Sept. 25.
One of the outstanding feature es of modern times is the triumph of the herd mind, as psychologists call it, It shows itself in that gospel of standardization which is being preached, in act if not in word, throughout the civilized world. We are beset by a mania for ordering our lives according: to set patterns, and anything in the nature of originality is taboo. Take building for instance; in-quality in the matter of structure seems to be disappearing and those of us who have travelled in foreign lands are struck by the sameness of modern edifices erected in great cities of both East and West. Whether it be in Shanghai, Sydney or San Francisco, there is a similarity about their streets which robs them of much of the charm a place ought to have for one paying a first vi It is the same in the intellectual world, Everybody apparently desires to think like his fellows.
Instead of telling our youths to be themselves, we exhort them to be like everybody else. Our educational systems appear expressly designed to promote uniformity. With bureaucratic officials, armies ron regulations, red tape and endless exami tions, mankind is doing its best to turn out standardized intellects. The last thing that the government education department of any country wants is original on the part of teachers, and this laudable aim is zealously: seconded by politician gentlemen are all in fav cour of a sort of intellectual goose-step. Their pas for cooperative mass-thinking will never be satisfied until there is mass production of human intellects all manufactured in the same mould.
Civilized people are doing little to prevent this standardization, Every body can read nowadays. But it no unjust accusation that in most cases they spend too much time in reading and too little in thinking. We have it in us to be original, we are naturally individualistic; but we allow ourselves to be' deprived of our birthright. In fact, we "have come to regard it as rather bad form to be original. There is infinite danger in this cult of uniformity. A standardized people is an easy prey to the subtle! Dropagandist, a gramophone press and, what these eventually lead prohibited without permission.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.