ation is anxious to economize the national
resources, which were too long wasted, and in which the need of
helping the farmer and of intensifying the values of rural life is
felt so generally, it would be reckless to ignore a promise the
fulfilment of which seems so near. To be sure, the farmers cultivated
their fields through thousands of years without chemistry, just as
they do their daily work to-day without psychology, but nobody doubts
that the introduction of scientific chemistry into farming has brought
the most valuable help to the national, and to the world economy. The
time seems really ripe for experimental psychology to play the same
role for the benefit of mankind, which in the future as in the past
will always be prosperous only when the farmer succeeds.

VII

SOCIAL SINS IN ADVERTISING

There is one industry in the world which may be called, more than any
other, a socializing factor in our modern life. The industry of
advertising binds men together and tightly knits the members of
society into one compact mass. Every one in the big market-place of
civilization has his demands and has some supply. But in order to link
supply and demand, the offering must be known. The industry which
overcomes the isolation of man with his wishes and with his wares lays
the real foundation of the social structure. It is not surprising that
it has taken gigantic dimensions and that uncounted millions are
turning the wheels of the advertising factory. The influence and
civilizing power of the means of propaganda go far beyond the help in
the direct exchange of goods. The advertiser makes the modern
newspaper and magazine possible. These mightiest agencies of public
opinion and intellectual culture are supported, and their technical
perfection secured, by those who pay their business tax in the form
of advertisements.

Under these circumstances it would appear natural to have just as much
interest and energy and incessant thought devoted to this very great
and significant industry as to any branch of manufacturing. But the
opposite is true. Armies of engineers and of scientifically trained
workers have put half a century of scholarly research and experimental
investigation into the perfecting of the physical and chemical
industries. The most thorough study is devoted to the raw material and
to the machines, to the functions of the workingman and to everything