qualities in any creative experience together with the tangible and objective would arrest the decay of the spiritual. The growth of any power or organ toward a benign or malignant purpose generally means that it is being used. In the immaterial world disintegration and decay are swift. Today, through the disuse of recognized powers which cannot be measured, seen, or completely controlled, all creative workers engage in an endless battle with a public which is spiritually sterile. While the growth of the spiritual in man can be delayed, even a machine age cannot be entirely guilty of destroying it. It is, after all, the indefinable spirit in any culture or civilization which is indestructible; it probably is the true tradition in art and science, the most influential and the most valuable. In the complicated business of twentieth-century living, only those tangible and material values count for us. Only our natural equipment, the This content downloaded from 157.55.39.186 on Tue, 11 Oct 2016 05:11:16 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms ARTISTS AND AUDIENCES 269 mechanics to exist in a period, goes on. Civilization, culture, whatever these qualities are, are perishable things. We are all animals, wild or peaceful. Perhaps I should say that we are all wild animals plus, and it is the amount of plus, or the strength of it which finally determines our culture. Now if a single generation passes without using the whole of itself in its creative efforts or its understanding, if a generation concerns itself with the obvious and tangible, and a passive acceptance of things as they are, that primary quality in all civilizations, the spiritual, is in serious danger of being lost or lapsing. There is no complete divorcing of the spiritual in man from the material values. We, as Americans, have built up an immunity to spiritual values over a long period of years dedicated to an overemphasis on getting much and giving little. The culture of the serum for these inoculations has been innocently prepared by the educator, the business man, and his dollar. However, the denial of spiritual values can only bear material fruit over a short period of time. Inbreeding is the inevitable result, and whether we are dealing with human beings or the abstract qualities which cause them to create, the disastrous and sterile result is only too apparent. THE forces which finally coax us to oppose ignorance are slow to bear fruit. If the head of a large research institute could announce that a material civilization destroys itself by denying the spiritual forces of a period, and could prove it, we would probably continue in the same materialistic direction. Complete decay is the only evidence that the literalminded will accept. A well-rounded understanding, of the oneness of all creative effort and the obvious necessity of combining the material with the spiritual values before any idea or creative result can live, is in the same position that the major health problems were a hundred years ago. We cannot make people completely cognizant of spiritual values in all creative efforts, but we can improve the situation. We can make people more healthy spiritually just as we have made them more healthy physically. However, the charlatan in science, education, and art must be eliminated, just as the quack doctor had to give way to a new order before progress in health was possible. Education today is too concerned with telling people in some final way what to do and how to do it, instead of patiently cultivating an attitude which would lead the public toward an endless seeking. The improbability of success is only an assumption. The deaf finally learned to speak without ever having heard the words they use. Educators, however, must believe that unseen forces are as important in education as are the tangible and provable. It is necessary today to remind ourselves that the larger truths are obvious; they defy proof or definition. Only a materialist gives and demands proof in neat logical terms, and even his reasons do not hold when they are set