ntry
people emigrate or provide themselves with a share of the good things
at home. The influence of an enthusiastic individual or group who
takes the lead in better schools, better housing, or better government
is improving the cities. The growing cosmopolitanism of all peoples
and their adoption of the best that each has achieved is being
produced by commerce, migration, and "contact and cross-fertilization
of cultures."

371. =Telic Progress.=--Most social progress has come without the full
realization of the significance of the gradual changes that were
taking place. Few if any individuals saw the end from the beginning.
They are for the most part silent forces that have been modifying the
folk-ways in Europe and America. There has been little conception of
social obligation or social ideals, little more than a blind obedience
to the stimuli that pressed upon the individual and the group. But
with the awakening of the social consciousness and a quickening of the
social conscience has come telic progress. There is purpose now in the
action of associations and method in the enactments of legislatures
and the acts of administrative officers. There are plans and
programmes for all sorts of improvements that await only the proper
means and the sanction of public opinion for their realization. Like a
runner poised for a dash of speed, society seems to be on the eve of
new achievement in the direction of progress.

372. =Means of Social Progress.=--There are three distinct means of
telic progress. Society may be lifted to a higher level by compulsion,
as a huge crane lifts a heavy girder to the place it is to occupy in
the construction of a great building. A prohibitory law that forbids
the erection of unhealthy tenements throughout the cities of a state
or nation is a distinctly progressive step, compulsory in its nature.
Or the group may be moved by persuasion. A board of conciliation may
persuade conflicting industrial groups to adjust their differences by
peaceful methods, and thus inaugurate an ethical movement in industry
greatly to the advantage of all parties. Or progress may be achieved
by the slow process of education. The average church has been
accustomed to conceive of its functions as pertaining to the
individual rather than to the whole social order. It cannot be
compelled to change by governmental action, for the church is free and
democratic in America. It cannot easily be persuaded to change its
method