CARLETON S. COON 
the idea of mass education in large communities has appeared 
late. 
In the most successful civilizations of the past it was enough 
to train from infancy an élite whose members could assume 
leadership as needed, and this system permitted much individual 
cultural variation in the provinces and among conquered 
peoples, each of which was allowed to keep its own identity and 
morale. Trying to educate everyone with identical curricula 
cannot produce a homogenized mass of tranquillized subjects 
nor can it maintain the quality of a nation. For every hidden 
genius that it extracts from an under-privileged background it 
fosters a dozen rebels. And scientists who know nothing but 
science can imperil the safety of the world. 
EVOLUTION AND DIFFUSION IN THE GROWTH OF SOCIETIES 
In various parts of the earth unique civilizations have grown 
up more or less independently from simple beginnings. Middle 
Eastern civilization, Mediterranean civilization, and Western 
European civilization represent three stages, moving westward 
into newer grounds, of our own tradition. Chinese civilization 
is another, with branches in Japan and elsewhere, and in 
America the conquistadores found autochthonous civilizations 
in Mexico, Guatemala, and the Andean countries, both in the 
highlands and on the coast. 
No civilization grows up in absolute isolation. There are 
always peripheral contacts which diffuse one technique, ritual, 
or other trait from one centre to another. Such autochthonous 
civilizations grow up in a state of balance. Their institutional 
growth mirrors their technological advances in a steady fashion. 
Old traditions cling on and old practices gradually assume new 
roles. ‘These are, in short, nuclear cultures. 
At the same time, in equally or more isolated parts of the 
earth, other nuclear cultures grow and evolve in a harmonious 
fashion but at a much slower rate. These are the primitive 
cultures of stone age man preserved by the miracle of geography 
into modern times. 
In between these two polar types of culture, clinal societies 
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