118 CREATIVE INVOLUTION 



Thor, we have need to summon all of our divine 

 power if we would wrestle with it effectively. 



Never before in the history of civilisation has the 

 crowd taken so important a place in the affairs of 

 mankind. The substitution of the unconscious ac- 

 tion of groups for the conscious activity of individ- 

 uals is the most marked characteristic of our age. 

 The collective mind is coming to be an ever-greater 

 menace to the individual. Of no country is this 

 truer than of our own, the land of the common 

 school. We train our children to gregarious habits 

 of thought and action, and then are surprised that 

 they fail to meet the intellectual and moral standards 

 of individual growth and development. Our educa- 

 tion system is indeed out of joint, and in a far 

 deeper sense than we are aware. 



It is a recognised fact that an agglomeration* of 

 men will present, under certain influences, character- 

 istics very different from those of the individuals 

 composing it. Children are " but men of lesser 

 growth," and, inasmuch as their individuality is not 

 yet established, are all the more subject to collective 

 impulses. In the bringing together of large num- 

 bers in schools, we set in operation most powerful 

 forces making for the crowd-mind. The process of 

 integration thus prematurely inaugurated is suffi- 

 cient to account for the qualities we all deplore in 

 our Rising Generation. In the study that follows, 

 I have based my conclusions upon the characteristics 



