There is another explanation, and that is: People will pay more to be entertained, to be pleased, than to be instructed, to be enlightened or to be told what is right and best.
It is a sad fact that many are paid too little for what they do. As a rule the actual laborers, the real workers of the world, both male and female, do not receive fair compensation for their work, while thousands of people who merely hold an office are paid far more than they are worth. Teachers, writers and professors are all underpaid. The highest work that man or woman is doing is the work of education, training the human mind to think truly, to act nobly, and yet a lawyer receives more in a day than a teacher in a year.
The world that will pay one thousand dollars an hour to hear the voice of Melba, will grumble at paying ten cents an hour to a washerwoman. The world that will give a person ten thousand dollars a year for pitching base ball will object to raising the wages of our mill operatives five per cent. The world that will pay ten thousand dollars a year for riding a horse, wants a woman to teach school for fifty dollars a month.
We say, pay talent well and genius generously, but pay well also the arm that toils; pay the needle, the saw, the spade, the hoe, the mop.
Every man who claims the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," is bound to show that he deserves this right.
This is essentially an age of change. Things which have been established for centuries are no longer regarded as fixed. That which has been looked upon as absolute is now respectfully held to be uncertain. The foundations of old ideas are being disturbed and man finds that he has built upon sandy bottom. Much which in times past answered the human soul, now affords no satisfaction. It is plain that a revolution has commenced that will be far reaching and important in its actions and reactions. There is to be a general overhauling of matters secular and religious, political and social and a wholesale clearing out of old words and forms, of outgrown habits and customs, may be expected. The world of man is about to take account of stock and to have a universal comparison of estimates of values. Too long have we been subsisting upon the say-soes of our ancestors and taking their eyes and ears as infallible.