78 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



develop common man to *'a position of supreme collect- 

 ive control" — the goal of democracy in the United 

 States, we must guarantee leadership by education in 

 the schools as far as the student can be induced to go up 

 the ladder. 



Now granting the problem of the schools and its im- 

 plications for American democracy, the practical con- 

 sideration is: ''What can we do about it?" Our first 

 great care, of course, is to promote by our own scholarly 

 attainments and enthusiasms a respect for the intellec- 

 tual life. This is not the relatively simple task of the 

 nineteenth century. ''We did not pass our college days," 

 says President Alderman of the University of Virginia, 

 "amid the din of the gasoline engine and the jazz of the 

 phonograph, and the allurements and excitements con- 

 stantly on tap in movies and popular magazines without 

 and the engrossing interest of athletics within, organized 

 on a scale so grandiose and exciting as to tend to drive 



other topics from the mind The effort to show 



them the glory of scholarship, the fruitfulness of cul- 

 ture, must be commensurate with the vivid influences 

 surging about them and bearing them into other fields. 

 Such effort is the outstanding task of the American col- 

 lege for the next generation." 



The second care lies in the practical recognition of 

 individual differences. If the measurement of promise 

 of intellecutal and moral leadership has not been re- 

 duced by any methods to a reliable basis, we, at least, no 

 longer hold to the theory that, as Professor Seashore 

 facetiously words it, "If the Great Creator failed to 

 make all human beings equal, it is the business of the 

 school to make them equal." Still much of our machin- 

 ery does suggest our faith in it. It has been pointed out 

 at Columbia University that the best students, if allowed 

 to go at a speed commensurate with their interests and 

 ability, do two or three times as much work in four years 

 as the ordinary undergraduate. Some take both the 

 A. B, and A. M. degrees in that period. 



Professor Seashore observes that differences in ca- 

 pacity tend to increase in proportion to the complexity 



