CREATIVE IMPULSE IN INDUSTRY




INTRODUCTION


A friend of mine in describing the Russian people as he observed them
in their present revolution said it was possible for them to accept
new ideas because they were uneducated; they did not, he said, labor
under the difficulty common among educated people of having to get rid
of old ideas before they took on new ones. I think what he had in mind
to say that it is difficult to accept new ideas when your mind is
filled with ideas which are institutional. The ideas which come out of
formal education, out of the schools, out of books, are ideas which
have been stamped as the true and important ones; many of them are,
as they have proved their worth in service. But as they represent
authority, they pass into a people's mind with the full weight of
an accepted fact. The schools, the colleges, and the books are
not responsible primarily for the fixed ideas; every established
institution contributes fixed ideas as well as fixed customs and rules
of action. The schools and colleges circulate and interpret them.
The movement for industrial education in the United States is an
illustration of this.