CHAPTER II
EDUCATION AND GENERAL SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT
In any attempt to improve the social condition of the natives, education will naturally play a large part. We have become accustomed to look upon education, not only as a condition of social improvement, but as the principal means of bringing it about. In the educational systems of the West, the intellectual factor has thus far been accorded prééminence; and as all the Western nations have a common fund of historical and philosophical traditions, it is very natural for them to conclude that their intellectual education will always and everywhere constitute a liberating influence and a sure means of social progress. Yet this education, adapted as it is to the highly complex psychology of the Western nations, by no means constitutes equally nourishing food for other races. We may indeed instruct these races by giving them the results of our learning, but whether we can thus really educate them is a different matter.
Any careful analysis of the meaning of education will reveal that one of its principal elements is adaptation to social environment. The intel-
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