600 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



Another development is the public forum, where the effort 

 is made to develop the many-sided outlook which is the 

 beginning of all true thinking. Still another development 

 is the adult school. Sometimes it is an evening high school 

 where adults make up for educational opportunities lost in 

 youth; sometimes it is a school which offers the adult the 

 privilege of continuing his education on a level of mature 

 insight impossible in the days of school and college. 



These things are all still in their beginnings. But back of 

 them, apparently, is a single idea, namely, that freedom 

 among human beings and elevation of life can be gained 

 only by searching out and applying such truths as humans 

 are progressively able to discover. It is that single idea which 

 seems increasingly to be on the way to becoming the govern- 

 ing thought-habit of our life. 



THE GRAFTING OF IDEAS GOOD AND BAD 



But there is one further significant point to notice. The 

 modern age differs from the ages preceding by the swiftness 

 with which it can universalize an idea. Had Galileo lived 

 today, his Pisa experiment would doubtless have been front 

 page news, and, overnight, it would have reached scientists 

 at the ends of the earth. Ideas have always been powerful, 

 but much of their energy has had to be wasted in the sheer 

 effort to cross barriers. Now an idea can go with the swiftness 

 of the lightning, girdling the earth in an instant of time. 



This means that, once an idea is conceived and put to the 

 test, it has a power to launch itself never before possessed. 

 Ghandi's passive resistance in India affects the attitudes of 

 hundreds of thousands of persons throughout the world. 

 Russia's effort to free herself from ignorance and oppression, 

 however faulty the methods may be, helps to inspire new 

 hopes for mankind in regions thousands of miles away. The 

 western world's emancipation of an entire sex from bondage 

 helps to remove the veil from the Turkish woman. The 

 eight-hour day in England and America begins to raise the 

 industrial status of the labor-slaves of India and China. 



But unfortunately the thing works both ways. The shot 

 fired at Sarajevo inflamed a world to slaughter. Lying 

 propaganda swung whole peoples into fanatic hatred. The 



