CHAPTER XXXIX

THE CITY IN THE MAKING

308. =Experimenting in the Mass.=--The modern city is a gigantic

social experiment. Never before have so many people crowded together,

never has there been such a close interlocking of economic and social

and religious associations, never has there been such ease of

communication and transit. Modern invention has given its aid to the

natural effort of human beings to get together. The various interests

that produce action have combined to make settlement compact. The city

is a severe test of human ability to live peaceably and co-operatively

at close quarters. In the country an unfriendly man can live by

himself much of the time; in the city he is continually feeling

somebody's elbows in his ribs. It is not strange that there is as yet

much crudeness about the city. Its growth has been dominated by the

economic motive, and everything has been sacrificed to the desire to

make money. Dirty slums, crowded tenements, uncouth business blocks,

garish bill-boards and electric signs, dumped rubbish on vacant lots,

constant repairs of streets and buildings--these all are marks of

crudity and experimentation, evidences that the city is still in the

making. Many of the weaknesses that appear in urban society can be

traced to this situation as a cause. The craze for amusement is partly

a reaction from the high speed of modern industry, but partly, also, a

social delirium produced by the new experience of the social whirl.

Naturally more serious efforts are neglected for a time, and

institutions of long standing, like the family, threaten to go to

pieces. A thought-provoking lecture or a sermon on human obligation

does not fit in with the mood of the thousands who walk or ride along

the streets, searching for a sensation. The student who looks at

urban society on the surface easily becomes pessimistic.

309. =Reasons for Optimism.=--This new experience of society will run

its course. Undoubtedly there will go with it much of social loss, but

there is firm ground for believing that there will be more of social

gain. It is quite necessary for human beings to learn to associate

intimately, for population is steadily increasing and modern

civilization makes all classes and all nations more and more dependent

on one another. The pace of life will slow down after a time, there

will be less of social intoxication, and men and women will take their

pleasures more sanely. Eventually they will listen to a message that

is adapted to them, however serious it may be. One of the most hopeful

factors in the situation is the presence of individuals and organized

groups who are able to diagnose present conditions, and who are

working definitely for their improvement. Much of modern progress is

conscious and purposeful, where formerly men lived blindly, subject,

as they believed, to the caprice of the gods. We know much about

natural law, and lately we have learned something about social law;

with this knowledge we can plan intelligently for the future. There is

less excuse for social failure than formerly. Cities are learning how

to make constructive plans for beautifying avenues and residential

sections, and making efficient a whole transportation system; they

will learn how to get rid of overcrowding, misery, and disease. What

is needed is the will to do, and that will come with experience.

310. =Reasonable Expectations of Improvement.=--Any soundly

constructive plan waits on thorough investigation. Such an

organization as the Russell Sage Foundation, which is gathering all

sorts of data about social conditions, is supplying just the

information needed on which to base intelligent and effective action.

On this foundation will come the slow process of construction. There

will be diffusion of information, an enlistment of those who are able

to help, and an increased co-operation among the numerous agencies of

philanthropy and reform. The most obvious evils and those that seem

capable of solution will be attacked first. Intelligent public opinion

will not tolerate the continued existence of curable ills. Pure water,

adequate sewerage, light, and air, and sanitary conveniences in every

home will be required everywhere. Community physicians and nurses will

be under municipal appointment to see that health conditions are

maintained, and to instruct city families how to live properly.

Vocational schools and courses in domestic science will prepare boys

and girls for marriage and the home, and will tend to lessen poverty.

Undoubtedly the time will come when it will be seen clearly that the

interests of society demand the segregation of those who cannot take

care of themselves and are an injury to others. Hospitals and places

of detention for mental and moral defectives, and the victims of

chronic vice and intemperance, as well as criminals of every sort,

will seem natural and necessary. Larger questions of immigration,

industrial management, and municipal administration will be studied

and gradually solved by the united wisdom of city, state, and nation.

311. =Agencies of Progress and Gains Achieved.=--An examination of

what has been achieved in this direction by almost any one of the

larger cities in the United States shows encouraging progress. Smaller

cities and even villages have made use of electricity for lighting,

transportation, and telephone service. The water and sewerage systems

of larger centres are far in advance of what they were a few years

ago. Bathrooms with open plumbing and greater attention to the

preservation of health have supplemented more thorough efforts to the

spread of communicable diseases. Increasing agitation for more

practical education has led to the creation of various kinds of

vocational schools, including a large variety of correspondence

schools for those who wish specific training. There are still

thousands of boys and girls who enter industrial occupations in the

most haphazard way, and yield to irrational impulse in choosing or

giving up a particular job or a place to live in; similar impulse

induces them to mate in the same haphazard way, and as lightly to

separate if they tire of each other; but the very fact that

enlightened public opinion does not countenance these practices, that

there are social agencies contending against them, and that they are

contrary to the laws of happiness, of efficiency, and even of

survival, makes it unlikely that such irrational conduct can persist.

As for the social ills that have seemed unavoidable, like sexual vice,

current investigation and agitation, followed by increasing

legislation and segregation of the unfit, promises to work a change,

however gradual the process may be. Numerous organizations are at work

in the fields of poverty, immigration, the industrial problem, reform

of government, penology, business, education, and religion, and

thousands of social workers are devoting their lives to the betterment

of society.

312. =Conference and Co-operation.=--Improvement will be more rapid

when the various agencies of reform have learned to pull together more

efficiently. It is frequently charged that the friction between

different temperance organizations has delayed progress in solving the

problem of intemperance. It is often said that there would be less

poverty if the various charitable agencies would everywhere organize

and work in association. The independent temper of Americans makes it

difficult to work together, but co-operation is a sound sociological

principle, and experience proves that such principles must be obeyed.

If the principle of combination that has been applied to business

should be carried further and applied to the problems of society,

there can be no question that results would speedily justify the

action. Perhaps the greatest need in the city to-day is a union of

resources. If an honest taxation would furnish funds, if the best

people would plan intelligently and unselfishly for the city's future

development, if boards and committees that are at odds would get

together, there is every reason to think that astonishing changes for

the better would soon be seen.

Suppose that in every city of our land representatives of the chamber

of commerce, of the city government, of the associated charities, of

the school-teachers, of the ministers of the city, of the women's

clubs, of the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Women's

Christian Association, of the labor-unions, and of the agencies that

cater to amusement should sit together once in two weeks in conference

upon the interests of all the people of the city, and should honestly

and frankly discuss the practical questions that are always at the

fore in public discussion, and then should report back for further

conference in their own groups, there can be no doubt that the various

groups would have a far better understanding and appreciation of one

another, and in time would find ways and means to adopt such a

programme as might come out of all the discussion.

313. =The Crucial Test of Democracy.=--World events have shown clearly

since the outbreak of the European war that intelligent planning and

persistent enforcement of a political programme can long contend

successfully against great odds, when there is autocratic power behind

it all. Democracy must show itself just as capable of planning and

execution, if it is to hold its own against the control of a few,

whether plutocrats, political bosses, or a centralized state, but its

power to make good depends on the enlistment of all the abilities of

city or nation in co-operative effort. There is no more crucial test

of the ability of democracy to solve the social problems of this age

than the present-day city. The social problem is not a question of

politics, but of the social sciences. It is a question of living

together peaceably and profitably. It involves economics, ethics, and

sociological principles. It is yet to be proved that society is ready

to be civilized or even to survive on a democratic basis. The time

must come when it will, for associated activity under the self-control

of the whole group is the logical and ethical outcome of sound

sociological principle, but that time may not be near at hand. If

democracy in the cities is to come promptly to its own, social

education will soon change its emphasis from the material gain of the

individual to co-operation for the social good, and under the

inspiration of this idea the various agencies will unite for effective

social service.

READING REFERENCES

HOWE: _The Modern City and Its Problems_, pages 367-376.

GOODNOW: _City Government in the United States_, pages 302-308.

ELDRIDGE: _Problems of Community Life_, pages 3-7.

ELY: _The Coming City._

_Boston Directory of Charities_, 1914.

PART V--SOCIAL LIFE IN THE NATION

CHAPTER XL

THE BUILDING OF A NATION

314. =Questions of the Larger Group.=--In any study of social life we

have to find a place for larger groups than the family and the

neighborhood or even the city. There are national units and even a

certain amount of international unity in the world. How have they come

to exist? What are the interests that hold them together? What are the

forms of association that are practicable on such a large scale? Is

there a tendency to stress the control of the group over its

individual members, even its aristocracy 01 birth or wealth? These are

questions that require some sort of an answer. Beyond them are other

questions concerning the relations between these larger groups. Are

there common interests or compelling forces that have merged hitherto

sovereign states into federal or imperial union? Is it conceivable

that such mutually jealous nations as the European powers may

surrender willingly their individual interests of minor importance for

the sake of the larger good of the whole? Can political independence

ever become subordinate to social welfare? Are there any spiritual

bonds that can hold more strongly than national ambitions and national

pride? Such questions as these carry the student of society into a

wider range of corporate life than the average man enters, but a range

of life in which the welfare of every individual is involved.

315. =The Significance of National Life.=--The nation is a group of

persons, families, and communities united for mutual protection and

the promotion of the general welfare, and recognizing a sovereign

power that controls them all. Some nations have been organized from

above in obedience to the will of a successful warrior or peaceful

group; others have been organized peacefully from below by the

voluntary act of the people themselves. The nation in its capacity as

a governing power is a state, but a nation exercises other functions

than that of control; it exists to promote the common interests of

mankind over a wider area than that of the local community. The

historic tendency of nations has been to grow in size, as the

transmission of ideas has become easy, and the extension of control

has been made widely possible. The significance of national life is

the social recognition at present given to community of interest by

millions of individuals who believe that it is profitable for them to

live under the same economic regulations, social legislation, and

educational system, even though of mingled races and with various

ideals.

