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СНАР.
XLI

Imperialism Has Posed as Disinterested

But in
Fact

Been Very

Little of the Missionary Spirit

in It

diffuse their language and culture afford the best illustration of the disinterested propagation of nationality.

GOVERNMENT

The extension of the authority of the advanced peoples over savages, barbarians and stationary races claims to be inspired by motives scarcely less disinterested than those which maintain religious missions. Imperialism, which has dominated the European great powers for forty years and which precipitated the greatest catastrophe that has befallen mankind, posed as a disinterested movement to carry order and civilization to the troubled places of the earth. The tutelage and uplifting of the benighted peoples was presented as a moral obligation, "the white man's burden."

It is certainly true that modern empire has not enslaved and There Has exploited such peoples as ancient empire did. An age of powerdriven machinery has little inducement to pursue the ancient ruthless policy. Nevertheless, we know too much of the groups and interests which have furtively instigated imperialistic policies to look upon their humanitarian front as much else than camouflage to dupe the masses who share the risks but none of the profits of imperialism. The driving forces behind the advancement of empire have been the craving to seize rich natural resources, the eagerness for exclusive markets, the quest of opportunities for the profitable investment of superfluous capital and the itch of dynasties and ruling classes for the exercise of dominion. Without capitalistic and aristocratic pressure governments would never have embarked on a course so costly and perilous and the people would never have been taught to feel pleasurable emotion in seeing the national flag unfurled in strange places. For the most part, then, the extension of government has been inspired by more practical motives than the social aim of carrying the blessings of order and civilization to the backward peoples.

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CHAPTER XLII

OSSIFICATION

CHAP.
XLII

The

Power of

Social

Habit Ex

emplified

IN hilly New England the settlers discovered that the best way to build a barn is to set the foundation in a hillside, keep the animals in the basement, and drive the hay wagons from the uphill side into the second floor on a level. When their descendants migrated to the flat prairies of Illinois, they continued to build barns in the only way they knew. Having no hillsides, they built the barn first, built a plank hillside running up into Barnthe barn, and then got stalled trying to haul loads of hay up this superfluous hill!

building

School

In olden days the American common schools remained closed The during the growing season in order that the farmers might have Vacation the help of their children. Thus originated the long summer vacation, and as the cities established their school systems they adopted it without question. There are many ways in which school buildings and grounds may be used during the summer to keep children happy and usefully occupied. But no. Altho half of us are urban, every June we close the schools of our cities and turn millions of children into the street to hoe corn and "bug" potatoes!

In an early day in the level West the practice struck root of laying out roads on the section lines. Later the gridiron plan was adhered to even in rough country where it would be more economical to lay out the roads according to the contour, so that they would follow the water courses or the water partings. Today millions of loads are needlessly hauled over hill after hill on their way to market and thousands of hillside roads are washed away every season because men blindly follow precedent.

OSSIFICATION

In general, after a social practice or institution has existed for a generation or two, it is off its original basis of sound reason and will be retained even in a situation so changed that it has no jus

Stupid

Adherence

to the Plan in

Gridiron

Laying

Out Roads

СНАР.
XLII

Speedy Loss of Adaptability

We Are

Too Lazy to Rethink

Our Task

Very Few Are Willing to Put Themselves to Inconvenience for the Sake of Social Progress

Control in the Hands of the

Old De

tation

tification whatever. The first users scanning with a cold and critical eye will modify or abandon it if it does not suit their purpose. But after it has been taken over and worked by a later generation which has feelings about it, it loses its plasticity, turns to bone, as it were. The process, then, by which social institutions and arrangements lose adaptability and harden into rigid forms may be called ossification.

CAUSES OF OSSIFICATION

Most of us are mentally lazy. We are loath to put our minds to a stretch, to concentrate our powers upon an intricate matter. Little problems involving only a few factors may challenge and stimulate us like the situations in a game of chess, but we shun complex problems which call for sustained thinking. Hence, we shrink from recognizing a changed situation, from re-thinking our task. Indolently we roll along in the rut of habit and precedent until a stone in the rut or an obstacle in the road twists us out of it. Absorbed in their daily round, few pause to ask themselves: "Is this thing of any use?" "Am I doing any real good?" The ability to see one's activity in a true perspective is a rare gift.

There has been for a generation such a furore about social progress that one might suppose it to be an object of universal thought and desire. In truth very few care enough for social progress to embrace it in their plans or to make sacrifices for it. They are glad to have it, if they can have it at somebody else's expense. The true attitude of these shouters for progress is revealed when one proposes a concrete change affecting their religion, politics or customs. From their shocked resistance one will perceive that all the time they have been conservatives without realizing it.

