Word: social
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Psychologists tell us that war, depression, crime, labor troubles, and race prejudice have their roots in mental processes. But they have been loath to apply their convictions to the correction of social error. Rather they have chosen to measure intelligence, the speed with which rats learn how to thread a maze in order to reach food and the like...
...matter what happens to the social system or economy of a nation," says its prospectus, "there will always be 'social issues' of some sort, and a scientific attack on them is probably the most intelligent method of attempting to deal with these problems...
...asking the question whether a "free and classless society" was a valid ideal or an illusion. Thereupon he set out to prove that the former was true. His argument might be staked out in two claims: first, that the essence of a classless society is a high degree of "social mobility"--or equality of opportunity for each member of a new generation regardless of his inherited social position; and second, that this social mobility can be largely obtained by, education. After hearing him out, most of his listeners must have been unconvinced...
...Before social mobility could be attained it would be necessary to break the back of economic power. It would be necessary for the government to adopt extreme measures such as completely confiscatory inheritance taxes. It is true that Mr. Conant briefly takes cognizance of these problems, but he vastly under-rates them. The fact remains that it is impossible automatically to redistribute power and privilege at the end of each generation unless there is a simultaneous radical redistribution of wealth...
...concluded that educators should hope that the American ideal is not an illusion and labor unceasingly for a type of education which will create "social mobility...