erves the life along Broadway
may indeed suspect that dancing is now to be intertwined again with
every business of life, and surely with every meal of life. No longer
can any hostelry in New York be found without dancing, and wider still
than the dance sweeps the discussion about it. The dance seems once
more the centre of public interest; it is cultivated from luncheon to
breakfast; it is debated in every newspaper and every pulpit.

But is not all this merely a new demonstration that the story of the
dance is the story of civilization? Can we deny that this recent craze
which, like a dancing mania, has whirled over the country, is a
significant expression of deep cultural changes which have come to
America? Only ten years ago such a dancing fever would have been
impossible. People danced, but they did not take it seriously. It was
set off from life and not allowed to penetrate it. It had still
essentially the role which belonged to it in a puritanic, hardworking
society. But the last decade has rapidly swept away that New England
temper which was so averse to the sensuous enjoyment of life, and
which long kept an invisible control over the spirit of the whole
nation. Symptoms of the change abound: how it came about is another
question. Certainly the increase and the wide distribution of wealth
with its comforts and luxuries were responsible, as well as the
practical completion of the pioneer days of the people, the rich
blossoming of science and art, and above all the tremendous influx of
warm-blooded, sensual peoples who came in millions from southern and
eastern Europe, and who altered the tendencies of the cool-blooded,
Teutonic races in the land. They have changed the old American Sunday,
they have revolutionized the inner life, they have brought the operas
to every large city, and the kinometograph to every village, and have
at last played the music to a nation-wide dance. Yet the problem which
faces every one is not how this dancing craze arose, but rather where
it may lead, how far it is healthy and how far unsound, how far we
ought to yield to it or further it, and how far we ought to resist. To
answer this question, it is not enough to watch the outside spectacle,
but we must inquire into the mental motives and mental consequences.
Exactly this is our true problem.

Let us first examine the psychological debit account. No one can doubt
that true dangers are near wherever the dancing habit is prominent.
The