316. =How the Nation Developed.=--The nation in embryo can be found in

the primitive horde which was made up of families related by ties of

kin, or by common language and customs. The control was held by the

elderly men of experience, and exercised according to unwritten law.

The horde was only loosely organized; it did not own land, but ranged

over the hunting-grounds within its reach, and often small units

separated permanently from the larger group. When hunting gave place

to the domestication of animals, the horde became more definitely

organized into the tribe, strong leadership developed in the defense

of the tribe's property, and the military chieftain bent others in

submission to his will. As long as land was of value for pasturage

mainly, it was owned by the whole tribe in common. When agriculture

was substituted for the pastoral stage of civilization, the tribe

broke up by clans into villages, each under its chief and advisory

council of heads of families. So far the mode of making a living had

determined custom and organization.

Village communities may remain almost unchanged for centuries, as in

China, or here and there one of them may become a centre of trade, as

in mediæval Germany. In the latter case it draws to itself all classes

of people, develops wealth and culture, and presently dominates its

neighbors. Small city states grew up in ancient time along the Nile in

Egypt, and by and by federated under a particularly able leader, or

were conquered by the band of an ambitious chieftain, who took the

title of king. In such fashion were organized the great kingdoms and

empires of antiquity.

Social disintegration and foreign conquest broke up the great empires,

and for centuries in the Middle Ages society existed in local groups;

but common economic and racial interests, together with the political

ambition of princes and nobles, drew together semi-independent

principalities and communes, until they became welded into real

nations. At first the state was monarchical, because a few kings and

lords were able to dominate the mass, and because strength and

authority were more needed than privileges of citizenship; then the

economic interest became paramount, and merchants and manufacturers

demanded a share in government for the protection of their interests.

Education improved the general level of intelligence, and invention

and growing commerce improved the condition of the people until

eventually all classes claimed a right to champion their own

interests. The most progressive nations racially, politically, and

economically, outstripped the others in world rivalry until the great

modern nations, each with its own peculiar qualities of efficiency,

overtopped their predecessors of all time.

317. =The Story of the United States.=--The story of national life in

the United States is especially noteworthy. Within a century and a

half the people of this country have passed through the economic

stages, from clearing the forests to building sky-scrapers; in

government they have grown from a few jealous seaboard colonies along

the Atlantic to a solidly welded federal nation that stretches from

ocean to ocean; in education and skill they have developed from

provincial hand-workers to expert managers of corporate enterprises

that exploit the resources of the world; and in population they have

grown from four million native Americans to a hundred million people,

gathered and shaken together from the four corners of the earth. In

that century and a half they have developed a new and powerful

national consciousness. When the British colonies asserted their

independence, they were held together by their common ambition and

their common danger, but when they attempted to organize a government,

the incipient States were unwilling to grant to the new nation the

powers of sovereignty. The Confederation was a failure. The sense of

common interest was not strong enough to compel a surrender of local

rights. But presently it appeared that local jealousies and divisions

were imperilling the interests of all, and that even the independence

of the group was impossible without an effective national government.

Then in national convention the States, through their representatives,

sacrificed one after another their sovereign rights, until a

respectable nation was erected to stand beside the powers of Europe.

It was given power to make laws for the regulation of social conduct,

and even of interstate commerce, to establish executive authority and

administrative, judicial, and military systems, and to tax the

property of the people for national revenue. To these basic functions

others were added, as common interests demanded encouragement or

protection.

318. =Tests of National Efficiency.=--Two tests came to the new nation

in its first century. The first was the test of control. It was for a

time a question whether the nation could extend its sovereignty over

the interior. State claims were troublesome, and the selfish interests

of individuals clashed with revenue officers, but the nation solved

these difficulties. The second test was the test of unity, and was

settled only after civil war. Out of the struggle the nation emerged

stronger than it had ever been, because henceforth it was based on the

principle of an indissoluble union. With its second century have come

new tests--the test of absorbing millions of aliens in speech and

habits, the test of wisely governing itself through an intelligent

citizenship, the test of educating all of its people to their

political and social responsibilities. Whether these tests will be

met successfully is for the future to decide, but if the past is any

criterion, the American republic will not fail. National structures

have risen to a certain height and then fallen, because they were not

built on the solid foundations of mutual confidence, co-operation, and

loyalty. Building a self-governing nation that will stand the test of

centuries is possible only for a people that is conscious of its

community of interests, and is willing to sacrifice personal

preferences and even personal profits for the common good.

READING REFERENCES

BRYCE: _The American Commonwealth_ (Abridged Edition), pages

3-21.

DEALEY: _Development of the State_, pages 26-48.

BLUNTSCHLI: _Theory of the State_, pages 82-102.

MULFORD: _The Nation_, pages 37-60.

BAGEHOT: _Physics and Politics_, pages 81-155.

USHER: _Rise of the American People_, pages 151-167, 182-195,

269-281.

CHAPTER XLI

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE PEOPLE AS A NATION

319. =The Reality of the Nation.=--Ordinarily the individual is not

pressed upon heavily by his national relationships. He is conscious of

them as he reads the newspaper or goes to the post-office, but except

at congressional or presidential elections they are not brought home

to him vividly. He thinks and acts in terms of the community. The

nation is an artificial structure and most of its operations are

centralized at a few points. The President lives and Congress meets at

the national capital. The departments of government are located there,

and the Supreme Court holds its sessions in the same city. Here and

there at the busy ports are the custom-houses, with their revenue

officers, and at convenient distances are district courts and United

States officers for the maintenance of national order and justice. The

post-office is the one national institution that is found everywhere,

matched in ubiquity only by the flag, the symbol of national unity and

strength. But though not noticeably exercised, the power of the nation

is very real. There is no power to dispute its legislation and the

decisions of its tribunals. No one dares refuse to contribute to its

revenues, whether excise tax or import duties. No one is unaware that

a very real nation exists.

320. =The Social Nature of the Nation.=--In thinking of the nation it

is natural to consider its power as a state, but other functions

belong to it as a social unit that are no less important. Its general

function is not so much to govern as to promote the general welfare.

The social nature of national organization is well expressed in the

preamble to the national Constitution: "We the people of the United

States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice,

insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote

the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves

and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the

United States of America." The general welfare is a somewhat vague

term, but it includes all the interests of the people, and so

indicates the scope of the national function.

321. =The Economic Function.=--The nation has an economic function. It

is its business to encourage trade by means that seem most likely to

help, whether by subsidies, tariffs, or expert advice; to protect all

producers, distributers, and consumers by just laws and tribunals, so

that unfair privileges shall not be enjoyed by the few at the expense

of the many, and to provide in every legitimate way for the spread of

information and for experimentation that agriculture, mining, and

manufacturing may be improved. Evidences of the attempt of the United

States to measure up to these responsibilities are the various tariffs

that have been established for protection as well as revenue, the

interstate and trade commissions that exist for the regulation of

business, and the individuals and boards that are maintained for

acquiring and disseminating information relating to all kinds of

economic interests. The United States Patent Office encourages

invention, and American inventors outnumber those of other nations.

The United States Department of Agriculture employs many experimenters

and expert agents and even distributes seeds of a good quality, in

order that one of the most important industries of the American people

may flourish. At times some of the national machinery has been

prostituted to private gain, and there is always danger that the

individual will try to prosper at the expense of society, but the

people more than ever before are conscious that it is the function of

the nation to promote the _general_ welfare, and private interests,

however powerful, must give heed to this.

322. =Manufacturing in Corporations and Associations.=--Back of all

organization and legislation lies a real national unity, through

which the nation exercises indirectly an economic function. In spite

of a popular jealousy of big business in the last decade, there is a

pride in the ability of American business men to create a profitable

world commerce, and middle-class people in well-to-do circumstances

subscribe to the purchase of stocks and bonds in trusted corporations.

Without this general interest and participation such a rapid extension

of industrial enterprise could not have taken place. Without the lines

of communication that radiate from great commercial and financial

centres, without the banking connections that make it possible for the

fiscal centres to support any particular institution that is in

temporary distress, without the consciousness of national solidarity

in the great departments of business life, economic achievement in

America would have come on halting feet. This unity is fostered but

not created by government, and no hostile government can destroy it

altogether.

To further economic interests throughout the nation all sorts of

associations exist and hold conventions, from American poultry

fanciers to national banking societies. Occasionally these

associations pool their interests and advertise their concerns through

a national exposition. In this way they find it possible to make an

impression upon thousands of people whom they are educating indirectly

through the printing-press. It would be an interesting study and one

that would throw light on the complexity and ubiquity of national

relations, if it could be ascertained locally how many individuals are

connected with such national organizations, and what particular

associations are most popular. If this examination were extended from

purely economic organizations to associations of every kind, we should

be able to gauge more accurately the strength of national influence

upon social life.

323. =Health Interests.=--If this national unity exists in the

economic field it is natural to expect to find it in the less material

interests of society. The sense of common interests is all-pervasive.

National health conditions bring the physicians together to discuss

the causes and the therapeutics. How to keep well and to get strong,

how to dress the baby and to bring up children are perennial topics

for magazines with a national circulation. Insurance companies with a

national constituency prescribe physical tests for all classes.

Government takes cognizance of the physical interest of all its

citizens, and passes through Congress pure-food and pure-drug acts.

