EDUCATION
When investigating the physical characteristics of mankind,
anthropologists do not confine themselves to the study of the adult.
They investigate also the growth and development of the child. They
record the increase in size of the body and of its organs, the changes
in physiological reaction and of mental behavior. The results of these
studies are laid down in certain norms characteristic of each age and
each social or racial group.
Physiologically and psychologically the child does not function in
the same way as the adult, the male not in the same way as the female.
Anthropological research offers, therefore, a means of determining what
may be expected of children of different ages and this knowledge is of
considerable value for regulating educational methods. From this point
of view Madame Montessori has developed a pedagogical anthropology
and many educators occupy themselves with investigations of form and
function of the body during childhood and adolescence, in the hope of
developing standards by which we can regulate our demands upon {165}
the physiological and mental performances of the child. More than that,
many educators hope to be enabled to place each individual child in its
proper position and to predict the course of its development.
Anthropological investigations of an age class, let us say of
eight-year-old children, show, for a selected social and racial group,
a certain distribution of stature, weight, size of head, development
of the skeleton, condition of teeth, size of internal organs and so
on. The children represented in the group are not by any means equal,
but each series of observations shows the majority of individuals
ranging near a certain value and few exhibiting values of measurements
remote from a middle value, the fewer the more remote from it. If the
statures of eight-year-old boys range about forty-nine inches, then the
number of those who are one, two, three inches taller or shorter than
this value will decrease with the size of the excess or deficiency. We
have seen before, in our consideration of races, that it is a mistake
to consider the middle value as the norm. We must define the type by
the distributions of the various measurements of the whole series of
individuals included in our age class.
When boys of different ages are compared,--for instance, children of
seven years and nine years of age with those of eight years of age
of whom we {166} spoke just now,--it will be found that the range of
forms in these three adjoining years is so wide that many sizes are
found that belong to the three age classes. This is true, not only
of stature, but of all the other measures, no matter whether we are
dealing with anatomical or functional values. This merely expresses the
common observation that the physical development of a child and its
behavior do not allow us to give a correct estimate of its age.
The reasons for the differences between children are quite varied. Form
and size of the body and its functioning depend upon heredity. Children
of a tall family tend to be tall; children of a family of stocky build
are liable to develop bodily form of the same type. The physical basis
for similarity of function is also determined by heredity.
Another cause for differences is found in different environmental
conditions. Food, sunshine, fresh air, accidental sickness or freedom
from sickness are important contributory elements.
Differences in the rate of development may be due to hereditary
constitution or to environmental conditions. These last are of
particular importance in the application of anthropological standards
to educational problems. If we could determine whether a child is
retarded or accelerated in its development, and if we knew the
standards for {167} each age, the demands to be made upon the child
could be regulated accordingly.
The rate of development of the individual is expressed primarily by the
appearance of definite physiological changes. In a group of the same
descent there is presumably a definite order in which physiological
changes occur and deviations from this order may be interpreted as
retardations or accelerations. We observe the ages at which certain
changes in the body and in the functions of organs occur. The length of
the period of gestation; the first appearance of teeth; the appearance
of centers of ossification in the skeleton; the joining of separate
bones, such as the shafts and ends of the long bones, fingers and toes;
sexual maturity; the appearance of the wisdom teeth; are indications
that, physiologically speaking, the respective parts of the body have
reached a certain, definite state of development.
The time of occurrence of such phenomena has been studied to a certain
extent, although not yet adequately. The observations show that at all
ages the time at which these stages are reached, varies materially in
different individuals, and the more so the later in life the particular
stage develops. In fact, the degree of variation, even in childhood,
is surprising. While the period of gestation varies only by days, the
first appearance of the first teeth varies by many weeks. The time of
the loss of the {168} deciduous teeth differs by months and the period
when maturity is reached differs by years. This variability of age at
which definite physiological conditions are reached goes on increasing
in later life. The signs of senility appear in different individuals
many years apart. We speak, therefore, of a physiological age of an
individual in contrast to his chronological age. If the normal age
at which the permanent inner incisors of boys appear is seven and
a half, then a six-year-old boy whose inner incisors are erupting
is, physiologically speaking, seven and a half years old, or his
physiological acceleration amounts to one and a half years, so far as
tooth development is concerned.
