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Amy Lowell - "A Dome of Many Coloured Glass"

Owen Wister - "Philosophy 4"

Charles Dickens - "The Old Curiosity Shop"

Theophilus G. Pinches - "The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria"

Democracy and Education

J >> John Dewey >> Democracy and Education




In some individuals, appetites naturally dominate; they are
assigned to the laboring and trading class, which expresses and
supplies human wants. Others reveal, upon education, that over
and above appetites, they have a generous, outgoing, assertively
courageous disposition. They become the citizen-subjects of the
state; its defenders in war; its internal guardians in peace.
But their limit is fixed by their lack of reason, which is a
capacity to grasp the universal. Those who possess this are
capable of the highest kind of education, and become in time the
legislators of the state -- for laws are the universals which
control the particulars of experience. Thus it is not true that
in intent, Plato subordinated the individual to the social whole.
But it is true that lacking the perception of the uniqueness of
every individual, his incommensurability with others, and
consequently not recognizing that a society might change and yet
be stable, his doctrine of limited powers and classes came in net
effect to the idea of the subordination of individuality. We
cannot better Plato's conviction that an individual is happy and
society well organized when each individual engages in those
activities for which he has a natural equipment, nor his
conviction that it is the primary office of education to discover
this equipment to its possessor and train him for its effective
use. But progress in knowledge has made us aware of the
superficiality of Plato's lumping of individuals and their
original powers into a few sharply marked-off classes; it has
taught us that original capacities are indefinitely numerous and
variable. It is but the other side of this fact to say that in
the degree in which society has become democratic, social
organization means utilization of the specific and variable
qualities of individuals, not stratification by classes.
Although his educational philosophy was revolutionary, it was
none the less in bondage to static ideals. He thought that
change or alteration was evidence of lawless flux; that true
reality was unchangeable. Hence while he would radically change
the existing state of society, his aim was to construct a state
in which change would subsequently have no place. The final end
of life is fixed; given a state framed with this end in view, not
even minor details are to be altered. Though they might not be
inherently important, yet if permitted they would inure the minds
of men to the idea of change, and hence be dissolving and
anarchic. The breakdown of his philosophy is made apparent in
the fact that he could not trust to gradual improvements in
education to bring about a better society which should then
improve education, and so on indefinitely. Correct education
could not come into existence until an ideal state existed, and
after that education would be devoted simply to its conservation.
For the existence of this state he was obliged to trust to some
happy accident by which philosophic wisdom should happen to
coincide with possession of ruling power in the state.

4. The "Individualistic" Ideal of the Eighteenth Century. In
the eighteenth-century philosophy we find ourselves in a very
different circle of ideas. "Nature" still means something
antithetical to existing social organization; Plato exercised a
great influence upon Rousseau. But the voice of nature now
speaks for the diversity of individual talent and for the need of
free development of individuality in all its variety. Education
in accord with nature furnishes the goal and the method of
instruction and discipline. Moreover, the native or original
endowment was conceived, in extreme cases, as nonsocial or even
as antisocial. Social arrangements were thought of as mere
external expedients by which these nonsocial individuals might
secure a greater amount of private happiness for themselves.
Nevertheless, these statements convey only an inadequate idea of
the true significance of the movement. In reality its chief
interest was in progress and in social progress. The seeming
antisocial philosophy was a somewhat transparent mask for an
impetus toward a wider and freer society -- toward cosmopolitanism.
The positive ideal was humanity. In membership in humanity, as
distinct from a state, man's capacities would be liberated; while
in existing political organizations his powers were hampered and
distorted to meet the requirements and selfish interests of the
rulers of the state. The doctrine of extreme individualism was
but the counterpart, the obverse, of ideals of the indefinite
perfectibility of man and of a social organization having a scope
as wide as humanity. The emancipated individual was to become
the organ and agent of a comprehensive and progressive society.

The heralds of this gospel were acutely conscious of the evils of
the social estate in which they found themselves. They
attributed these evils to the limitations imposed upon the free
powers of man. Such limitation was both distorting and
corrupting. Their impassioned devotion to emancipation of life
from external restrictions which operated to the exclusive
advantage of the class to whom a past feudal system consigned
power, found intellectual formulation in a worship of nature. To
give "nature" full swing was to replace an artificial, corrupt,
and inequitable social order by a new and better kingdom of
humanity. Unrestrained faith in Nature as both a model and a
working power was strengthened by the advances of natural
science. Inquiry freed from prejudice and artificial restraints
of church and state had revealed that the world is a scene of
law. The Newtonian solar system, which expressed the reign of
natural law, was a scene of wonderful harmony, where every force
balanced with every other. Natural law would accomplish the same
result in human relations, if men would only get rid of the
artificial man-imposed coercive restrictions.

