d regime. Our enthusiasms will either be directed to better
things, or the emotions aroused by the war will run riot and finally
settle into habits on a low plane, and destroy, it may be, all that
civilization has thus far gained. All things seem possible, in this
critical time.

Stated in the broadest possible way, the educational problem of our
times seems plain. We must lay hold upon and set to work for a higher
civilization the motives and purposes that in the past have worked
obstructively, and now destructively. A great work of our day is to
understand these motives and forces that were the main factors in the
cause of the war, and make them count for progress. That they are
powerful forces we can have no doubt. They are not for that reason
hard to direct, at least not necessarily so. We see that, whether in
war or in peace, we need greater power in the social life. Life must
be made to satisfy the longing for intensity and abundance of
experience. But this abundant life that we now seek cannot be
something merely subjective and emotional. To see this is indeed the
crucial test. This subjective life cannot remain an ideal in a world
determined to become democratic, to make progress, to be a practical
and well-cooerdinated world. Abundant life must now be sought in the
performance of functions which express themselves in practical aims
and consequences. The prevailing mood and form of this life may still
be dramatic, and indeed it must be dramatic. The possession of this
quality is the test of its power.

Such views, of course, imply that our practical educational problem is
something very different from that of finding an _outlet for
emotions_. For example, to search for a substitute for war now is a
superficial way of looking at the problem of the control and education
of the social consciousness. We think of the motives that have caused
the war, according to these older views, as bad instincts or evil
emotions, as we are usually asked to think of the motives behind
intemperance, and the habits of gambling and the like. By some form of
katharsis we hope to drain off these emotions (unless we undertake
merely to suppress them). This we say is a narrow view of the problem,
merely because the motives that underlie the conduct we deplore are
not _bad instincts_, or indeed instincts as such at all, but rather
feelings or moods which are variable in their expression, complex, and
educable. They have no definite objec