the community, any law is to be enforced, how
are the people to be led from this rebellious state of mind? Perhaps
first through authority. In America we have learned to use the phrase,
"Big Stick." Authority is exactly that; it is coercion from without.
It has partial result in good; the law may be fulfilled because the
individual knows he must obey when within the jurisdiction of that
law; but if the result is simply obedience to authority and not to the
underlying principle, it will not be a force in his life or be
continued if by chance he can escape it. He will be a "tramp" in his
methods of obedience. This method can never be constructive; its value
lies in the possibility that by continuous usage or repetition the
procedure may become a habit, and from habit will come reason and
intelligence.

But the more direct and efficient way to help the individual to
realize his relation to communal right living is through education.
The former method--blind obedience--will foster the spirit of
antagonism and call the State's protection "interference," thus
weakening the efficiency of the State and of the individual, for the
State is the multiplication of its citizens; but through the latter
method the individual will carry out the law with intelligence and
interest. This will be constructive and it will be permanent, for
again, if the State is the sum of its citizens, the efficiency of the
State is the sum of the efficiency of the citizens.

Their interests are now identical, the man has become equal master
with the State; they are co-partners. His motive for right living is
greater than the letter of the law, for he is the living law, the
protest against wrong and the fulfillment of the right.

* * * * *

The next generation must be born with healthy bodies, must be nurtured
in healthy physical and moral environments, and must be filled with
ambition to give birth to a still healthier, still nobler generation.
But, as has been said, "whatever improvements may sometime be
achieved, the benefits of their influence can be enjoyed only by
future, perhaps distantly future generations. We of the present have
to take our heredity as we find it. We cannot follow the advice of a
humorous philosopher to begin life by selecting our grandparents; but
through hygiene (sanitary science) we can make the most of our
endowment."[6]

[6] Report on National Vitality, p. 55.

There is a force in th