Variations in social opportunity are seen as some-
thing to be grasped. And this utilization of
opportunity for a greater culture is interpreted
in terms of personal ability. Moral training of
the young is a matter of doing right or wrong, of
praise or blame, an emphasis of the personal and
a neglect of the cultural. Achievement reflects
the glory of the ego and the hero is given full
credit. There is no particular occasion to give
the credit to so impersonal a factor as culture.
The particular political party in power claims
credit for a period of prosperity even though it
be a matter of crops and rainfall. And failure,
particularly in the other fellow, is a matter of
personal inefficiency. Especially among the
wealthy classes is it customary to attribute their
position almost solely to ability and to make the
converse interpretation for those not at the top —
a very comfortable theory. In many such simple

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dally estimations the influence of culture is not ap-
preciated. Thus a mental pattern is ready-
made, prepared since youth, and one brings such
a ready-made pattern to the study of sociology or
to the reading of history, which it may be re-
marked is also usually written from this same
mental pattern.
