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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/75711-0.txt b/75711-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fcf4a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/75711-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9495 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75711 *** + + + THE MEANING OF + A LIBERAL EDUCATION + + + + + _The People’s Institute + “Lectures-in-Print” Series_ + + + PSYCHOLOGY + by Everett Dean Martin $3.00 + + BEHAVIORISM + by John B. Watson $3.00 + + INFLUENCING HUMAN BEHAVIOR + by H. A. Overstreet $3.00 + + INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY + by Charles S. Myers $2.50 + + THE MEANING OF A LIBERAL EDUCATION + by Everett Dean Martin $3.00 + + MODERN SCIENCE AND PEOPLE’S HEALTH + Edited by Benjamin C. Gruenberg $2.50 + + +_Other Volumes in Preparation_ + + _W·W·NORTON & COMPANY, INC._ + 70 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + + THE MEANING OF + A LIBERAL EDUCATION + + BY + + EVERETT DEAN MARTIN + + _Director, The People’s Institute, New York + Lecturer, The New School for + Social Research_ + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + W·W·NORTON & COMPANY, INC. + _Publishers_ + + + + + Copyright, 1926 + W·W·NORTON & COMPANY, INC. + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + FOR THE PUBLISHERS BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS + + + + + To her who lovingly gave me the first and most + important instruction, and inspired the + desire for scholarship, + MY MOTHER + THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED + + + + +PREFACE + + +Most books that deal with the subject of education, and there are +many, are concerned with the training of the young. Much is said about +educational methods but very little about content. There is discussion, +also, of the effectiveness of institutions, schools and colleges, and +the interest of the State in education. This book does not deal with +such matters. + +It is concerned with other problems. What is an educated person like? +How does he differ from the uneducated? Does he think differently and, +if so, why? We shall be empirical in our study. We shall study persons +who are generally recognized as outstanding educated minds and ask what +it is that characterizes them. Is an educated person one who is like +Socrates, Erasmus, Montaigne, Goethe, Arnold, Santayana? + +The theme of this book is that education is more than information, or +skill, or propaganda. In each age education must take into account +the conditions of that age. But the educated mind is not a mere +creature of its own time. Education is emancipation from herd opinion, +self-mastery, capacity for self-criticism, suspended judgment, and +urbanity. + +It is often believed that education, adult education in particular, is +an avocation or an interest to occupy the individual in his leisure +time, like music or stamp collecting. The work of The People’s +Institute at Cooper Union, New York, where these lectures were given, +is essentially that of adult education. I have tried to think through +with those who attended the lectures what it is that for ten years +we have been trying to achieve. Adult education is now becoming an +important interest in American life, and the inquiry seems timely. + +This book, then, contends that education is a spiritual revaluation +of human life. Its task is to _reorient_ the individual, to enable +him to take a richer and more significant view of his experiences, to +place him above and not within the system of his beliefs and ideals. +If education is not liberalizing, it is not education in the sense of +the title of the book. I use the term “liberal” not in the political +sense, as if it meant half measures, but in its original sense meaning +by a liberal education the kind of education which sets the mind free +from the servitude of the crowd and from vulgar self-interests. In this +sense, education is simply philosophy at work. It is the search for the +“good life.” Education is itself a way of living. + +I have written the book not from the standpoint of the professional +educator for whom education is frequently--if it be adult education--an +enterprise designed for the uplift of other people, but from the +standpoint of one who is concerned that his own education shall not +stop in middle-life. No one is fit to be a teacher in whose own mental +process education has ceased to go on. One is a student first and only +incidentally a teacher. The best teacher is the seeker after truth +amongst his students. Probably the most successful educator cannot tell +what is the secret of his success in teaching. That which is important +about the philosophy of education is not method but that background of +knowledge which enables its possessor to judge what is worth knowing +and doing. + + EVERETT DEAN MARTIN. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + PREFACE vii + + I. INTRODUCTION 1 + + II. LIBERAL EDUCATION VERSUS ANIMAL TRAINING 23 + + III. LIBERAL EDUCATION VERSUS PROPAGANDA 45 + + IV. LIBERAL EDUCATION VERSUS BOOK LEARNING 66 + + V. THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF DOUBT 84 + + VI. A MAN IS KNOWN BY THE DILEMMAS HE KEEPS 107 + + VII. THE FREE SPIRIT 127 + + VIII. THE APPRECIATION OF HUMAN WORTH 146 + + IX. EDUCATION AND WORK 160 + + X. EDUCATION AND MORALS 180 + + XI. THE CLASSICAL TRADITION: PLATO AND ARISTOTLE 197 + + XII. HUMANISM: ERASMUS AND MONTAIGNE 220 + + XIII. SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION: HUXLEY 252 + + XIV. THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE 286 + + XV. POSTSCRIPT--ADULT EDUCATION IN AMERICA 308 + + + + + THE MEANING OF + A LIBERAL EDUCATION + + + + +CHAPTER I + +INTRODUCTION + + +The evidence is unmistakable that there is an important change in the +attitude of the public toward education. There is an increasingly +general demand for it in some form or other. Everywhere and in all +classes of society the interest in acquiring better knowledge is +apparent. + +In England and on the continent of Europe there are thousands of +classes and groups patiently pursuing long and serious courses of +study. American colleges and universities are crowded and many students +are each year turned away. Vast and increasing numbers register +annually for correspondence and university extension courses. The +demand for more education is shown also in the increasing number +of lecture courses, people’s colleges, and other centers of public +discussion. + +While people do not always know just what it is they demand and +frequently the thing which they receive is not education, nevertheless +there is a new and very wide-spread interest. This new interest shows +itself not only in the increasing number of persons engaged in some +kind of educational activity but also in the fact that people are +beginning to see that education properly may be extended into adult +life. + +Until recently, people have thought of education as something for +children, something which a man either got or missed in his early +years, something which he generally forgot in his mature years. To +the average person, education was a matter of fond memories or of +unpleasant associations with teachers, school houses and experiences +of childhood. The “highly” educated person was the exceptional person +in the community, discussions of the philosophy of education did not +appeal to a wide public interest. Now higher branches of learning +are being pursued by numbers of people outside regular educational +institutions. Something very significant is happening. Perhaps at no +time since the thirteenth century has the desire for knowledge so +nearly approached a mass movement. + +Certain qualifications must however be made. While much of the demand +for education is genuine and spontaneous, much of it is spurious, +irrelevant, inconsequential. The increased attendance at school or +university does not necessarily mean that more education is going on. +It is frequently said that our colleges are crowded with inferior +students. Athletics, fraternities, schools of business and the +automobile tend to displace science and the classics. American youth +has acquired its ideal of college life from the motion pictures. We +should not infer from the large numbers engaged in adult education +that democracy has suddenly decided to rid itself of intellectual +shoddiness. If the advertisements of correspondence courses in +self-improvement which regularly appear in the popular magazines are +an indication of the instruction offered for sale, people might better +spend their money for patent medicine or in having their fortunes +told. At best adult education consists largely of brief courses of +a vocational nature. Even worker’s education, a movement which has +inspired hope in many liberals, may easily be over estimated. Much +of it is little more than a recrudescence of antiquated radical +propaganda, designed to enable the proletariat to “emancipate itself +from the slavery of capitalism,” and to get it “ready for a millennial +industrial democracy.” The initiative often comes not from studious +minded workers, but from enthusiastic intellectuals and idealistic +uplifters. The cultural gesture is often pathetic or comic. It is +not uncommon for those who have completed the courses of study in a +“workers” college to find themselves more unadjusted than they were +before. + +It is sought to make of adult education something which will broaden +the interests and sympathies of people regardless of their daily +occupation--or along with it--to lift men’s thought out of the monotony +and drudgery which are the common lot, to free the mind from servitude +and herd opinion, to train habits of judgment and of appreciation of +value, to carry on the struggle for human excellence in our day and +generation, to temper passion with wisdom, to dispel prejudice by +better knowledge of self, to enlist all men, in the measure that they +have capacity for it, in the achievement of civilization. + +Adult education is a way of living which should be open to all who care +for it for its own sake. It is not surprising that it frequently fails +of its true aims. Education has always been regarded as a mere means to +ends that have nothing to do with it. It is to be expected, therefore, +that education in our day should be regarded primarily as a means of +entrance to the already overcrowded professions, or to material gain or +better social position. Doubtless it must remain so until the community +becomes sufficiently civilized so that some degree of liberal education +is the expected thing in all classes, an interest and a goal, a +spiritual bond of union somewhat like the idea of catholic religion in +the middle ages. This is an ideal which will not be realized by magic. +There is no cheap popular substitute for education. Nor are we nearing +the goal while as now almost anything passes for education. + +Almost any method of salesmanship or trick of influencing people for +any ends whatever is now “education.” Every one educates the public. It +is marvelous how large a portion of the population of these states is +qualified to instruct. Education has become the game men perpetually +work to convert their neighbors. It is the cure for every social ill. +How shall we put an end to the crime wave, abolish war, how to prevent +social revolution,--or bring revolution about, how induce unwilling +people to accept cheerfully the coercion of national prohibition or +give lip service to some one’s favorite brand of patriotism? The answer +is in all cases--education. If you are engaged in increasing the sale +of a certain soap, in putting everyone on guard against that social +disability of which one’s best friend will not tell him, if you can +frighten a multitude with the danger of pyorrhea and thus increase your +profit in tooth paste--all this is now called education. + +Many see in the general movement for more education a great hope for +humanity. It was the belief in its political benefits that led to the +compulsory education of children in the nineteenth century. Men were +sure that all that held the world back was ignorance. People would +surely wish to have their ignorance removed. Remove it, teach men the +laws of a reasonable and beneficent nature, and mankind in general +would be wise and happy and good. Ingersoll used to rejoice whenever he +visited a town where the schoolhouse was larger than the church. + +As the humanitarians of the nineteenth century held that public school +education must inevitably put an end to tyranny and superstition, so +many of our contemporaries look upon adult education as the guarantor +of a new and better civilization. There is to be an end of bigotry and +partisan strife and of crowd hysteria and of the vulgarities which +beset democracy. They see genius appreciated, a selection by the masses +of a sincere and competent leadership. Men everywhere are to learn “not +only how to make a living, but how to live.” + +Finally, it is hoped that adult education will give us new methods +and aims which will be carried back into our schools and colleges and +transform them. A better informed adult population will naturally take +a more active and intelligent interest in the education of youth. And +when teachers try to instruct adults it will become necessary for them +to make their teaching interesting and significant. The teachers will +also learn something about life, gleaning sheaves of ripe wisdom out +of the mature experience of their students; they will become better +teachers. All this may or may not come to pass. The point of interest +is that there is this tendency to make a gospel of education. + +We Americans have a weakness for new gospels. They are a pleasant form +of verbal exercise. Liberty, Democracy, Social Reform, the Cause of +Labor, Psychoanalysis--all have been put to such evangelistic use. Now +we are to become an educated nation by the simple process of everyone +educating everyone else. Education is like reform, it is something +which is always good for other people. There is much talk about adult +education and there are many conferences. But I have not attended a +conference for the discussion of this subject in which anyone spoke +of adult education as his own pursuit of knowledge. And as with most +gospels, we are in such a hurry to save souls that we would begin +proclaiming the new salvation to the nation before pausing to find out +what education is. + +Education has one thing in common with religion. One must come to it +with clean hands and a pure heart or one can never know the secret +power of it. This is as true of a nation as of an individual. As a +people we have certain traits which may be praiseworthy in themselves, +but are distinctly hostile to the work of education. I will enumerate +them and then briefly indicate their element of hostility. They +are, first, our genius for organization; second, our well-known +utilitarianism; third, our cleverness in finding shortcuts to the ends +we seek; and fourth, our tendency to make propaganda. + +The American way of