ious mass to censure some
of the things said or done, and applaud others, always in excess;
shouting and clapping, until, in addition to their own noise, the rocks
and the places wherein they are echo back redoubled the uproar of
their censure and applause. At such a moment, how is a young man,
think you, to retain his self-possession? Can any private education
that he has received hold out against such a torrent of censure and
applause, and avoid being swept away down the stream, wherever it
may lead, until he is brought to adopt the language of these men as
to what is honorable and dishonorable, and to imitate all their practices,
and to become their very counterpart?[1]

[Footnote 1: Plato: _Republic_ (Davies and Vaughn translation), p. 208.]

We have already had occasion to point out that education is
the method by which society inculcates in its younger members
habits which are regarded as socially beneficial. In its
broadest sense the whole social environment is an individual's
education. And it is an education chiefly through experience
with other people, discovering what they will and will not
tolerate, what they will cherish and what they will condemn.

The elaborate paraphernalia and rites of fashion in clothes exist
chiefly by virtue of their value as means of securing diffuse notice
and approval. The primitive sex display is now a minor cause:
women obviously dress for other women's eyes. Much the same is
true of subservience to fashions in furniture, food, manners, morals,
and religion. The institution of tipping, which began, perhaps, in
kindliness and was fostered by economic self-interest, is now well-nigh
impregnable because no man is brave enough to withstand the scorn
of a line of lackeys whom he heartily despises, or of a few onlookers
whom he will never see again.[2]

[Footnote 2: Thorndike: _loc. cit._, p. 32.]

One of the things we mean when we say a man is worldly-wise,
shrewd, knows human nature, is that he knows what
will win people's admiration, and knows, moreover, to distinguish
between that which they publicly condemn and
secretly approve, and _vice versa_. In the passage quoted above
Plato was trying to show how the young Athenian acquired
not wisdom itself, but "worldly wisdom," the ability to get
along in affairs. This he learned not from the professional
teachers, but from the Athenian public, with whose approvals
and disapprovals he came in daily contact.

PRAISE AND BLAME MOD