Part IV: Patterns of Education: For
the Scientist and the Technologist
FACTORS INFLUENCING EDUCATION
If it could
be demonstrated that there was a genetic foundation to this bifurcation
of mankind along the lines of mental-imagery or whatever we may
call such a kind of mental set, it would not be too difficult
to account for its persistence in spite of the vicissitudes of
history. The Mongol racial characteristics, for example - black
hair, dark brown eyes, comparative hairlessness, the epicanthic
fold, etc. -- have persisted, partly because some of them are
dominant over the alternative characteristics. It seems likely
that there must also be some relationship between bodily and
mental characteristics. Sheldon has found a correlation between
body type and temperament that is remarkably high. 1 His figures are challenged
by some authorities, but they are based on a large sample --
some 45,000 individuals.
Moreover, the existence of a kind
of national character is now likely to be recognized more willingly
since the concept of racial superiority has been pretty well
buried. Some very sane and balanced scholars admit the objective
reality of differences in mental set. Occasionally the modal
personality may be traced to environmental influences, as in
the case of the Aymara who are somewhat short tempered, or in
the case of residents in the tropics who may tend to be mentally
and physically less active than those who live in a cool
1. Sheldon, W. H., S.S.Stevens, and W.B. Tucker,
Varieties of Human Physique: an Introduction to Constitutional
Psychology, New York, NY, Harper, 1940, xii, 347 pp., and
Sheldon. W.H. and S. S. Stevens, Varieties of Human Temperament:
a Psychology of Constitutional Differences, New York, NY,
Harper, 1942, x, 520 pp.
environment and are subjected
to quite violent fluctuations in temperature from one season
to another. 2 These
may be very transient responses to the environment, resulting
from the basic flexibility of all living things.
Factors influencing attitudes or 'mental
But it is not altogether impossible
that there is a real genetic foundation to the mental attitudes
of whole societies, if they have maintained themselves 'racially'
intact for a sufficient length of time to become genetically
Laurence Snyder wrote in this connection:
Recent refinements of procedure,
notably the twin family method, have provided important evidence
for the genetic basis of specific disease entities, physical
and mental, as well as of basically uniform patterns in the organization
or disorganization of physical and mental capacities essential
in effort tolerance, personality integration, and intellectual
goes further. While recognizing the dangers of holding such opinions,
he nevertheless says: 4
There need be no special quarrel
with this conception of a national genius so long as it is not
worshipped as an irreducible psychological fetish
Here, as so often, the precise
knowledge of the scientist lags somewhat behind the more naive
but more powerful insights of non-professional experience and
impression. To deny to the genius of a people an ultimate psychological
significance and to refer it to the specific historical development
of that people, is not, after all is said and done, to analyze
it out of existence
The whole terrain through which
we are now struggling is a hot-bed of subjectivism, a splendid
field for the airing of national conceits. For all that, there
are a large number of international
2. Huntington, Ellsworth, Mainsprings of
Civilization, New York, NY, Wiley, 1945, p.405, 528, 547,
and 599 especially.
3. Snyder, Laurence H., "The Genetic Approach to Human Individuality,"
Scientific Monthly, Mar., 1949, p.169.
4. Sapir, Edward, Selected Writings of Edward Sapir, edited
by David G. Mendelbaum, University of California, 1949, p.311.
Sapir seems to have changed his views somewhat from previous
statements on this point.
agreements in opinion as to the salient
cultural characteristics of various peoples. No one who has even
superficially concerned himself with French Culture can have
failed to be impressed by the qualities of clarity, lucid systematization,
balance, care in choice of means, and good taste, that permeate
so many aspects of the national civilization.
A. L. Kroeber takes
a somewhat similar view and is willing to concede the existence
of recognizable differences in the national characteristics of
the Spanish, the French, the Germans, the Russians, and the 'Americans.'
5 But he feels
that such differences result from Culture which he views as a
kind of "social fact" (to use Durkheim's term), something
reified which has almost an independent existence of its own
apart from those who happen to live in it. This is a view of
Culture about which there is considerable argument, but all agree
that Culture is pretty compulsive of personality formation in
If there is such a thing as national
character, there is probably something common also to groups
of people who belong within the wider classification of 'stock'
or 'race' Speaking of this, from the point of view of the human
geneticist, Curt Stern indicates not only the likely sharing
of bodily characters, which is assented to readily enough, but
also of mental traits. He writes: 6
Stressing possible genetic factors
in racial mental differences does not deny some plasticity, and
stressing plasticity leaves room for possible genotypic differences.