doing things is to proceed to organize them. Our +genius for organization is probably our most generally recognized +national characteristic. It has given us such prestige as we enjoy +among the nations of the earth. Ours is the land of the Woolworth +Building, the Ford factories, the Anti-saloon League, Rotary, the Ku +Klux Klan, and the college cheer leader. In organization there is power +and there is efficiency, as seen in the success of our industries. +Labor, politics, morals, religion, charity have all followed the +same course. In fact a man gains recognition in this country only by +virtue of his membership in some power-seeking group. He who remains +unorganized is lost. And without a chairman, a committee, an executive +secretary and a press agent no human interest can survive. We simply do +not know what to do with it or how to think about it. + +Organization, which is instrument or means, tends to become an end in +itself. This is the fate of most organized causes; a movement arises +with its standardized labels and values, its stereotyped mannerisms, +its rigamarole. Success is estimated in terms of material effects, +tangible results, numbers and power. The organizer takes precedence +over those who possess the interest which it is his task to serve. +When a man becomes a labor organizer, he stops work. Many university +presidents are not themselves teachers or even scholars. They are +good organizers, and with very much the same methods and standards +of value one could as well organize a labor union or an insurance +company. This is no criticism of the college president. His practical +ability is requisite of modern conditions. But ways of thinking and of +feeling are elusive and essentially personal, and when the attempt is +made to institutionalize them they vanish and a lifeless imitation is +substituted. You may as well try to organize the weather as to organize +faith, hope and love. “Organized charity” is almost a contradiction +in terms. Organized religion is a garden of artificial flowers, badly +faded too. The spiritual life of the race was carefully weeded out long +ago. + +To know the effect of organization upon education, one need only attend +a convention of the National Educational Association, or familiarize +oneself with the public school system anywhere. The system supplants +education. The present interest in adult education is in part a protest +against the system. The thirst for knowledge is nowhere more genuine +and healthy than in such groups as those which attend The People’s +Institute of New York and other educational centers where learning +is pursued with a minimum of organization. In such places people who +desire further knowledge of some subject in which they are interested +come together, voluntarily, and their only basis of association is +their common intellectual interest. There is no cult or “movement”; +there are no promoters for there is nothing to promote. There are +no ulterior ends to serve and there are no outside influences or +regulations save those necessary to insure honest scholarship and +competent instruction. Many adult students would resent any attempt at +further organization. + +There is in existence at the present time a World Association for adult +education, and there was recently formed an American Association. +But these associations have no ambition to guide or control or to +standardize. Nor are they equipped to do so. One of the greatest +services that such an association, made up of teachers and students, +could perform would be to work to prevent the diversion of the present +interest in popular education to ends that are not educational. + +“Adult Education” is becoming a slogan, a phrase to capitalize, a +label to attach to various activities which have hitherto borne other +brands,--Americanization for instance, or social work, or community +organization, or reforms and propagandas of one sort or another. Much +that is now labeled Adult Education has a curiously familiar look. +There are faces one has seen before somewhere in other climes that then +enjoyed the sunshine of popular interest. Praiseworthy enterprises +no doubt, and not less praiseworthy is the somewhat tardy discovery +that the organizers have all along been speaking the prose of adult +education without knowing it. + +The danger is that persons with long experience in promoting and +administering many things may also conceive of each educational task +as primarily one of organization. In a recent conference on adult +education in a New England state, an enthusiastic public school +administrator in a burst of oratory proposed that adult education be +made compulsory. Another called attention to the appalling extent of +illiteracy, particularly as regards the use of the English language, +and urged that adult education be promoted as a preventive of crime. +A third, a dean in an eastern college, insisted that adult education +at once be departmentalized; graded, I suppose, into its primary, +secondary, collegiate and post-graduate branches. Nothing has yet +been said about an adult kindergarten, though doubtless many people +could profit by attending such an institution. Perhaps the associated +kindergartens have not yet discovered the fact that they also have been +engaged in adult education. + +We shall be disappointed if it is our hope to send the grown-up +population of the country back to Public School to receive still more +of the thing that caused many of them to leave. One of the leading +educators in America recently asked a group of teachers whether any +among them were so well satisfied with what they had accomplished in +their own sphere that they could wish to extend their work through the +adult years. + +It is very difficult for the man of the system to think of education +itself, he is too much preoccupied with gradations, requirements, +discipline, reports, with seeing that a given minimum of identical work +is done by all in a given time. He thinks in terms of buildings and +equipment, submission to authority, conformity to herd opinion, service +to the state. All or at least some of these things are necessary, but +it is obvious that they do not constitute an education. This lesson +America has got to learn. There can be no quantity production of the +things of the spirit. + +Another national trait which influences our education is our +utilitarianism. I do not use this term in the sense that it was used by +those philosophers who held the principle of the Greatest Happiness. +I refer to that in us which is spoken of as “Yankee shrewdness.” +Except in politics and religion, we are a sensible people. And by +sensible I mean--and most Americans would agree--practical. We can be +very efficient when we wish to,--that is, when there is anything to +gain by it. We are straightforward, and except in matters concerning +which we prefer to deceive ourselves, not easily taken in. Whatever we +profess, we are born pragmatists. Our first question about anything is +‘what good is it’, that is, what use is it? We demand results and we +get them. We get things done because our philosophy of life is one of +action, and our prevailing ethical standard is one of service. In the +solution of a practical problem, and most problems to which we give our +attention are practical, we pride ourselves on our directness. We come +to the point. We dispense with the unnecessary, the ornamental, the +traditional. It is a valuable trait. + +But things sometimes have meanings other than that of usefulness. There +are values which can not be measured in terms of money or personal +advantage, or of time lost or gained, or of industrial efficiency. +Health for instance is good not merely because the healthy man can +do more work; it is good for its own sake. Yet people are frequently +advised to guard their health for strictly economic reasons, and +practical people have the habit of showing us the cost of disease, +presenting statistics of labor-time lost, estimating the loss to the +community as so many thousands of dollars annually. + +I have known people to take a like utilitarian view of human +relationships, making friends for the sake of commercial and social +advancement, furnishing their houses, selecting their motor cars and +even their clothes with the view to keeping up their credit at the +bank. Many a man openly says that he belongs to certain clubs, and +sometimes one even joins a church, for business reasons. How much the +practical man misses is evident from the fact that it never occurs to +him that there are other reasons for doing these things. + +Practical men love to philosophize about the value of education. When +I was a student I once rode up to the college with a farmer who was +passing the campus on his way home from town. He informed me in no +uncertain terms that he had no use for that institution. It irritated +him to see all those “young loafers” wasting their time learning Latin +and Greek and lawn tennis. Not one of them, not even the faculty, knew +how to do anything; he had recently tested them out. He had asked the +professor of Greek how many feet of lumber could be sawed from a log +twenty-three inches in diameter and twenty feet long, and the professor +did not know. + +The farmer’s point of view is now that of many modern institutions of +learning. Educators are determined to give people the knowledge they +need for success in life and work. Courses are offered in scenario +writing, millinery, salesmanship. Whether courses are anywhere offered +in paper hanging--with credit toward the bachelor’s degree, I do not +know. But it is held that as thinking is really part of acting, only +that knowledge is real which can be put in operation. There is a truth +in this statement if one takes a sufficiently broad view of activity. +But the tendency is to make an easy and crude distinction between +knowledge which is useful, and that which is merely “ornamental.” This +distinction does not always hold. Knowledge may be like art, it may +have values which are more than use or ornamentation. Dr. Horace Kallen +divides values into economic values and æsthetic values. Economic goods +are those which are valuable because they are the means of getting some +good other than themselves. Aesthetic goods are those which have value +in themselves. Art is excellence. Education is the art of making living +itself an art. It is the achievement of human excellence; it transcends +both the useful and the ornamental. It is a way of life, just as truly +as the religious life is a way of life, or the moral life, or the +single life. + +People motivated by a narrow utilitarianism do not really desire +education. They are quite content with a vulgar substitute--if it +pays. Education does not transform them; they tend to transform it +after their own likeness. That many are seeking “education” from +such motives is evident. One has only to study the advertising pages +of the popular magazines to note the kind of appeal that is made to +induce the ambitious to enroll in certain correspondence schools. The +prospective student is given the promise that if he will subscribe for +certain courses he may some day sit in the boss’s chair, and associate +with the big men at the top who do real things. Usually there is an +alluring picture of these big men at their desks, thinking great +ideas; a picture which gives about the same notion of the lives of the +successful as one sees in the motion pictures. Sometimes the picture +is of two men one on either side of the manager’s desk. One stands +meekly, hat in hand, dressed as a laborer. On his face are the marks of +sorrow, humility, hunger. The other man has the look of the typical +“go-getter.” The latter is seated; he is evidently giving an order. +Such a picture is not intended to be a comment upon the inequalities +of our industrial system. The reader is informed that both men started +at the bottom, that one improved his mind and his opportunities, the +other’s is a wasted life. + +Such advertisements are typical, and are worthy of note because they +indicate something of the nature of the prevailing American interest in +education. Here is an illustration of a domestic scene: The man stands +at the door dejected. He has just been discharged from his position, +and has come home to tell his wife. She sympathetically replies that he +ought long ago to have bought that course of lessons. Or she consoles +him with the question, “Why is it that all the others have gone ahead +and you have not?” + +By contrast there is a series of invitations to enter the temple of +knowledge in which a wife is portrayed leaning affectionately over +her husband’s shoulder. He holds a pay envelope in his hand and says, +“I am making real money now.” It is well, when telling people of the +advantages of education, to give them an idea of the conversation which +takes place in the homes of the cultured. + +But that anyone should seriously enter upon a course of study of +the world’s classics in order that he may impress people with his +knowledge, appear genteel, make himself attractive to women or gain +entrance to an exclusive social set, is, I believe, a distinctly +modern contribution to educational theory. There recently came into +my possession half a shelf of little old books bound in leather. +They contain a translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, some novels +of Fielding and Smollet, and a book or two of seventeenth century +religious meditations. The volumes are discolored with age and are worn +with much reading, broken bindings are carefully repaired with hand +stitching and torn pages pasted together by someone who prized and +reverenced their content. They are part of the small library of a New +England farmer of the early years of the Republic, who read his books +by his kitchen fireside when the day’s work was done, who lived with +them for years, and found in them a perpetual source of interest and +wisdom and a refuge in an existence of loneliness and toil. Imagine +anyone trying to sell that man a work of art with the promise that a +casual reading of it would enable him to appear more cultivated than he +really was. + +Today a much advertised and in fact admirable selection of classic +literature is offered with precisely this appeal. A full page display +appears in the Sunday papers depicting a gaudy dining-room with three +people conventionally dressed for dinner seated at the table. There are +two men and a beautiful woman. She is talking to the man on her right, +and is evidently fascinated with his brilliant conversation. The man +on the left sits dumb and miserable and unnoticed; he can not join in +such sophisticated and scintillating discussion. We are informed that +the poor man has neglected to read his fifteen minutes a day. It is to +this sort of thing that popular utilitarianism, aided and appealed to +by commercialism, would divert a hesitating interest in education. + +Even in the best of educational institutions the utilitarian point of +view with its emphasis upon a narrow efficiency has its dangers. It is +the source of that specialization which crams the student’s