If the whole body and its physiological and mental functions were
developing as a unit we should have an excellent means of placing each
individual according to his or her stage of development. Unfortunately
this is not the case and an attempt to use a single trait for the
determination of the physiological age of an individual will generally
fail. Skeleton, teeth and internal organs, while being influenced by
the general state of development of the body, exhibit at the same time
a considerable degree of independence which may be due to hereditary or
to external causes.
The interrelation between the state of development of parts of the
body is not known in detail. {169} We do know that, in general, size
and physiological age are related. Children who are adolescent are
taller and heavier, in every respect larger, than children of the
same age who do not yet show signs of approaching adolescence. The
development of the skeleton is correlated with size, for among children
of the same age the taller ones have long bones that approach maturer
stages than the shorter ones. In a socially and racially homogeneous
group the children whose permanent teeth erupt early are also taller
than those whose permanent teeth erupt late.
The same interrelation is expressed in the growth of children
belonging to different social classes. The rapidity of the development
of the body is closely related to the economic status of the family.
The children of well-to-do parents, who enjoy plenty of food, exercise,
fresh air and sunshine, develop more quickly than the children of the
poor. Observations in Russia, Italy, America and in other countries all
indicate that the time when a certain physiological stage is reached
is earlier in the rich than in the poor. Therefore all the bodily
measurements of children of the rich are greater than those of the poor
of the same age and the differences between the two groups are greatest
when growth is most rapid and the changes of physiological status are
most pronounced. This happens during adolescence {170} Later on, when
growth ceases the rich are at a standstill, while the poor continue to
grow, so that the difference between the groups is lessened, although
it never disappears completely.
All this indicates that there is a correlation between the growth of
different parts of the body. Still, these relations are subject to
many disturbances. This has been observed particularly in regard to
the teeth. The poor whose general development is retarded, shed their
deciduous teeth earlier than the well-to-do--presumably on account
of the greater care with which the deciduous teeth of children of
the better situated classes are treated. Their deciduous teeth are
carefully preserved, while those of the poor often decay and are lost.
Therefore the stimulus for the early development of the permanent teeth
due to the loss of the corresponding deciduous teeth does not occur
among the well-to-do.
More important than the purely anatomical relations are those between
the functions of the body and the state of bodily development. We have
good evidence that these also are related. When we classify children
of the same age according to their school standing, we find that those
in the higher grades are much larger in every way than those in the
lower grades. We also find that in regard to physiological status
they are more advanced than children who are retarded in their {171}
school standing. Although this proof is not quite satisfactory, since
the advancement in school will also depend upon the apparent bodily
development of children, it indicates a rather interesting relation
between the general functioning of the body and maturity.
A comparison between the two sexes from these points of view shows that
every physiological stage that has been investigated occurs earlier
in girls than in boys. The difference in time is at first slight. The
early stages of development of the skeleton observed during the first
few years of life indicate a difference in favor of the girls of a few
months. At the time of adolescence the physiological development of
girls precedes that of boys by more than two years.
This difference is important. During the early years of childhood the
apparent development of girls and boys, expressed by their stature and
weight, is very nearly the same. From this observation the inference
has been drawn that in early childhood the sex differences in size and
form of the skeleton, muscles and so on are negligible, notwithstanding
their importance in later life. If we compare, however, boys and
girls at the same stage of physiological development, their relation
appears quite differently. If a girl seven years old is at the same
stage of physiological development as a boy eight years old, we should
compare the {172} bulk of the body at these stages, and not at the same
chronological age. The boy of eight years is considerably taller and
heavier than the girl of seven years. In other words, at the same stage
of physiological development the relation of size characteristic of the
sexes in adult life exists.
The correctness of this interpretation is proved by the measures of
those parts of the body that grow slowly. Thus, on the average, the
head of girls is always smaller than that of boys of the same age. In
this case the actual ratio of the measures in the two sexes is not
obscured because the increment of size corresponding to the amount
of physiological acceleration of the girl is small as compared to
the actual amount of sex difference; while in the case of weight and
stature the corresponding increment is so great that it obscures
the typical sex difference. The sex difference in the length of the
head, measured from forehead to occiput, is about eight millimeters
in favor of the men. The total increment due to growth for girls who
may be in their physiological development two years ahead of boys is
not more than about three millimeters. A sexual difference of five
millimeters remains even during this period. The same relations appear
in the slow-growing thickness of long bones which exhibit the same sex
differences in childhood as in adult life.