Education in accord with nature was thought to be the first step
in insuring this more social society. It was plainly seen that
economic and political limitations were ultimately dependent upon
limitations of thought and feeling. The first step in freeing
men from external chains was to emancipate them from the internal
chains of false beliefs and ideals. What was called social life,
existing institutions, were too false and corrupt to be intrusted
with this work. How could it be expected to undertake it when
the undertaking meant its own destruction? "Nature" must then be
the power to which the enterprise was to be left. Even the
extreme sensationalistic theory of knowledge which was current
derived itself from this conception. To insist that mind is
originally passive and empty was one way of glorifying the
possibilities of education. If the mind was a wax tablet to be
written upon by objects, there were no limits to the possibility
of education by means of the natural environment. And since the
natural world of objects is a scene of harmonious "truth," this
education would infallibly produce minds filled with the truth.

5. Education as National and as Social. As soon as the first
enthusiasm for freedom waned, the weakness of the theory upon the
constructive side became obvious. Merely to leave everything to
nature was, after all, but to negate the very idea of education;
it was to trust to the accidents of circumstance. Not only was
some method required but also some positive organ, some
administrative agency for carrying on the process of instruction.
The "complete and harmonious development of all powers," having
as its social counterpart an enlightened and progressive
humanity, required definite organization for its realization.
Private individuals here and there could proclaim the gospel;
they could not execute the work. A Pestalozzi could try
experiments and exhort philanthropically inclined persons having
wealth and power to follow his example. But even Pestalozzi saw
that any effective pursuit of the new educational ideal required
the support of the state. The realization of the new education
destined to produce a new society was, after all, dependent upon
the activities of existing states. The movement for the
democratic idea inevitably became a movement for publicly
conducted and administered schools.

So far as Europe was concerned, the historic situation identified
the movement for a state-supported education with the
nationalistic movement in political life -- a fact of
incalculable significance for subsequent movements. Under the
influence of German thought in particular, education became a
civic function and the civic function was identified with the
realization of the ideal of the national state. The "state" was
substituted for humanity; cosmopolitanism gave way to
nationalism. To form the citizen, not the "man," became the aim
of education. 1 The historic situation to which reference is
made is the after-effects of the Napoleonic conquests, especially
in Germany. The German states felt (and subsequent events
demonstrate the correctness of the belief) that systematic
attention to education was the best means of recovering and
maintaining their political integrity and power. Externally they
were weak and divided. Under the leadership of Prussian
statesmen they made this condition a stimulus to the development
of an extensive and thoroughly grounded system of public
education.

This change in practice necessarily brought about a change in
theory. The individualistic theory receded into the background.
The state furnished not only the instrumentalities of public
education but also its goal. When the actual practice was such
that the school system, from the elementary grades through the
university faculties, supplied the patriotic citizen and soldier
and the future state official and administrator and furnished the
means for military, industrial, and political defense and
expansion, it was impossible for theory not to emphasize the aim
of social efficiency. And with the immense importance attached
to the nationalistic state, surrounded by other competing and
more or less hostile states, it was equally impossible to
interpret social efficiency in terms of a vague cosmopolitan
humanitarianism. Since the maintenance of a particular national
sovereignty required subordination of individuals to the superior
interests of the state both in military defense and in struggles
for international supremacy in commerce, social efficiency was
understood to imply a like subordination. The educational
process was taken to be one of disciplinary training rather than
of personal development. Since, however, the ideal of culture as
complete development of personality persisted, educational
philosophy attempted a reconciliation of the two ideas. The
reconciliation took the form of the conception of the "organic"
character of the state. The individual in his isolation is
nothing; only in and through an absorption of the aims and
meaning of organized institutions does he attain true
personality. What appears to be his subordination to political
authority and the demand for sacrifice of himself to the commands
of his superiors is in reality but making his own the objective
reason manifested in the state -- the only way in which he can
become truly rational. The notion of development which we have
seen to be characteristic of institutional idealism (as in the
Hegelian philosophy) was just such a deliberate effort to combine
the two ideas of complete realization of personality and
thoroughgoing "disciplinary" subordination to existing
institutions. The extent of the transformation of educational
philosophy which occurred in Germany in the generation occupied
by the struggle against Napoleon for national independence, may
be gathered from Kant, who well expresses the earlier
individual-cosmopolitan ideal. In his treatise on Pedagogics,
consisting of lectures given in the later years of the eighteenth
century, he defines education as the process by which man becomes
man. Mankind begins its history submerged in nature -- not as
Man who is a creature of reason, while nature furnishes only
instinct and appetite. Nature offers simply the germs which
education is to develop and perfect. The peculiarity of truly
human life is that man has to create himself by his own voluntary
efforts; he has to make himself a truly moral, rational, and free
being. This creative effort is carried on by the educational
activities of slow generations. Its acceleration depends upon
men consciously striving to educate their successors not for the
existing state of affairs but so as to make possible a future
better humanity. But there is the great difficulty. Each
generation is inclined to educate its young so as to get along in
the present world instead of with a view to the proper end of
education: the promotion of the best possible realization of
humanity as humanity. Parents educate their children so that
they may get on; princes educate their subjects as instruments of
their own purposes.