head full +of information concerning one subject, leaving him in ignorance of all +else and hence unable to gain a proper perspective of the knowledge +that he does possess. + +In “Science and the Modern World,” Whitehead says + + “The modern chemist is likely to be weak in zoölogy, weaker still + in his general knowledge of the Elizabethan drama, and completely + ignorant of the principles of rhythm in English versification. It + is probably safe to ignore his knowledge of ancient history. Of + course I am speaking of general tendencies; for chemists are no worse + than engineers, or mathematicians, or classical scholars. Effective + knowledge is professionalised knowledge, supported by a restricted + acquaintance with useful subjects subservient to it. + + This situation has its dangers. It produces minds in a groove. Each + profession makes progress, but it is progress in its own groove. Now + to be mentally in a groove is to live in contemplating a given set of + abstractions. The groove prevents straying across country, and the + abstraction abstracts from something to which no further attention is + paid. But there is no groove of abstraction which is adequate for the + comprehension of human life.... + + The dangers arising from this aspect of professionalism are great, + particularly in our democratic societies. The directive force of + reason is weakened. The leading intellects lack balance. They see + this set of circumstances, or that set; but not both sets together. + The task of coordination is left to those who lack either the force + or the character to succeed in some definite career.... The point is + that the discoveries of the nineteenth century were in the direction + of professionalism, so that we are left with no expansion of wisdom + and with greater need of it. Wisdom is the fruit of a balanced + development. It is this balanced growth of individuality which it + should be the aim of education to secure.” + +A philosophy which reduces learning to mere efficiency, makes of +education only a means to something other than personal development. +It sees each good as an economic good, a means only, making everything +exist only for the sake of something else to be obtained. But there +are goods which exist for their own sakes and one such good is human +excellence. + +In the words of Dr. L. P. Jacks, “The civilization of power aims at +the _exploitation of the world_, which is thought of as a dead or +mechanical thing, existing that men may exploit it. That of culture +aims at the _development of man_, thought of as a citizen of a universe +which can be loved, enjoyed and reverenced: education being the name of +the process which leads him to love, enjoy and reverence it.” + +Another and even more serious danger is our passion for shortcuts. +Business prospers by rapid turnover. Practical men demand quick +results. We are an impatient people, always in a hurry. We have not +time for the tedious labor processes necessary to produce well-made +articles of handicraft. Consequently we have learned to be satisfied +with hastily and cheaply made commodities which somewhat resemble the +real articles and will do just as well--for the time being. Why should +we not buy cheap furniture, when we expect to move every first day of +October? Why not wear garments made of shoddy, when everyone knows +the fashions will change even before shoddy can be worn threadbare? +Why erect buildings that will stand for centuries in cities where +everything is torn-down and rebuilt in a decade, and even churches +move about following the shifting elements of the population which +constitute their membership? Just why we are all moving about in such +a hurry no one knows. Some people think that this restless haste is +progress. Whether it is or not, it is certainly modern. + +But something of the shoddiness enters into the minds and hearts of +men, when shortcuts are sought in matters of mental growth which are +essentially processes of slow maturing. Education requires time. The +only time wasted is that spent trying to save time. There should be no +haste or crowding or cramming. Mastery of any subject requires years of +familiarity with it. The formal training one receives in an institution +is but the introduction. Most people never get beyond a mere bowing +acquaintance with knowledge. + +A prominent American manufacturer, so we are told, once made the +statement that if he wished to know anything he would employ an expert +to tell him about it in five minutes. Among workers in adult education +there is a demand for easy text books, primers which will give to +people in a few pages and in words of one syllable the essentials of +philosophy, psychology, literature and natural science. Simple and +clear statement is always desirable. No author really knows his subject +matter until he can “talk United States” in presenting it. But that +is another story. People who can read nothing more profound than the +tabloid papers are a menace to education. They only retard the progress +of any class they enter. + +Yet there is a wide demand for tabloid information. We like outlines +of history, psychology, philosophy; primers of relativity; ABC’s of +atoms. Such books have value only for the student who after reading +them consults the original sources. But what people want is education +without effort, ready-made education. I recently saw an advertisement +in which there was offered for sale “a whole library in one volume.” +Another advertisement offers “The Essentials of a Liberal Education; +Twenty Centuries of thought on your Library Shelf,”--one shelf is all +that is required! And in addition the publishers will provide you with +“easy reading courses.” + +The following example is typical of what happens to education when +wisdom lifteth up her voice in the street. A full page advertisement +appears in a Sunday newspaper. There is a picture of two successful +business men looking at a newspaper. The article which has caught their +attention reads, “R. P. Clark Made President of Big Mercantile Corp. +Began as Office Boy 21 years ago.” Here are a few lines quoted from +their comments, + + “That fellow amazes me! Do you remember when he first came to us as + an office boy?... and all the other fellows had a head start on him + with their college degrees. He must have found an unusual way to + make up for his lack of schooling--he must have found a secret means + of improving his chances both in business and society. Clark knew + how tremendously he was handicapped by his lack of schooling and he + determined to find _a shortcut to education_. And this he found in + Elbert Hubbard’s Famous Scrapbook.” + +There you have it. I have never seen a more complete statement of the +average man’s idea of education. Mastery of the tricks which bring +early success; belief that there is somewhere a secret magic, knowledge +of which will immediately transform one’s personality;--the shortcut. +No appreciation of the fact that it is never information which +transforms a person, but the persistent effort put forth to acquire +it. Education is on the air, in these enlightened times one can get +it anywhere--like bootleg whiskey. It is proposed now to give adult +education by radio. All you need do to achieve scholarship is to turn +it on, close your eyes, and go to sleep. You can get it without effort, +without knowing that you are getting it, or just who is educating you. + +I mentioned earlier that one of the dangers to education in America +is our weakness for propaganda. Few people know the difference +between education and advertising. The latter is commonly spoken +of as education by those engaged in it. I once knew an advertising +manager for a fruit grower’s organization. He conceived a brilliant +idea. Just as we have Health Week, Clean-Up Week, Fire Prevention +Week, he arranged in various localities an Orange Eating Week. He +told me that he could educate the public to eat as many oranges as he +chose. Press agents are everywhere busy “educating the public” for all +sorts of objects; to respect the rights of vested capital, to give +money to build cathedrals, to vote a straight party ticket. I once +attended a banquet given by an organization of manufacturers. There +I met a splendid-looking elderly gentleman and was told that he was +the attorney for the organization. As I had never before seen him, I +inquired if he had offices in New York. My informant said, “Oh, no, he +lives in Washington. His job is to educate Congress.” + +In spite of all this popular interest, or perhaps because of it, the +cause of education is in a bad way. It is dangerous to encourage +people to think they are educated when they are not, or to believe +they are acquiring it when they are in fact getting something else. +Much that passes for adult education serves only to make people more +superficial and opinionated than they were before. It is very doubtful +if the general level of our intellectual life has been raised by such +knowledge as the public has gained. The public can read and we have +with us the Hearst papers and the tabloids. Literacy has placed the +bulk of the population daily at the mercy of the propagandist and the +press agent. With libraries and colleges and high schools everywhere, +and after a century of science, vast sections of the population can be +swept by such movements as the Ku Klux Klan and Fundamentalism. State +after state prohibits the teaching in its schools of such scientific +knowledge as will lead to a belief in evolution. Crazy reform, +fantastic religious innovation, political foolishness and unbalanced +partisanship may at any time sweep over the country. Intelligence in +this country makes a poor showing in competition with quackery and +complacent ignorance for popular leadership. + +It is common to lay the blame for the present state of affairs at the +door of the schools and colleges. Without doubt they must accept some +measure of responsibility in the matter. In many instances the only +alternative to a general slump in standards of scholarship has been a +narrow academic pedantry. There has been much yielding to the pressure +of popular prejudice, much display of conventional morality as a +cover for second-rate educational activity. Faculties are well aware +how little a student may know and get through college. The colleges +themselves seem to have participated in the general cheapening of +education by their generosity in granting honorary degrees. Almost any +one who is successful in business or prominent in politics becomes a +“Doctor.” Erasmus in the fifteenth century, even though he had already +become probably the leading classical scholar of his times, studied +and taught at Paris for nine years before he was granted his doctor’s +degree. When the late Mr. Bryan threatened to print all his college +degrees on his card, in answer to the repeated statement that he was an +ignoramus, the joke was really on the colleges. + +But too much is demanded of institutions of learning. Large numbers +of students come to them with no background of cultural tradition, +and they return to an environment which is distinctly hostile to +intellectual pursuits. The public clamor that some one educate us in +spite of ourselves is only another way of shouting, “We have piped +unto you and ye have not danced.” The ultimate responsibility for the +condition of education rests upon the average members of society, +and it is reducible to a moral factor. Carlyle once said that people +could only be taken in by quacks when they had a certain element of +quackery in their own souls. When multitudes regard education merely +as a shortcut to financial success, or as a device for appearing to be +something they are not, or as an instrument for converting others to +their own partisan beliefs, they will of course get the “education” +they desire. + +Once I thought that ignorance was an innocent thing, a sort of +spiritual vacuum passively waiting to be filled with precious truths. +Except in children ignorance is by no means an innocent thing. It is a +very active element in human life. We must overcome strong resistances +before we may begin to learn some things. We keep ourselves in +ignorance because there are facts and truths whose existence we prefer +not to admit. The man who strives to educate himself--and no one else +can educate him--must win a certain victory over his own nature. He +must learn to smile at his dear idols, analyze his every prejudice, +scrap if necessary his fondest and most consoling belief, question his +presuppositions, and take his chances with the truth. The greater the +need of education, the stronger the resistance to it. + +Whether the present increase of interest in education is to be an empty +gesture depends upon whether the thing demanded is really education. +There is no one right way, and certainly each age with its special +needs and peculiar industrial and cultural environment should make its +own contribution to educational achievement. But there is something +which belongs to no special time and to all times, a way of approaching +our tasks or valuing experiences. No one who is merely a creature of +his own times is really educated. There is conceivable a world in +which,--great as are the historical accidents that separate them--a +Socrates, or a Plato, or a Cicero, or an Erasmus, a Voltaire, a Goethe, +a Huxley would be at home. Much as they differ, there is yet something, +which the educated have in common, a quality of spirit, something that +may not be defined, but that right-minded people recognize. We shall +strive from various avenues of approach to envisage it, for to miss it +is to miss all. It is the meaning of a liberal education. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +LIBERAL EDUCATION VS. ANIMAL TRAINING + + +In a sense no living person is yet educated, for the learning process +is never completed. But there must come a time when the process results +in some differences in behavior. Often these differences seem to be +small and irrelevant, amounting merely to added social grace or more +correct use of language. Something more than this must differentiate +the educated from the uneducated or so much human energy would not be +expended in the effort to get education. + +When we inquire what the difference is, we find there is much +confusion. In the process of education knowledge is acquired. Many a +person’s education consists of what he has learned. May one possess +much knowledge or information and remain uneducated? I know a physician +who has great skill and wide professional information, yet he is +essentially vulgar in his tastes and enjoyments and bigoted in his +human relationships, and his judgments concerning most things are +narrow and hasty and are determined largely by passion and prejudice. +You feel that his learning has never become integrated with his +personality. It is a property annexed to his estate over which he is +an absentee landlord. It has made no changes in his general habits of +thought and behavior. + +There are people whom no one would think educated, who yet have an +astounding amount of information. They know all about race horses, or +bridge, or baseball scores, or stocks and bonds. Many have a knowledge +of such things which may be greater both in range and accuracy than +that which some professional scholars have of their special subjects. + +Shall we say then that some kinds of knowledge have educational value +and that others have not? But why should not all knowledge be equally +education? Is there a psychological reason for the alleged difference +or is the exclusion of some kinds of knowledge the result merely of a +conventional attitude? Our discussion of education resolves itself into +a philosophical problem. + +The issue of practical education versus the so-called cultural comes +up whenever people are interested in the subject. Partisans of the +latter type of learning are inclined to look down upon the former. They +say it is not education but only skill and efficiency. They hold that +education is scholarship and properly has to do with such subjects as +the classics, the humanities, philosophy, etc., which discipline the +mind and ennoble the spirit. This is the traditional view. + +Those who take the opposite view ask what earthly purpose can useless +and sequestered learning serve? They are suspicious of education for +“refinement” or the “genteel tradition.” Is it not the aim of the +pursuit of knowledge to enable one to do something, to attain mastery, +to equip the mind to function well in an environment which demands +activity of us all? Is not anything well learned culture? An excellent +statement of this point of view can be found in Huxley’s lectures on +education. + +There has been much discussion of this question in the universities +and colleges. There are those who deplore the decline of interest in +the classics and philosophy. They say that institutions of higher +learning are becoming mere “intellectual cafeterias,” that the change +from classical education to an elective system embracing all sorts of +vocational courses is a distinct loss, inasmuch as the knowledge so +acquired lacks coordination and balance, while specialization crowds +out the general and cultural subjects that form the foundation of +education. + +On the other hand, why should not a University teach anything +that people wish to know? There was once resistance to including +the sciences, chemistry and physics and biology. The liberalizing +effect and cultural value of these subjects is now recognized, and +their usefulness is a social gain. Then why not domestic science, +agriculture, mechanics, business methods? What is wrong with the +schools of business at Harvard and Columbia? + +A similar issue exists in secondary education. It is often said that +high schools pay too much regard to college entrance requirements, +since only a small portion of graduates expect to continue their +education. The students have gained only a most superficial +introduction to the classics and have learned nothing practical. +Schools of trade, commerce, and of technology are increasing in number +and the movement for such training is guided by principles of education +very different from those of the classical tradition. + +Those of us who are interested in adult education meet the same +problem. Writing of worker’s education Dr. Horace M. Kallen says, + + “... The complexity of the tasks of any union official has grown so + great, their variety so considerable, that it is no longer possible + for an official merely to pass from the worker’s bench to the + official’s desk and completely discharge his duties.... Schools + would have to be provided analogous to the schools of business + administration maintained in the colleges.... Out of the instruction + there would in the course of time emerge a communicable permanent + record, on which the necessary accessories of books could be built. + Such a school of officials would be a nucleus from which the + educational process could ultimately radiate into every shop. + + “Labor education would finally thus become conversant with control + rather than escape. In such a conversancy more and more of the + energies now seeking relief in the vapors of the social mechanisms + of escape, would find satisfactory enchannelment in the technique of + control. + + “It is the essential function of labor education to envisage, to + forecast and to enable this transition. The various arts would then + develop no longer as compensations against, but as expressions + and prophetic fulfillments, as criticisms and mitigations of, + the processes of this movement; they too would more largely be + coterminous with industrial life.” + +Dr. Kallen would probably not go so far as to say that the sole aim +of Labor Education is to equip the members of the working class +with such knowledge as will enable them to master the industrial +environment and change the social system. But there are those who hold +such a view, just as there are those who hold that the worker should +receive only such education as will make him a more competent workman. +Both views, one held by extreme radicals, the other by conservative +capitalists, have in common the belief that education for workers is +purely practical training. “Cultural” subjects are sometimes studied, +and there is a lively demand for them, but the tendency is to regard +this interest as an “escape” from reality into a world of fanciful +contemplation and mere verbal exercise. It is an intellectual luxury, +a form of entertainment or inspiration to which a worker is entitled, +but it is an interest which is a little under suspicion of being +“bourgeois.” + +Hence in all phases of education, this issue is debated. The issue +is inevitable in a time like the present, with a classical tradition +surviving in an industrial civilization. Have we any need in the modern +world of cultural traditions which have their origin in antiquity? +Should we or could we dispense with all educational values except those +which are coterminous with the present industrial situation? + +Wherever such an issue arises, I have learned to suspect both sides. As +a rule both are based upon a common presupposition which is an error. +Here the presupposition is that the important factor in education is +the question what is to be taught, rather than the spirit of learning +itself. Education is conceived of as knowledge acquired. Attention is +fixed not on the learning process through which an individual becomes +reoriented to his world, but upon the end result, something fixed +and done, a certain amount of information stored up. Is this what we +mean by learning? Is it receiving and memorizing a given something +either cultural or practical? Or is it an adventure in any kind of +truth-seeking which changes the quality of one’s future experience +and enables one to behave not merely efficiently but wisely, with a +broad view and a sympathetic understanding of the many ways in which +men have striven to create meaning and value out of the possibilities +of human life? If this last is correct, the real question is not what +shall be learned but how and why and to what end. Is learning a venture +in spiritual freedom that is humanism, or is it a routine process of +animal training? Both cultural and practical knowledge may be reduced +to animal training--and they generally are. It is there that the issue +between them arises. + +To my mind, an educated person is not merely one who can do something, +whether it is giving a lecture on the poetry of Horace, running a +train, trying a lawsuit, or repairing the plumbing. He is also one who +knows the significance of what he does, and he is one who cannot and +will not do certain things. He has acquired a set of values. He has a +“yes” and a “no,” and they are his own. He knows why he behaves as he +does. He has learned what to prefer, for he has lived in the presence +of things that are preferable. I do not mean that he is merely trained +in the conventions of polite society or the conformities of crowd +morality. He will doubtless depart from both in many things. Whether +he conforms or not, he has learned enough about human life on this +planet to see his behavior in the light of a body of experience and +the relation of his actions to situations as a whole. Such a person is +acquiring a liberal education and it makes little difference whether he +has been trained in philosophy or mechanics. He is being transformed +from an automaton into a thinking being. + +The antithesis of liberal education and practical training arises in +part out of a misunderstanding on both sides of a principle stated +in Aristotle’s “Politics.” In this book there is set forth the +philosopher’s theory of education. He is seeking for his times just +what our practical educators seek for ours--to train youth to deal +masterfully with existing conditions. Unlike many moderns he sees +that such training applies to the whole personality. This is evident +for example in his discussion of music where he considers the general +psychological effects of various kinds of rhythm. + +There were three important facts in the environment of the Greek youth +to which the educator had to assist the student to adapt himself. +The way in which the intelligent person faced these facts was the +meaning of liberal education in Aristotle’s time. There was first +a psychological fact. Popular myth was ceasing to function as an +explanation of the processes of nature and as a basis for the control +of behavior. Fortunately for the Greeks, no priestly class had gained +control of their spiritual life. Stories of the doings of the gods +were coming to be regarded as mere poetry, in the modern sense of the +term. Philosophers did not hesitate to subject religious beliefs to +the judgment of reason. The assertion had been made that “Man is the +measure of all things.” A spirit of intellectual freedom prevailed +that was unique in ancient times, I might say in any time. There was a +disposition to investigate, to classify natural phenomena, to speculate +upon their nature and causes. Men were faced with the necessity of +thinking their experience through to find meanings which elsewhere were +a matter of myth and folkway. Thought must be clarified and made exact +if behavior was to be guided by reason. Philosophy, which included the +beginnings of science, and education were almost the same thing,--the +search for the good life. I will discuss this point further in a later +lecture. + +The second fact concerning which the Greek youth must learn to behave +intelligently was political in its nature. It was the existence of an +aristocratic democracy in which as a citizen he must participate with +important results for both himself and the state. The free citizen must +have learned to judge what is good. + +The third fact which challenged the educator was sociological; it was +the existence of slavery. This institution, which in the end was one +of the causes of the breakdown of ancient civilization, seemed to be +perfectly natural to the philosopher. Aristotle thinks that some people +are slavish by nature. He has no thought of educating such persons, +though they may be trained to perform their tasks well. All should be +so trained that they may live happily and well in the stations in life +where they are. As most mechanical labor was performed by slaves, and +by hirelings whose social status was not very different from that of +the slave, the Greeks candidly despised mechanic arts. Knowledge of +them was thought to be a slavish kind of skill. Aristotle likewise +looked down upon trade and commerce as debasing the mind, just as hard +labor was thought to demean the body. The free man must be so trained +that his privileges, his leisure and authority over others would make +for general human happiness. This education of the free man was called +“Liberal Education.” It was the education of a leisure class. It was +a training for leadership and responsibility: not a mere initiation +into the idealogy of an exploiting class, together with the passwords +current in exclusive circles. Neither did it mean--at least for the +ancient Greek--the accumulation of dead and inconsequential knowledge +the only purpose of which was a pedantic display of erudition. In ages +that followed, the study of the classics tended to become something of +this sort. But this tendency marked a decline, a loss of the spirit of +liberal education as it had once existed. Athenian education, in spite +of the institution of slavery, developed men of wisdom and nobility +of spirit and civilization of interest in such numbers that ancient +Greece became the pioneer of western civilization and has remained the +inspiration and guide to men in most of their efforts to attain a life +of reason and beauty. + +The fact that the liberal tradition had its origin in a society in +which slavery prevailed has left traces in education which persist +even to the present time. It is one of the things that cause people +to believe that there are different types of education proper to +different social strata. Education becomes a mark of distinction. It is +for the privileged few. It is itself a privilege and a kind of vested +interest. There is a higher knowledge and a lower knowledge. In part +this distinction goes back to primitive times. In early civilization, +everyone learned to do everything which the people of the tribe could +do. There was no specialization; all alike learned to fish, to hunt, +to fight, to dance. The primitive magic was associated with every +human interest and every form of activity, and for every type of +performance there was a magic formula. In time it became the special +function of the elders and medicine men to remember the formulae and +pass them on to their successors. Knowledge of the formulae became the +special privilege of the priestly class. Knowledge of labor processes +remained with the mass. The former was higher knowledge and developed +into ancient wisdom. In certain religions it led to an esoteric +intellectualism. The distinction gains emphasis among peoples like the +Hebrews, Moslems and Christians whose religion is the “Religion of the +Book.” The “Higher Knowledge” is now a divine revelation preserved +in the Sacred Book. With each of the peoples mentioned religious +scholarship becomes the basis of all learning, and dominates education. +Any accretions of general culture which are acquired and added to +theology, become tinctured by it. A priestly tradition is mingled with +the classic culture as the philosophy of Aristotle becomes elaborated +first by the Arabs, and then by the Rabbis and Christian scholars of +the Middle Ages. What Aristotle meant simply as the training of the +free man in self-mastery, in time became a professionalized “higher +learning,” a sequestered scholarship largely unrelated to the existing +environment. + +Mediæval education became scholasticism. It was still a higher +knowledge set apart from other interests: it did not include +proficiency in the arts of industry, but rather in book learning and +in disputation. Liberal it was not, though it still in a sense had to +do with leisure. The good life had become one of pious