To sum up, we find that the formation of an intellectual elite entails
the union of four qualities--industry, imagination, judgment, training.
Unfortunately, these qualities are, in a certain degree, contradictory
among themselves. The toiler, bound to his task like an ox to a cart,
often forgets to pause and meditate; his intellectual activity slows
down. The dreamer, the inventor lets himself be guided by his fancies
and often lacks common sense. Finally, the abuse of book learning and
memory tends to paralyze all the intellectual faculties.
It is extremely difficult to produce a perfect balancing of these
diverse faculties. This fact alone is sufficient to explain the
infrequency of great men and, _a fortiori_, of men of genius. It
is useless to suppose, as many do, that men of genius owe their
accomplishments solely to exceptional natural endowments which raise
them above the common level. They have qualities which taken singly are
not extraordinary, but it is the occurrence of all these qualities in a
single mind that is rare.
Most men do not like to work. The suburbs of Paris are filled with
small houses inhabited by renters, who perhaps in the beginning
worked hard, but only in the hope of soon being able to stop working.
Unfortunately, this feeling is all too general in the Latin countries.
In 1918, during the Armistice, a party of American engineers who had
served as officers were taken for a boat ride down the Seine from Paris
to Rouen to see the bridges, locks, etc. To them, the most striking
sight was the number of fishermen lining the banks of the river. They
could not believe that there were so many Frenchmen content to spend
their days watching a cork float on the water, thinking nothing, doing
nothing.
Intellectual industry is not much more common than bodily industry.
One needs only to scan the interminable lists of candidates for petty
government positions which require little if any, mental exertion. The
holders of such offices are content to repeat each day exactly what was
done the day before. This apathy is apparent from childhood on. How
many college students have a horror of real effort? They are satisfied
to learn assigned lessons by rote, and never do more than the required
amount. Indeed, they often do not try to understand what they learn.
Common sense is perhaps rarer still. In proof of this, consider the
results of popular elections. The voters work painfully to make their
livings and then cast their ballots for the worst wasters of the
public wealth. Industrial conflicts lead to mutual ruination; efforts
to squeeze the consumer, who is the goose that produces the golden
eggs, bear witness to this same stupidity. Each side devotes itself
to efforts to bring about a redistribution of wealth, each hoping
to get the bigger share. Neither party comprehends the real problem,
which should be its sole interest, i. e., they should both strive for
increased production, which would benefit the world at large.
Finally, the question of learning what has been done and the matter
of instruction and training is still in a precarious condition. The
number of illiterates is still very large. Schools are often more
concerned with politics and large enrollments than with the pupils.
Unfortunately, this is one of the habitual wastes of democracies. In
the higher schools, students obtain cheapened degrees, and higher
culture is regarded with more and more contempt. The fetish of equality
means a leveling on a lower plane.
Admitting what has been said, let us make a calculation. Suppose one
man in ten has a love of industry; one in ten a certain intellectual
activity; one in ten common sense; one in ten has been well taught. The
probability that these four qualities will be found in one individual
will be equal to the fraction 1 over 10 raised to the 4th power, or 1
over 10,000, meaning one in ten thousand--i. e., one in ten thousand
may be expected to belong to the intellectual elite. This is not
many. The production of a great man requires the union of these same
qualities, but each in full bloom. If each quality, developed to this
high degree, occurs in one man in a hundred, the probability of their
being thus present in a single individual is one in a hundred million.
Consequently, we can explain why men of genius are so rare, without
seeking the reason in the realms of wonder.
It is a very noble task to aid in the creation of an intellectual
aristocracy. The prosperity and lasting glory of any country, all its
future welfare, depend on the success of these efforts. Above all,
this is a work of education, and no effort should be spared to realize
this common good. The family should set a good example to the younger
children and inculcate a taste for toil; the secondary school must
develop imagination and common sense; and finally the colleges and
universities must impart training.
However, an intellectual elite is not the only thing required to make
a great nation. There must also be a moral elite, a great class which
knows respect for the rights of others, a class to whom the Golden Rule
is law, and last but not least, this class also respects and demands
respect for real liberty. I do not wish to discuss this last point in
detail, for it lies outside my province, and especially because we have
a right to expect that the educated classes will have both a highly
developed sense of duty and a profound appreciation of independence. It
is their duty and privilege to set a noble example to others.
Transcriber’s Note:
- Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
- Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
- Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice.
- Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following
changes:
Page 15: “by which this prog ress” to “by which this progress”
Page 23: “new method of manufactutre” to “new method of manufacture”
Page 24: “his plan to an offical” to “his plan to an official”
Page 25: “The same Holds true” to “The same holds true”
Page 25: “of cast iron and Siemen’s” to “of cast iron and Siemens’”