Even lacking exact knowledge, one may still be rather confident
not only of the existence of great plasticity, which is an obvious
phenomenon, but also of genotypic differences in racial endowment.
Mental traits are correlated with material physical factors among
which the organization of the nervous system and the hormonal
constitution are the most important.
Delicate and far-reaching inter-relations
may mold the psychology of each individual in conformity with
all aspects of his physical make-up. Since genetic differences
influence all parts of the body and since absolute and relative
differences in allele frequencies have been established for various
genes in different races, one may expect some genetic influence
on mental traits. The important problem is how great this influence
is in differentiating races mentally.
5. Kroeber, A.L.,Anthropology, New
York, NY, Harcourt Brace, 1948, p.583-592.
6. Stern Curt, Principles of Human Genetics, San Francisco,
CA, Freeman, 1949, p.577.
is a somewhat involved statement, but it means in effect that
there are good grounds for believing that a certain mental set
can become common to a society or even to larger aggregates of
people by inheritance genetically and not merely culturally.
Nevertheless, it seems likely that
the cultural pressure is the deciding one because we know that
the Oriental can enter into and achieve the spirit of the Occidental
world-view; and there are not a few anthropologists who have
in a real way mastered the spirit of an alien culture sufficiently
to be able to feel towards Nature something of what the natives
feel -- thereby coming to understand their thinking processes
to a large extent. This has always involved, it may be
added, the mastery of the native language -- at least to the
point where thinking in it is possible.
That such 'conversions' can be
achieved at all, by the process of re-education suggests that
education itself has far more to do with the mental attitudes
of a culture than heredity. The influence of language is implicit
of course, almost if not quite unperceived by most of those who
use it, but the influence of education is explicit and calculated
to a large extent. In the most primitive of cultures, the 'course
materials' both for boys and girls are clearly laid out, and
graduation, i.e., initiation, is at all times recognized as the
Education in primitive cultures
In order to clarify the influence
of any single factor in a complex cultural situation, it is helpful
sometimes to isolate the factor in its simplest form. Primitive
forms of education are simple and the objective understood by
both master and pupil, namely the preservation of the status
quo. Such objectives may differ from ours in many ways, but in
spirit they stand for the same process, being the method by which
a Culture seeks to guarantee its own continuance. The Cultural
wealth in the form of beliefs, values, skills, and rights, are
communicated to the next generation by the present one. For us
this poses peculiar problems because our values and beliefs and
even our rights, are in a state of flux, so that one generation
with one set of values is seeking to indoctrinate a new generation
with a slightly different set of values; often, in fact, with
a value system that is passing away. This does not happen in
a primitive society for a number of reasons which are worthy
we examine these Cultures where the struggle of the community
to survive is severe because the environment has not yet been
mastered sufficiently to give an adequate sense of security,
we can probably obtain some picture of what must have been true
in very early times when all societies were precarious in this
sense, whether non-Indo-European or Indo-European.
Such primitive cultures are bound
by tradition to an extraordinary degree, because having once
found how to survive, the margin of survival being still very
small, no changes dare be allowed for fear of disrupting the
established balance of things. The feeling of community with
Nature is very close. She must not be offended in any way, or
the caribou will not come back to provide food and raiment next
winter, and the rains will not come to fertilize the seed planted
hopefully in the parched desert, and so forth.
The simplicity of a Culture bears
upon the ingenuity of its solutions to the problems of getting
food. Nature is sensitively balanced as we know only too well,
and primitive people are aware of this, though they treat the
word 'sensitively in its psychological sense. A rabbit or a bird
or a fish or a bear must be killed respectfully and cooked in
the proper way. One does not cook certain forms of life together,
simply because these forms of life are antagonistic in Nature.
The Indians of North America were horrified at the first plows
of iron used by the White Man. One should use wood which grows
out of the earth, if one wishes to plow Mother Nature. Nor should
a steel knife be used to cut fish -- but only bone, because the
fish are accustomed to having bone in their flesh. When killing
certain types of animals, such as bears, one apologized especially
if bears were scarce, so that the spirit of the bear would go
away peaceably and return again in due time. The Naskapi Indians
always had a threefold Blessing for food before eating it. "Thank
you Creator for sending the Caribou, thank you Caribou for being
obedient and coming, and thank you Cook for preparing it so well!"
