EDUCATIONAL ADVANCE 555 



and crude economic goods, toward a greater variety in quantity and 

 quality of demands. As Clark has shown, the tendency of dynamic 

 economics, as seen from the purely economic point of view, is toward 

 variety in consumption and specialization in production. But after a cer- 

 tain point is past specialization in production tends to prevent greater 

 variety in consumption. These economic considerations, as well as 

 those of an ethical or social nature, set bounds beyond which spe- 

 cialization ought not to pass. This limit is not fixed and invariable. 

 For example, the man who has an avocation, who utilizes his leisure 

 in such a way as to broaden his view of life, so as to exercise many 

 different sets of muscles and brain cells, may specialize his work much 

 more minutely without individual detriment or economic and social 

 loss, than the man who talks shop, or does nothing to diversify his 

 tastes or to open up new lines of thought and action, during his 

 leisure hours. In the terms employed by the economist, the ideal point 

 of equilibrium is where the descending curve of the social value of 

 the products due to additional subdivision is met by the ascending 

 curve of disutility due to long-continued and narrow specialization on 

 the part of the individual members of society. Other things remain- 

 ing the same, the additional products which come into being through 

 increasing subdivision, gradually diminish in value as increment after 

 increment is added, according to the well-known law of diminishing 

 returns; and on the contrary the detriment to society as a whole in- 

 creases as individuals are forced into narrower and narrower rounds 

 of duty. 



Ethical considerations lead directly and unequivocally to the con- 

 viction that men must not be treated as machines, that the true end and 

 aim of industry is the production of men, not the multiplication of 

 profits. True long-run economic aims coincide with ethical ideals. As 

 Walt Whitman has taught us : " Produce great men, the rest follows." 

 Primitive industry was always a means to an end which was plainly 

 seen ; it was never an end in itself. It has remained for modern times 

 to heap up complexity, confusion, and cross-purposes until the funda- 

 mentals have Been hidden from view. When the methods of modern 

 complex industry come into collision with the true economic and ethical 

 demands of society, the former must be modified. It is one of the 

 functions of education to harmonize the demands of these two appar- 

 ently conflicting and opposing forces. It should so train the members 

 of society as to allow the greatest possible advantage to be taken of 

 efficient productive methods consistent with the welfare and best de- 

 velopment of the individual members of society of all classes and 

 conditions. 



Both the internal and external organization of industrv now tend 

 to remove variety, irregularity, risk, chance and speculation. The 