These observations are important because they {173} emphasize the
existence in childhood of sexual differences in many parts of the
body. These suggest the further question in how far the anatomical
differences are accompanied by physiological and psychological
differences.
What is true of physical measurements is equally true of mental
observations: the powers of children increase rapidly with increasing
age. The growing power of attention, of resistance to fatigue, the
gradual increase of knowledge, the changes in form of thought, have
been studied.
The practical value of all these investigations is that they give us
the means of laying out a standard of demands that may be made on
boys and girls of various ages and belonging to a certain society.
Particularly in an educational system of a large city the knowledge so
gained is helpful in planning the general curriculum.
In a large educational system the observations on physiological age
will also be helpful in assigning children a little more adequately
to the grades into which they fit. It is probable that children of
the same stage of physiological development will work together more
advantageously than children of the same chronological age.
The existence of secondary sexual characteristics and the difference
between the sexes in functional maturity should be considered in
the problem of coeducation. During the period of adolescence {174}
the physiological development of boys and girls of the same ages is
so different that joint education seems of doubtful value. It would
probably be of advantage to retain contact between boys and girls of
equal maturity. The detailed plan of instruction should consider the
differences between boys and girls.
We do not know much about differences in the rate of development
determined by heredity, but it is not unlikely that these exist.
A comparison of some well-to-do Jewish children in New York and
Northwest European children in Newark shows a fairly uniform growth
of the two groups while they are young. With approaching adolescence
the growth of Jewish boys slackens, while the Northwest Europeans
continue to grow vigorously. The effect is that the stature of the
adults is quite distinct. There is no evidence that maturity sets in
at an earlier age among the Jews. Neither is there any indication that
the mode of life is essentially different. The same relation is found
in a comparison of poor Hebrews and the mass of American Public School
children. Here also boys agree in their stature up to the fifteenth
year. Then follows a period of rapid growth for the public school boys,
and of retarded growth for the Jews.
Other differences have been observed in the growth of full blood
Indians and half bloods. As {175} children the former seem to be taller
than the half bloods, while as adults the half bloods are taller than
the Indians. It has also been shown that the increase of the size of
the head differs in different racial groups. The data available at the
present time are still very imperfect.
It is not by any means certain that these differences may not be due
to environmental as much as to hereditary conditions. All we know with
certainty is that when the adult forms of two races vary materially
then the course of growth is also different.
It is probable that the characteristic periods when physiological
changes occur may also differ among different races. The influence
of outer conditions upon these phenomena is so great that nothing
certain can be stated. The value of a knowledge of these phenomena for
educational problems cannot be doubted.
Educators are not satisfied with the general result here outlined. They
wish to ascertain the exact position of each individual in order to
assign to him his proper place. This is more than the anthropological
method can accomplish. Although a group of children may be segregated
that are approximately of the same stage of physiological development,
the individuals will not be uniform. This may be illustrated by a few
examples.
Badly nourished children are on the whole {176} smaller and lighter
in weight than those well nourished. It is, therefore, likely
that the small and light children of a certain age will include
more undernourished individuals than the tall and heavy children.
Undernourishment will also make children of a given age deficient in
weight in comparison to their stature. It may then be expected that
those who are small and light of weight in proportion to their size are
more often undernourished than those showing the opposite traits.
According to this method, to which may be added a few other
characteristics, undernourished children have been segregated and given
better food to bring them up to the standard.
It is not difficult to prove that these criteria are not adequate
and that errors may be expected. Children differ in bodily build by
heredity. Some are tall with heavy bones, others small with a light
skeleton. These may be perfectly healthy and well nourished and still
will appear in the “undernourished” class. Others may have been
retarded in their early development by sickness and may be both too
small and too light of weight. If we examine each individual carefully
in regard to the appearance of skin and muscles and whatever indication
can be found of undernourishment, we actually find a lack of agreement
between the really undernourished group and the one segregated
according {177} to statistical methods. The group contains so many
individuals who are tall and heavy that a tolerably accurate selection
of the undernourished cannot be made by such means. Even if we consider
the food that is given to each individual and include this criterion in
our selection we do not succeed much better, because there are those
who are well fed, but whose digestive system is at fault and who cannot
make proper use of their food.
