THE INTENTIONAL SHAPING OF HUMAN OPINION 599 



judgments on hearsay or on tradition, of judging issues 

 solely from a single national or racial point of view. In their 

 stead will be increasingly developed the habit of viewing 

 debatable matters from all sides and with all possible 

 consideration. 



SWEEPING CHANGES ARE TAKING PLACE IN 

 THOUGHT-HABITS 



We have referred to two examples or experiments which 

 would seem to promise changes in our thought-habits. 

 A brief reference to a number of institutions may emphasize 

 the fact that a far more widespread modification of thought- 

 habits is in process than we are ordinarily accustomed to 

 beheve. Within the last thirty years the public hbrary has 

 become an estabhshed part of our hfe. Where formerly all 

 of us, with the exception of a favored few, were cut off from 

 the accumulated heritage and the growing inteUigence of 

 the world, today access to the wisdom of humankind has 

 been intentionally provided. No doubt the effect of this in 

 another generation will be profound. 



Again, within Kttle more than a decade, one entire sex 

 has emerged to a condition of Hfe in which it has the right 

 to be effectively intelHgent. Almost overnight a type of 

 women's organization of a new kind, the kind where serious 

 study and discussion are carried on, has developed, with 

 the result that a fairly vast population of new readers and 

 thinkers has been added to our country and is being added 

 to the world at large. 



Another sign of the times is the formation of what have 

 come to be called child study groups. Where formerly 

 parenthood was taken for granted, and little or no effort 

 was made to become intelligent in the highly significant 

 function of child-rearing, the effort among parents to incor- 

 porate for their use the best that modern science has to offer 

 is becoming widespread. Again, parents are no longer, as in 

 previous generations, supposed to hold aloof from the 

 educational processes. In the formation of associations of 

 parents and teachers, the thought begins to prevail that the 

 basis of the education of the child lies in an intelligent 

 cooperation between the home and the school. 