This meant that one did not simply
go out and kill animals. There was a wrong way and a right way,
a dangerous way and a safe way. The safe and proper way must
be taught to the rising generation. It usually involved a great
deal of sound factual knowledge. The chains of cause and effect
were more carefully noted than we are apt to suppose: but the
interpretation was entirely different from ours. Yet it worked.
When it was a matter of life and death, observation had to be
keen and clear.
Teaching by tradition vs written
But another important consideration
in this transfer of exact knowledge and skill, is the fact that
there was no written record of it. This inevitably made the older
members of the community the only 'knowing' or educated people.
A young man could not short-circuit experience by reference to
a handbook that at times might make him more knowing than his
teacher. He had to learn the correct way to kill and prepare
a bear or a bird, from an older man. And when learning is the
preserve of the older members of the community, it is far more
conservative, for only youth wants to change things all the time.
Besides, animals and people are
related. One had to be careful not to kill a relative. The Australian
aborigines believe that at one time animals and men were kind
of animal-men creatures. Then one day they were separated. Some
men parted from a kind of ostrich-man, some from a rabbit-man,
some from, a walla-walla man, and so forth. Thus each tribe had
a totem or brother animal which is tabu as food, since it is
a relative. Once a year, however, a ceremonial Communion Feast
is held in which the men dress up like their totem animal, and
eat the flesh of that particular animal ceremonially. This unites
the tribe with its animal brothers, and momentarily restores
the ancient days before the division existed.
These Feast are very solemn occasions.
All kinds of ritual are prescribed. The slightest error in recitation
or dance step or body movement or table manners can be fatal,
for the ostrich or the rabbit will be offended and will then
warn all the other animals which are not tabu as food, and the
plants too, of the unworthiness of the tribe to be permitted
to continue. So there is much to learn, and it is learned only
by rote -- not by understanding: and the movements and dances
and costumes are learnt from the older men in secret and cannot
be learned any other way.
The Australian is no exception
in this, though better known because many of his traditional
beliefs have survived into the present. But what is true of the
aborigine in Australia is true of the Eskimo, and the American
Indian, and the African native. And it appears to have been largely
true of the Sumerian, and the Egyptian. Evidently a high culture
and a greatly increased sense of security is not sufficient to
disturb this view of Nature very much. This is probably because
n one area of life -- the supernatural -- there is no security
possible. We distinguish between
the supernatural and the natural with a kind of precision that is totally
beyond the native. To him, there is no such division. The contract between
men and the world about him was always a contract between persons, though
he himself was a very minor party in this agreement.
In Egypt, where annual records
of the heights of the Nile were kept from the earliest times,
the Pharaoh nevertheless made gifts to the Nile every year about
the time it was due to rise. To these sacrifices, which were
thrown into the river, a document was added. It stated, in the
form of either an order or a contract, the Nile's obligations.
Such guarantees for the safety
of the community were carried out only by the older men who knew
how. There were no short-cuts for precocious children, any more
than we would send an inexperienced youth on a very grave mission
to some powerful Monarch. Nature was not considered as It, but
as Thou, and the relations between men and Nature were personal,
not impersonal. The forces of Nature were more like Wills than
forces, just as the characteristics of things are Characters.
One did not ask, "What happened?" One asked, "Who
The kind of question determined
the kind of search. Cause and effect were interpreted accordingly.
Thus in the presence of any situation that demanded attention,
the attitude of the individual was one of involvement. In exactly
the same way that we cannot normally treat people as things (and
doctors are therefore reluctant to operate on their loved ones)
in this same way these people could not stand in the presence
of Nature as a 'thing'. The native lore of the American Indians
has a real beauty to it: it is the beauty of long experience
with life and it is not communicated quickly. Education in such
a society is education in Wisdom, as well as in knowledge.
Why a world view leads to magic, not to
Moreover, in such a personal
view, the concept of experimenting to 'find out' is akin to sacrilege.
It seemed to the native rude and improper to tamper with things
just see what would happen. This feeling of impropriety prevented
the Taoist philosophers from being scientifically curious about
same is true of the Middle East. The concept of causality was quite different
from the scientific one. As Frankfort put it: 7
Our view of causality would
not satisfy primitive man because of the impersonal character
of its explanations. It would not satisfy him, moreover, because
of its generality. We understand phenomena, not only by what
makes them peculiar, but by what makes them manifestations of
general laws. But a general law cannot do justice to the individual
character of each event. And the individual character of each
event is what early man experiences most strongly.
