Will Durant Finds That Leadership Always Must Come From Great Genius--Popular Movements Fail to Solve Problems

"Rich men are becoming more considerate towards the working classes. They do not show the snobbishness towards the poor that was formerly so evident." This was the statement made by Professor Will Durant of Columbia University in an interview with a CRIMSON reporter. Professor Durant became one of the foremost philosophers of modern times with the publication of his "Story of Philosophy".

"I admire any organized attempt of working men to defend themselves," he stated, "but I doubt if they can accomplish very great results through the organization of labor, even in solving the problems of the working class.

"In the same way, the people of the world cannot solve the problem of world peace. The solution will come from the mind of some great genius who knows the whole problem and who realizes fully the destruction which would result from another war.

"The people are too busy to learn the problem. Besides, when the next war comes, the people will be national, and will be ready to kill other men. Pictures of the Army and Navy at the movies draw almost more applause than Charlie Chaplain."

Professor Durant expressed his views on pre-war-education very decisively:

"Most teachers used methods which they themselves considered antiquated, and taught subjects which they would have admitted not one in a hundred of their pupils would ever need to know. Boys and girls bursting with vitality and the exuberance of youth were cramped for hours into set positions, while by a sort of water-cure process knowledge was pumped into them from books duller than a doctor's dissertation in philosophy."