Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/493

 SOCIAL CONTROL 477

make certain traditional wisdom the sole subject of study. The mere learning by rote of Analects, or Vedas, or Koran, orThorah has been for thousands of years not unjustly deemed of great effect in molding character and fixmg habits of thought.

Again, education can give that direction to a child's likes and dislikes, enthusiasms and scorns, which will lead to the adoption of a desired ideal. The born teacher is able to kindle zeal at the right flame and "fix the generous purpose in the breast." In poetry, song, religion, national history, legend, fable, and fairy tale are imbedded seizing characters which draw down love or hate according to the way in which they are presented. In the soul of the pupil the subtle and innocent Jesuitry of the school- master is thus able to weld feelings to ideas in ways which that pupil will never discover later on.

Finally, it is possible to fix in the plastic child mind prin- ciples upon which, later, mav be built a huge structure of practical consequence. For thus out of sight in the impressions of child- hood lie the foundations of many a man's theory of conduct and philosophy of life. Undoubtedly when reason is fully active the man revises his beliefs, tearing down the hastily run up struc- tures of youth and building anew. But, while dislodging stone after stone that has been laid in the mortar of bad logic, he rarely disturbs the deep concrete foundation that, clinging to the bedrock of his mind with the grip of early suggestion, seems to be a part of his very self. Building on some early moral or intellectual prejudice such as the divine government, the harmony of public and private interests, the coincidence of virtue and happiness, the sacredness of law, the dignity of magistrates, society is able to get the individual on its side almost for nothing. It is this planting of seed ideas Callicles had in mind when he says (Plato's Gorgias): "We take the best and strongest from their youth upward and tame them like young lions — charming them with the sound of the voice and saying to them that with equality they must be content, and that the equal is the honor- able and just."

Thus and thus can education help in " breaking in " the colt to the harness. But education is far from being always and