Events are no
analyzed intellectually, they are experienced individually. Emotional
involvement concentrates all attention on the detailed present
and freedom for the objective association of ideas in the past
is virtually denied. Man becomes entangled in the immediacy of
his perceptions. This attitude is viewed as the proper one. It
is analogous to 'paying attention' and 'being respectful'. Such
a precept was taught as fundamental to survival in every youngster
about to become a man. It formed the basis of his search for
a vision to guide him in the choice if an emblem or guardian
spirit. He had to find some special 'power' in Nature with whom
to establish specific relations as a kind of go-between, or mediator.
The sense of weakness in the face
of the Wills of Nature is very marked, and continued apparently
through the process of civilization until the Greeks challenged
it. Among the Hebrews it was converted from 'superstition' to
reverence, and awe: but the idea of tampering with Nature was
still quite abhorrent. The world continued to be confronted not
with detachment but as equally involved in the service and worship
of God. Hence the strong element of animation in the Psalms.
We may interpret this now as being one way of declaring the appropriateness
of God's every created thing. But to the Hebrew it was something
more than this probably.
In Babylonia and in Egypt, man
in society accompanied the principle changes in nature with appropriate
rituals, which were viewed not as merely symbolic but as 'willed'
counterparts, part and parcel, of the Cosmic events. Man shared
in these events, just as the Hopi rain-maker shares in the making
of rain. The same is clearly true of China. The festivals are
but modern recollections of such ancient beliefs, though they
have lost much of their meaning because of cultural changes induced
by contacts with the West.
There is logic in much of what
is done. The Hopi stamps his feet to wake up the earth so that
it will be quite ready to receive the rain that heaven is about
to give. Some things are more alive than others. Fire is particularly
so. But then some animals are more alive than others, so it seems.
7. Frankfort, H. and H. A. Frankfort, The
Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, Chicago University
Press, 1946, p.16.
a man makes an image of an enemy and commits this to the flames, he is
asking the fire to judge between him and his foe. If the fire burns the
image furiously, the fire has given a clear decision in his own favour.
It would not occur to the native to ask whether perhaps the wood of the
image was particularly dry, and therefore burned quickly on that account,
any more than the Azande would ask similar questions about his benge.
The fire was asked to give a clear decision, and this decision was given.
That settles the matter.
Frankfort summarizes this view
so manifest in Mesopotamia and Egypt where culture was certainly
not 'primitive' in the accepted sense, with these words: 8
The Universe did not, like ours,
show a fundamental bipartition into animate and inanimate, living
and dead, matter. Nor had it different levels of reality: anything
that could be felt, experienced or thought had thereby established
its existence, was part of the cosmos. In the Mesopotamian Universe
everything, whether living being, thing, or abstract concept
-- every stone, every tree, every notion -- had a will and a
character of its own.
World order, the regularity
and system observable in the Universe, could accordingly be conceived
of in only one fashion: an order of wills. The Universe as an
organized whole was a Society, a State.
In this State
man was very powerless. Even the animals had more power at times;
and of course earthquakes, thunder and lightning, mighty floods,
and eclipses were overpowering in their willful destruction and
terrifying aspects. Such forces are not to be played with.
Thus it was important to be able to discern
Nature's mood of the moment. One must always be on the look-out
for evidences of enmity or disapproval in Nature. The slightest
irregularity in events boded ill for the observer. It is no wonder
therefore that the exception, not the rule, was the object of
chief interest. Signs and omens, not laws, were the centre of
attention. Education was intended to render this awareness more
Moreover, if one can cajole or
persuade Nature to be friendly or merciful towards oneself, obviously
one ought to be able to persuade Nature to be injurious to an
enemy. So arises the use of both White and Black
8. Frankfort H. and H. A. Frankfort, ibid.,
Magic, and the battle of 'lobbyists'
in this giant Republic begins. Education becomes not merely a matter of
learning to preserve the Cultural values and skills as such, but also
learning to preserve oneself in a rather hostile environment where conspiracy
is rampart and where safety lies in knowing either the right people;e
(spirits) or the right formulae. The exactness of one's response was all
important. errors could be fatal.
The more precarious the society,
the more suspicious will it be of the exceptional or outstanding
individual; and the less favourable will it be to innovations
either in word or deed, on the part of its members. Such innovations
can only have a secret and dangerous meaning. There is no room
for the brilliant child, or for the individualist in the class.
