d extremely questionable and which assuredly
demands some further explanation. Suppose it to be admitted that
individual Americans do seek the increase of their individuality by
competent and disinterested special work. In what way will such work and
the sort of individuality thereby developed exercise a decisive
influence on behalf of social amelioration? We have already expressly
denied that a desire to succor their fellow-countrymen or an ideal of
social reorganization is at the present time a necessary ingredient in
the make-up of these formative individuals. Their individual excellence
has been defined exclusively in terms of high but special technical
competence; and the manner in which these varied and frequently
antagonistic individual performers are to cooeperate towards socially
constructive results must still remain a little hazy. How are these
eminent specialists, each of whom is admittedly pursuing unscrupulously
his own special purpose, to be made serviceable in a coherent national
democratic organization? How, indeed, are these specialists to get at
the public whom they are supposed to lead? Many very competent
contemporary Americans might claim that the real difficulty in relation
to the social influence of the expert specialist has been sedulously
evaded. The admirably competent individual cannot exercise any
constructive social influence, unless he becomes popular; and the
current American standards being what they are, how can an individual
become popular without more or less insidious and baleful compromises?
The gulf between individual excellence and effective popular influence
still remains to be bridged; and until it is bridged, an essential stage
is lacking in the transition from an individually formative result to
one that is also socially formative.

Undoubtedly, a gulf does exist in the country between individual
excellence and effective popular influence. Many excellent specialists
exercise a very small amount of influence, and many individuals who
exercise apparently a great deal of influence are conspicuously lacking
in any kind of excellence. The responsibility for this condition is
usually fastened upon the Philistine American public, which refuses to
recognize genuine eminence and which showers rewards upon any
second-rate performer who tickles its tastes and prejudices. But it is
at least worth inquiring whether the responsibility should not be
fastened, not upon the followers, but upon