National societies of a voluntary nature also cater to health and

happiness. Long-named organizations exist for moral prophylaxis and

for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals. Vigilance

associations of all sorts stand guard to keep children and their

elders from contamination. Society protects itself over wide areas

through such associated recognition of the mutual interests of all its

members.

324. =National Sport.=--Recreation and sport also present national

features. Every new phase of recreation from playgrounds to philately

presently has its countrywide association. There is a conscious

reaching out for wide fellowship with those who are interested in the

same pursuits. The attraction of like-mindedness is a potent force in

every department of life. Certain forms of relaxation or spirited

rivalry have attained to the dignity of national sports. England has

its football, Scotland its golf, Canada its lacrosse, the United

States its baseball. The enthusiasm and excitement that hold whole

cities in thrall as a national league season draws to its close, is a

more striking phenomenon than Roman gladiatorial shows or Spanish

bull-fights. Persons who seldom if ever attend a game, who do not know

one player from another, wax eloquent over the merits of a team that

represents their own city, while individuals who attain to the title

of "fans" handle familiarly the details of the teams throughout the

league circuit. Why should Olympic contests held in recent years

between representatives of different nations, or international tennis

championships, arouse universal interest? It is inexplicable except as

evidence of collective consciousness and a national pride and loyalty.

The same spirit has entered into university athletics. The great

universities have their "rooters" scattered all over the land, and

the whole nation is interested in the Thames or Henley races and the

Poughkeepsie regattas. There are intercollegiate tennis championships

and chess tournaments, football contests between the leaders East and

West, all-America teams, and even international rivalries.

325. =The Function of Education.=--Nation-wide ties and loyalties in

sport do not call for the official action of the nation, though

national officials as individuals are often devoted to certain sports,

but the nation has other functions that may be classed as social. No

duty is more pressing, not even that of efficient government, than the

task of education. The National Bureau of Education supplemented by

State boards, officially takes cognizance of society's educational

interests. In education local independence plays a large part, but it

is the function of government to make inquiry into the best theories

and methods anywhere in vogue, to extend information to all who are

interested, and to use its large influence toward the adoption of

improvements. Government in certain States of the American Union even

goes so far as to co-operate with local communities in maintaining

joint school superintendents of towns or counties. It is appropriate

that a democratic nation should give much attention to the education

of the people because the success of democracy depends on popular

intelligence.

The efforts of the government are seconded by voluntary organization.

It is not unusual for college presidents or ordinary teachers to meet

in conference and discuss their difficulties and aspirations, but a

National Education Association is cumulative evidence that Americans

think in terms of a continent, and that their interests are the same

educationally in all parts of the land. It is no less true of other

agencies of culture than the schools. Cultural associations of all

kinds abound. Some of them are limited by State boundaries, not a few

are national in their scope. There is a national Chautauqua;

institutes with the same name hold their sessions all over the land.

Music, art, and the drama, sometimes the same organized group of

artists, appeal to appreciative audiences in Boston, New Orleans,

Chicago, and San Francisco. Popular songs from the opera, popular

dances from the music-halls sweep the country with a wave of imitative

enthusiasm. There are national whims and national tastes that chase

each other from ocean to ocean, almost as fast as the sun moves from

meridian to meridian.

326. =National Philanthropy.=--So much of national life is voluntary

in direction and organization in America, as compared with Germany or

Russia, that it is easy to overlook its national significance. As a

national state the United States does not attempt philanthropy. The

separate States have their asylums as they have penitentiaries and

reformatories, but the nation performs no such function. Yet

philanthropic organization girdles the continent. The National

Conference of Charities and Corrections is one instance of a society

that meets annually in the interest of the depressed classes,

discusses their problems, and reports its findings to the public as a

basis for organized activity. Such an organization not only represents

the humanitarian principles and interest of individuals here and

there, but it helps to bind together local groups all over the country

that are working on an altruistic basis. Whole sections of territory

join in discussing still wider human interests. The Southern

Sociological Conference appeals to the whole South and calls upon the

rest of the country for speakers of reputation and wisdom.

327. =The Federal Council of Churches.=--It is fundamental to the

spirit and word of the American Constitution that church and state

shall not be united, but this does not prevent religious interests

from being cherished nationally, and ecclesiastical organizations from

having national affiliations. Modern churches are grouped first of all

in denominations, because of certain peculiarities, but most of the

denominations have spread over the country and propagated their type

as opportunity offered. National conferences and conventions,

therefore, take place regularly, bringing together Episcopalians,

Presbyterians, Baptists, or Methodists, as the case may be, to

consider the interests that are most vital to the denomination as a

whole, or which the denomination as a whole, in place of the local

churches, holds within its sphere of control. Politics and sectional

interests have sometimes divided denominations, large bodies have

sometimes split along conservative or radical lines, but the national

ideal has never been lost sight of, and national organizations enjoy

dignity and prestige. One of the most recent illustrations of a still

broader interest and deeper consciousness is the federation of more

than thirty evangelical Protestant denominations for better

acquaintance and larger achievement. Temporary movements and even a

definite Evangelical Alliance have been in evidence before, but now

has come a permanent organization, to include all the religious

interests that can be held in common, and especially to stress the

more ambitious programme of social regeneration. The Federal Council

of the Churches of Christ in America has yet to prove that it is not

ahead of the times, but it is an earnest of a religious interest that

oversteps the bounds of creed and denominational organization and

calls upon the various divisions of the Protestant Church to unite for

a national campaign.

328. =The Scope of National Life.=--Social life in the nation is not

confined to any organization. It does not wait upon government to

perform its various functions. It goes on because of the constant flow

and counterflow of population through all the channels of acquaintance

and correspondence, of travel and trade. People feel the need of one

another, are in constant touch with one another, and inevitably are

continually exchanging commodities and ideas. Barriers of race and

language, of tariff walls and national conventions stand in the way of

exchange between individuals of different nations, though a strenuous

commercial age succeeds in making breaches in the barriers, but

opportunity within the nation is free, and such natural barriers as

language and race differences speedily give way before the mutual

desires of the native and the hyphenated American.

READING REFERENCES

DEALEY: _Development of the State_, pages 63-115.

_Reports of the Commissioner of Education._

_American Year Book_, 1914, _passim._

WARD: _Year Book of the Church and Social Service_, 1916, pages

24-29.

CHAPTER XLII

THE STATE

329. =The State and Its Sovereignty.=--The various economic and social

functions that are exercised by the people as a nation can be

performed in an orderly and effective way only when the people are

organized politically, and the nation has full powers of sovereignty.

When the nation functions politically it is a state. States may be

large like Russia, or small like Montenegro; they may have full

sovereignty like Great Britain, or limited sovereignty like New York;

the fact that they exercise political authority makes them states. It

is conceivable that this political authority may be exercised through

the sheer force of public opinion, but the experience of the newly

organized United States under the Articles of Confederation showed

that national moral suasion was not effective. History seems to prove

that society needs a machinery of government able to legislate and

enforce its laws, and the tendency has been for a comparatively small

number of states to extend their authority over more and more of the

earth's surface. This has become possible through the maintenance of

efficient military forces and wise local administration, aided by

increasing ease of communication and transportation. Once it was a

question whether the United States could enforce its law as far away

as western Pennsylvania; now Great Britain bears unquestioned sway

over the antipodes. Many persons look forward to the time when the

people of all nations will unite in a universal state, with power to

enforce its will without resort to war.

330. =Why the State is Necessary.=--There are some persons, commonly

known as anarchists, who do not believe that government is necessary.

They would have human relations reduced to their lowest terms, and

then trust to human nature to behave itself properly. There are other

persons known as Socialists, who would have the people in their

collective capacity exercise a larger control than now over human

action. Neither of these classes represents the bulk of society.

Common sense and experience together seem to demand a government that

will exercise a reasonable control, and by reasonable is meant a

control that will preserve the best interests of all and make general

progress possible. The political function of the nation is both

coercive and directive. When we think of a state we naturally think of

the power that it possesses to make peace or war with foreign powers,

to keep order within the nation, to enforce its authority over any

individual or group that breaks the laws that it has made; but while

such power of control is essential and its exercise often spectacular,

it is paralleled by the directive power. There are many social

relations that need definition and much social conduct that needs

direction. A man and a woman live together and bring up a family of

children. Who is to determine their legal status, the terms of

marriage, the rights of parenthood, the claims of childhood, the

rights and obligations of the family as a part of the community? The

family accumulates property in lands, houses, and movable possessions.

Who will make the acquisition legal, insure property protection, and

provide legally for inheritance? Every individual has his personal

relation to the state, and privileges of citizenship are important.

Who shall determine the right to vote and to hold office, or the duty

to pay taxes or serve in the army or navy? In these various ways the

state is no less functioning politically for the benefit of the people

than when coercing recalcitrant citizens, warning or fighting other

nations, or legislating in its congressional halls. Its opportunity to

regulate the social interests of its citizens is almost illimitable,

for while a written constitution may prescribe what a state may and

may not do, those who made the constitution have the power to revise

it or to override its provisions.

331. =Theories of the State.=--Archæological and historical evidence

point to the family as the nursery of the state. There was a time when

the contract theory was popular. It was believed that the state became

possible when individuals agreed to give up some of their own

individual rights for the sake of living in peace with their neighbors

and enjoying mutual protection. There is no doubt that such a mutual

arrangement was made in the troublous feudal period of mediæval

European history, just as the original thirteen American colonies gave

up some of their individual powers to make possible a real American

state, but the social-contract theory is no longer accepted as a

satisfactory explanation of the origin of government. There was no

_Mayflower_ compact with the bushmen when Englishmen decided to live

with the natives in Australia.

