1 64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



human race. "While speaking in hysterical tones of a possible shortage 

 of the wheat crop, or expressing gloomy forebodings of the failure of 

 the coal supply, we are blind to the fact that some day there may be 

 a shortage of brain-power, a deficiency made evident by our failure 

 to cope successfully with the emergencies created by an advancing and 

 more complex civilization. Universities, and so-called higher institu- 

 tions of learning, do but little to encourage any effort made in the 

 direction of finding out the laws which condition the activities of the 

 brain. In relative importance all other questions become mere trivial 

 academic discussions. If the public does occasionally discuss these 

 topics it is " as if it had been struck by sentimentality." 



Each new crisis in civilization calls for the exercise of more intel- 

 ligence. Instead of having our wits about us and discussing the ways 

 and means of developing greater cerebral capacity, we talk glibly 

 enough about the man behind the gun, but make no effort to increase 

 his mental efficiency. Although the success of representative govern- 

 ment depends upon the fact that the majority of voters should have 

 sound minds in sound bodies, we are more interested in the framing of 

 new statutes than in any attempt to promote the mental growth of the 

 citizens. Over the entrance to the New York Public Library the fol- 

 lowing words are inscribed : " On the diffusion of education among the 

 people rests the preservation of our free institutions." This affirmation 

 is true only if we include in " education " those agencies which aim to 

 protect the brains of the people from injury. The nineteenth century 

 supplied indiscriminately countless opportunities for squandering brain 

 energy, and it now becomes the duty of the twentieth to determine the 

 speed limits and endurance tests to which the most delicately balanced 

 organ in the human body may be subjected without imperiling indi- 

 vidual or racial existence. 



In order to increase the brain power of a nation steps should be 

 taken to conserve that which exists. Any reform which has this end in 

 view should begin by taking cognizance of all the facts directly related 

 to the problems under discussion, and then efforts should be made to 

 provide the means and opportunities for extending our knowledge of 

 this subject. In the movement to conserve the national forests the 

 schools of forestry are not only repositories for knowledge, but are 

 centers for investigations ; the sources for information that vitalize the 

 whole movement. An organization based on similar principles must 

 form the basis of successful attempts to conserve all of our national 

 resources, rivers, harbors, coal, forests and brains. First, there is the 

 immediate attack in which the present store of knowledge is catalogued 

 and presented to the public in an assimilable form. The populariza- 

 tion of the scientific knowledge of the brain will be one of the duties of 

 the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. Equally important is the 



