3 o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



surrendering worldly goods and life itself; and this is the highest fruit 

 that they have yielded in later times. 



The remaining aspect of sociability the influence of the general 

 multitude holds out the most powerful and permanent motive to con- 

 duct, and is largely felt in education. In the presence of an assembly 

 the individual is roused, agitated, swayed ; the thrill of numbers is elec- 

 tric ; in whatever direction the influence tends, it is almost irresistible. 

 Any effort made in the sight of a host is totally altered in character ; 

 and all impressions are very much deepened. 



Having in view this ascendency of numbers, we can make a step 

 toward computing the efficacy of class-teaching, public schools, and 

 institutions where great multitudes are brought together. The power 

 exercised is of a mixed character and the several elements admit of 

 being singled out. The social motive, in its pure form of gregarious 

 attraction and mutual sympathy, does not stand alone. Supposing it 

 did, the effect would be to supply a strong stimulus in favor of every- 

 thing that was supported by common consent ; the individual would be 

 urged to attain the level of the mass. The drill of a regiment of soldiers 

 corresponds very nearly to this situation; every man is under the eye 

 of the whole, and aspires to be what the rest are and not much, if 

 anything, beyond ; the sympathetic cooperation of the mass, guides, 

 stimulates, and rewards the exertion of the individual. Even if it were 

 the destination of a soldier to act as an isolated individual, still his 

 education would be most efficaciously conducted in the mass system, 

 being finished off by a certain amount of separate exercise to prepare 

 for the detached or independent position. 



In every kind of education in classes, the social feeling, in the 

 pure form now assumed, is frequently operative, and the results are as 

 stated. The tendency is to secure a certain approved level of attain- 

 ment .- those that are disinclined of themselves to work up to that level 

 are pushed on by the influence of the mass. If there were no other 

 strong passions called out in society, the general result would be a 

 kind of communism or socialism characterized by mediocrity and dead 

 level ; everything correct up to a certain point, but no individual supe- 

 riority or distinction. 



The influence of society as the dispenser of collective good and evil 

 things, in addition to its operation in the affections and sympathies, is 

 necessarily all-powerful in every direction. If this stimulus were always 

 to coincide with high mental culture, the effect would be something 

 that the imagination hardly dares to shadow forth. It is, however, a 

 power that may be propitiated by many different means, including 

 shams and evasions, and the bearing upon culture is only occasional. 

 Nevertheless, the social rewards have often served to foster the high- 

 est genius the oratory of Demosthenes, and the poetry of Horace and 

 Virgil a form of genius notoriously allied with toil and perseverance 

 of the most arduous kind. The same influence, working by clisappro- 