The selection will bring it about that a greater number of
undernourished individuals are in the segregated class, but it
would not be right to claim that in this manner all those who are
undernourished have been found, nor that all those segregated are
really undernourished. The individual investigation cannot be dispensed
with.
The same conditions prevail in regard to all other characteristics. If
the child is short of stature the shortness may depend upon hereditary
smallness, upon retardation, or upon early unfavorable conditions
which, however, may have been completely overcome.
Even when retardation can be proved by direct physiological evidence
it does not follow that the child must belong mentally to the age
class so indicated, for the conditions controlling physiological and
psychological functioning are not by any means exclusively determined
by physiological age. Hereditary character and environmental causes
entirely {178} independent of the time element are no less important.
A group of children of exactly the same stage of physiological
development as determined by the few available tests differ
considerably among themselves. Their reactions may be quick or slow,
their senses may be acute or dull, their experience may be so varied
according to their home surroundings and general mode of life that a
considerable variation in adaptability to educational requirements may
be expected.
No matter what kind of measurements, experiments, and tests may be
desired, their relation to the actual personality is always indirect.
Without detailed study of the individual a proper pedagogical treatment
is unattainable.
What is true of a group cannot be applied to an individual.
It will be seen that this agrees with our judgment regarding the
significance of racial characteristics. We are apt to consider those
features or measurements around which the great mass of individuals
cluster as characteristic of the group. We believe that this is the
type to which all conform. In doing so we forget that a wide range of
variations is characteristic of every group and that a considerable
number of individuals deviate widely from the “type,” and that
nevertheless these belong to the same group. For this reason the
group standard cannot be applied to every individual. {179} If, for
practical reasons, as in education, it is desired to form a homogeneous
group, the component individuals must be picked out according to their
characteristics from different groups.
There are cases in which for the sake of efficiency anthropological
grouping may be utilized. When it is necessary to select large numbers
from a population, as, for instance, for enlistment during the late
war, it is useful to know that individuals of an unfavorable body
build are on the whole not able to withstand the strain of army life.
Very tall, slim persons with a slight depth of chest are of this kind.
The flatter the chest the more of them will be unable to fulfill
the demands made on bodily strength and endurance. It will then be
economical to discard the whole class rather than to take advantage of
the few who may be useful.
Similar considerations are valid in the selection of laborers for those
employers who rate the laborer not as a person but solely according
to his money value, because the turnover of labor will be less rapid
if the adaptable individuals are numerous in the class from which the
selection is made.
Educators are interested in another problem. It is desirable to
predict the development of an individual. If a child has difficulties
in learning, will it continue to be a dullard or may a better prognosis
{180} be given; or if a child is underdeveloped will it continue to
remain puny?
The answer can be given at least to the physical side of this question.
We have followed a considerable number of children from early growth
on. A group of small young children are liable to grow less than tall
children of the same age. During adolescence a group of tall children
will grow less than a group of short children of the same age. The
latter condition expresses clearly that the short children are on the
whole physiologically younger than the tall ones and are, therefore,
still growing while the taller ones are nearly mature. In early years
the conditions are different. Accelerated children grow with increased
rapidity, while those who are retarded lag the more behind the more
they are retarded. For a whole group it is possible to predict what the
average increment will be if the rate of growth at an early time is
given. However, these results are not significant for the individual.
The causes by which the whole course of growth is controlled are too
varied, the accidents that influence it cannot be predicted. It is true
that the course of undisturbed development depends upon the hereditary
character of the individual, but the varying environmental conditions
disturb this picture.
What is true of the growth of the body is much more true of its
functions, particularly of the {181} mental functioning. A prediction
of the future development of a normal individual cannot be made with
any degree of assurance.
