The prevailing system of education, which we have inherited from the past, largely fails to accomplish this.  In the first place, it has been authoritative rather than scientific, which is to say that students have been induced to accept the statements of teachers and text books, and have not been trained to weigh for themselves their reasonableness and worth; a principle essentially unscientific and undemocratic, since it inculcates in the future citizen convictions rather than encourages the habit of open-mindedness so necessary for democratic citizenship.  For democracy—­it cannot be too often repeated—­is a dynamic thing, experimental, creative in its very essence.  No static set of opinions can apply to the constantly changing aspect of affairs.  New discoveries, which come upon us with such bewildering rapidity, are apt abruptly to alter social and industrial conditions, while morals and conventions are no longer absolute.  Sudden crises threaten the stability of nations and civilizations.  Safety lies alone in the ability to go forward, to progress.  Psychology teaches us that if authoritative opinions, convictions, or “complexes” are stamped upon the plastic brain of the youth they tend to harden, and he is apt to become a Democrat or Republican, an Episcopalian or a Baptist, a free trader or a tariff advocate or a Manchester economist without asking why.  Such “complexes” were probably referred to by the celebrated physician who emphasized the hopelessness of most individuals over forty.  And every reformer and forum lecturer knows how difficult it is to convert the average audience of seasoned adults to a new idea:  he finds the most responsive groups in the universities and colleges.  It is significant that the “educated” adult audiences in clubs and prosperous churches are the least open to conversion, because, in the scientific sense, the “educated” classes retain complexes, and hence are the least prepared to cope with the world as it is today.  The German system, which has been bent upon installing authoritative conviction instead of encouraging freedom of thought, should be a warning to us.

Again, outside of the realm of physical science, our text books have been controversial rather than impartial, especially in economics and history; resulting in erroneous and distorted and prejudiced ideas of events, such for instance, as our American Revolution.  The day of the controversialist is happily coming to an end, and of the writer who twists the facts of science to suit a world of his own making, or of that of a group with which he is associated.  Theory can now be labelled theory, and fact, fact.  Impartial and painstaking investigation is the sole method of obtaining truth.