There is another theory that eminently wise men, with or without

divine assistance, formulated law and government for cities and

tribes, and that their codes were definitely accepted by the people,

but the work of these men, as far as it is historical at all, seems to

have been a work of codifying laws which had grown out of custom

rather than of making new laws. Still another theory that was once

held strenuously by a few was that of the divine right of kings, as if

God had given to one dynasty or one class the right to rule

irresponsibly over their fellows. Individual political philosophers,

like the Greek Aristotle and the German Bluntschli have published

their theories, and have influenced schools of publicists, but the

political science of the present day, basing its theories on observed

facts, is content to trace the gradual changes that have taken place

in the unconscious development of the past, and to point out the

possibilities of intelligent progress in future evolution.

332. =How the State Came to Be.=--The true story of the development of

the state seems to have been as follows. The roots of the state are in

the family group. When the family expanded into the tribe, family

discipline and family custom easily passed over to tribal discipline

and tribal custom, strengthened by religious superstition and the

will of the priest. But not all chieftains and all tribes have the

same ability or the same disposition, so that while political custom

and religious sanctions tended in the main to remain unchanged, an

occasional exception upset the social equilibrium. Race mixture and

conflicting interests compelled organization on a civil rather than a

tribal basis. Or an ambitious prince or a restless tribe interfered

with the established relations, and presently a powerful military

state was giving law to subjugated tribes. Egypt, Persia, Rome, Turkey

have been such states. On a larger scale, something of the same sort

has happened in the conquest of outlying parts of the world by the

European Powers, until one man in Petrograd can give law to Kamchatka,

a cabinet in London can determine a policy for the government of

India, or the United States Congress can change the administration of

affairs in the Philippines. Military power has been the weapon by

which authority has been imposed from without, legislative action the

instrument by which authority has been extended within.

333. =The Government of Great Britain.=--The government of Great

Britain is one of the best concrete examples of the growth of a

typical state. Its Teutonic founders learned the rudiments of

government in the German forests, where the principles of democracy

took root. Military and political exigencies gave the prince large

power, but the people never forgot how to exert their influence

through local assembly or national council. In the thirteenth century,

when the King displeased the men of the nation, they demanded the

privileges of Magna Carta, and when King and lords ruled

inefficiently, the common people found a way to enlarge their own

powers. Representatives of the townsmen and the country shires took

their places in Parliament, and gradually, with growing wisdom and

courage, assumed more and more prerogatives. Three times in the

seventeenth century Parliament demanded successfully certain rights of

citizenship, though once it had to fight and once more to depose a

king. In the nineteenth century, by a succession of reform acts, King

and Parliament admitted tradesmen, farmers, and working men to a full

share in the workings of the state, and only recently the Commons have

supplanted the Lords as the leading legislative body of the nation.

The story of Great Britain is a tale of growing democracy and

increasing efficiency.

The story of local government and the story of imperial government

might be placed side by side with the story of national government,

and each would reveal the political principles that have guided

British progress. Social need, patient experiment, and growth in

efficiency are significant phrases that help to explain the story.

Every nation has worked out its government in its own way, interfered

with occasionally by interested parties on the outside, but the

general line of progress has been the same--local experimentation,

federation or union more often imposed than agreed upon by popular

consent, and a slow growth of popular rights over government by a

privileged few. Present tendency is in the direction of safeguarding

the interests of all by a fully representative government, in which

the individual efficiency of prince or commoner alike shall have due

weight, but no one sovereign or class shall rule the people as a

whole.

334. =The Organization of Government.=--The political organization

depends upon the functions that the state has to perform, as the

structure of any group corresponds to its functions. The modern

national machinery is a complicated system, and is becoming more so as

constitutional conventions define more in detail the powers and forms

of government, and as legislatures enter the field of social reform,

but the simplest attempt at regulation involves several steps, and so

naturally there are several departments of government. The first step

is the election of those who are to make the laws. Practically all

modern states recognize the principle that the people are at least to

have a share in government; this is managed by the popular election of

their representatives in the various departments of government. The

second step is lawmaking by the representative legislature, congress,

or parliament, usually after previous deliberation and recommendation

by a committee; in some states the people have the right by referendum

to ratify or reject the legislation, and even to initiate such

legislation as they desire. The third step is the arrangement for

carrying out the law that has been passed. This is managed by the

executive department of the government. The fourth step is the actual

administration of law and government by officials who are sometimes

elected and sometimes appointed, and who constitute the administrative

department of the political organization. A fifth step is the passing

upon law and the relation of an individual or group to it by judicial

officers attached to a system of courts. These departments of the

state, with whatever auxiliary machinery has been organized to assist

in their working, make up the political organization of the typical

modern state.

335. =The Electoral System.=--There is great variety in the degree of

self-government enjoyed by the people. In the most advanced nations

the electoral privileges are widely distributed, in the backward

nations it is only recently that the people have had any voice in

national affairs. Usually suffrage is reserved for those who have

reached adult manhood, but an increasing number of States of the

American Union and several foreign nations have admitted women to

equal privileges. Lack of property or education in many countries is a

bar to electoral privilege. Pauperism and crime and sometimes

religious heterodoxy disfranchise. The variety and number of officials

to be elected varies greatly. The head of the nation in the states of

the Old World generally holds his position by hereditary right, and he

has large appointive power directly or indirectly. In some states the

judiciary is appointed rather than elected on the ground that it

should be above the influence of party politics. The chief power of

the people is in choosing their representatives to make the laws. Most

of these representatives are chosen for short terms and must answer to

the people for their political conduct; by these means the people are

actually self-governing, though the execution of the law may be in

the hands of officers whom they have not chosen. Democratic

government is nevertheless subject to all the forces that affect large

bodies exerted through party organizations, demagogues, and a party

press, but even opponents of democracy are willing to admit that the

people are learning political lessons by experience.

336. =The Legislative System.=--Legislation by representatives of all

classes of the people is a new political phenomenon tried out most

thoroughly among the large nations by Great Britain, France, and the

United States. Even now there is much distrust of the ability of the

ordinary man in politics, and considerably more of the ordinary woman.

But there have been so many extraordinary individuals who have risen

to political eminence from the common crowd, that the legislative

privilege can no longer be confined to an aristocracy. The old

aristocratic element is represented to-day by a senate, or upper

house, composed of men who are prominent by reason of birth, wealth,

or position, but the upper house is of minor importance. The real

legislative power rests with the lower chamber, which directly

represents the middle and lower classes, professional, business, and

industrial. The action of lawmaking bodies is usually limited in scope

by the provisions of a written constitution, and is modified by the

public opinion of constituents. Important among the necessary

legislation is the regulation of the economic and social relations of

individuals and corporations, provision for an adequate revenue by

means of a system of taxation, appropriation for the maintenance of

departments of government and necessary public works, and the

determination of an international policy. In the United States an

elaborate system of checks and balances gives the executive a

provisional veto on legislation, but gives large advisory powers to

Congress. In Great Britain the executive is the chief of the dominant

party in Parliament, and if he loses the confidence of the legislative

body he loses his position as prime minister unless sustained in a

national election.

In all legislative bodies there are inevitable differences of opinion

and conflicts of interests resulting in party divisions and such

opposite groups as conservatives and radicals. The formulation and

pursuance of a national policy is, therefore, not an easy task, and

the conflict of interests often necessitates compromise, so that a

history of legislation over a series of years shows that national

progress is generally accomplished by liberalism wresting a modicum of

power from conservatism, then giving way for a little to a period of

reaction, and then pushing forward a step further as public opinion

becomes more intelligent or more courageous.

337. =The Executive Department.=--Legislative bodies occasionally take

vacations; the executive is always on duty in person or through his

subordinates. Popularly considered, the executive department of

government consists of the president, the king, or the prime minister;

actually it includes an advisory council or cabinet, which is

responsible to its chief, but shares with him the task of the

management of national affairs. The executive department of the

government stands in relation to the people of the nation as the

business manager of a corporation stands in relation to the

stockholders. He must see that the will of the people, as expressed by

their representatives, is carried into effect; he must appoint the

necessary administrative officials for efficient service; he must keep

his finger upon the pulse of the nation, and use his influence to hold

the legislature to its duty; he must approve or veto laws which are

sent to him to sign; above all, he must represent his nation in all

its foreign relations, appoint the personnel of the diplomatic force,

negotiate treaties, and help to form the international law of the

world. It is the business of the executive to maintain the honor and

dignity of the nation before the world, and to carry out the law of

his own nation if it requires the whole military force available.

338. =Administrative Organization.=--The executive department includes

the advisers of the head, who constitute the cabinet. In Europe the

cabinet is responsible to the sovereign or the parliament, and the

members usually act unitedly. In the United States they are appointed

by the President, and are individually responsible to him alone. In

their capacity as a cabinet they help to formulate national policy,

and their influence in legislation and in moulding public opinion is

considerable, but their chief function is in administering the

departments of which they have charge. It is the custom for the heads

of the chief departments of government to constitute the cabinet, but

their number differs in different states, and titles vary, also. In

general, the department of state or foreign affairs ranks first in

importance, and its secretary is in charge of all correspondence with

the diplomatic representatives of the nation located in the world's

capitals; the department of the treasury or the exchequer is usually

next in importance; others are the departments of the army and navy,

of colonial possessions, of manufacturing and commerce, mining, or

agriculture, of public utilities, of education or religion, and for

judicial business. Each of these has its subordinate bureaus and an

army of civil-service officials, some of whom owe their appointment to

personal influence, others to real ability. The civil officials with

which the public is most familiar are postal employees, officers of

the federal courts, and revenue officials. Such persons usually hold

office while their party is in power or during good behavior. Long

tenure of office tends to conservative measures and the spirit of

bureaucracy, while a system by which civil office is regarded as party

spoil tends to corruption and inefficiency. The business of

administration is becoming increasingly important in the modern state.