* * * * *
Anthropology throws light upon an entirely different problem of
education. We have discussed before the causes that make for cultural
stability and found that automatic actions based on the habits of early
childhood are most stable. The firmer the habits that are instilled
into the child the less they are subject to reasoning, the stronger is
their emotional appeal. If we wish to educate children to unreasoned
mass action, we must cultivate set habits of action and thought. If we
wish to educate them to intellectual and emotional freedom care must be
taken that no unreasoned action takes such habitual hold upon them that
a serious struggle is involved in the attempt to cast it off.
The customary forms of thought of primitive tribes show us clearly
how an individual who is hemmed in on all sides by automatic reactions
may believe himself to be free. The Eskimo present an excellent
example of these conditions. In their social life they are exceedingly
individualistic. The social group has so little cohesion that we have
hardly the right to speak of tribes. A number of families come together
and live in the same village, but there is nothing to prevent any one
of them from living and settling at another place with {182} other
families of his acquaintance. In fact, during a period of a lifetime
the families constituting an Eskimo village are shifting about; and
while they generally return after many years to the places where their
relatives live, the family may have belonged to a great many different
communities. There is no authority vested in any individual, no
chieftaincy, and no method by which orders, if they were given, could
be enforced. In short, so far as human relations are concerned, we have
a condition of almost absolute anarchy. We might, therefore, say that
every single person is entirely free, within the limits of his own
mental ability and physical competency, to determine his own mode of
life and his own mode of thinking.
Nevertheless it is easily seen that there are innumerable restrictions
determining his behavior. The Eskimo boy learns how to handle the
knife, how to use bow and arrow, how to hunt, how to build a house;
the girl learns how to sew and mend clothing and how to cook; and
during all their lives they apply the methods learned in childhood. New
inventions are rare and the whole industrial life of the people runs in
traditional channels.
What is true of their industrial activities is no less true of their
thoughts. Certain religious ideas have been transmitted to them,
notions of right and wrong, amusements and enjoyment of certain types
of art. Any deviation from these is not likely to {183} occur. At the
same time, and since all alien forms of behavior are unknown to them,
it never enters into their minds that any different way of thinking and
acting would be possible, and they consider themselves as perfectly
free in regard to all their actions.
Based on our wider and different experience we know that the industrial
problems of the Eskimo might be solved in a great many other ways and
that their religious traditions and social customs might be quite
different from what they are. From the outside, objective point of view
we see clearly the restrictions that bind the individual who considers
himself free.
It is not difficult to see that the same conditions prevail among
ourselves. Families and schools which assiduously cultivate the tenets
of a religious faith and of a religious ceremonial and surround
them with an emotional halo raise, on the whole, a generation that
follows the same path. The Catholicism of Italy, the Protestantism
of Scandinavia and Germany, the Mahometanism of Turkey, the orthodox
Judaism, are intelligible only on the basis of a lack of freedom of
thought due to the strength of the automatic reaction to impressions
received in early childhood that exclude all new viewpoints. In the
majority of individuals who grow up under these conditions a new,
distinct viewpoint is not brought out with sufficient {184} vigor
to make it clear that theirs is not freely chosen, but imposed upon
them; and, _if_ strange ideas are presented, the emotional appeal of
the thoughts that are part of their nature is sufficient to make any
rationalization of the habitual attitude acceptable, except to those
of strong intellect and character. To say the least, the cultivation
of formal religious attitudes in family and school makes difficult
religious freedom.
What is true of religion is equally true of subservience to any other
type of social behavior. Only to a limited extent can the distribution
of political parties be understood by economic considerations.
Often party affiliation is bred in the young in the same way as
denominational allegiance.
With the weakening of the impressions of youthful instruction and
familiarity with many varying forms develops the freedom of choice. The
weakening of the valuation of the dogma and the spread of scientific
information has resulted in the loss of cohesion of the Protestant
churches.
The methods of education chosen depend upon our ideals. The
imperialistic State that strives for power and mass action wants
citizens who are one in thought, one in being swayed by the same
symbols. Democracy demands individual freedom of the fetters of social
symbols. Our public schools are hardly conscious of the conflict of
these ideas. {185} They instill automatic reactions to symbols by means
of patriotic ceremonial, in many cases by indirect religious appeal
and too often through the automatic reactions to the behavior of the
teacher that is imitated. At the same time they are supposed to develop
mind and character of the individual child. No wonder that they create
conflicts in the minds of the young, conflicts between the automatic
attitudes that are carefully nursed and the teachings that are to
contribute to individual freedom.