Even the strong minds, the highly educated men, tend to abide in their earlier judgments and to retain the emotional attitudes of lays Adap. their youth. If, then, the control of affairs is in the hands of the old, the effete thing will longer escape notice and be longer tolerated than if young men are at the helm. If education falls out of step with life, if knowledge grows beyond the creeds, if laws fail to keep up with the development of social relations, the unprejudiced young will realize it first and will demand changes which the old see no reason for.

СНАР.

Only

Revolu

At my suggestion Dr. E. B. Gowin now professor in New York XLII University reviewed modern history in order to compare epochs of reform and epochs of quiet with respect to the age of their Young leaders. He found that in ten historical periods of reform or Men Make revolution the average age of the dozen leading men in each tions varied from 32 to 46 years. On the other hand, the average age of their chief opponents or of the leaders in quiet periods varied from 54 to 66 years. In general, the champions of change have been from 15 to 20 years younger than the champions of opposition to change.1

The long-established becomes an Ark of the Covenant which we fear to lay hand on lest we meet the fate of Uzzah. Perhaps our forefathers fought and bled for it. It has inspired heroic deeds, noble poetry and eloquence. We cannot imagine that a thing so cherished has become a stumbling-block or a nuisance. In the face of the imperative need of church union the faithful cling to their denominational peculiarities because of the sacrifices these doctrines once cost. The monastic ideal, the Monroe Doctrine, the policy of avoiding "entangling alliances," the uniformity of taxation, the "open door," laissez-faire, inspire passionate devotion long after their value has become doubtful. The American Constitution has gathered such prestige that scholars who demonstrate the part selfish interests took in its shaping are vilified. Owing to the bloody struggles which have raged about it the Bible has come to be for many a kind of fetich. Its texts are relied on to resolve every doubt life presents and the "higher critics" who call in question the traditional date, authorship or meaning of the Scriptures bring a tempest upon their heads.

The assumption that what once worked well will continue to work well implies a static notion of society. People generally imagine that society keeps to its track until some large sensible force a war, a revolution, a law, a religious movement or a great invention gives it a new direction. The fact is society can never be stable while its base shifts and its base may be shifted by the cumulative effect of numerous small imperceptible changes new methods of tillage, a gain of manufacturing on agriculture, cheaper carriage, the opening of new channels of trade, immigration, population increase, the unequal growth of sections and classes, the disappearance of the frontier, the rush to "The Executive and His Control of Men," pp. 264-270.

Because We

we Venerate the tablished Regard It with a

Long-Es

We Cannot

Critical

Eye

lence of

Static As

sumptions

about

СНАР.
XLII

Worthy
Private

Interests
become
Involved

with an Institution

the cities, the access of women to industry, etc. Silently these lowly unnoticed processes make society into something else than we imagine it to be, so that some of the wisdom of the past turns to folly and perhaps some of its folly becomes wisdom. Hence, each generation ought to review all the institutions they inherit and consider of each whether it is still at its peak of fitness. But they will never do this until they recognize the dynamic character of society.

Private interests become dependent on an institution and therefore resist proposals to abandon or alter it. The teachers of Latin and Greek protest against reforming in a modern spirit the traditional courses of study for youth. For thirty years religious and Resist leaders have urged that economics and sociology be a part of the training for the Christian ministry. With rare exceptions, however, the theological seminaries have done nothing owing to the vested interest of the professors of the traditional subjects. As a result the clergy are steadily losing influence because of their ig norance of the burning moral issues of the time.

All Proposals to Change It

The Fol

lowing of

Is a Snare

Guild self-interest is, then, an obstacle to adaptive change. Certain persons have specialized in good faith and lo, they are in danger of losing their occupation. It is indeed hard. One cannot well expect them to capitulate to anything less than a mathematical demonstration of their superfluousness, and this is impossible outside the field of material production. They are like players who protest against the nature of the game being changed to their detriment while they are playing it.

In the field of law ossification is an outcome of the Common Precedent Law doctrine that precedents are binding. This maxim of stare in decisis in turn reflects the popular demand that the law be clear and certain. How can we know what is lawful and what is unlawful for us to do unless we are sure that the judge who reviews our conduct will follow past decisions? Who wants to play a risky game unless the rules appear to be settled? The logic is so irresistible that even equity, "the judicial modification or supplementing of existing rules of law by reference to current morality," accepted the doctrine that precedents bind. As a result it presently lost its discretionary character and became merely a competing system of law. Says Dean Pound, "Well might Falstaff say to an Elizabethan audience, there's no equity stirring' when precedents were beginning to be cited in the Court of

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