339. =The Judicial System.=--There is always danger that law may be

misinterpreted or prove unconstitutional. It is the function of the

judicial department of government to make decisions, interpreting and

applying the law of the nation in particular cases brought before the

courts. The law of the nation is superior to all local or sectional

law; so is the national judiciary supreme in its authority and

national in its jurisdiction. The judicial system of the United States

includes a series of courts from the lowest district courts, which are

located throughout the country, to the Supreme Court in Washington,

which deals with the most momentous questions of national law. In the

United States the judicial system is complicated by a system of lesser

courts, State and local, independent of federal control, attached to

which is a body of police, numerous judges, juries, and lawyers; the

higher courts also have their justices and practising lawyers, but

there is less haste and confusion and greater dignity and ability

displayed. There has been much criticism in recent years of antiquated

forms of procedure, cumbrous precedent, and unfair use of

technicalities for the defeat of justice, but however imperfect

judicial practice may be, the system is well intrenched and is not

likely to be changed materially.

340. =The Relation of National to District Governments.=--In some

nations there are survivals of older political divisions which once

possessed sovereignty, but which have sacrificed most, if not all, of

it for the larger good. This is the case in such federal states as the

German Empire, Switzerland, and the United States. Each State in the

American nation retains its own departments of government, and so has

its governor and heads of departments, its two-chambered legislature,

and its State judiciary. State law and State courts are more familiar

to the people than most of the national legislation. In the German

Empire each state has its own prince, and in many respects is

self-governing, but has been more and more sinking its own

individuality in the empire. In the British Empire there is still

another relation. England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland were once

independent of each other, but military and dynastic events united

them. For local legislation and administration they tend to separate,

and already Ireland has obtained home rule. Beyond seas a colonial

empire has arisen, and certain great dominions are united by little

more than ties of blood and loyalty to the mother country. Canada,

Australia, and South Africa have gained a larger measure of

sovereignty. India is held as an imperial possession, but even there

experiments of self-government are being tried. The whole tendency of

government, both here and abroad, seems to be to leave matters of

local concern largely to the local community and matters that belong

to a section or subordinate state to that district, and to centralize

all matters of national or interstate concern in the hands of a small

body of men at the national capital. In every case national or

imperial authority is the court of last resort.

READING REFERENCES

BLISS: _New Encyclopedia of Social Reform_, art. "Anarchism."

DEALEY: _Development of the State_, pages 127-234.

WILSON: _The State_, pages 555-571.

BLUNTSCHLI: _Theory of the State_, pages 61-73.

_Constitution of the United States._

BRYCE: _The American Commonwealth_ (abridged edition), pages

22-242, 287-305.

CHAPTER XLIII

PROBLEMS OF THE NATION

341. =Government as the Advance Agent of Prosperity.=--It is common

philosophy that society owes every man a living, and it seems to be a

common belief that the government owes every man a job. There are, of

course, only a few government positions, and these are rushed after by

a swarm of office-seekers, but campaign orators have talked so much

about a full dinner pail and the government as the advance agent of

prosperity, that there seems to be a popular notion that the

government, as if by a magician's wand, could cure unemployment, allay

panics, dispel hard times, and increase a man's earning power at will.

A little familiarity with economic law ought to modify this notion,

but it is difficult to eradicate it. Society cannot, through any one

institution, bring itself to perfection; many elements enter into the

making of prosperity. It depends on individual ability and training

for industry, on an understanding of the laws of health and keeping

the body and brain in a state of efficiency, on peaceful relations

between groups, on the successful balancing of supply and demand, and

of wages and the cost of living, on personal integrity and group

co-operation. All that the government can do is to instruct and

stimulate. This it has been doing and will continue to do with growing

effectiveness, but it has to feel its way and learn by experience, as

do individuals.

342. =How It Has Met Its Responsibility.=--This problem of prosperity

which is both economic and social, is the concern of all the people of

the nation, and any attempt to solve it in the interest of one section

or a single group cannot bring success. That is one reason for many of

the social weaknesses everywhere visible. Government has legislated

in the interests of a group of manufacturers, or the courts have

favored the rich, or trusts have been attacked at the demands of a

reforming party, or labor has been immune from the application of a

law against conspiracy when corporations were hard hit. These

weaknesses, which are characteristic of American democracy, find their

parallels in all countries where modern industrial and social

conditions obtain. But government has lent its energies to the

upbuilding of a sound social structure. It has recognized the need of

education for the youth of the land at a minimum cost, and the States

of the American Union have made liberal grants for both academic and

special training to their State universities, agricultural colleges,

and normal schools. It encourages the country people to enrich their

life and to increase their earnings for their own sake and for the

prosperity of the people who are dependent upon them. It stimulates

improved processes in manufacturing and mining, and protects business

against foreign competition by a tariff wall; it tries to prevent

recurring seasons of financial panics by a stable currency and the

extension of credits. It provides the machinery for settling labor

difficulties by conciliation and arbitration, and tries to mediate

between gigantic combinations of trade and transportation and the

public. It has pensioned liberally its old soldiers. It has attempted

to find a method of taxation that would not bear heavily on its

citizens, but that at the same time would provide a sufficient revenue

to meet the enormous expense of catering to the multifarious interests

of a population of a hundred million people.

343. =The Problem of Democracy.=--The problem of prosperity is

complicated by the problem of democracy. If by a satisfactory method a

body of wise men could be selected to study carefully each specific

problem involved, could experiment over a term of years in the

execution of plans worked out free from fear of being thrown out at

any time as the result of elective action by an impatient people,

prosperity might move on more rapid feet. In a country where power is

in the hands of a few a specific programme can be worked out without

much friction and rapid industrial and social progress can be made, as

has been the case during the last fifty years in Germany; but where

the masses of the people must be consulted and projects depend for

success upon their sustained approval, progress is much more spasmodic

and uncertain. Everything depends on an intelligent electorate,

controlled by reason rather than emotion and patient enough to await

the outcome of a policy that has been inaugurated.

This raises the question as to the education of the electorate or the

establishment of an educational qualification, as in some States. Is

there any way by which the mass of the working people, who have only

an elementary education, and never see even the outside of a State

university, can be made intelligent and self-restrained? They will not

read public documents, whether reports of expert commissions or

speeches in Congress. Shall they be compelled to read what the

government thinks is for their good, or be deprived of the suffrage as

a penalty? They get their political opinions from sensational

journals. Shall these publications be placed under a ban and the

nation subsidize its own press? These are questions to be considered

by the educational departments of State and nation, with a view to a

more intelligent citizenship. Democracy cannot be said to be a

failure, but it is still a problem. Government will not be any better

than the majority of the citizens want it to be; hence its standards

can be raised only as the mental and moral standards of the electorate

are elevated. Education, a conscious share in the responsibility of

legislation, and sure justice in all controverted cases, whether of

individuals or classes, are necessary elements in winning even a

measure of success.

344. =The Race Problem.=--The difficulties of American democracy are

enormously enhanced by the race problem. If common problems are to be

solved, there must be common interests. The population needs to be

homogeneous, to be seeking the same ends, to be conscious of the same

ideals. Not all the races of the world are thus homogeneous; it would

be difficult to think of Englishmen, Russians, Chinese, South

Americans, and Africans all working with united purpose, inspired by

the same ideals, yet that is precisely what is expected in America

under the tutelage and leadership of two great political parties, not

always scrupulous about the methods used to obtain success at the

polls. It is rather astonishing that Americans should expect their

democracy to work any better than it does when they remember the

conditions under which it works. To hand a man a ballot before he

feels himself a part of the nation to which he has come, before he is

stirred to something more than selfish achievement, before he is

conscious of the real meaning of citizenship, is to court disaster,

yet in being generous with the ballot the people of America are arming

thousands of ignorant, irresponsible immigrants with weapons against

themselves.

The race problem of America is not at all simple. It is more than a

problem of immigration. The problem of the European immigrant is one

part of it. There is also the problem of the relation of the American

people to the yellow races at our back door, and the problem of the

negro, who is here through no fault of his own, but who, because he is

here, must be brought into friendly and helpful relation with the rest

of the nation.

345. =The Problem of the European Immigrant.=--The problem of the

European immigrant is one of assimilation. It is difficult because the

alien comes in such large numbers, brings with him a different race

heritage, and settles usually among his own people, where American

influence reaches him only at second hand. Environment may be expected

to change him gradually, the education of his children will modify the

coming generation, but it will be a slow task to make him over into an

American in ideals and modes of thinking, as well as in industrial

efficiency, and in the process the native American is likely to suffer

loss in the contact, with a net lowering of standards in the life of

the American people. To see the danger is not to despair of escaping

it. To understand the danger is the first step in providing a

safeguard, and to this end exact knowledge of the situation should be

a part of the teaching of the schools. To seek a solution of the

problem is the second step. The main agency is education, but this

does not mean entirely education in the schools. Education through

social contact is the principal means of assimilating the adult; for

this purpose it is desirable that some means be found for the better

distribution of the immigrant, and as immigration is a national

problem, it is proper for the national government to attack that

particular phase of it. Then it belongs to voluntary agencies, like

settlements, churches, and philanthropic and educational societies to

give instruction in the essentials of language, civics, industrial

training, and character building. For the children the school provides

such education, but voluntary agencies may well supplement its secular

training with more definite and thorough instruction in morals and

religion. It cannot be expected that the immigrant problem will settle

itself; at least, a purposeful policy wisely and persistently carried

out will accomplish far better and quicker results. Nor is it an

insoluble problem; it is not even necessary that we should severely

check immigration. But there is need of intelligent and co-operative

action to distribute, educate, and find a suitable place for the

immigrant, that he may make good, and to devise a restrictive policy

that will effectually debar the most undesirable, and will hold back

the vast stream of recent years until those already here have been

taken care of.