Education for conservatism and preservation
All these considerations had a profound
bearing on the problems of education. In the first place the
whole emphasis was upon the survival of the community as a whole,
and not upon the encouragement of the individual as such. Conformity
was the watchword, preservation of existing knowledge the goal.
In a situation where the old men hold the keys to knowledge,
tradition and conservation rule the day. Youth had no power to
Furthermore, the older men would
be jealous of the younger man who proved exceptionally gifted.
Since the method of injuring one's enemies is by the use of magic,
in which the old men are skilled and the young are not, a young
man dare not run foul of a superior. Discretion rules the day
and serves very nicely to discourage ambition before it can feed
The main emphasis in all education
of this sort is upon memorization rather than upon creative mental
activity. Children are taught to learn, not to think. Since a
creative mind must create or cease to be creative, any who might
have had new insights and new ideas were son rendered mentally
docile and inactive for lack of encouragement.
But this leads naturally to a consideration
of 'inventions'. What happens when a man has a new idea: can
he introduce it? The answer is Yes and No. He may introduce it
if it does not conflict with an already existing
pattern in Society. Too much is
involved, too many ramifications, to permit much disturbance. It is analogous
to the 'disappearance' of the occasional invention of, say, a new carburetor
that cuts down gas consumption by 300%. The oil companies cannot allow
this -- so it is said. However the rejection of such an invention in our
Culture is a completely rationalized and objective one. In other Cultures
it may be an emotional one.
Let us say that an invention appears
in such a Culture which does not conflict with existing patterns
-- and is accepted. Then what happens? Can it be improved upon?
Again, the answer is Yes and No. Yes, by the originator: No,
by anyone else. To attempt to improve the invention is an insult
to its inventor. It is analogous to adding a mustache to a friend's
photograph to improve his appearance! We just don't do that kind
of thing, even if we are sure it will improve his appearance,
and sure that he will see it again. . . .
In the same
way that every symbol is wedded to the 'thing' for which it stands
and which called it forth, so every invention is wedded to the
circumstances which called it into being. It cannot be used by
transfer in some other application. It is just conceivable that
wheels, for example, were used first for toys in the New World,
and that for this reason they were never subsequently
applied to larger vehicles. 9 It is however true also that they had no draft animals.
Yet wheeled platforms could have been used for the moving of
stones, etc., especially in view of their road systems.
At any rate, to divorce the invention
from is inventor, or its original application, was not wise.
This is not so strange really, for anyone in our Society with
an inventive mind will experience the same kind of feeling of
identity with his invention and will tend to resent its modification,
unless the modification is initiated by himself. It seems like
Thus once the originator was dead,
his spirit could be dangerously offended if his invention were
in any changed. So development, the evolution of civilization,
was restrained by such beliefs. On the other hand, a stranger
could introduce a new idea, and it might be welcomed -- if it
did not conflict with other elements in the Culture. If the stranger
then withdrew, his invention could be safely modified. His spirit
was no longer around to make such activity dangerous. But again,
if a native of the Culture radically modified the innovation,
it could then be identified as his invention and thenceforth
its modification was tabu.
9. For a photograph of a wheeled toy, see
Paul Herrman, Conquest by Man, Harper, 1954, fig.32; and
for a short bibliography, see Kenneth Macgowan, Early Man
in the New World, Macmillan, 1950, p.26, ref.2.
is also important, in this exchange of ideas, that the right kind of person
sponsor the innovation at the beginning. A king who favoured some device
of no value whatever, could 'stick' his people with it for the rest of
their cultural history. Whereas an unpopular or despised member of a society
who happened to be the first contact to introduce a new device would thereby
cast a shadow over it so that it might never gain acceptance no matter
how desirable it was intrinsically.
This is not only true of new devices
-- it is equally true of new ideas. As Robert Lowie says: 10
Training, accordingly, was not
in the interests of expanding but of preserving knowledge: and
if new observations ran palpably counter to the old they were
not treasured but discarded. The conscious striving by trained
workers to increase knowledge regardless of past convictions
is unknown in primitive and early cultures.
In a primitive Society
the Community largely takes precedence over the individual, and
communities as such are not progressive. It is the individual
who provides the motive power for revision of the status quo.
It was Lebzelter who formulated the principle that small communities
are variant in physical type but homogeneous in Culture, while
large societies tend towards the opposite in each case, being
uniform in physical type and more variant in cultural patterns.