contemplation. +Aristotle’s free citizen was displaced by the cenobite and the +candidate for holy orders. The life of Reason became one of skill +in the formal logic with which a given system of life and thought +was elaborated. Scholastic education made possible a high type of +scholarship; it carried very far its training in the subtleties of +argument. But it exhausted itself in a world of abstractions which it +mistook for realities. It was a discipline, not a voyage of discovery. +It was a matter of routine learning by memorizing. Its aim was to +mold the mind of the student to a fixed type. It placed him in an +environment so manipulated as to determine his habits of thinking once +for all, to give support to required beliefs. It was education by +indoctrination. It developed a type of mind which could be depended +on to do and say the expected thing on the expected occasion, one +which would hold certain desired convictions and no others. For such +an educational system, learning was accepting and retaining something +provided in advance. In this sense it was passive. Mentality was the +product of environment. Scholastic education though it dealt with +“things of the spirit” was from one point of view “animal training.” + +In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the scholars of the +Renaissance turned from theological education to human letters. A +revival of interest in the literature of antiquity became a sort of +passion. Those who sought through the study of Greek and Latin poets, +essayists, and philosophers to revive the spirit of the lost pagan +civilization were called Humanists. They had a philosophy of education +very different from that of scholasticism which was at that time on +the decline. There was the promise that education might again become +liberal, in the sense I use the term. Wherever the “New Learning” +was carried it had a liberalizing influence. It roused the hostility +of “obscurantists” and created a jolly row in many institutions of +learning. It awakened pagan ideas throughout Italy, even in high +ecclesiastical circles. It was bringing “refinement” to France. It +was receiving something of a triumph in Northern Europe under the +leadership of Erasmus, when the Reformation again turned general +interest to theology. What the result of this humanistic movement in +education might have been had it gone on unchecked no one can say. No +one now believes it could have been what its leaders expected. They +tried to produce an imitation in their own times of the manners and +ways of men who had lived centuries earlier in a wholly different +environment. Such an attempt of course is futile. But it is conceivable +that as larger and larger numbers of people achieved freedom in the +modern world a liberal education might have done in our day what the +Greeks sought to do in theirs--lay the foundations of freedom in a +well-considered basis of philosophy. In that event the whole of modern +education might have been vitalized by a cultural tradition which could +take into account the conditions under which modern men live and work +without degenerating into narrow utilitarianism and mere mechanical +efficiency. + +What chiefly survived from the Renaissance--at least in Protestant +countries--is the traditional education, in which the ancient classics +are taught as tedious drill in language with the aim of improving the +student’s literary style, also of disciplining his soul by compelling +him to do something disagreeable, and finally so that he may be able +to repeat a few Latin or Greek phrases, remember the names of a few +ancient writers and perhaps if he has been very diligent, retain a +sufficient number of vague memory traces to enjoy a book like Professor +Erskine’s “Private Life of Helen of Troy.” + +But to call this liberal education requires both humor and imagination. +Little attempt is made to get behind the language into literary +appreciation, or back of the literature to the ways and values of +ancient life and the wisdom of the ages, or to see the relation of +such wisdom to the problems of living in the modern world. Traditional +education has again become an artificial thing, aloof from reality, +a higher knowledge set apart by itself. That is, if one may call it +knowledge at all. Most college graduates after a few years do not +remember enough Latin to enable them to translate their own diplomas, +so badly are the classics taught, even as mere language drill. + +Much of the spirit of scholasticism, though little of its thoroughness +and subtlety, persisted in the later Protestantism. Its influence +necessarily tended to make this teaching of the humanities formal and +innocuous. After the Renaissance, members of the nobility and gentry, +and later an increasing number of the middle class, sought higher +education for its refining influence, as an adornment rather than as a +way of life. The result is a culture that is for the most part external +to the sphere of our activities and interests, something borrowed, not +won; seldom an expression or valuation or glorification of modern life. +This also is a routine and a moulding to type. It is again a form of +animal training. + + * * * * * + +The development of science in the nineteenth century led to a demand +for the education requisite for modern life. The application of science +to industry created a new environment. New knowledge was required and +new mental habits must be formed if there was to be effective control. +Natural science gave men a new intellectual discipline and a new +world-view. With it came a new hope for the race. Mankind need only +learn the laws of nature and obey them to become wise and happy and +good. The new knowledge dispelled ignorance and superstition and set +the mind free. There was much criticism of traditional education, and +much faith in the liberalizing effects of scientific training as well +as in its practical results. Today scientific research occupies a most +important place in education. In many colleges and universities it has +almost supplanted the classical studies. No modern person can be really +educated without some training in scientific methods. + +But science also may become mere animal training. Each science is a +profession, acquired as a technical training like learning a trade. Of +things outside his own trade the scientist may be quite ignorant and +lacking in curiosity. He is often unable to see the significance of his +specialty for knowledge as a whole. Within his chosen field of study +he may come to resent new discovery--especially if it fails to confirm +some favorite theory. In some of the sciences, notably psychology, +biology, medicine and the social sciences, there are intense partisan +divisions, often rivalling in dogmatism and bitterness, those of +theology. Each “school” develops its cult ideas, its jargon credo, and +ritual. Herd opinion holds sway over scientists as over other men. +Certain phrases and mannerisms are adopted, just as among Rotarians, +because they show that one belongs to the crowd. The psychologist +today, for instance, must boast his ignorance of philosophy and make a +noise like a biologist. The advancement of knowledge is by no means the +sole motive in scientific training; there is also much molding to type +even though this latter objective is in conflict with the spirit of +science itself. + +Much contemporary educational philosophy is openly and avowedly a +technique of animal training; so much so that it quite properly +borrows its pedagogical principles from animal psychology. It would be +difficult to over estimate the importance of animal experimentation +for modern theories of education. Schools of education are deeply +interested in the psychology of the learning process. Education is +learning, and learning is habit formulation. Habits are the acquired +modes of response of men and animals. They may be organized in the +nervous tissue by any environmental factors which “condition” certain +reflexes; that is, chain certain responses to given stimuli. It is +possible for an animal experimenter or an educator of children to +organize the environmental situation in such a manner that definite +systems of desired responses may be regularly obtained whenever a +stimulus of a certain kind is given. A simple and well-known experiment +which will serve to explain what we mean by the conditioned reflex is +that of Pavlov. A hungry dog when shown meat secretes saliva. At the +time the dog sees the meat a bell is rung. This is repeated a number +of times until the dog will secrete saliva at the sound of the bell, +without the presence of the meat stimulus. The saliva response, induced +by the bell stimulus, is the conditioned reflex. + +It is said that all learning takes place after this fashion. An animal, +a cat, may be placed in a cage, the door being so arranged that escape +is possible only when the cat strikes a certain latch. After a period +during which the cat makes all sorts of frantic random movements, the +successful movement finally occurs and the cat escapes. The experiment +is repeated and perhaps the period of futile activity will not be so +long as at first. After a number of trials the cat will give up the +random movements and at once unlock the door. The gradual shortening of +the interval of time required for the desired response may be plotted. +It is then called the animal’s “learning curve.” + +Such curves may also be made of human learning processes. It is said +that there is no essential difference between this animal learning and +our own learning whether it be to swim or play tennis, or to memorize +a poem, or solve a problem in algebra, or to master the technique of +a profession. One’s education thus consists wholly of one’s organized +systems of responses, or habit patterns. We speak of education +as the development of personality. But from this point of view +personality is nothing but the sum total of an individual’s conditioned +reflexes:--that is, it is merely the manner in which the organism has +been taught to work. One eminent Behaviorist among the psychologists +compares personality to the running of a gas engine. + +I will not enter upon a psychological discussion of this view of +education, except to say that the method of animal training which is +taken for granted is open to serious criticism. The theory proceeds +on the assumption that _insight into the situation_ is not necessary +to learning. The cat in the cage hits upon the successful gesture as +a matter of pure chance. After a number of experiments, each said to +place the animal in an identical situation, the successful action +becomes “over determined,” and fixed as a habit. It is doubtful whether +such training is learning at all. The animal--and conceivably the human +being--need never take in the situation. The successful art, the more +this learning process is perfected, degenerates into a mere gesture, +related to the event in a purely external and arbitrary manner. It is +difficult to see how educational methods guided by such a theory could +do much to train the student in habits of independent judgment. + +Professor Wolfgang Köhler spent four years studying the intelligence +of apes at the anthropoid station in Tenerife. His experiments with +these animals followed a procedure quite the reverse of that we have +been discussing. He arranged his experiments so that there could be +no chance and no routine, so that the situation as a whole implied a +definite action on the part of the animal, an action which would be +natural to it once it gained insight into the situation. From simple +tasks he moved to more complex ones, always keeping the moment of +insight as the crucial factor in the experiment. An ape is placed in a +cage and fruit is put outside beyond the animal’s reach. A stick has +also been placed within reach. After vain attempts to reach the fruit +with its hand, the ape suddenly sits quietly looking the situation +over: it looks from the fruit to the stick, then seizes the latter and +pulls in the fruit. Later the animal is required to choose between a +long stick and a shorter one, then two sticks are put within reach +which must be joined before success may be attained. + +From such tasks the animal is led on to those which finally test the +limitations of its insight. So far as I know no use has yet been made +of such psychological study of animal learning by our educators. But +if we must resort to animal psychology in order to understand the +processes of human learning it would seem that Köhler’s methods would +be more suggestive to the educator than those which assume that the +learner is throughout an automaton without understanding. + +The so-called “new psychology” has filled modern education with +confusion. Fads and fancies of all sorts prevail, each with its +psychological jargon. “Progressive” experimental schools everywhere +give voice to “modern ideas.” In many such schools there is a minimum +of discipline, pupils are encouraged to take the initiative in all +things, to study what they like, and when they choose. Everything +is made as easy and as interesting as possible, and there is much +talk about permitting the student to express himself and develop +his personality. So long as we confine our attention merely to the +methods of teaching we have the impression that this “new” education +is anything but standardized. We get a different impression when we +turn to examine the ideals of scholarship, the valuations, and general +outlook on life which the newer philosophy of education accepts +uncritically. In fact very little thought is given to these matters. +The prevailing interests and trends of a democratic, industrial age are +taken as the ultimate criteria. It might almost be said that education +has come to be regarded merely as a function of the environment. + +Now it is one thing to train a mind to deal effectively with its +environment and to achieve some value in the modifications which it +makes in that environment. It is a different thing to hold that mind +is the product of the environment. A well-known psychologist says that +the aim of his science is to predict and control behavior. He offers +us the conditioned reflex as the means to any desired result, and says +that if he could have full control of the environment of a given number +of children, he would permit some one to select by lot the future life +and career of each child, and he would form the mind of each according +to the chosen pattern. Our modern environmentalists have more in common +with mediæval scholasticism than they think. The aim of both is to +produce an individual who will react under all circumstances according +to a prearranged pattern. + +Scholasticism, as we have seen, consisted chiefly of memory drill and +training in logic and disputation. Law and theology were sometimes +studied, but proficiency in such subjects does not in itself mean +that a man has acquired a liberal education. He may only have learned +to do the conventional trick when the expected signal is given, +much like a trained dog in a circus. The same must be said of much +modern professional