346. =The Problem of the Asiatic Immigrant.=--The problem of the

Asiatic immigrant is quite different. It is a problem of race conflict

rather than of race assimilation. The student of human society cannot

minimize the importance of race heredity. In the case of the European

it holds a subordinate place, because the difference between his

heritage and that of the American is comparatively slight. But the

Asiatic belongs to a different race, and the century-long training of

an entirely different environment makes it improbable that the Asiatic

and the American can ever assimilate. Each can learn from the other

and co-operate to mutual advantage, but race amalgamation, or even a

fusion of customs of thought and social ideals is altogether unlikely.

It is therefore not to the advantage of either American or Asiatic

that much Asiatic immigration into the United States should take

place. To agree to this is not to be hostile to or scornful of the

yellow man. The higher classes are fully as intelligent and capable of

as much energy and achievement as the American, but the vast mass of

those who would come here if immigration were unrestricted are

undesirable, because of their low industrial and moral standards,

their tenacity of old habits, and with all the rest because of their

immense numbers, that would overrun all the western part of the United

States. When the Chinese Exclusion Act passed Congress in 1882, the

Chinese alone were coming at the rate of nearly forty thousand a year,

and that number might have been increased tenfold by this time, to say

nothing of Japanese and Hindoos. While, therefore, the United States

must treat Asiatics with consideration and live up to its treaty

obligations, it seems the wise policy to refuse to admit the Asiatic

masses to American residence.

A part of the Asiatic problem, however, is the political relation of

the United States and the Asiatic Powers, especially in the Pacific.

This is less intimately vital, but is important in view of the rapidly

growing tendency of both China and Japan to expand in trade and

political ambitions. This is a problem of political rather than social

science, but since the welfare of both races is concerned, and of

other peoples of the Pacific Islands, it needs the intelligent

consideration of all students. It is desirable to understand one

another, to treat one another fairly and generously, and to find

means, if possible, of co-operation rather than conflict, where the

interests of one impinge upon another. All mediating influences, like

Christian missions, are to be welcomed as helping to extend mutual

understanding and to soften race prejudices and animosities.

347. =The Negro Problem.=--Not a few persons look upon the negro

problem as the most serious social question in America. Whatever its

relative merits, as compared with other problems, it is sufficiently

serious to call for careful study and an attempt at solution. The

negro race in America numbers approximately ten millions, twice as

many as at the close of the Civil War. The negro was thrust upon

America by the cupidity of the foreign slave-trader, and perpetuated

by the difficulty of getting along without him. His presence has been

in some ways beneficial to himself and to the whites among whom he

settled, but it has been impossible for two races so diverse to live

on a plane of equality, and the burden of education upon the South has

been so heavy and the race qualities of the negro so discouraging,

that progress in the solution of the negro problem has been slow.

The problem of the colored race is not one of assimilation or of

conflict. In spite of an admixture of blood that affects possibly a

third of the American negroes, there never will be race fusion.

Assimilation of culture was partly accomplished in slave days, and it

will go on. There is no serious conflict between white and colored,

when once the question of assimilation is understood. The problem is

one of race adjustment. Fifty years have been insufficient to perfect

the relations between the two races, but since they must live

together, it is desirable that they should come to understand and

sympathize with each other, and as far as possible co-operate for

mutual advancement. The problem is a national one, because the man of

color is not confined to the South, and even more because the South

alone is unable to deal adequately with the situation. The negro

greatly needs efficient social education. He tends to be dirty, lazy,

and improvident, as is to be expected, when left to himself. Like all

countrymen--a large proportion live in the country--he is backward in

ways of thinking and methods of working. He is primitive in his

passions and much given to emotion. He shows the traits of a people

not far removed from savagery. It is remarkable that his white master

was able to civilize him as much as he did, and it is not strange that

there has been many a relapse under conditions of unprepared freedom,

but it is only the more reason why negro character should be raised

higher on the foundation already laid.

The task is not very different from that which is presented by the

slum population of the cities of the North. The children need to be

taught how to live, and then given a chance to practise the

instruction in a decent environment. They need manual and industrial

training fitted to their industrial environment, and every opportunity

to employ their knowledge in earning a living. They need noble ideals,

and these they can get only by the sympathetic, wise teaching of their

superiors, whether white or black. They and their friends need

patience in the upward struggle, for it will not be easy to socialize

and civilize ten million persons in a decade or a century. Such

institutions as Hampton and Tuskegee are working on a correct basis in

emphasizing industrial training; these schools very properly are

supplemented by the right kind of elementary schools, on the one hand,

and by cultural institutions of high grade on the other, for the negro

is a human being, and his nature must be cultivated on all sides, as

much as if he were white.

348. =The Race Problem a Part of One Great Social Problem.=--The race

problem as a whole is not peculiar to America, but is intensified here

by the large mixture of all races that is taking place. It is

inevitable, as the world's population shifts in meeting the social

forces of the present age. It is complicated by race inequalities and

race ambitions. It is fundamentally a problem of adjustment between

races that possess a considerable measure of civilization and those

that are not far removed from barbarism. It is discouraging at times,

because the supposedly cultured peoples revert under stress of war or

competition or self-indulgence to the crudities of primitive

barbarism, but it is a soluble problem, nevertheless. The privileged

peoples need a solemn sense of the responsibility of the "white man's

burden," which is not to cultivate the weaker man for the sake of

economic exploitation, but to improve him for the weaker man's own

sake, and for the sake of the world's civilization. The policy of any

nation like the United States must be affected, of course, by its own

interests, but the European, the Asiatic, the negro, and every race or

people with which the American comes in contact ought to be regarded

as a member of a world society in which the interlocking of

relationships is so complete that the injury of one is the injury of

all, and that which is done to aid the least will react to the benefit

of him who already has more.

READING REFERENCES

DEALEY: _Development of the State_, pages 300-314.

USHER: _Rise of the American People_, pages 392-404.

MECKLIN: _Democracy and Race Friction_, pages 77-122.

COMMONS: _Races and Immigrants in America_, pages 17-21, 198-238.

COOLIDGE: _Chinese Immigration_, pages 423-458, 486-496.

GULICK: _The American Japanese Problem_, pages 3-27, 90-196,

281-307.

CHAPTER XLIV

INTERNATIONALISM

349. =The New World Life.=--The social life that started in the family

has broadened until it has circled the globe. It is possible now to

speak in terms of world life. The interests of society have reached

out from country to country, and from zone to zone, just as a child's

interests as he grows to manhood expand from the home to the community

and from the community to the nation.

The idea of the social solidarity of all peoples is still new. Ever

since the original divergence of population from its home nest, when

groups became strange and hostile to one another because of mountain

and forest barriers, changing languages, and occasionally clashing

interests, the tendency of the peoples was to grow apart. But for a

century past the tendency has been changing from divergence to

convergence, from ignorance and distrust of one another to

understanding, sympathy, and good-will, from independence and

ruthlessness to interdependence and co-operation. Numerous agencies

have brought this about--some physical like steam and electricity,

some economic like commerce and finance, some social like travel and

the interchange of ideas through the press, some moral and religious

like missions and international organizations for peace. The history

of a hundred years has made it plain that nations cannot live in

isolation any more than individuals can, and that the tendency toward

social solidarity must be the permanent tendency if society is to

exist and prosper, even though civilization and peace may be

temporarily set back for a generation by war.

350. =The Principle of Adaptation vs. Conflict.=--This New World life

is not unnatural, though it has been slow in coming. A human being is

influenced by his physical needs and desires, his cultivated habits,

his accumulated interests, the customs of the people to whom he

belongs, and the conditions of the environment in which he finds

himself. While a savage his needs, desires, and interests are few, his

habits are fixed, his relations are simple and local; but when he

begins to take on civilization his needs multiply, his habits change,

and his relations extend more widely. The more enlightened he becomes

the greater the number of his interests and the more points of contact

with other people. So with every human group. The process of social

development for a time may intensify conflict, but there comes a time

when it is made clear to the dullest mind that conflict must give way

to mutual adaptation. No one group, not even a supernation, can have

everything for itself, and for the sake of the world's comfort and

peace it will be a decided social gain when that principle receives

universal recognition. World federations and peace propaganda cannot

be effective until that principle is accepted as a working basis for

world life.

351. =The Increasing Recognition of the Principle of

Adaptation.=--This principle of adaptation has found limited

application for a long time. Starting with individuals in the family

and family groups in the clan, it extended until it included all the

members of a state in their relations to each other. Many individual

interests conflict in business and society and different opinions

clash, but all points of difference within the nation are settled by

due process of law, except when elemental passions break out in a

lynching, or a family feud is perpetuated among the hills. But war

continued to be the mode of settling international difficulties.

