20 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vor,. XXV. No. 627 



will have the self-control to act upon that 

 knowledge. Hence the liquor problem be- 

 comes a social as well as an individual 

 question. Again it is not true that igno- 

 rant parents are justified in imposing their 

 ideas of education upon their children; 

 hence the problem of child-labor, instead of 

 concerning only the individual, as was at 

 one time thought, has important and far- 

 reaching relations to society as a Avhole. 

 The same principles apply to the restraint 

 of gambling, vice, the suppression of inde- 

 cent literature, the compulsion upon land- 

 lords to make tenements sanitary, and 

 many other forms of governmental regula- 

 tion. 



Even where governmental intervention is 

 impracticable or inadvisable, there will still 

 be good reason for attempting betterment 

 of conditions through the influence of one 

 class upon another ; hence come social agita- 

 tions and the efforts of one class to educate 

 or instruct another. On this principle are 

 based the great modern movements for 

 human betterment as exemplified by, the 

 Society for the Study and Prevention of 

 Tuberculosis, the Society for Sanitary and 

 Moral Prophylaxis, the National Civic 

 Federation, the American Institute of So- 

 cial Service, the National Child Labor 

 Committee, temperance societies, college 

 settlements, district nurse associations and 

 other organizations. 



Strange as it may seem to those of us 

 interested in these movements to-day, the 

 fact is that a generation ago many of 

 them would have been regarded by the 

 dominant Manchester School not only as 

 impracticable, but as unnecessary and pos- 

 sibly harmful. The adherents of this 

 school seemed to treat the difference be- 

 tween knowledge and ignorance as a mere 

 difference in opinion, with which the gov- 

 ernment has no more concern than with 

 difference of religious creeds. It is cer- 

 tainly true that the attempts of govern- 



ments to impose what is regarded by the 

 ruling class as the 'true religion' upon the 

 entire people have always proved ill-ad- 

 vised ; the recognition of this has produced 

 the modern sentiment of religious tolera- 

 tion. But we are carrying toleration too 

 far when we refuse to correct errors which 

 science demonstrates to be false. There are 

 doubtless millions of persons to-day who 

 jeer at the idea that indiscriminate spitting 

 is dangerous to public health, but it would 

 be silly to allow their ignorant prejudice 

 to prevail. The bacteriologist knows what 

 the ignorant do not know, and every effort 

 should be made to pass down this knowl- 

 edge to the masses as soon as possible after 

 it is discovered. We can not let any dogma 

 of laissez faire prevent us from checking 

 suicidal ignorance. 



The world consists of two classes— the 

 educated and the ignorant— and it is essen- 

 tial for progress that the former should be 

 allowed to dominate the latter. But once 

 we admit that it is proper for the instructed 

 classes to give tuition to the uninstructed, 

 we begin to see an almost boundless vista 

 for possible human betterment. Instead of 

 regarding the present state of society as a 

 normal and desirable one because each man 

 naturally 'seeks his own best interests,' we 

 permit ourselves to judge each actual case 

 by our own ideal standard. This standard 

 may differ widely from the average of 

 actual usage. We must always distinguish 

 between the ideal or normal, and the real or 

 average. 



The average represents merely conditions 

 as they are; the nornaal represents condi- 

 tions as they ought to be. Yet nothing is 

 more common than confusing the two. In 

 fact, in most anthropometric or physiologic 

 tables, the word 'normal' is used almost 

 synonymously with 'average.' The nor- 

 mal height of man, his normal weight, his 

 normal length of life, his normal diet, 



