Humanity during the course of civilization has fixed certain habits, made certain discoveries, constructed certain systems of ordered knowledge by emphasizing the relevant and significant. There is little likelihood that the whole structure will come tumbling about our heads because somebody examines into its nature. In fact the highest achievement of civilization would appear to be a mind capable of understanding our human ways of thinking for what they are. But if our learning should cause us to abandon all our consoling beliefs and ideals and pet theories; if it should reveal human folly in our every great cause, and futility in our every scheme of social reconstruction, even then we cannot for such reasons shirk the task of educating ourselves. There would remain for each of us the ideal of what an educated mind might become; no knowledge could take from us the ideals of courage, of preserving our integrity, of standing undaunted before the challenge to our spirit. Again a question arises similar to that we discussed at the close of the chapter on propaganda. Does not education, then, cause doubt and indifference so that the educated remain aloof and fail to take their share of social responsibility or participate in the activities of their times? Is it not the mass of “common people” therefore, and not the scholars, which accomplishes the overthrow of tyrannies and achieves progress? In a day when everybody is a professional or amateur reformer and people are led to believe that they can make their lives count only as they participate in some mass movement, it is natural that this question should present itself as we consider what education means.