For the most part, save incidentally, we have hitherto been concerned with education as it may exist in
any social group. We have now to make explicit the differences in the spirit, material, and method of
education as it operates in different types of community life. To say that education is a social function,
securing direction and development in the immature through their participation in the life of the group
to which they belong, is to say in effect that education will vary with the quality of life which prevails
in a group. Particularly is it true that a society which not only changes but which has the ideal of such
change as will improve it, will have different standards and methods of education from one which aims
simply at the perpetuation of its own customs. To make the general ideas set forth applicable to our own
educational practice, it is, therefore, necessary to come to closer quarters with the nature of present
social life.
1. The Implications of Human Association.
Society is one word, but many things. Men associate together in all kinds of ways and for all kinds of
purposes. One man is concerned in a multitude of diverse groups, in which his associates may be quite
different. It often seems as if they had nothing in common except that they are modes of associated life.
Within every larger social organization there are numerous minor groups; not only political subdivisions,
but industrial, scientific, religious, associations. There are political parties with differing aims,
social sets, cliques, gangs, corporations, partnerships, groups bound closely together by ties of blood,
and so on in endless variety. In many modern states and in some ancient, there is great diversity of populations,
of varying languages, religions, moral codes, and traditions. From this standpoint, many a minor political
unit, one of our large cities, for example, is a congeries of loosely associated societies, rather than
an inclusive and permeating community of action and thought.
The terms society, community, are thus ambiguous. They have both a eulogistic or normative sense, and
a descriptive sense; a meaning de jure and a meaning de facto. In social philosophy, the
former connotation is almost always uppermost. Society is conceived as one by its very nature. The qualities
which accompany this unity, praiseworthy community of purpose and welfare, loyalty to public ends, mutuality
of sympathy, are emphasized. But when we look at the facts which the term denotes instead of confining
our attention to its intrinsic connotation, we find not unity, but a plurality of societies, good
and bad. Men banded together in a criminal conspiracy, business aggregations that prey upon the public
while serving it, political machines held together by the interest of plunder, are included. If it is
said that such organizations are not societies because they do not meet the ideal requirements of the
notion of society, the answer, in part, is that the conception of society is then made so "ideal"
as to be of no use, having no reference to facts; and in part, that each of these organizations, no matter
how opposed to the interests of other groups, has something of the praiseworthy qualities of "Society"
which hold it together. There is honor among thieves, and a band of robbers has a common interest as respects
its members. Gangs are marked by fraternal feeling, and narrow cliques by intense loyalty to their own
codes. Family life may be marked by exclusiveness, suspicion, and jealousy as to those without, and yet
be a model of amity and mutual aid within. Any education given by a group tends to socialize its members,
but the quality and value of the socialization depends upon the habits and aims of the group.
Hence, once more, the need of a measure for the worth of any given mode of social life. In seeking this
measure, we have to avoid two extremes. We cannot set up, out of our heads, something we regard as an
ideal society. We must base our conception upon societies which actually exist, in order to have any assurance
that our ideal is a practicable one. But, as we have just seen, the ideal cannot simply repeat the traits
which are actually found. The problem is to extract the desirable traits of forms of community life which
actually exist, and employ them to criticize undesirable features and suggest improvement. Now in any
social group whatever, even in a gang of thieves, we find some interest held in common, and we find a
certain amount of interaction and cooperative intercourse with other groups. From these two traits we
derive our standard. How numerous and varied are the interests which are consciously shared? How full
and free is the interplay with other forms of association? If we apply these considerations to, say, a
criminal band, we find that the ties which consciously hold the members together are few in number, reducible
almost to a common interest in plunder; and that they are of such a nature as to isolate the group from
other groups with respect to give and take of the values of life. Hence, the education such a society
gives is partial and distorted. If we take, on the other hand, the kind of family life which illustrates
the standard, we find that there are material, intellectual, aesthetic interests in which all participate
and that the progress of one member has worth for the experience of other members—it is readily communicable—and
that the family is not an isolated whole, but enters intimately into relationships with business groups,
with schools, with all the agencies of culture, as well as with other similar groups, and that it plays
a due part in the political organization and in return receives support from it. In short, there are many
interests consciously communicated and shared; and there are varied and free points of contact with other
modes of association.
I. Let us apply the first element in this criterion to a despotically governed state. It is not
true there is no common interest in such an organization between governed and governors. The authorities
in command must make some appeal to the native activities of the subjects, must call some of their powers
into play. Talleyrand said that a government could do everything with bayonets except sit on them. This
cynical declaration is at least a recognition that the bond of union is not merely one of coercive force.
It may be said, however, that the activities appealed to are themselves unworthy and degrading—that such
a government calls into functioning activity simply capacity for fear. In a way, this statement is true.
But it overlooks the fact that fear need not be an undesirable factor in experience. Caution, circumspection,
prudence, desire to foresee future events so as to avert what is harmful, these desirable traits are as
much a product of calling the impulse of fear into play as is cowardice and abject submission. The real
difficulty is that the appeal to fear is isolated. In evoking dread and hope of specific tangible
reward—say comfort and ease—many other capacities are left untouched. Or rather, they are affected, but
in such a way as to pervert them. Instead of operating on their own account they are reduced to mere servants
of attaining pleasure and avoiding pain.
This is equivalent to saying that there is no extensive number of common interests; there is no free play
back and forth among the members of the social group. Stimulation and response are exceedingly one-sided.
In order to have a large number of values in common, all the members of the group must have an equable
opportunity to receive and to take from others. There must be a large variety of shared undertakings and
experiences. Otherwise, the influences which educate some into masters, educate others into slaves. And
the experience of each party loses in meaning, when the free interchange of varying modes of life-experience
is arrested. A separation into privileged and a subject-class prevents social endosmosis. The evils thereby
affecting the superior class are less material and less perceptible, but equally real. Their culture tends
to be sterile, to be turned back to feed on itself; their art becomes a showy display and artificial;
their wealth luxurious; their knowledge overspecialized; their manners fastidious rather than humane. |