training. The scholastic spirit haunts the legal +mind to this day. Also it is possible--perhaps usual--for one to +study medicine, and never once get an idea of what medicine means to +the scientist. Most people educated by school teachers and college +professors are in fact trained in this way. Think of what passes for +moral and religious training. With respect to the most important +questions in life, people have been so “conditioned” that they do not +try to solve problems as they arise, but to say and do the expected +thing on occasion. I once heard a professor in a theological seminary +instruct his class in the art of visiting the sick. The students were +busy copying in their note books the speeches which it is correct for +a pastor to make on such occasions. The following is typical of such +instruction. “As you enter the sick-room it is well to say When God +puts a man down on his back, it is so that he may look up into Heaven.” + +In such habit formation, learning is mere repetition. There is nothing +of independence of judgment, no reflection on ends, no development of +the capacity to deal with new situations. The better one is trained the +more automatic one’s behavior becomes. And here we see the limitations +to much so-called practical education,--“education for work and for +life.” + +Yes, but do we live simply to do things and to serve, to perform, +however well, the tasks required by our times? Is all the world a +stage, and are men merely actors who have learned well or poorly the +lines written for them by someone else or dictated by necessity? And +is there to be no understanding of the meaning of the part we play, or +of the drama as a whole? Is no one through his education to contribute +something original to the drama of life? + +It seems to me that the animal training theory rests upon two +presuppositions, both of which are wrong. The first is that the mind +consists of what it has learned, that is, that it is the product +of environment. This is really not a psychological doctrine, but a +metaphysical assumption. It is the mechanist theory; an idea which +works well as scientific method, but which leads to false conclusions +when taken as a description of ultimate reality. + +The second presupposition is a by-product of present-day industrial +democracy. It is that education is a means to efficient service, with +its rewards, getting on, general prosperity, etc. But is industry +the end and aim of our existence? It is said that man if he is to +be happy must be able to express himself in his work. I would not +dispute this statement, but it is important to consider what it is +that finds expression in one’s work. If work, in addition to being the +means to some material end or bodily good, is also to be a form of +self-expression, then the point of interest is the kind of selfhood, or +quality of experience expressed. Then work exists for education, not +education for work. + +Something is possible to mankind, which transcends work and by which +work itself is valued. As mere craftsmen we lose the sense of what +good workmanship is and become the blind slaves of necessity or of +desire the moment that education ceases to be the goal of labor. I +do not mean merely that we learn by doing. That is the way animals +learn and it is all they learn. By repeated performance an individual +learns how to do a task, but he does not thereby learn what to do, nor +why it is done. Education has to do with insight, with valuing, with +understanding, with the development of the power of discrimination, +the ability to make choice amongst the possibilities of experience and +to think and act in ways that distinguish men from animals and higher +men from lower. The ancients thought of education as the attainment of +the virtues, wisdom, courage, temperance, justice. It is the pursuit +of that knowledge which gives self-mastery. It is an interest which +is never exhausted, but grows always broader and richer. It consists +not in learning tricks but in developing ourselves. It is a victory +won in some secret chamber of the mind which gradually transforms the +whole personality and reveals itself as an indefinable quality in +every word and act. It is a spiritual awakening; and if this awakening +does not come, a person is not being educated however much he knows. +I think it is the inability to win this psychological victory, or the +disinclination to make the effort necessary to it, that accounts for +the fact that some people cannot be educated. Though the change in +the quality of the personality is indefinable, it is a very concrete +fact in human life. Its presence is evident in the work of writers as +different otherwise as Sir Thomas More, Galsworthy, Anatole France, +Jonathan Edwards, Henry Adams, etc. There is a quality of the educated +mind which may best be described as a kind of sincerity, and conversely +the outstanding trait of ignorance is that of clever insincerity. The +pathetic thing about the wrongly educated,--those who are trained +merely to produce an effect, or get results, is that in the deeper +human relationships they seldom know what sincerity is. Education is +the antithesis of vulgarity. + +Directly and immediately, it is useless. It is a kind of living which +is of value for its own sake, a personal achievement which possesses +intrinsic worth. It is not _for_ anything. To subject it to an ulterior +end--citizenship, efficiency, the economic emancipation of the working +class, increased income; or to educate people for “character,” or to +perpetuate a religious faith, or any other purpose however good, is to +make education a means to something quite irrelevant. Such misuse shows +that people are not interested in their education but in something +else. Education, the development of people, is not a means, it is +itself the true end of civilization. + +While education is not _for_ anything, indirectly it improves +everything that people do. Make education the aim and meaning of +living, and all becomes different. Experience has a new center of +gravity. Facts fall into new and more significant perspective. Objects, +distinctions, relationships, qualities, are seen which before passed +unnoticed. And as personality does not exist in a vacuum but in +the relationships established between organism and environment, no +improvement of it can fail to make itself felt in the quality of one’s +work. Animal training may give one the means to make a living; liberal +education gives living a meaning. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LIBERAL EDUCATION VS. PROPAGANDA + + +Whoever is concerned about his education should be on his guard against +propaganda. He who assists in the education of another should be doubly +cautious. The temptation to convert people to our own particular +cause, movement or belief is almost irresistible. An epidemic itch for +manipulating the public has infected the whole population. Perhaps +never was the business of “selling” ideas and interests of all sorts so +common a practice or so cleverly done. Press agents, publicity experts, +advertisers and propagandists have become a pest. Much of the news is +“treated” for interests which may or may not be disclosed. Militarists, +pacifists, prohibitionists, birth controlists, social workers, business +interests, anti-vivisectionists, radicals, reactionaries and all kinds +of reformers insinuate themselves everywhere like crawling insects. +Every legislative body is over-run with lobbyists. Every government, +our own included, fights with propaganda as deadly as poison gas. +Churches have reduced even the spreading of the gospel to the level of +advertising. And to judge by the popularity of one of the vulgarest +books ever written about the founder of Christianity, a large number +of churchmen are happy to believe that Jesus Christ was the world’s +greatest salesman and business executive! + +It ought not to be necessary to say that propaganda is not education. +But the confusion of the two is common. It is often very difficult +to enlist the interest of people even in their own education if the +propagandist motive is left out of it. I find that our students are +often at first perplexed. They ask me, “What party or creed or social +movement do you represent? What are you trying to convert us to?” I +have even been asked why I lecture at all, if it is not my purpose to +tell students what they should think and do. The idea of a course of +study as an adventure in truth-seeking, an investigation deliberately +planned without made-in-advance conclusions or ulterior aims, is +difficult for many minds. If no partisan motive is apparent, students +often suspect that there must be some dark and secret conspiracy. +People like to have their instructors labeled and tagged. Otherwise +they feel that they are not being given anything. They prefer to be +told what to think. + +And of course everyone wishes to tell his fellows what to think. The +general interest in our neighbor’s “education” rather than our own +is responsible for much of the present confusion of education with +propaganda. This is especially true in the education of children. +Scarcely one person in ten believes children should be told the truth. +Children are credulous and easily acquire habits which become fixed for +life: hence the tendency to take advantage of their innocence and while +giving them the instruction which it is now recognized that society +owes them, to add something which certain people wish them to believe +when they grow up. Consequently there has hardly ever been a time when +education was not to some extent diverted into propagandist channels. +Governments and churches and ruling classes and commercial groups have +always sought to get their hands on the institutions for the education +of youth and utilize them for their own interests. The tendency is +universal. Radicals denounce the Fundamentalists, the capitalists and +the Catholic Church for doing this sort of thing, and then do the same +thing themselves; as for example, in the revolutionary propaganda that +sometimes passes as “worker’s education,” the socialist Sunday School, +the system of public education in Soviet Russia. + +The habit of speaking of propaganda as if it were education has +grown with the activities of the advertising profession and other +expert manufacturers of public opinion. Anyone with anything to sell +“educates” the public to buy his product. The word is so commonly +used for advertising that few question the legitimacy of such use. In +fact the popularity of this use of the word education has a definite +psychological cause. Many people would like to get their education +by the easy method of reading subway advertisements. It is pleasant +moreover to feel that we are being educated when we glance at the +billboards on the way from New York to Philadelphia or look over the +back pages in the Saturday Evening Post. + +I once heard an editor of a farm journal boast that his paper had +educated the housewives of his state to buy cereal in packages +rather than in bulk. A recent well-written book on the psychology of +advertising by a gentleman who styles himself a “Public Relations +Counsel” explains the technique of making propaganda. The author refers +to such propagandist efforts as education, and says that the difference +between education and propaganda is this: when your side of the case is +given publicity, that is education; when your opponent publishes his +side, that is propaganda. + +It is doubtful, however, if members of the advertising profession +are the worst sinners in this respect. Nearly everyone with a cause +to promote does the same. We often hear single-taxers, socialists, +patriotic societies, or vegetarians, speak of their propaganda as +education. In the report on the prohibition situation issued by the +Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, the suggestion is +made that there be a campaign of “education” in the interest of the +enforcement of the Volstead Act. + +Although the educator and the propagandist are both concerned with +the dissemination of information, they have nothing else in common. +They use contrary methods and they strive for opposite goals. The +propagandist is interested in _what_ people think; the educator in +_how_ they think. The propagandist has a definite aim. He strives to +convert, to sell, to secure assent, to prove a case, to support one +side of an issue. He is striving for an _effect_. He wishes people +to come to a conclusion; to accept his case and close their minds +and act. The educator strives for the open mind. He has no case to +prove, which may not later be reversed. He is willing to reconsider, +to be experimental, to hold his conclusions tentatively. The result +for which he strives is a type of student who will not jump at the +propagandist’s hasty conclusions or be taken in by his catchwords. +To the one “learning” is passively accepting something; criticism of +the matter offered is not encouraged. To the other, learning comes by +examining. The propagandist need have no respect for the personalities +of those he manipulates. The educator must respect his student, since +the development of personality is his aim. In the end the question is +whether people are to be _used_ for purposes other than their own. This +is the sole object of the propagandist; its successful achievement is +the defeat of the educator. + +Even in the service of a good cause, propaganda makes for +superficiality in both him who gives and him who receives it. The +convert has seen the light. He is on the right side. He need have +no more doubts or hesitation. Curiosity and further speculation +are no longer necessary. Reasoning henceforth can become special +pleading--mere rationalization, an array of clever plausibilities +designed to strengthen the faith and protect the devotee against the +danger that he may change his mind. He now becomes a propagandist +himself, a lay preacher as it were, whose mission in life is to convert +and uplift others. He begins to harp on one string. In his eagerness to +convince he resorts to the obvious, the thing said for effect. He is +more concerned with the force of his arguments than with the accuracy +of his statements. He is so busy with the general good that he neglects +to purify himself. With unwashed hands he breaks his bread and serves +it to his neighbors. I have seldom seen a person who has spent years +making converts, who has not lost in intellectual integrity. Emerson +noted this trait in the abolitionists of his day. It is a quality which +world menders of all types have in common. Sooner or later the passion +to convert, like any other passion over-indulged, warps the whole +personality. The propagandist becomes intemperate. He loses something +in delicacy and sense of humor. There is in his manner a mixture +of emotion and coercion and a kind of slyness. Finally from much +repetition of stock phrases the great cause itself becomes hackneyed +and professionalized. Most of the messages which men would carry to the +masses slip through the propagandists’ fingers and dribble out before +they arrive at