It may well be questioned whether the crises that are so characteristic
of adolescent life in our civilization and that educators assume to
be organically determined, are not due in part to these conflicts, in
part to the artificial sexual restraints demanded by our society. We
are altogether too readily inclined to ascribe to physiological causes
those difficulties that are brought about by cultural interference with
the physiological demands of the body. It is necessary that the crises
and struggles that are characteristic of individual life in our society
be investigated in societies in which our restraints do not exist while
others may be present, before we assume all too readily that these are
inherent in “human nature.”
The serious mental struggle induced by the conflict between
instinctive reaction and traditional social ethics is illustrated by a
case of suicide {186} among the Eskimo. A family had lost a child in
the fall and according to custom the old fur clothing had to be thrown
away. Skins were scarce that year and a second death in the family
would have led to disaster to all its members. This induced the old,
feeble grandmother, a woman whom I knew well, to wander away one night
and to expose herself, in a rock niche, to death by freezing, away from
the family who thus would not have been contaminated by contact with a
corpse. However, she was missed, found and brought back. She escaped a
second time and died before she was found.
Another case is presented by the Chukchee of Siberia. They believe
that every person will live in the future life in the same condition
in which he finds himself at the time of death. As a consequence an
old man who begins to be decrepit wishes to die, so as to avoid life
as a cripple in the endless future; and it becomes the duty of his son
to kill him. The son believes in the righteousness of his father’s
request, but, at the same time, feels the filial love for his father,
and a conflict of duties arises between filial love and the traditional
customs of the tribe. Generally the customary behavior is obeyed, but
not without severe struggles.
An instructive example of the absence of our difficulties in the life
of adolescents and the occurrence of others is found in the studies of
Dr. {187} Margaret Mead on the adolescents of Samoa. With the freedom
of sexual life, the absence of a large number of conflicting ideals,
and the emphasis upon forms that to us are irrelevant, the adolescent
crisis disappears, while new difficulties originate at a later period
when complexities of married life develop. A similar example is
presented in the life of one of our southwestern Indian tribes, the
Zuni, among whom, according to Dr. Ruth L. Bunzel, the suppression
of ambition, the desire to be like one’s neighbor and to avoid all
prominence are cultivated. They lead to a peculiar impersonal attitude
and to such an extent of formalism that individual crises are all but
suppressed.
We do not know enough about these questions, but our anthropological
knowledge justifies the most serious doubts regarding the physiological
determination of many of the crises that characterize individual life
in our civilization. A thorough study of analogous situations in
foreign cultures will do much to clear up this problem which is of
fundamental importance for the theory of education.
It is a question whether the doubts that beset the individual in such
a period are beneficial or a hindrance. The seriousness of the struggle
is certainly undesirable and an easier transition will be facilitated
by lessening the intensity of attachment {188} to the situation against
which he is led to rebel.
The lack of freedom in our behavior is not confined to the uneducated,
it prevails in the thoughts and actions of all classes of society.
When we attempt to form our opinions in an intelligent manner, we
are inclined to accept the judgment of those who by their education
and occupation are compelled to deal with the questions at issue. We
assume that their views must be rational and based on an intelligent
understanding of the problems. The foundation of this belief is the
tacit assumption that they have special knowledge and that they are
free to form perfectly rational opinions. However, it is easy to see
that there is no social group in existence in which such freedom
prevails.
The behavior in somewhat complex primitive societies in which there is
a distinction between different social classes, throws an interesting
light upon these conditions. An instance is presented by the Indians
of British Columbia, among whom a sharp distinction is made between
people of noble birth and common people. In this case the traditional
behavior of the two classes shows considerable differences. The social
tradition that regulates the life of the nobility is somewhat analogous
to the social tradition in our society. A great deal of stress is laid
upon strict observance of convention and upon display, and nobody can
maintain {189} his position in high society without an adequate amount
of ostentation and without strict regard for conventional conduct.
