OUR SOCIAL HERITAGE.*
PROFESSOR. WALLAS in his new book shows himself to be a shrewd and stimulating critic. Like Rosa Dartle, he has a habit of asking awkward questions which polite people would not raise,
and the reader, although indignant, will find it a salutary mental exercise to reflect on the author's interrogations. Professor Wallas defines our " social heritage" as "the knowledge and expedients and habits which were originally the personal acquisi- tion of individuals but which have been afterwards handed down from one generation to another by the social process of teaching and learning." We have become increasingly de- pendent—" biologically parasitic "—upon our "social heritage," but we have constantly to readapt it to our changing needs. The author sets out, therefore, to survey this "social heritage," especially "the ideas, habits and institutions directly concerned in the political, economio and social organization" of Western communities, in order to discover the faulty parts of the struc- ture which, in his view, need to be modified or excised. He begins with a valuable chapter on Education ; indeed, through- out the book he returns again and again to the educational methods by which changes can be most easily and wisely made. Professor Wallas views with some concern the neglect of the classics in favour of " modern studies." He says that, when he used to teach Latin and Greek to small boys, he made them repeat a sort of catechism in which they said, "My duty as a member of this class is to acquire correct intellectual habits."
Though comparatively few gained the full advantage of the old public-school drilling in classics, they at least were trained to "undertake a prolonged and severe intellectual effort which was not mere memorizing." The problem is to give a similar training on a far wider scale. The author seems to think that the problem has been less imperfectly solved in England than in America, despite the great attention and lavish endowments given by Americans to education.
Professor Wallas goes on to discuss "group co-operation," and gives a very amusing and ironical commentary on the dealings of Mr. Asquith's Cabinet during the war with the Dardanelles offensive and the first advance upon Baghdad as examples of what happens when "the art of rational corporate action" is not understood. He points out, on the other hand, that the German General Staff, despite its high military efficiency, was narrowed by its training and blundered through its lack of human sympathy. He passes on to consider "the nation as idea and fact." In urging the need for "a much nearer approxi- mation to economic and social equality than now exists in any industrial nation," he insists that social equality must be accom- panied. by, "firstly, a better understanding of the nature of social co-operation created by 'money-economy,' and, secondly, a greater positive liking by men and women for the work they do." It is refreshing to find an advanced thinker emphasizing the need for finding enjoyment in work. Professor Wallas looks to education to achieve that end, and he insists
that our educational system, unlike that of America, should recognize the differences in children and should not try to treat
each child as if he were identical with every other child. Neat, he deals with national co-operation and reveals himself, on the whole, as a good democrat, believing in the rule of the majority. He criticizes very severely the Guild Socialist idea of a corn- inanity as a loose collection of trade unions or guilds fighting with one another. "
"The most serious difficulty of the problem of vocational organization shows itself when the members of a vocational body claim not merely to influence the conditions of their employment, or to associate freely for wealth-production, but to decide, as against any other body or person, the demarcation of their function, the terms of entry to and expulsion from their body, and the price at whioh their services shall be rendered to the community. This difficulty becomes more acute when the vocational bodies as a whole make it their policy to support each other's claims ; and with this purpose attempt to weaken • Our Social Heritage. At Graham Wallas. Loadozi: G. Allen and Maisie. Inc 6d. net.] or abolish the ultimate controlling power of the parliamentary state. In facing this difficulty we must not assume that any completely satisfactory solution is possible. It may be that mankind will never discover how to enjoy the _advantages of large-scale industrial organization without the disadvantages of social friction and political confusion. But we can at least hope that men will some day invent a better solution than the existing combination in Britain and America and France of 'machine politics,' professional selfishness, and trade -union
ca' canny."
He examines Mr. Cole's arguments sceptically, and remarks The good life again, der mode large-scale conditions, v requires not only willingness modern ess to change, and adjustment between the individual and his social function, but also the accumulation of capital, or, what is the same thing, the ability of a community to organize prolonged and, for a time, unproductive labour, in order to ma&e future labour more productive. Would a pre- dominantly vocational British nation have been able, for instance, to create the British railway system I' That railway system was built by the voluntarily invested accumulations of rich men. If there are only few rich men, but a high general average of comfort, a creation of capital on such a scale must be brought about by taxation ; but, as the experience of countries with large peasant populations shows, it is extremely difficult to raise heavy taxation from an economically equal population. The main practical source of taxation in such a population is the ' rent ' which comes from differential advantages in produc- tion. However high the wages of miners are, and however hard it is to tax wages, the coal produced per miner by those mines which are better than the ' marginal ' mine (which it just pays to work) will remain as a possible source of public revenue. But it is just this source whioh the present guild-socialist' policy of the Miners' Federation aims at absorbing into wages. The railway servants, the Liverpool dockers, the doctors and professors will in the same way tend to claim for wages and salaries 'whatever the traffic will bear ' ; and it will need a powerful state to maintain or increase revenue against this tendency.. . . After the war we were faced by two needs, both urgent, though less urgent than the avoidance of defeat in war. One was the reabsorption of the mobilized men into industry, and speed and economy in teaching them the necessary skill • and the other was the provision of houses, in presence of an admitted shortage in the supply of workmen for the building trades, and the admitted fact that such inventions as the 'fountain trowel' and ' spray painting 'made possible an immediate and enormous economy of labour in building. In both cases the state pressed forward, and the vocational organizations hesitated or resisted. If the state had been abolished, or if its place as final arbiter had been taken, as Mr. Cole suggests, by a federation of voca- tional bodies, no power would, I am convinced, have existed powerful enough to overcome, even to the degree which was actually achieved, that hesitation and resistance."
Professor Wallas denounces professionalism as vigorously as he denounces the excesses of trade unionism. He is very severe on the lawyers, and he finds a good deal amiss in the medical pro- fession and in the teaching profession. His general view is that men and women ought to be freer to exchange one kind of work for another. Nothing in American life is stranger to an English observer than the readiness with which educated men adopt one occupation after another, often turning from school-tesehing to law, from law to politics, from politics to -trade, and so on, without being obstructed by any caste-barriers. Professor Wallas thinks that the teaching profession above all ought to be open to men and women of any age who care to undergo a course of training, for so much depends on the elas- ticity of the teacher's mind. He scouts the theory that teachers alone should determine what kind of education is to be given to the children of the nation.
Professor Wallas discusses many other topics—the nature of liberty, the independence of the judicature, "the most insoluble problem of democracy—the position of the Press," the civil service, the possibility of a World-State, the merits of constitu- tional monarchy, the use and abuse of "Science," and even the Church, of which he seems, for wholly inadequate reasons, to despair. Professor Wallas says many uncomfortable things and, in particular, underrates the good work done by British officials in India and the dependencies. But, as we have said, he is a critic who stimulates his readers to think for themselves. After reading his book, we are on the whole relieved to find that our community is not, in his view, hopelessly inept. He used to be a Fabian, but he does not now accept blindly Mr. Sidney Webb's formula for a slave-state managed by a committee of super-Fabians, any more than he accepts the Liberal party platitudes. His belief that we may be feeling our way towards a conception of democracy in which the idea of personal responsi- bility will play a large part" is noteworthy. Personal responsi- bility implies the recognition of the importance of the individual —a thoroughly British idea which the Socialists have always rejected, though it accounts in large part for the rise, growth, and continued prosperity of our country.
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