Military force restrained a vassal from hostile acts under the Roman

peace. But the next necessary step was for states voluntarily to

adjust their relations with one another. In some instances, even in

ancient times, local differences were buried, and small federations,

like the Achæan League of the Greeks and the Lombard League of the

Middle Ages, were formed for common defense. These have been followed

by greater alliances in modern times. But the striking instances of

real interstate progress are found in the federation of such States

as those that are included within the present United States of

America, and within the new German Empire that was formed after the

Franco-Prussian War. Sinking their differences and recognizing one

another's rights and interests, the people of such united nations have

become accustomed to a large national solidarity, and it ought not to

require much instruction or persuasion to show them that what they

have accomplished already for themselves is the correct principle for

their guidance in world affairs.

352. =International Law and Peace.=--This principle of recognizing one

another's rights and interests is the foundation of international law,

which has been modified from time to time, but which from the

publication of Hugo Grotius's _Law of War and Peace_ in the

seventeenth century slowly has bound more closely together the

civilized nations. There has come into existence a body of law for the

conduct of nations that is less complete, but commands as great

respect as the civil law of a single state. This law may be violated

by a nation in the stress of conflict, as civil law may be derided by

an individual lawbreaker or by an excited mob, but eventually it

reasserts itself and slowly extends its scope and power. Without

international legislative organization, without a tribunal or a

military force to carry out its provisions, by sheer force of

international opinion and a growing regard for social justice it

demands attention from the proudest nations. Text-books have been

written and university chairs founded to present its claims,

international associations and conventions have met to define more

accurately its code, and tentative steps have been taken to strengthen

its position by two Hague Conferences that met in 1899 and 1907. Large

contributions of money have been made to stimulate the cause of peace,

and as many as two hundred and fifty peace societies have been

organized.

353. =Arbitration and an International Court.=--Experiments have been

tried at settling international disputes without resort to war. Great

Britain and the United States have led the way in showing to the world

during the last one hundred years that all kinds of vexatious

differences can be settled peacefully by submitting them to

arbitration. These successes have led the United States to propose

general treaties of arbitration to other nations, and advance has been

made in that direction. It was possible to establish at The Hague a

permanent court of arbitration, and to refer to it really important

cases. Such a calamity as the European war, of course, interrupts the

progress of all such peaceful methods, but makes all the plainer the

dire need of a better machinery for settling international

differences. There is reasonable expectation that before many years

there may be established a permanent international court of justice,

an international parliament, and a sufficient international police

force to restrain any one nation from breaking the peace. Only in this

way can the dread of war be allayed and disarmament be undertaken;

even then the success of such an experiment in government will depend

on an increase of international understanding, respect, and

consideration.

354. =Intercommunication and Its Rewards.=--The gain in social

solidarity that has been achieved already is due first of all to

improved communication between nations. In the days of slow sailing

vessels it took several weeks to cross the Atlantic, and there was no

quicker way to convey news. The news that peace had been arranged at

Ghent in 1814 between Great Britain and the United States did not

reach the armies on this side in time to prevent the battle of New

Orleans. Even the results of the battle of Waterloo were not known in

England for several days after Napoleon's overthrow. Now ocean

leviathans keep pace with the storms that move across the waters, and

the cable and the wireless flash their messages with the speed of the

lightning. Power to put a girdle around the earth in a few minutes has

made modern news agencies possible, and they have made the modern

newspaper essential. The newspaper requires the railroad and the

steamship for its distribution, and business men depend upon them all

to carry out their plans. These physical agencies have made possible a

commerce that is world-wide. There are ports that receive ships from

every nation east and west. Great freight terminal yards hold cars

that belong to all the great transportation lines of the country.

Lombard Street and Wall Street feel the pulse of the world's trade as

it beats through the channels of finance.

Improved communication has made possible the unification of a great

political system like the British Empire. In the Parliament House and

government offices of Westminster centre the political interests of

Canada, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, and India, as well as of

islands in every sea. Better communication has brought into closer

relations the Pan-American states, so that they have met more than

once for their mutual benefit.

Helpful social results have come from the travel that has grown

enormously in volume since ease and cheapness of transportation have

increased. The impulse to travel for pleasure keeps persons of wealth

on the move, and the desire for knowledge sends the intellectually

minded professional man or woman of small means globe-trotting. In

this way the people of different nations learn from one another; they

become able to converse in different languages and to get one

another's point of view; they gain new wants while they lose some of

their professional interests; they return home poorer in pocket but

richer in experience, more interested in others, more tolerant. These

are social values, certain to make their influence felt in days to

come, and by no means unappreciable already.

355. =International Institutions.=--These values are conserved by

international institutions. Societies are formed by like-minded

persons for better acquaintance and for the advancement of knowledge.

The sciences are cherished internationally, interparliamentary unions

and other agencies for the preservation of peace hold their

conferences, working men meet to air their grievances or plan

programmes, religious denominations consult for pushing their

campaigns. The organizations that grow out of these relations and

conferences develop into institutions that have standing. The

international associations of scholars are as much a part of the

world's institutional assets as the educational system is a recognized

asset of any country. They are clearing-houses of information, as

necessary as an international clearing-house of finance. The World's

Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the International Young Men's

Christian Association are moral agencies that bring together those who

have at heart the same interests, and when they have once made good

they must be reckoned among the established organizations that help to

move the world forward. Not least among such institutions are the

religious organizations. The closely knit Roman Catholic Church, that

has held together millions of faithful adherents in many lands for

centuries, and whose canon law receives an unquestioning obedience as

the law of a nation, is an illustration of what an international

religious institution may be. Protestant Churches, naturally more

independent, have moved more slowly, but their world alliances and

federations are increasing to the point where they, too, are likely to

become true institutions.

356. =Missions as a Social Institution.=--Those institutions and

movements are most useful that aim definitely to stimulate the highest

interests of all mankind. It is comparatively simple to provide local

stimulus for a better community life, but to help move the world on to

higher levels requires clear vision, patient hope, and a definite plan

on a large scale. Christian missionaries are conspicuous for their

lofty ideals, their personal devotion to an unselfish task, their

persistent optimism, and their unswerving adherence to the programme

marked out by the pioneers of the movement. It is no argument against

them that they have not accomplished all that a few enthusiasts

expected of them in a few years. To socialize and Christianize half

the people of the world is the task of centuries. With broad

statesmanship missionary leaders have undertaken to do both of these.

Mistakes in method or detail of operation do not invalidate the whole

enterprise, and all criticism must keep in mind the noble purpose to

lift to a higher level the social, moral, and religious ideas and

practices of the most backward peoples. The purpose is certainly no

less laudable than that of a Chinese mission to England to persuade

Great Britain to end the opium traffic, or a diplomatic mission from

the United States to stop civil strife in Mexico.

357. =Education as a Means to Internationalism.=--Internationalism

rests on the broad basis of the social nature of mankind, a nature

that cannot be unsocialized, but can be developed to a higher and more

purposeful socialization. As there are degrees of perfection in the

excellence of social relations, so there are degrees of obligation

resting upon the nations of the world to give of their best to a

general levelling up. The dependable means of international

socialization is education, whether it comes through the press, the

pulpit, or the school. Every commission that visits one country from

another to learn of its industries, its institutions, and its ideals,

is a means to that important end. Every exchange professor between

European and American universities helps to interpret one country to

the other. Every Chinese, Mexican, or Filipino youth who attends an

American school is borrowing stimulus for his own people. Every

visitor who does not waste or abuse his opportunities is a unit in the

process of improving the acquaintance of East and West, of North and

South. Internationalism is not a social Utopia to be invented in a

day; it is rather an attitude of mind and a mode of living that come

gradually but with gathering momentum as mutual understanding and

sympathy increase.

READING REFERENCES

STRONG: _Our World_, pages 3-202.

FOSTER: _Arbitration and the Hague Court._

FAUNCE: _Social Aspects of Foreign Missions._

MAURENBRECKER: "The Moral and Social Tasks of World Politics,"

art. in _American Journal of Sociology_, 6: 307-315.

TRUEBLOOD: _Federation of the World_, pages 7-20, 91-149.

PART VI--SOCIAL ANALYSIS

CHAPTER XLV

PHYSICAL AND PERSONAL FACTORS IN THE LIFE OF SOCIETY

358. =Constant Factors in Social Phenomena.=--Our study of social life

has made it plain that it is a complex affair, but it has been

possible to classify society in certain groups, to follow the gradual

extension of relations from small groups to large, and to take note of

the numerous activities and interests that enter into contemporary

group life. It is now desirable to search for certain common elements

that in all periods enter into the life of every group, whether

temporary or permanent, so that we may discover the constant factors

and the general principles that belong to the science of society. Some

of these have been referred to already among the characteristics of

social life, but in this connection it is useful to classify them for

closer examination.

First among these is the physical factor which conditions human

activity but is not a compelling force, for man has often subdued his

environment when it has put obstacles in his way. This physical

element includes the geographical conditions of mountain, valley, or

seashore, the climate and the weather, the food and water supply, the

physical inheritance of the individual and the laws that control

physical development, and the physical constitution of the group. A

second factor is the psychic nature of human beings and the psychical

interaction that goes on between individuals within the group and that

produces reactions between groups.

359. =The Natural Environment.=--The early sociologists put the

emphasis on the physical more than the psychic factors, and

especially on biological analogies in society. It seemed to them as if

it was nature that brought men together. Mountains and ice-bound

regions were inhospitable, impassable rivers and trackless forests

limited the range of animals and men, violent storms and temperature

changes made men afraid. Avoiding these dangers and seeking a

food-supply where it was most plentiful, human beings met in the

favored localities and learned by experience the principles of

association. Everywhere man is still in contact with physical forces.

