ABSTRACT
THE association of adult education with those who in their day we recognize as 'progressives' is perennial. The division of society into conservatives and radicals is the product of more than intellectual differences; it is part of a wide divergence of outlook on all kinds of problems. Social ideas stem from the heart as much as from the brain; so that a man is often recognizable as a progressive more by his temperamental attitudes than by his specific beliefs. The basic attitudes of those who are variously labelled progressives, radicals, or reformers is a criticism or rejection of the present, a searching for something new, and an eager welcoming of signs of change. Such attitudes are usually found in a modern society among three groups of people, namely, the poor and unprivileged, members of the middle classes with a sensitive conscience, and the intellectuals-a restless, discontented element recruited from all sections of society. All periods have these people, but in some they are pre-eminent.
