The weekly times-record., 1914-02-19

Weeks, '"The Crisis in Thinking" ha
been suggested as worthy of publica
tion in this paper. Wr. Weeks is 1
member OF the faculty of the Agricul
tural College and contributed the ar
ticle to The American Journal of So
GEOLOGY of Chicago. The farmer boy j!
still compelled to know every detail O.
his business if he is to meet with any
degree of success. 1t reads as follows
and furnishes food for serious thought
"A dead level of almost automatic
performance is forced upon factory
employees. departmental workers, and
quite generally upon salaried classes
not excluding even a large percentage
of those employed in educational ser
vice. True, the individual Of natural
initiative may break throught the or
Eanization and RECOMMENDATION to which
he Is subject and achieve some meas.
xrs Of creative experience. but can it
be doubted that the element of sur
pp1ise and thought-compelling situa-
tons may diminish under modern con-
ditions?
Contrast the regimented lives of
city workers and persons whose activ-
tiles are directed from central Offices
with the frontiersman's life, or with a
single day Of camping out. The i'm
provising Of utensils. the meeting Of
emergencies, and reactions to the un-
expected give an exhilarating taste of
a life which seems Of a different world.
The life of the frontier has given the
world many of its most valuable assets
from Lincoln and Mark Twain to the
Torrens title-registration law and the
Australian ballot. And one may add
that to peculiarly free conditions Of
nutue we must attribute much Of the
Iesourcefulness of Edison and Darwin.
1T Is common to refer to modern
life as highly complex. This should
not be taken to mean that the com.
plexity is necessarily thought-compell-
Ing. Often quite the contrary. Ones
relations to this complex life may be
80 simple as to preclude those con.
ditions of surprise required for intel
lectual advancement. The question
to be asked is, To what extent does
the individual find himself actually
burdened with the problems arising
out of modern life? If he shares but
slightly, or not at all, in the manage
ment Of the enterprise with which he
is associated, if ne is surrounded by
authoritative rules and conventions,
if his work is blocked out for him, it
may be that anything like initiative
and resourcefulness will be virtually
out of the question. More grave than
the economic menace of big businss is
the intellectual menace of centralized
Intelligence, represented by the man.
ayement of vast enterprises from GEN.
trail offices, accompanied on the part
at employees by rule-following eslf-
efacement, mechanical compliance,
and automatic performance. The arid
intellectual atmosphere of large reg
Smented groups in business and indus
try forms a striking phenomenon in
society today. Business and industrial
complexity certainly creates many
problems, but by a centralized solu.
ton the rank and file of employees
tend to become far less thoughtful
than II they were scattered about pur.
suing individual and precarious voca.
tons"
This is peculiarly bad time to be
Aasing our minds, we are told. for just
about now they are needed to solve u
lot Of perplexing social and civil prob
lems. We are meeting these as might
be expected Of a "dementalized" mob
II We are workingmen, the only rem
sdy We have for our various Ills is the
strike, suggesting 'the random, i'll
soo1dained actions Of a horse frighten
q at a newspaper" II we have ar
ssection, We choose mutually incon
sruous representatives" We lend {
willing ear to "specious arguments
tor war" and fail to see through {
multitude Of vote-winning tricks.
Thus the new civic situations have
found us unprepared. Our "practica
men," the narrow-minded money max
ers, are unified to lead us. In thi
situation, Mr.. Weeks says, we ar
turning again to the once-despise'
~theorist," the university "doctrinaire
land in this he sees the most hopefu
sign for the future. But even here W
" forgetting our theory in a pelthor7
II practical Details" says the writer
From one point of view the school
gre agencies to precipiptate upon stv
dents unexpected situations an