their destination. + +I have tried to make clear the differences between propaganda and +education. If I am correct, it follows that whenever the educator +becomes a propagandist he gives up his proper function. I do not mean +that a school teacher should not advocate political change or any other +reform he chooses. He is a citizen as well as a teacher, and has the +right to express his convictions, however unpopular they may be. But it +is not as a teacher that he does so. Ordinarily the public insists that +there are certain views that he may not express either in or outside +his class-room. At the same time he is required to be the advocate of +popular moral, religious and political prejudices, however erroneous +he knows them to be. Public education suffers much from this lack of +freedom, for it operates to keep independent minds out of the teaching +profession. Unless any subject may be presented and every relevant fact +discussed without fear or favor, the instruction offered students is a +cheat. + +It is however in the process of teaching itself that the spirit of +the propagandist may supplant that of the educator. It is much easier +to appeal to authority than to experiment, to command assent than to +awaken curiosity, to tell the student what he must believe than to +wait for the maturing of his judgment. There are five devices commonly +in use among propagandists which may defeat the effort for a liberal +education. They are the fixation of ideas by repetition, the trick of +over-simplification, insinuation by appeal to prejudice, distortion of +fact, and coercion. + +Psychology has taught the advertising profession the selling power of +mere monotonous repetition. At one of the stations of the Hudson Tube I +counted five posters all displaying the same advertisement of a certain +shaving cream. The advertiser had not leased so much space because of +extravagance, nor was he afraid that people would fail to notice his +advertisement if he displayed it on only one board. It was so large and +vivid that the passerby could easily see it. His aim was to deepen the +impression by repetition. For the same reason a flashing intermittent +electric sign on which the same letters are illuminated again and again +is more effective than one with a continuous light. Another example of +this method is the poster containing the name of a popular cigarette +together with the command, “Read this out loud.” + +Advertisement of this nature makes no attempt to argue or explain or +persuade, or to call attention to the merit of the article for sale. +Many commodities in common use owe their popularity not to the fact +that people are persuaded that they are superior to a rival but because +a trade word has become fixed in memory through endless repetition. + +A similar method is often used in selling ideas and movements. +Santayana says, “A confused competition of propaganda is carried on +by the most expert psychological methods--for instance, by always +repeating a lie instead of retracting when it is exposed. A formula of +this nature may not be a conscious lie, it need only be so fixed in +the mind by long repetition that it becomes compulsive. The person who +continues repeating it becomes unable to consider the facts which would +contradict it.” + +Thus the religious propagandist will continue repeating an obsolete +dogma long after its untruth is a matter of common knowledge. The use +which propagandists make of rumor is another example of this principle. +During the war we saw much of this sort of thing. The wildest +fabrications were accepted uncritically; when everyone was repeating +them it seemed disloyal to question their bases of fact. In any +political campaign the editorials and speeches are made up largely of +repetitions. Popular moral ideas are psychologically similar; we call +them platitudes. In fact public discussion which is mostly propaganda +of one sort or another consists almost wholly of monotonous repetition. +Anyone who has had experience with an open forum will, I think, agree +with me that the discussion from the floor--and not unfrequently the +platform also--shows an amazing monotony of repetition. I have known +men for years to gain the recognition of the chair and repeat the +same phrases night after night, no matter what was the subject under +discussion. We love routine. + +There is I believe less routine learning, less mere memory drill, in +our schools now than in former years. I doubt if many students learn +geography or history or the multiplication tables or Latin grammar +in the manner I was made to learn these subjects. However, it is +not in these subjects, which are at best the mere scaffolding of +knowledge, that humdrum does the greatest harm. It is in its failure +to stimulate genuine thinking about the important human interests that +education commonly falls short of its liberalizing function. There is +a dullness about sing-song repetition of the multiplication table or +the recital of the names of the rivers of China, but it does not equal +in monotony the uniformity with which college graduates will say the +same things about politics, the protective tariff, the labor problem, +the constitution of the United States, or the relation of commerce to +culture. I recently heard a professor, who holds an important chair in +one of our leading universities say that his institution strove not +so much for scholarship as to develop a certain type of college man. +No doubt he had in mind a desirable type of man, but any attempt to +mould a group to a single form can succeed only at the expense of the +individuality of the student. Moreover, such a goal naturally causes +the authorities to adopt methods of drill and standardization. Whenever +the aim of education is fixed in advance, it tends to propaganda and +illiberalism. + +The habit of repetition develops a credulous and incurious mind. It +produces a type of person who not only accepts his beliefs second-hand, +but also tends to over-simplify any subject under consideration, and +so never get to the bottom of it as an educated mind should strive +to do. It is very convenient to stop speculation with a half-true +generalization stated as the conclusion of the whole matter. We love +big words; catch phrases are easy to remember and to repeat. Moral and +religious teachers know this, hence their use of aphorisms. One does +not stop to analyze an aphorism; it is self-evident, final. + +Propagandists and advertisers are also aware of this human trait, and +they delight in making slogans for us. “I’d walk a mile for a Camel,” +“Children cry for it,” “Four out of five now lose,” are examples of a +type of advertising familiar to all. Recently an effort was made in New +York to check the “crime wave” with a slogan. A poster addressed to +potential robbers was displayed in various parts of the city containing +the words, “You can’t win.” A comparison of the number of convictions +with the number of crimes of violence would seem to indicate that this +slogan had about the same measure of truthfulness as most others. + +Slogans used in commercial advertising are for the most part innocent +enough. But there are slogans used in types of propaganda which are +not innocent. I will discuss the distortion of fact later; my point +is that the type of phrase-making we are discussing tends at best to +close the mind. Every movement tends to dry up into a verbal cult +with a fixed phraseology the repetition of which seems to satisfy +the adherents’ hunger for truth. The thinking of most men consists of +little more than the repetition of the phrases which characterize the +group to which they belong. There are groups which regularly assemble +to listen to their familiar verbal formulas repeated again and again, +deriving much satisfaction from the time-worn phrases. Any deviation +from regularity or omission of any part is resented in the same spirit +that caused primitive men to hold that any deviation from the magic +ritual was sinful. It was the observation of this wide-spread trait +in many forms that led me to the conclusion that there is practically +only one soap-box speech on socialism, one address on the principles +of the single tax, one revival sermon, one type of campaign speech for +each party. At least I find that most members of any movement all say +the same thing. If one knows what kind of an “_ist_” a man happens to +be and is familiar with the ritual of that “_ism_,” one can ordinarily +predict what the man will say on any subject. Frequently propagandists +do not recognize their own principles when they hear them stated in +ordinary English. + +And once the cult phrases are thoroughly learned it is very difficult +for an individual to learn anything more. This is why the teaching +of any subject should never be permitted to take on a set form, for +cult ideas reduce an issue or situation to a statement so simple that +it is a mere caricature. Subjects that require exhaustive analysis +and deep meditation or much more information than anyone possesses +are settled with amazing finality by oracular-minded people. How many +matters of vital importance are met with such phrases as “One hundred +percent American,” “My country right or wrong,” “Every Bolshevik +should be stood up against a wall and shot,” “Plenty of room at the +top,” “Reward of Merit,” “Progressive,” “Reactionary,” “The cure +for democracy is more democracy,” “Let the people rule,” “Down with +capitalist exploitation,” “Labor produces all wealth,” “The demon rum,” +“Godless evolution.” + +The habit which politicians, professional reformers and other +propagandists have of appealing to popular prejudice in order to gain +adherents is a well-known phenomenon of social psychology. Every +political campaign is an orgy of this sort of thing. Mayor Hylan of +New York, when his incompetence was exposed, diverted attention by +denouncing the “interests.” In the same city a few years ago those who +were opposed to modernizing the public school system stirred up a large +section of the population with the assertion that the “Gary School” was +a Steel Trust school. During the war men were elected to office not +because of their record but according to how strenuously they professed +their Americanism and denounced alleged pro-Germans and socialists. A +“friend of the people” attacks Wall Street as a matter of course. Any +man who questions the wisdom of the prohibition laws is immediately +said to be in league with the “liquor interests.” In prohibition +propaganda effective use was made of the fact that many brewers were +of German descent. In the South the Ku Klux Klan is mainly anti-Negro, +in the Middle West it is anti-Catholic. In the East it takes on an +anti-Semitic coloring. It is by such appeals that multitudes are +marshalled and led first in one direction and then in another, always +to the temporary advantage of a group of leaders. Into all this an +ulterior purpose, a quite personal interest is often insinuated. During +the war I made a collection of advertisements in which all sorts of +articles were urged upon the purchaser with the statement that in +buying such goods the public was helping win the war. + +It is obvious that whenever a crowd movement is created its propaganda +has a marked illiberal influence upon institutions of learning. During +the war public education in this country suffered seriously. A spirit +of intolerance often wholly irrelevant to the winning of the war took +possession of many educators. Eminent scientists lost their heads and +ceased to behave with that good judgment which people expect of a +scholar in a critical situation. + +Such results of propaganda are not limited to times of warfare. I know +a college where the work of every department was seriously disorganized +for a semester by a religious revival in the town. The pressure of +religious prejudices upon institutions of learning in this country is +one of the most serious forces with which education has to contend. +The hostility in the West and South toward the teaching of any other +account of the origin of man than that contained in the book of +Genesis, is not new. It is merely the giving of legislative support to +religious dogma which strikes us as new. And that has also happened +many times in history. Popular religion has always watched education +with jealous eyes. However, there is one factor in the present +Fundamentalist attack upon the theory of evolution which seems to have +escaped general notice. There is revealed an attitude toward education +in general which should give us concern because it seems to be held by +many people who are not rural Fundamentalists. When those who conceived +of teaching as imparting a doctrine--let us say of special creation +or the authority of the Bible--found that students were being made +acquainted with biological science and its various hypotheses regarding +the evolution of species, they could not understand that science could +be taught in any other spirit than that of theology. They still thought +of teaching as imposing upon the uncritical student mind a system of +belief, a rival creed but still something alleged to be a final truth, +which must be accepted on authority. Persons who speak in this manner +of teaching simply do not know what education is. How could a scientist +go about teaching evolution in this way? Nobody but a propagandist +ever teaches a theory. The scientific laboratory itself is a witness +against such a philosophy of education. Here the student is exposed to +the phenomena to be studied, and to the sources of information and is +aided to discover the facts for himself and draw his own conclusions. +Science learned by any other process is a mere pretense to knowledge. I +suspect it was not the doctrine of evolution so much as permitting the +student to draw his own conclusions from the facts that most disturbed +the advocates of popular religious dogma. Yet few people saw the +issue in this light. At the Dayton trial of the instructor who broke +the statute passed by the legislature of Tennessee, chief emphasis +seems to have been laid on the issue whether after all evolution is +contrary to Genesis. Most people seem to have accepted without comment +the Fundamentalist notion of what teaching is. The whole meaning of +education is involved in this issue. Education is not the substitution +of new creeds for old. Appeals to popular prejudice will continue +to do harm to education so long as it is conceived of as “teaching” +any beliefs whatsoever. As long as students are to be indoctrinated, +naturally every group will wish its own propaganda taught. + +In this connection I should say a word about adult education. Those +engaged in this branch of instruction are loud in their criticism +of the propaganda which passes for education in school and college. +Many of them have turned to adult education in order to spread some +propaganda of their own. Teachers in this field are constantly +tempted to yield to the prejudices of their students in order to +gain popularity and keep up attendance. Each type of institution or +special group has its peculiar prejudices and