bits of those around us. If the community steadily screws up these
habits, makes life ostentatious for those of moderate means as well as
for the rich, hysterically emphasizes the material values, the will to
be satisfied with the income of safe investments has to fight against
tremendous odds. The truly strong mind will keep its power to resist,
but the slightly weak mind will find the suggestion of the surrounding
life more powerful than the fear of possible loss. If all the
neighbours in the village have automobiles, the man who would enjoy a
quiet book and a pleasant walk much more than a showy ride will yield,
and spend a thousand dollars for his motor car where fifty dollars for
books would have brought him far more intense satisfaction. In no
country have fashion and ostentatiousness taken such strong possession
of the masses, and the willingness to be satisfied with a moderate
income is therefore nowhere so little at home.

Yet neither gambling and taking risks, nor suggestibility and
imitation, are the whole of the story. We must not forget the
superficiality of thinking, the uncritical, loose, and flabby use of
the reasoning power which shows itself in so many spheres of American
mass life. It is sufficient to see the triviality of argument and the
cheapness of thought in those newspapers which seek and enjoy the
widest circulation. It is difficult not to believe that fundamentally
sins of education are to blame for it. The school may bring much to
the children, but no mere information can be a substitute for a
training in thorough thinking. Here lies the greatest defect of our
average schools. The looseness of the spelling and figuring draws its
consequences. Whoever becomes accustomed to inaccuracy in the elements
remains inaccurate in his thinking his life long. If the American
public loses a hundred million dollars a year by investments in
worthless undertakings, surely not the smallest cause is the lack of
concise reasoning. Wrong analogies control the thought of the masses.
Any copper stock must be worth buying because the stock of
Calumet-Hecla multiplied its value a hundredfold. But the irony of the
situation lies in the fact that, as experience shows, those who are
the clearest thinkers in their own fields are in the realm of
investments as easily trapped as the most superficial reasoners. It is
well known that college professors, school teachers, and ministers
figure prominently on the mailing lists