MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, 35 



Increase of Juvenile Crime. Of course, these children so to speak shot 

 out into the world, do so with a social immaturity which is not at all com- 

 pensated for by their economic self-sufficiency. They are at that age when 

 they crave excitement without feeling any sense of responsibility for their 

 acts and we at once have an explanation for the tremendous increase in 

 juvenile crime. In the language of a Michigan judge, his court has become "a 

 perpetual procession of beardless boys." 



Ch'Qwth of Commercialised Amusement. I have spoken before of the 

 monotony of machine production of commodities. Measurably the like condi- 

 tions apply to all business. Whether the worker operates an automatic tool 

 in a factory or an adding machine in an office, the mental activity is in either 

 case narrowed and concentrated within a very limited sphere and both mind 

 and muscles exercised soon become tired or, relatively to others, overtired. 

 Some way must be found to restore the mental or physical balance. Mere rest 

 from physical exertion, if the mind is diverted, will restore the physical 

 balance while restoration of mental balance is facilitated by some physical 

 exertion. We find, then, as a consequence, an enormous increase in commer- 

 cialized amusement in the industrial countries, showing itself naturally first 

 in the United States where the automatic tool was originated and developed. 

 Baseball, the movies, drink, sports and games have become necessary counter 

 irritants, and we find men thus regularly following some non-productive 

 activity. Such men used to find relaxation in an alternative useful occupation. 

 These diversions, of course, involve also a tremendous "social overhead" in the 

 cost necessary to supply them. 



The I. W. W. The last point upon which I will touch is the social phe- 

 nomenon Known as the Industrial Workers of the World, to the causes of 

 which I have previously alluded. If we take the uneducated group employed 

 on specialized industrial production, and add to it the ordinary labor which 

 never has required any education, it is probably entirely safe to say that at 

 least one-half of all modern workers, in the earning of a living, can find no use 

 whatsoever for even a knowledge of how to read and write. Nonetheless, our 

 ideas of education compel the imparting of this minima, but they do not com- 

 pel us to insist on anything more. Hence a boy or girl can leave school with 

 practically nothing more than the simplest rudiments of reading and writing 

 and figuring. Some years ago, Ayres indicated^ that half of all our children 

 leave school permanently before the completion of the eighth grade and, in 

 fact, a large proportion of this half drop off about the middle of the fifth grade. 

 Now, that means an immense mass of people in the country who can merely 

 read and write, and who can therefore be reached by any sort of propaganda 

 and yet who have no educational background by which to judge the merits of 

 what they read. They are those to whom may well be applied the old proverb, 



^Laggards in our Schools, p. 71. 



