nion
is the task of the school first and then of the press, the pulpit, and
the public forum. Public and private commissions, organized and
maintained to furnish information and suggest better methods, make
useful contributions; public reports, if presented intelligibly,
impartially, and concisely, are among the helpful instruments of
instruction; reform pamphlets will again perform valuable service, as
they have in past days of moral and social intensity; but it is
especially through the newspapers and the forums for public discussion
that the social thinker can best reach his audience, and through these
means that commission reports can best be brought to the attention of
the people. It may very likely be necessary that press and platform be
subsidized either by government or by private endowment to do this
work of social training.

381. =Individualism.=--The third group of theorists rejects all
varieties of external control as of secondary value, and has no faith
in the working of public opinion, however well educated, unless the
character of the individuals that make up the group is what it should
be. These theorists regard self-control coming through the development
of personal worth as the one essential for a better social order. This
individualist theory is held by those who are still in bondage to the
individualism that has characterized social thinking in the last four
hundred years. There is much in the history of that period that
justifies faith in the worth of the individual. Along the lines of
material progress, especially, the individualist has made good.
Looking upon what has been achieved the modern democrat expects
further improvement in society through individual betterment.

The arguments in defense of the individualist theory are: (1) That
natural science has proved that social development is achieved only
through individual competition, and that the best man wins; (2) that
experience has shown that progress has been most rapid where the
individual has had largest scope; (3) that it is the teaching of
Christian ethics that the individual must work out the salvation of
his own character, must learn by experience how to gain self-reliance
and strength of will, and so has the right to fashion his own course
of conduct.

382. =The Development of Personal Worth.=--It is evident, however,
that the usefulness of the individual, both to himself and to others,
depends on his personal worth. The self-contr