These requirements are so fundamental that an overbearing conceit
and a contempt for the common people become social requirements of
an important chief. The contrast between the social proprieties for
the nobility and those for the common people is very striking. Of the
common people are expected humbleness, mercy and all those qualities
that we consider amiable and humane.
Similar observations may be made in all those cases in which, by a
complex tradition, a social class is set off from the mass of the
people. The chiefs of the Polynesian Islands, the kings of Africa, the
medicine men of many countries, present examples in which the line of
conduct and thought of a social group is strongly modified by their
segregation from the mass of the people. They form closed societies. On
the whole, in societies of this type, the mass of the people consider
as their ideal those actions which we should characterize as humane;
not by any means that all their actions conform to humane conduct,
but their valuation of men shows that the fundamental altruistic
principles which we recognize are recognized by them too. Not so with
the privileged classes. In place of the general humane interest the
class interest predominates; and while it cannot {190} be claimed that
their conduct, individually, is selfish, it is always so shaped that
the interest of the class to which a person belongs prevails over the
interest of society as a whole. If it is necessary to secure rank
and to enhance the standing of the family by killing off a number of
enemies, there is no hesitation felt in taking life. If the standards
of the class require that it members should not perform menial
occupations, but should devote themselves to art or learning, then all
the members of the class will vie with one another in the attainment
of these achievements. It is for this reason that every segregated
class is much more strongly influenced by special traditional ideas
than is the rest of the people; not that the multitude is free to think
rationally and that its behavior is not determined by tradition; but
the tradition is not so specific, not so strictly determined in its
range, as in the case of the segregated classes. For this reason it is
often found that the restriction of freedom of thought by convention is
greater in what we might call the educated classes then in the mass of
the people.
I believe this observation is of great importance when we try to
understand conditions in our own society. Its bearing upon the problem
of the psychological significance of nationalism will at once be
apparent; for the nation is also a segregated class, a closed society,
albeit segregated according {191} to other principles; and the
characteristic feature of nationalism is that its social standards are
considered as more fundamental than those that are general and human,
or rather that the members of each nation like to assume that their
ideals are or should be the true ideals of mankind. The late President
Wilson once gave expression to this misconception when he said that, if
we,--Americans,--hold ideals for ourselves, we should also hold them
for others, referring in that case particularly to Mexico. At the same
time it illustrates clearly that we should make a fundamental mistake
if we should confound class selfishness and individual selfishness;
for we find the most splendid examples of unselfish devotion to the
interests of the nation, heroism that has been rightly praised for
thousands of years as the highest virtue, and it is difficult to
realize that nevertheless the whole history of mankind points in the
direction of a _human_ ideal as opposed to a _national_ ideal. And
indeed may we not continue to admire the self-sacrifice of a great
mind, even if we transcend to ideals that were not his, and that
perhaps, owing to the time and place in which he lived, could not be
his?
Our observation has also another important application. The
industrial and economic development of modern times has brought about
a differentiation within our population that has never been {192}
equalled in any primitive society. The occupations of the various parts
of a modern European or American population differ enormously; so much
so that in many cases it is almost impossible for people speaking
the same language to understand one another when they talk about
their daily work. The ideas with which the scientist, the artist, the
tradesman, the business man, the laborer operate are so distinctive
that they have only a few fundamental elements in common. Here it may
again be observed that those occupations which are intellectually or
emotionally most highly specialized require the longest training, and
training always means an infusion of historically transmitted ideas.
It is therefore not surprising that the thought of what we call the
educated classes is controlled essentially by those ideals which have
been transmitted to us by past generations. These ideals are always
highly specialized, and include the ethical tendencies, the æsthetic
inclinations, the intellectuality, and the expression of volition of
past times. After long continued education according to these standards
their control may find expression in a dominant tone which determines
the whole mode of thought and which, for the very reason that it has
come to be ingrained into our whole mentality, never rises into our
consciousness.
In those cases in which our reaction is more conscious, it is either
positive or negative. Our {193} thoughts may be based on a high
valuation of the past, or they may be in revolt against it.
