Kirsopp Lake Predicts Aristocracy of Intellect in New Proletarian Government Based upon Leisure

"Democracy is waning, and will probably soon be replaced by an aristocracy of the intellect," said Kirsopp Lake, professor of History, in an interview with the CRIMSON yesterday afternoon. "The next trend in the United States, as contrasted to the present 'tyranny of brains' in Europe may well be that the unemployed proletariat will, through an exploitation of the leisure time which is being forced upon them, become the intellectual, and, therefore, the political leaders of the country.

"If the general intelligence rate rises even a fraction of one per cent, that rise constitutes a real revolution in social conditions. Perhaps this period of depression is the advance guard of some such fundamental change simply through a redistribution of leisure.

"The problem of unemployment is primarily the problem of leisure. The use which is to be made of the leisure which must inevitably come as a result of the machine age looms as one of the largest social and ethical problems of the future. The laboring classes will not at first know what to do with the spare time which will be made available to them; and for a while they will probably spend it all upon the superficial amusements to which they are accustomed. But after a few years of adjustment, the thinkers will recognize that all their free hours are not needed for relaxation; and they will then begin to use some of their time for study. This was the case with the Scotch farmers of the nineteenth century who learned to use their long winter evenings for study instead of for outworn amusements, and thus developed one of the most cultured middle classes ever known. There is no reason why the modern working classes cannot do the same."