He has not yet learned to get along without the products of the earth,

extracting food-supplies from the soil, gathering the fruits that

nature provides, and mining the useful and precious metals. The

city-dweller seems less dependent on nature than is the farmer, but

the urban citizen relies on steam and electricity to turn the wheels

of industry and transportation, depends on coal and gas for heat and

light, and uses winter's harvest of ice to relieve the oppressive heat

of summer. Rivers and seas are highways of his commerce. Everywhere

man seems hedged about by physical forces and physical laws.

Yet with the prerogative of civilization he has become master rather

than servant of nature. He has improved wild fruits and vegetables by

cultivation, he has domesticated wild animals, he has harnessed the

water of the streams and the winds of heaven. He has tunnelled the

mountains, bridged the rivers, and laid his cables beneath the ocean.

He has learned to ride over land and sea and even to skim along the

currents of the air. He has been able to discover the chemical

elements that permeate matter and the nature and laws of physical

forces. By numerous inventions he has made use of the materials and

powers of nature. The physical universe is a challenge to human wits,

a stimulus to thought and activity that shall result in the wonderful

achievements of civilization.

360. =The Human Physique.=--Another element that enters into every

calculation of success or failure in human life is the physical

constitution of the individual and the group. The individual's

physique makes a great difference in his comfort and activity. The

corpulent person finds it difficult to get about with ease, the

cripple finds himself debarred from certain occupations, the person

with weak lungs must shun certain climates and as far as possible must

avoid indoor pursuits. By their power of ingenuity or by sheer force

of will men have been able to overcome physical limitations, but it is

necessary to reckon with those limitations, and they are always a

handicap. The physical endowment of a race has been a deciding factor

in certain times of crisis. The physical prowess of the Anakim kept

back the timid Israelites from their intended conquest of Canaan until

a more hardy generation had arisen among the invaders; the sturdy

Germans won the lands of the Roman Empire in the West from the

degenerate provincials; powerful vikings swept the Western seas and

struck such terror into the peaceful Saxons that they cried out: "From

the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us."

361. =Biological Analogies.=--The physical factor in society received

emphasis the more because society itself was thought of as an organism

resembling physical organisms and dependent upon similar laws. As a

man's physical frame was essential to his activity and limited his

energies, so the visible structure of social organization was deemed

more important than social activity and function. Particularly did the

method of evolution that had become so famous in biology appeal to

students of sociology as the only satisfactory explanation of social

change. The study of animal evolution made it clear that heredity and

environment played a large part in the development of animal life, and

Darwin pointed out that progress came by the elimination of those

individuals and species least fitted to survive in the struggle for

existence and the perpetuation of those that best adapted themselves

to environment. It was easy to find social analogies and to reach the

conclusion that in the same way individuals and groups were creatures

of heredity and environment, and the all-important task of society was

to conform itself to environment. Of course, history disproved the

universality of such a law, for more than once a race has risen above

its environment or altered it, but it seemed a satisfactory working

principle.

Biological analogies, however, were overemphasized. It was a gain to

know the workings of race traits and the relation of the individual to

his ancestry, but to excuse crime on the ground of racial degeneracy

or to despise a race and believe that none of its members can excel

because it is conspicuous for certain race weaknesses has been

unfortunate. Similarly there was advantage in remembering that

environment is either a great help or a great hindrance to social

progress, but it would be a social calamity to believe in a physical

determinism that leaves to human beings no choice as to their manner

of life. The important truth to keep in mind is that man and

environment must be adapted to each other, but it often proves better

to adapt environment to man than to force man into conformity to

environment. It is the growing independence of environment through his

own intellectual powers that has given to civilized man his ascendancy

in the world. It is a mistake, also, to think that a struggle for

existence is the only means of survival. As in the animal world, there

comes a time in the process of evolution when the struggle for selfish

existence becomes subordinated to effort to preserve the life of the

young or to help the group by the sacrifice of the individual self, so

in society it is reasonable to believe that the selfish struggle of

individuals will give way by degrees to purposeful effort for social

welfare, and that the solidarity of the group rather than the interest

of the individual will seem the highest good. Then the group will care

for the weak, and all will gain from the strength and prosperity of

the whole.

362. =The Importance of the Individual.=--While it is true that

individual interests are bound up with the prosperity of the group,

and that the food that he eats, the clothes that he wears, and the

money that he handles and uses are all his because social industry

prevails, there is some danger of overlooking the importance of the

individual. Though he does not exist alone, the individual with his

distinctive personality is the unit of society. Without individuals

there would be no society, without the action of the individual mind

there would be no action of the social mind, without individual

leadership there would be little order or progress. The single cell

that made up the lowest forms of animal life is still the unit of that

complex thing that we call the human body, and the well-being of the

single cell is essential to the health and even the existence of the

whole body; so the single human being is fundamental to the existence

and health of the social body. No analysis of society is at all

complete that does not include a study of the individual man.

363. =The Psychology of the Individual.=--Self-examination during the

course of a single day helps to explain the life forces that act upon

other individuals now and that have forged human history. In such

study of self it soon becomes apparent to the student that the

physical factor is subordinate to the psychic, but that they are

connected. As soon as he wakes in the morning his mental processes are

at work. Something has called back his consciousness from sleep. The

light shining in at his window, the bell calling him to meet the day's

schedule, the odor of food cooking in the kitchen, are physical

stimuli calling out the response of his sense-perceptions; his mind

begins at once to associate these impressions and to react upon his

will until he gets out of bed and proceeds to prepare himself for the

day. These processes of sensation, association, and volition

constitute the simple basis of individual life upon which the complex

structure of an active personality is built.

The individual will is moved to activity by many agencies. There is

first the instinct. As a person inherits physical traits from his

ancestors, so he gets certain mental traits. The demand for food is

the cry of the instinct for self-preservation. The grimace of the

infant in response to the mother's smile is an expression of the

instinct for imitation. The reaching out of its hand to grasp the

sunshine is in obedience to the instinct for acquisition. All human

association is due primarily to the instinct for sociability. These

instincts are inborn. They cannot be eradicated, but they can be

modified and controlled.

Obedience to these native instincts produces fixed habits. These are

not native but acquired, and so are not transmitted to posterity, in

the belief of most scientists, but they are powerful factors in

individual conduct. The individual early in the morning is hungry, and

the appetite for food recurs at intervals through the day; it becomes

a habit to go at certain hours where he may obtain satisfaction. So it

is with many activities throughout the day.

Instincts and habits produce impulses. The savage eats as often as he

feels like it, if he can find berries or fruit or bring down game;

impulse alone governs his conduct. But two other elements enter in to

modify impulse, as experience teaches wisdom. The self-indulgent man

remembers after a little that indulgence of impulse has resulted

sometimes in pain rather than satisfaction, and his imagination

pictures a recurrence of the unhappy experience. Feeling becomes a

guide to regulate impulse. Feeling in turn compels thought. Presently

the individual who is going through the civilizing process formulates

a resolve and a theory, a resolve to eat at regular times and to

abstain from foods that injure him, a theory that intelligent

restraint is better than unregulated indulgence. In a similar way the

individual acts with reference to selecting his environment. Instinct

and habit act conservatively, impelling the individual to remain in

the place where he was born and reared, and to follow the occupation

of his father. But he feels the discomforts of the climate or the

restrictions of his particular environment, he thinks about it,

bringing to bear all the knowledge that he possesses, and he makes his

choice between going elsewhere or modifying his present environment.

Discovery and invention are both products of such choices as these.

364. =Desires and Interests.=--These complexes of thinking, feeling,

and willing make up the conscious desires and interests that mould the

individual life. Through the processes of attention to the stimuli

that act upon human nature, discrimination between them, association

of impressions and ideas that come from present and past experience,

and deliberate judgments of value, the mind moves to action for the

satisfaction of personal desires and interests. These desires and

interests have been classified in various ways. For our present

purpose it is useful to classify them as those that centre in the

self, and those that centre in others beyond the self. The primitive

desires to get food and drink, to mate, and to engage in muscular

activity, all look toward the self-satisfaction which comes from their

indulgence. There are various acquired interests that likewise centre

in the self. The individual goes to college for the social pleasure

that he anticipates, for intellectual satisfaction, or to equip

himself with a training that will enable him to win success in the

competition of business. In the larger society outside of college the

art-lover gathers about him many treasures for his own æsthetic

delight, the politician exerts himself for the attainment of power and

position, the religious devotee hopes for personal favors from the

unseen powers. These are on different planes of value, they are

estimated differently by different persons, but they all centre in the

individual, and if society benefits it is only indirectly or

accidentally.

As the individual rises in the scale of social intelligence, his

interests become less self-centred, and as he extends his acquaintance

and associations the scope of his interests enlarges. He begins to act

with reference to the effect of his actions upon others. He sacrifices

his own convenience for his roommate; he restrains his self-indulgence

for the sake of the family that he might disgrace; he exerts himself

in athletic prowess for the honor of the college to which he belongs;

he is willing to risk his life on the battle-field in defense of the

nation of which he is a citizen; he consecrates his life to missionary

or scientific endeavor in a far land for the sake of humanity's gain.

These are the social interests that dominate his activity. Mankind has

risen from the brute by the process that leads the individual up from

the low level of life moulded by primitive desires to the high plane

of a life directed by the broad interests of society at large. It is

the task of education to reveal this process, and to provide the

stimuli that are needed for its continuance.