Who, then, shall conduct education so that humanity may improve?
We must depend upon the efforts of enlightened men in their
private capacity. "All culture begins with private men and
spreads outward from them. Simply through the efforts of persons
of enlarged inclinations, who are capable of grasping the ideal
of a future better condition, is the gradual approximation of
human nature to its end possible. Rulers are simply interested
in such training as will make their subjects better tools for
their own intentions." Even the subsidy by rulers of privately
conducted schools must be carefully safeguarded. For the rulers'
interest in the welfare of their own nation instead of in what is
best for humanity, will make them, if they give money for the
schools, wish to draw their plans. We have in this view an
express statement of the points characteristic of the eighteenth
century individualistic cosmopolitanism. The full development of
private personality is identified with the aims of humanity as a
whole and with the idea of progress. In addition we have an
explicit fear of the hampering influence of a state-conducted and
state-regulated education upon the attainment of these ideas.
But in less than two decades after this time, Kant's philosophic
successors, Fichte and Hegel, elaborated the idea that the chief
function of the state is educational; that in particular the
regeneration of Germany is to be accomplished by an education
carried on in the interests of the state, and that the private
individual is of necessity an egoistic, irrational being,
enslaved to his appetites and to circumstances unless he submits
voluntarily to the educative discipline of state institutions and
laws. In this spirit, Germany was the first country to undertake
a public, universal, and compulsory system of education extending
from the primary school through the university, and to submit to
jealous state regulation and supervision all private educational
enterprises. Two results should stand out from this brief
historical survey. The first is that such terms as the
individual and the social conceptions of education are quite
meaningless taken at large, or apart from their context. Plato
had the ideal of an education which should equate individual
realization and social coherency and stability. His situation
forced his ideal into the notion of a society organized in
stratified classes, losing the individual in the class. The
eighteenth century educational philosophy was highly
individualistic in form, but this form was inspired by a noble
and generous social ideal: that of a society organized to include
humanity, and providing for the indefinite perfectibility of
mankind. The idealistic philosophy of Germany in the early
nineteenth century endeavored again to equate the ideals of a
free and complete development of cultured personality with social
discipline and political subordination. It made the national
state an intermediary between the realization of private
personality on one side and of humanity on the other.
Consequently, it is equally possible to state its animating
principle with equal truth either in the classic terms of
"harmonious development of all the powers of personality" or in
the more recent terminology of "social efficiency." All this
reinforces the statement which opens this chapter: The conception
of education as a social process and function has no definite
meaning until we define the kind of society we have in mind.
These considerations pave the way for our second conclusion. One
of the fundamental problems of education in and for a democratic
society is set by the conflict of a nationalistic and a wider
social aim. The earlier cosmopolitan and "humanitarian"
conception suffered both from vagueness and from lack of definite
organs of execution and agencies of administration. In Europe,
in the Continental states particularly, the new idea of the
importance of education for human welfare and progress was
captured by national interests and harnessed to do a work whose
social aim was definitely narrow and exclusive. The social aim
of education and its national aim were identified, and the result
was a marked obscuring of the meaning of a social aim.

