They secure a liberation of powers
which remain suppressed as long as the incitations to action are
partial, as they must be in a group which in its exclusiveness
shuts out many interests.
The widening of the area of shared concerns, and the liberation
of a greater diversity of personal capacities which characterize
a democracy, are not of course the product of deliberation and
conscious effort. On the contrary, they were caused by the
development of modes of manufacture and commerce, travel,
migration, and intercommunication which flowed from the command
of science over natural energy. But after greater
individualization on one hand, and a broader community of
interest on the other have come into existence, it is a matter of
deliberate effort to sustain and extend them. Obviously a
society to which stratification into separate classes would be
fatal, must see to it that intellectual opportunities are
accessible to all on equable and easy terms. A society marked
off into classes need he specially attentive only to the
education of its ruling elements. A society which is mobile,
which is full of channels for the distribution of a change
occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated
to personal initiative and adaptability. Otherwise, they will be
overwhelmed by the changes in which they are caught and whose
significance or connections they do not perceive. The result
will be a confusion in which a few will appropriate to themselves
the results of the blind and externally directed activities of
others.
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