al assets.

The farther the race goes in its accumulation of knowledge, the more
important does education become, since there is more to transmit from
one generation to the next. Among primitive people the educational
process is completed at a very early age. With the emergence of arts and
crafts, the apprenticeship to life becomes longer. At the present time,
the individual may continue his education as long as he is capable of
acquiring new ideas. Under the present society, therefore, the
educational processes are the chief reliance for the transmission of new
ideas.

5. _Facing the Future_

The accumulated knowledge of the ages, handed on from one generation to
the next, enables the scientist to suggest the direction in which new
experiments should be made as well as to predict their probable outcome.
His work ceases to be haphazard. It has a well-understood policy and
common problems.

Particularly in the realm of natural science, has there been a vast
accumulation of verified knowledge, from which there have been deduced
principles and laws which enable the electrician or the astronomer to
predict the action of the electric current or the course of the stars
with almost unerring accuracy. To be sure, these predictions do
sometimes go wrong, but for the most part they are founded on verified
and tested hypotheses.

The past thus advises the present, which, from the vantage ground so
gained, prepares its contribution to the future. If each generation were
compelled to learn how to build fires, to employ language, to shape
pottery, to weave, to print and to harness electricity all over again,
it would seldom get farther than the rudiments of what is now called
civilization.

The new knowledge that is gained in each generation is obtained through
experiment, but many costly errors are avoided in these experiments
through the wisdom that is based on the accumulated knowledge of the
past.

Thus each generation of scientists accepts from its predecessors a trust
for the future. Not only must it preserve the body of knowledge, but it
must verify, amplify and enrich it. This is as true of the social
scientist as it is of the natural scientist. The difference between them
is that the natural scientist has worked out his technique and
established his field, while the social scientist has reached only the
threshold.

6. _Accumulating Social Knowledge_

Social knowledge is yet in its infancy. It is only w