Page:Margaret Mead - Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation.pdf/264

 the amount of energy expended larger, the bright children might develop symptoms of boredom. But the slower pace dictated by the climate, the complacent, peaceful society, and the compensation of the dance, in its blatant precocious display of individuality which drains off some of the discontent which the bright child feels, prevent any child from becoming too bored. And the dullard is not goaded and dragged along faster than he is able until, sick with making an impossible effort, he gives up entirely. This educational policy also tends to blur individual differences and so to minimise jealousy, rivalry, emulation, those social attitudes which arise out of discrepancies of endowment and are so far-reaching in their effects upon the adult personality.

It is one way of solving the problem of differences between individuals and a method of solution exceedingly congenial to a strict adult world. The longer the child is kept in a subject, non-initiating state, the more of the general cultural attitude it will absorb, the less of a disturbing clement it will become. Furthermore, if time is given them, the dullards can learn enough to provide a stout body of conservatives upon whose shoulders the burden of the civilisation can safely rest. Giving titles to young men would put a premium upon the exceptional; giving titles to men of forty, who have at last acquired sufficient training to hold them, assures the continuation of the usual. It also discourages the brilliant so that their social contribution is slighter than it might otherwise have been.