THE INFLUENCE OF EDUCATION 485 



criminatingly accepts for a time anything offered, only 

 to turn soon to some newer topic. For the older tradition of 

 universal scholarship has affected even the teaching of 

 science, short of the small number who become capable of 

 independent speciahzation. The essentials of scientific 

 method, of a certain way of looking at things and seeking 

 and weighing evidence, in short the development of judgment, 

 are swamped in the acquisition of information, all the items 

 of which stand on the same level and are equally subject to 

 belief or unbelief. The mind is left more ready to seek for 

 signs and wonders, and more ready to grasp at and swallow 

 whatever is presented in print. The mere mass of what 

 is offered daily, monthly and yearly, overpowers inde- 

 pendent judgment and creates a state of intellectual impo- 

 tence; the mind is oppressed rather then enlightened. Perhaps 

 the most encouraging signs of improvement are now found 

 in various branches of professional education. These have to 

 deal with the problem presented by the enormous growth 

 material in both bulk and complexity, and are correspond- 

 ingly forced by the necessities of the situation to simplify, 

 and to simplify not by arbitrary limitation to traditional 

 portions of the field, but by emphasis upon subject-matter 

 that is strategic in developing command of method. 



There are many who are pessimistic regarding the ability 

 of intelligence to take any considerable part in social direction. 

 After a period in which psychology was conceived almost 

 exclusively in intellectualistic terms, a marked reaction has 

 set in. This is due in part to the influence of biology on 

 psychology. For the former has revealed the large role of 

 non-rational factors in the human make-up. Instinct, 

 impulse, emotion, desire, habit occupy the position once 

 held by intellect. Anthropological knowledge has disclosed 

 the role of non-rational factors in the whole course of human 

 life on earth. Study of mental disorders, great and small, 

 has shown the extent to which what presents itself as reason 

 is in fact an ex post facto rationalization dictated by desire 

 and having only the semblance, the form, of rationality 

 without its substance. This reaction has occurred during 

 a period in which the need of direction by informed intelli- 

 gence of social affairs has enormously increased. It is only 



