Excelsior!

The Philip Wylies, the Cassandras, the Twentieth Century prophets of doom ceaselessly cry out in the wilderness of materialism. And well might they wail, for the instances of greed, ignorance, needless poverty, waste, hunger, violence, falsehood, hypocrisy, and half-truth are so plentiful that merely to enumerate them would be a Sisyphean labor. But the black gulf of pessimism is not the place to seek the understanding, the patience, the faith that is required by a generation that hopes to bequeathe a world at least somewhat better than one to inherited. Things as they are appear much less disheartening if viewed together with what might have been, and what still may be realized in the future, than if viewed alone and judged by an inflexible standard.

Many of the nations of Europe and the Far East are still gripped by the cold, hunger, and stagnation which breed vice, crime, and revolution; but they are loosed from the maniac-driven war chariot of the Axis, and they look to a future, far from untroubled yet tempered by the hope for better days. The vision of One World has faded, and its place been taken by the fact of two worlds--divided ideologically and politically. Yet much of this division is due to lack of knowledge (a condition which can be rectified) and to a simple and natural resistance to the impact of new ideas and institutions, and above all there is the United Nations--feeble, often ineffective, yet mankind's closest approach to a world government.

The United States furnishes particularly good opportunities for the moaners and groaners. Its material wealth forms a perfect background against which to accentuate its inept statesmanship, its political stupidity, its immorality, social injustice and inequality, the break up of its families and churches, and the pitiful inadequacy of its educational facilities. And their charges are true, but they are not the whole story. From the times of the earliest settlers in Massachusetts, the society of the United States has been built upon the bifurcation of an economic system which emphasizes acquisitiveness and a religion which makes every man his brother's keeper. In the process of conquest of a land of milk and honey the mores and working rules of society were those that gave success to the man who could best look after himself. But the social conscience, the human sympathy, Christian spirit, or whatever you choose to call it, has always been present, and in the last few decades has become an authoritative voice, urging the responsibility of all for all. Things like social security and protection for laborers are still in the experimental stage, but their very existence is proof that a new pattern is being woven into the fabric of society.

Delinquency, immorality, and crime, now as always, are prevalent. But, though their form has changed, there is no evidence that they are more extensive than at any other time in our history. And happily their cause is no longer sought for in the degeneracy of the individual but in the malfunction of society itself. Probably the most indefensible of all the nation's shortcomings is the condition of its schools, neglected, under-financed, poorly staffed, too much devoted to the dissemation of undigested facts of dogmatic fallacy rather than to education in the sense of giving the student an understanding of society and his role as a citizen. However, the problem of a flimsy educational structure, unlike the problem of sin is limited and specific; and the mounting protests of educators, legislators, and other groups make it probable that in a few years the nation's public schools will be reorganized and reorientated.

Belittlers and pessimists have their uses. In an era of prosperity and self-satisfaction, when science and machines have created the highest standard of living the world has over known, and when the new discoveries whose possibilities are yet unexplored offer a future so amazing and wonderful that even the imagination hesitates to reach for it, these gentlemen serve as a reminder that the social sciences, human and international relations, are lagging far, far behind the advance of physical science. However, too much pessimism, like too much optimism, destroys the energy and vision that will be required to make the future more than a magnified image of the past. President Conant's "tough minded idealists" embody precisely the qualities that are required--a realization of the world's flaws and faults coupled with a seal to eliminate them, and build a world that as yet exists only in hopes and dreams.