This confusion corresponds to the existing situation of human
intercourse. On the one hand, science, commerce, and art
transcend national boundaries. They are largely international in
quality and method. They involve interdependencies and
cooperation among the peoples inhabiting different countries. At
the same time, the idea of national sovereignty has never been as
accentuated in politics as it is at the present time. Each
nation lives in a state of suppressed hostility and incipient war
with its neighbors. Each is supposed to be the supreme judge of
its own interests, and it is assumed as matter of course that
each has interests which are exclusively its own. To question
this is to question the very idea of national sovereignty which
is assumed to be basic to political practice and political
science. This contradiction (for it is nothing less) between the
wider sphere of associated and mutually helpful social life and
the narrower sphere of exclusive and hence potentially hostile
pursuits and purposes, exacts of educational theory a clearer
conception of the meaning of "social" as a function and test of
education than has yet been attained. Is it possible for an
educational system to be conducted by a national state and yet
the full social ends of the educative process not be restricted,
constrained, and corrupted? Internally, the question has to face
the tendencies, due to present economic conditions, which split
society into classes some of which are made merely tools for the
higher culture of others. Externally, the question is concerned
with the reconciliation of national loyalty, of patriotism, with
superior devotion to the things which unite men in common ends,
irrespective of national political boundaries. Neither phase of
the problem can be worked out by merely negative means. It is
not enough to see to it that education is not actively used as an
instrument to make easier the exploitation of one class by
another. School facilities must be secured of such amplitude and
efficiency as will in fact and not simply in name discount the
effects of economic inequalities, and secure to all the wards of
the nation equality of equipment for their future careers.
Accomplishment of this end demands not only adequate
administrative provision of school facilities, and such
supplementation of family resources as will enable youth to take
advantage of them, but also such modification of traditional
ideals of culture, traditional subjects of study and traditional
methods of teaching and discipline as will retain all the youth
under educational influences until they are equipped to be
masters of their own economic and social careers. The ideal may
seem remote of execution, but the democratic ideal of education
is a farcical yet tragic delusion except as the ideal more and
more dominates our public system of education. The same
principle has application on the side of the considerations which
concern the relations of one nation to another. It is not enough
to teach the horrors of war and to avoid everything which would
stimulate international jealousy and animosity. The emphasis
must be put upon whatever binds people together in cooperative
human pursuits and results, apart from geographical limitations.
The secondary and provisional character of national sovereignty
in respect to the fuller, freer, and more fruitful association
and intercourse of all human beings with one another must be
instilled as a working disposition of mind. If these
applications seem to be remote from a consideration of the
philosophy of education, the impression shows that the meaning of
the idea of education previously developed has not been
adequately grasped. This conclusion is bound up with the very
idea of education as a freeing of individual capacity in a
progressive growth directed to social aims. Otherwise a
democratic criterion of education can only be inconsistently
applied.

Summary. Since education is a social process, and there are many
kinds of societies, a criterion for educational criticism and
construction implies a particular social ideal. The two points
selected by which to measure the worth of a form of social life
are the extent in which the interests of a group are shared by
all its members, and the fullness and freedom with which it
interacts with other groups. An undesirable society, in other
words, is one which internally and externally sets up barriers to
free intercourse and communication of experience. A society
which makes provision for participation in its good of all its
members on equal terms and which secures flexible readjustment of
its institutions through interaction of the different forms of
associated life is in so far democratic. Such a society must
have a type of education which gives individuals a personal
interest in social relationships and control, and the habits of
mind which secure social changes without introducing disorder.
Three typical historic philosophies of education were considered
from this point of view. The Platonic was found to have an ideal
formally quite similar to that stated, but which was compromised
in its working out by making a class rather than an individual
the social unit. The so-called individualism of the eighteenth-
century enlightenment was found to involve the notion of a
society as broad as humanity, of whose progress the individual
was to be the organ. But it lacked any agency for securing the
development of its ideal as was evidenced in its falling back
upon Nature. The institutional idealistic philosophies of the
nineteenth century supplied this lack by making the national
state the agency, but in so doing narrowed the conception of the
social aim to those who were members of the same political unit,
and reintroduced the idea of the subordination of the individual
to the institution. 1 There is a much neglected strain in
Rousseau tending intellectually in this direction. He opposed
the existing state of affairs on the ground that it formed
neither the citizen nor the man. Under existing conditions, he
preferred to try for the latter rather than for the former. But
there are many sayings of his which point to the formation of the
citizen as ideally the higher, and which indicate that his own
endeavor, as embodied in the Emile, was simply the best makeshift
the corruption of the times permitted him to sketch.


Chapter Eight: Aims in Education

1. The Nature of an Aim.

The account of education given in our earlier chapters virtually
anticipated the results reached in a discussion of the purport of
education in a democratic community. For it assumed that the aim
of education is to enable individuals to continue their education
-- or that the object and reward of learning is continued
capacity for growth. Now this idea cannot be applied to all the
members of a society except where intercourse of man with man is
mutual, and except where there is adequate provision for the
reconstruction of social habits and institutions by means of wide
stimulation arising from equitably distributed interests. And
this means a democratic society. In our search for aims in
education, we are not concerned, therefore, with finding an end
outside of the educative process to which education is
subordinate. Our whole conception forbids. We are rather
concerned with the contrast which exists when aims belong within
the process in which they operate and when they are set up from
without. And the latter state of affairs must obtain when social
relationships are not equitably balanced. For in that case, some
portions of the whole social group will find their aims
determined by an external dictation; their aims will not arise
from the free growth of their own experience, and their nominal
aims will be means to more ulterior ends of others rather than
truly their own.

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