Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/177



Rh is in a position so exposed to temptation that he will ultimately yield.

What has been said regarding the nature of public opinion and the way in which it is formed, suggests in itself the best methods of guiding it.

Few people who have not made the effort have any clear conception as to the amount of influence, especially in local matters, that one individual may exert by a little judicious talk with a few men of influence in different classes in society. I have more than once seen one man within two days practically change, or formulate, one might better say, the opinion of a large part of a community by a dozen conversations with as many different men, each representing some special social or business class.

It is of course a commonplace that along many lines that are chiefly moral, public opinion is shaped by the influence of our churches, by public lectures, university extension lectures, meetings called especially for purposes of agitation; and there can be little doubt that all of these measures do at times change legislation through the power that they exert over public opinion. An instance of a law originated and passed through the influence of a university extension lecture was given a year or two ago. But these methods are so well understood that it is not worth while to dwell upon them. Let us note particularly two chief methods that are often spoken of but that are often misjudged and misused.

If one is going to effect any material change in the real nature of government or in general public opinion on fundamental questions involving material change in habit one must begin with the rising generation. There is a belief on the part of many that it is the duty of schools and colleges directly to shape public opinion on important questions of the day. It is thought that they must take up the specific topics under public discussion and teach right views—in practice, of course, the teacher's own views. Not many years since the New York Nation expressed regret that so many of our younger political economists were securing their training in Germany, because, as it said, the tendency