the case in Europe. Hundreds of young men every year, with little more than their natural talents to help them, succeed in carving out a career for themselves and lifting themselves to positions of profit and power. And in increasing numbers the young women of America are following their example and becoming independent individuals, able to support themselves and make a distinctive personal contribution to the country's life.

But this individualistic spirit is as yet only partially developed. In some matters public opinion still presses too hard upon the individual, seeking to make him conform to generally accepted standards of manners and morals, at the expense of the complete development of his personality. This is partly the result of our Puritan tradition, which allowed no variation from a supposedly infallible code, and partly the instinctive expression of a very widespread human attitude, the dislike of conduct that varies from our own.

More serious even than this is the fact that there are whole classes of workers who, while being cogs in a great industrial or commercial machine, have no least share in shaping the conditions of their daily work or the policies of the industry they serve. They are simply "hands," not human beings, to be ordered about, never to be consulted or even listened to; they are what the agitators call "wage-slaves." This state of things is undesirable, not primarily out of consideration for abstract justice, but because this stifling of individuality narrows unnecessarily the lives of so many people, deprives them of zest in their work, and deprives the industries of the ideas that would be evolved from their participation in their management. Emerson boasted of our people that we are

"a nation of individuals." But we are in danger of becoming, if we have not already become, an upper class of individuals controlling the daily life of a great mass of laborers who have little opportunity to develop their individuality or to express it if it were developed.

The fact seems to be that most of the present managers of industry are so confident in their own judgment, so afraid of the ignorance or shortsightedness of the workers whose help they use in carrying on the business-in short, so undemocratic in their outlook-that they are afraid or unwilling to share the responsibility of decision, except perhaps with their technical experts or heads of departments. Yet where some measure of industrial democracy has been tried, the results have usually been salutary, not only upon the workers admitted to participation in control, in developing their individuality and giving them a new interest in life, but in contributing ideas of value to the business. As Professor Mecklin says, "among the thousands of human beings working like bees in a vast plant there are countless precious human capacities that lie dormant or are absolutely ignored. 'Mute inglorious Miltons,' men with scientific, artistic, or moral gifts, are forced to fit their varied geniuses into one colossal mechanistic scheme that knows but one measure of value-earning capacity." Some way to develop and utilize these latent energies and talents must be devised.

Curiously enough, in American politics the opposite practice rules. Our idea here is that almost anybody can fill any position; we do not demand professional training for high political office. As an acute foreign observer wrote, some years before the war, "The need of specialized experts is not felt; and the result is an

ineffective triviality which repels the best men and opens wide the door for dishonesty.” When Mr. Bryan was arguing for free silver he was reported to have said that the opinion of all the professors of the United States would not affect his opinion in the least. And this same distrust of the trained student permeates our government. Mayors are elected in our great cities who have had no experience in managing municipal affairs. Senators are appointed to committees with no thought as to their previous training in the fields in which those committees must prepare legislation. Debates take place continually upon the floor of Congress which are ridiculous to any one who is a competent student of the matters discussed.

Plainly the ideal, both for politics and for industry, is to combine the fullest self-expression for all with the utilization of the greatest natural talent that can be discovered and the most thorough training that can be devised. Every one of age should participate in the choice of those who are to govern; but the people must be educated to realize the value of talent and training, so that they will try to choose those who will be most competent for the work in hand. Such a democracy, encouraging individuality everywhere, and bringing the individuals of greatest worth to the top, would be infinitely superior both to the easygoing "he's-a-good-fellow" of contemporary politics and the autocratic control of contemporary industry. As a matter of fact, the two realms are not so unlike as would appear. Political officials are actually chosen for the most part by small groups of politicians rather than by any real popular decision; the voter is consulted not as to whom he wishes but only as to which of two or three he wishes. What we

need is a means by which a really popular will can be created and expressed, as well in politics as in industry. In the early days of the Republic, when both politics and industry were on a small scale, there was ample scope for the individuality of any one who had ideas to contribute. But the development of our highly complex political and industrial machines has throttled the individuality of all but the fortunate or clever few who can push their way V into the inner councils. Many proposals will be discussed and tried out before we agree upon the best way to restore something like the splendidly democratic individualism of the old days. But a clear recognition of the partial eclipse of this ideal is half the battle for its regaining.

There is another way in which the free individualism of our American tradition is in danger of being lost. That tradition was voiced by Emerson when he wrote, "Why was man born, if not to be a reformer, a re-maker of what man has done?" It has recently been expressed by a French critic, M. Rodrigues, who writes, "The mission of the American people is a mission of renascence and renovation." The spirit behind the Declaration of Independence was the impulse toward free experimentation, toward detachment from the past, toward giving free play to imagination and thought. The Founders were radicals, not afraid to voice their radicalism. They welcomed to these shores men of radical opinions, and make of our country the great political asylum. They were not afraid of trying out a new plan of government. The several States became so many experi ment stations in democracy. Change, growth, free criticism, progress, were in the air.

But in these latter years a new timorousness has

appeared in American life. Prosperity has begotten contentment, conservatism, the let-well-enough-alone attitude. What was radical in the days of the Founders is now accepted as a matter of course; but the radical thought of today is branded in some quarters as dangerous and deserving of ruthless suppression. The result is that we are in danger of becoming actually the most convention-ridden and unprogressive of the great nations. Many modern observers have, in fact, given that as their mature opinion of American life. Even de Toqueville found this tendency to the crystallization of a new conventionalism; "one would say," he wrote, "that minds have all been formed upon the same model in America, so exactly do they follow the same routes." Matthew Arnold was impressed by the drab uniformity of our civilization and the absence of fresh currents of ideas. Lord Bryce, America's most sympathetic critic, has written of our cities that "their monotony haunts one like a nightmare”; and, again, has pointed out that we have "so few independent schools of opinion." Very recently an acute English critic, Mr. Graham Wallas, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, declared that American thought on social and political matters is "timid and conventional."

The fact seems to be that too many of us have come to tolerate the wrong kind of individualism and to frown upon the right kind. Individualistic activities -activities which further private fortunes, at no matter whose expense-are acquiesced in, out of a sincere belief in the wisdom of leaving the individual unhampered no matter how the public is plundered, or out of a more or less conscious realization that we should like to feather our own nests in the same way