When we bear this in mind we may understand the characteristics of the
behavior of the intellectuals. It is a mistake to assume that their
mentality is, on the average, appreciably higher than that of the rest
of the people. Perhaps a greater number of independent minds find
their way into this group than into some other group of individuals
who are moderately well-to-do; but their average mentality is surely
in no way superior to that of the workingmen, who by the conditions
of their youth have been compelled to subsist on the produce of their
manual labor. In both groups mediocrity prevails; unusually strong
and unusually weak individuals are the exceptions. For this reason
the strength of character and intellect that is required for vigorous
thought on matters in which intense sentiments are involved is not
commonly found,--either among the intellectuals or in any other part
of the population. This condition, combined with the thoroughness with
which the intellectuals have imbibed the traditions of the past, makes
the majority of them in all nations conventional. It has the effect
that their thoughts are based on tradition, and that the range of their
vision is liable to be limited.
There are of course strong minds among the intellectuals who rise
above the conventionalism of {194} their class, and attain that freedom
that is the reward of a courageous search for truth, along whatever
path it may lead.
In contrast to the intellectuals, the masses in our modern city
populations are less subject to the influence of traditional teaching.
Many children are torn away from school before it can make an indelible
impression upon their minds and they may never have known the strength
of the conservative influence of a home in which parents and children
live a common life. The more heterogeneous the society in which they
live, and the more the constituent groups are free from historic
influences; or the more they represent different historic traditions,
the less strongly will they be attached to the past.
This does not preclude the possibility of the formation of small,
self-centered, closed societies,--gangs,--among the uneducated, that
equal primitive man in the intensity of their group feeling and in
the disregard of the rights of the outsider. On account of their
segregation they no longer belong to the masses.
It would be an exaggeration if we should extend the view just
expressed over all aspects of human life. I am speaking here only of
those fundamental concepts of right and wrong that develop in the
segregated classes and in the masses. In a society in which beliefs
are transmitted with great intensity {195} the impossibility of
treating calmly the views and actions of the heretic is shared by
both groups. When, through the progress of scientific thought, the
foundations of dogmatic belief are shaken among the intellectuals and
not among the masses, we find the conditions reversed and greater
freedom of traditional forms of thought among the intellectuals,--at
least in so far as the current dogma is involved. It would also be
an exaggeration to claim that the masses can sense the right way of
attaining the realization of their ideals, for these must be found
by painful experience and by the application of knowledge. However,
neither of these restrictions touches our main contention; namely, that
the desires of the masses are in a wider sense human than those of the
classes.
It is therefore not surprising that the masses of the people, whose
attachment to the past is comparatively slight, respond more quickly
and more energetically to the urgent demands of the hour than the
educated classes, and that the ethical ideals of the best among them
are human ideals, not those of a segregated class. For this reason I
should always be more inclined to accept, in regard to fundamental
human problems, the judgment of the masses rather than the judgment
of the intellectuals, which is much more certain to be warped by
unconscious control of traditional ideas. I do not mean to say that the
judgment of the masses would {196} be acceptable in regard to every
problem of human life, because there are many which, by their technical
nature, are beyond their understanding; nor do I believe that the
details of the right solution of a problem can always be found by the
masses; but I feel strongly that the problem itself, as felt by them,
and the ideal that they want to see realized, is a safer guide for our
conduct than the ideal of the intellectual group that stand under the
ban of an historical tradition that dulls their feeling for the needs
of the day.
One word more, in regard to what might be a fatal misunderstanding
of my meaning. If I decry unthinking obedience to the ideals of our
forefathers, I am far from believing that it will ever be possible or
that it will even be desirable, to cast away the past and to begin
anew on a purely intellectual basis. Those who think that this can be
accomplished do not, I believe, understand human nature aright. Our
very wishes for changes are based on criticism of the past, and would
take another direction if the conditions under which we live were of a
different nature. We are building up our new ideals by utilizing the
work of our ancestors, even where we condemn it, and so it will be in
the future. Whatever our generation may achieve will attain in course
of time that venerable aspect that will lay in chains the minds of our
successors, and it will require new efforts to free {197} a future
generation of the shackles that we are forging. When we once recognize
this process, we must see that it is our task not only to free
ourselves of traditional prejudice, but also to search in the heritage
of the past for what is useful and right, and to endeavor to free the
mind of future generations so that they may not cling to our mistakes,
but may be ready to correct them.