11 The variability
of physical type is due to the existence of mutant genes which
have a better chance of finding phenotypic expression homozygously
in a small community. The cultural pattern is, however, uniform
because there is not sufficient room for a man with different
a parallel in modern society. The individual worker feels so
powerless in the presence of his strong employer. Only by identifying
himself with a Union of some kind does he feel secure. A small
Culture with little total power in the face of Nature, presents
the same condition, and the individual within it has only one
hope in the struggle, and that is to identify himself completely
with the group which then acts as a 'giant self'. The odd man,
the individualistic thinker, is suspect -- just as the man who
refuses to join the Union is suspect. As Clive Bell put it, the
native who stops to think in such a society, runs the risk of
By the same token the little man cannot afford to arouse the
suspicions of his Union.
10. Lowie, Robert, Introduction to Cultural
Anthropology, 2nd edition, Farrar, New York, 1940, p.336.
11. Lebzelter, Viktor: quoted by Wilhelm Koppers, Primitive
Man and His World Picture, Sheed and Ward, London, 1952,
12. Bell Clive, Civilization, Harmondsworth, UK, Penguin
Books, 1938, p.43, 44.
Education for innovation and
Now as such early societies developed,
there would be an increasing measure of control of the environment
until some degree of personal liberty would be permissible. Yet
so long as the feeling of kinship with an all powerful Cosmos
existed, such individualism would be restricted. The ideal of
an Egyptian Gentleman was a man who never disturbed things. The
same has been true in Chinese society. It was true in England
until new forces came into play which upset the old accepted
patterns. We shall revert to this point later.
Even the expression of emotion
is discouraged-for it reveals the inner feelings to who knows
what hostile invisible (or visible) forces. If one must express
feelings, then they are to be shown violently, as a warning.
This is exactly the way primitive man thinks about such things.
of the occasional new insight and its fate. He says: 13
is of course inevitable with man that deliberation and therefore
awareness will here and there break into the course of the industrial
process. But the spark of intellectual discernment flickers but
for a moment, presently to go out again What is passed onto the
following generation is the objective result, not the intellectual
insight This is so because these pursuits, one and all, are direct
and pragmatic. What is aimed at is achievement, not understanding.
He thus refers
to such culture growth as being by involution rather than by
This feature has
often been commented on by observers of primitive life. The all
pervading ceremonialism of the Todas, the interminable exchanges
of presents attending Trobriand marriages, the minute apportionment
of a hunting booty among the Central Australians (just such and
such apiece to such and such a relative), the elaborateness of
Maori or Marquesan Art (arts that overreach themselves), the
ravages of taboo in Polynesia (taboo run amuck) - all of these
and many similar cultural traits exhibit development by involution.
13. Goldenweiser, Alexander, Anthropology, New York,
NY, Crofts, 1937, p.411.
14. Goldenweiser, Alexander, ibid., p.414.
So each society permits development by slight changes in the
existing patterns but always within itself as it were. An extra little
kick of the foot in a ceremonial dance, a new gesture added (at first
with trepidation) in a traditional pantomime, a very slight change of
angle in a pattern used for vase decoration. And so on. By these, men
preserved some small measure of individualism.
But extraordinary limitations were
placed on ritual modifications, simply because the whole universe
- including the society performing it -- was personally involved
as a single unit. The 'crowd' character here asserted itself
enormously. The individual had ceased to exist. Yet not entirely,
for the group was drawn into one person and personally represented
by the King or the Priest.
This pattern of distrust for innovation
survived even in Europe and England until remarkably recent times.
The reception accorded a series of inventions which we now take
for granted, was at first uniformly hostile. Samuel Martin made
a special study of this some years ago.
15 Among the products to the introduction
of which great resistance was offered he lists Coal, Printing,
the Ribbon Loom, the Stocking loom, Table forks [!], the Sawmill,
the Steam Engine, Tea [!], the Spinning-Jenny, Steamboats, Railways,
the use of Gas, Macadamized Roads [!], and some other items that
seem essential to us today which were at first refused
in almost every case on the grounds that they would upset the
status quo of Society.
In all this, preservation is the
watchword. Tradition is the wisdom of the ages. The old men were
its repositories, and they kept their knowledge in secret societies
to which no youngster was admitted.
15. Martin, Samuel, "Opposition to Great
Inventions and Discoveries "in the Exeter Hall Papers,
London, UK, 1854-55, pp.461-500.
Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights
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