Herbert Spencer's writings, the man who has impressed the stamp
of his genius over the whole field of scientific research and modern thought;
the father of psychology; the man who revolutionized pedagogy, so that to-day
the child of the French peasant is taught the three R's according to principles
laid down by him. And the little gnats of men sting his memory when they get
their very bread and butter from the technical application of his ideas. What
little of worth resides in their brains is largely due to him. It is certain
that had he never lived, most of what is correct in their parrot-learned
knowledge would be absent.
    And yet a man like Principal Fairbanks of Oxford - a man who sits in an even
higher place than you, Judge Blount - has said that Spencer will be dismissed by
posterity as a poet and dreamer rather than a thinker. Yappers and
blatherskites, the whole brood of them! »First Principles« is not wholly
destitute of a certain literary power, said one of them. And others of them have
said that he was an industrious plodder rather than an original thinker. Yappers
and blatherskites! Yappers and blatherskites!«
    Martin ceased abruptly, in a dead silence. Everybody in Ruth's family looked
up to Judge Blount as a man of power and achievement, and they were horrified at
Martin's outbreak. The remainder of the dinner passed like a funeral, the judge
and Mr. Morse confining their talk to each other, and the rest of the
conversation being extremely desultory. Then afterward, when Ruth and Martin
were alone, there