will insist that the +instruction given in its classes be so presented as to lend support +to its interests and beliefs. Where churches maintain classes, adult +education will tend to take on a certain color. It will assume another +in the trade union, still another when the appeal is to radicals. We +have already seen that a school of adult education may be in fact a +socialist theological seminary. Many others merely provide continued +employment for people who had been professional Americanization +propagandists in the hectic years that followed the war. + +A favorite method among propagandists is distortion of fact. It +is difficult for anyone who takes an intensely partisan view of a +situation to be honest with himself or careful about matters of +fact. Respect for the truth is, I think, an acquired taste. And the +propagandist is a special pleader. There is always the tendency to +load the dice, to over-emphasize anything that lends support and to +gloss over and explain away any fact that might weaken the case. Rumor, +allegation, mere surmise, will, if it happens to be useful, to put +out as fact established beyond the possibility of doubt. An excellent +example of this practice is a statement recently issued by a committee +of one of the large Protestant denominations attacking both the +Governor of the State and the Mayor of New York. On the occasion of the +latter’s visit to the South I quote a sentence or two. + + “The South will be interested to know Mr. Walker’s connection with + New York’s odorous prize-fighting game and with those elements in + New York which are doing their best to murder American standards of + morality.... Let it remember the propaganda which is systematically + organized to incite to crime in the South and West in order that the + prohibition law may be overthrown by these criminal activities.... + Let it remember that Governor Smith and his friends were the first + political group in America to introduce a religious issue into a + convention of a political party, an atrocious thing to do in a + country where all religions stand on the same basis.” + +Note how the impression is given that the Mayor’s alleged sympathy +with those who wish to repeal the Volstead Act is a connection with +propaganda systematically organized to incite to crime and undermine +American morals. The reference to Governor Smith is typical of much +propaganda. + +This method of championing causes is so common that it is almost +impossible to get at the truth about any public question. I have very +little interest in what is happening in Russia. If I had, I should not +know what to believe. Spokesmen for both the Bolshevists and their +enemies seem to be about equally unable to tell the truth. + +The pursuit of knowledge is the pursuit of the truth about something, +and since propaganda is not the pursuit of truth, its influence upon +educational institutions is illustrated by many of the text books on +American History in common use in the Public Schools. When attempts +were made to write the account of the American Revolution with +fairness to both sides and, in the light of established fact, certain +over-patriotic propagandists became much excited and thought they had +discovered a pro-British conspiracy to deliver this republic again +into the clutches of the British monarchy. + +Subject matter which is even remotely associated with popular +dogmas of religion, morals, patriotism, is likely to be modified so +as to appear to be in harmony with such dogmas when presented to +students. Each religious sect has its own version of Church history. +Radicals who wish to hold the environment--hence the present social +system--responsible for human failure, are always inclined to accept +uncritically the biological doctrine of the inheritance of acquired +characters. Patriotism makes it almost impossible for students anywhere +to gain a correct knowledge of the history of their own country. The +moral interest inevitably influences the study of literature. We have +already discussed the teaching of the classics. Their educational value +consists chiefly in opening windows upon a way of life very different +from our own. It broadens our sympathy with all that is human to gain +an understanding of men who were inspired by ideals often the contrary +of those held sacred in our own parish. Yet it is just this educational +value which is commonly lost in the teaching of the classics, +especially in Puritanical communities. The least significant books of +antiquity, writings like Caesar’s Commentaries and Cicero’s political +orations, are often selected as required studies. It is not an accident +that the works most commonly studied are those least shocking to +conventionally minded people, not those which give the student the +best account of ancient civilization. Likewise in the teaching of +modern literature, there is so much expurgation, censorship, evasion, +that most students get the impression that literature is produced by +Sunday School teachers for the edification of very nice people. If, as +many believe, it is best to protect younger students in this manner, +I think they should at least be led to understand what is happening. +Otherwise they are likely to leave school convinced that their own +one-sided and somewhat infantile view of life and letters is the +correct and only possible view and so influence the public authorities +to enact legislation establishing censorships over literature and art, +designed to impose their own limitations upon everyone. + +Finally when opportunity is favorable or occasion requires it, most +propagandists will resort to coercion. History has revealed this fact +again and again. It has often been said that the martyrs of today are +the persecutors of tomorrow. With the possibility of the seizure of +power in sight, methods of moral suasion become irksome; they are too +slow. Men must be forced to do what is good for them. Propaganda is +designed to gather a crowd to the support of an idea. I have shown +elsewhere that when the crowd mind appears any group will practice +coercion if it can. Hardly a generation passed after the Edict of +Milan, setting Christians free from persecution, before the Christians +themselves practiced persecution. The French Revolution set up a +guillotine in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity. New England +pilgrims of religious liberty persecuted Quakers and other “heretics.” +Radicals proclaim their faith in industrial democracy, free speech, the +brotherhood of man, and the Bolsheviks gain power by a coup d’etat, and +hold it by means of a policy of terror. Santayana says that the many +propagandas which today float in the blue sky of liberalism are only +waiting to show their true colors and resort to open attack and that +whoever is victorious will make an end of liberalism. When physical +force is not in actual use, it hides just around the corner. In much +moral suasion there is a note of intolerance and of invasion. The man +who knows he is right puts you always on the defensive. + +Even commercial advertising frequently reveals this spirit. Perhaps +advertisers got the idea from the posters used by the government +during the war. We all remember the commanding figure of Uncle Sam, +finger pointed at our faces and beneath the figure the words, “_You_ +buy Liberty Bonds.” Many advertisements now seek to command in such +a manner. We are ordered to buy this and that--not asked if we want +it. Or our privacy is otherwise invaded. I recently saw on a subway +platform an advertisement of soap which contained these words, “Are you +clean or only nearly clean?” + +When a crowd of world reformers becomes a crusade, men do not confine +themselves to asking impertinent questions. They are not even deterred +by constitutional guaranties of personal rights. The storm rages +until it blows itself out and leaves behind only the debris of what +before had been good feeling among men. When a crusade is on--and +there are usually several going at the same time in a democracy like +ours--educational institutions are pressed into its service, and are +forced to take sides, or at best maintain a precarious middle of the +road policy. This is not the task of those interested in education. +They are not “in the middle of the road.” They are not on the trampled +highway at all. Their task, while others are wrangling over unreal +issues that today take their toll of life and tomorrow are forgotten, +is to keep the lights of civilization burning, to humanize their own +behavior with reasonableness and good taste. + +As Emerson said, history has been mean: all nations have been mobs. +The populace runs after this passing cause and that popular hero. To +the populace your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of +all standards. But there is a time in each man’s education when he +arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance, that imitation is +suicide, that he must take himself for better or for worse. All men +preen themselves on the improvement of society and no man improves. +Society never advances, it recedes as fast on one side as it gains on +the other. Society is a wave; the wave moves forward, but the water +of which it is composed does not. Whoso would be a man must be a +non-conformist. + +Such a suggestion as this at once meets serious objection. It is +contrary to the habits of this busybody age. Many will ask, how +can we have done with propaganda? We live in the age of publicity +and organization, of causes and needed reforms. Great movements +challenge our complacency and invite our support. What, without these +interests, could we live for? How could we accomplish anything for the +common good? Is not the educated person as you depict him aloof and +ineffective, a monastic sort of person who disdains the common ways +and devotes his days to idle contemplation? And have you not yourself +said again and again that intellect does not exist as a sequestered, +inactive thing or end in itself, but that thinking is a part of doing? +How then can intellect be trained in indifference to the affairs of men? + +But I have not argued that one seclude himself. Is there nothing to +occupy the modern man except to stuff himself with half-truths and +regulate society? Does existence lose its value at the mere suggestion +that man mind his own business? What I have said is that a person +cannot educate himself by filling his head with propaganda. + +I do think people of our age are too much devoted to causes and not +enough to their own education. Perhaps I should say that people’s +devotion to causes is too narrow, too impatient, too uncritical. +Doubtless we should serve our cause better if we stopped to look before +we leap. I am not sure that ignorance, however devoted and active, ever +accomplishes much good for mankind. + +I might ask in turn, do our propagandas often get the results expected? +Look at pacifist propaganda, or the slogan about the war to end war, +look at socialist propaganda today after a half century and more of +it, consider prohibition. The intellectuals of our generation have +exhausted themselves running after this and that new sociological +magic. And there is a general feeling of frustration and futility. +Where progress has been made in our times, it has been in matters +that do not lend themselves easily to propaganda; success had been +achieved in the arts and sciences. Intellect has failed when playing at +leadership of social movements. + +The ends sought by propaganda may be and often are good. But education +is also an end. We are not required to occupy ourselves with any cause +to the extent that we fail to educate ourselves. The first social +obligation of any man is his own education. I am a mere muddler and +a nuisance if I act on the principle that I have any obligations to +society that go beyond my knowledge of means and ends and of good +and evil. Social service should be a by-product of education. I do +not imagine that Socrates or Erasmus sought education in order that +they could be more useful to society. Social obligation or no social +obligation, you and I have the right to such education as we have the +native intelligence to acquire. We have that right because we are +the kind of animals we are. No cause is more important than this. Let +us serve where and when we can, but let us not surrender our mental +integrity for any man’s sake. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LIBERAL EDUCATION VS. BOOK LEARNING + + +Is education something one can “get” in an institution? We are seeking +to discover what an educated person is like,--as Plato would say, to +“find” the educated man. Whether the learning process takes place +in an institution or out of it is from this point of view a matter +of small interest. I should like to picture the liberally educated +individual as a mellow amateur, competent and well-informed, but with +all natural and human, wholly at ease with his knowledge and master +of his technique; one whose thinking is play and whose mind does not +squeak as it runs along. But there frequently appears in educational +circles a professionalism that is rather formidable and terrifying. +I do not mean the specialized knowledge requisite for the so-called +learned professions. One may be highly trained professionally, and like +William James and Mr. Justice Holmes, retain the spirit of the amateur +always. By professionalism I mean a certain artificiality of manner, +bookishness, over-strictness in regard to petty rules, a disposition +to identify education with the display of just that knowledge which +the educated are conventionally supposed to possess. Many people think +of education as something “high-brow,” a fastidiousness which belongs +to the élite. There are those who give the impression that education +is a thing of books and schools and formalities; and that there is a +recognized fraternity of the finished products of the system. As proof +that one belongs to this fraternity there are degrees and credits which +show that the candidate has passed certain examinations and has done a +required amount of reading. We have seen that people may seek education +because they hope it will give them a certain prestige. I once heard +a man say, “I’d give ten thousand dollars if I only knew Greek.” I +wondered why Greek had such value in his eyes. I learned that he had +been in the company of two elderly men, one a clergyman and the other a +physician. He was humiliated because of his ignorance when the two fell +to discussing some Greek text reminiscent of college days. It never +occurred to him that he could secure a few text books and acquire this +coveted knowledge in his spare time whenever he chose to do so. + +People persist in thinking that education comes to a man by virtue +of his attendance at some place where it may be “got.” We frequently +hear someone say, “I _had_ so many years of Latin,” or “I _took_ +mathematics,” or “I did not _get_ much history.” Formal education, +which is book knowledge acquired in a school,--this possession which +men measure and grade and standardize,--may or may not be an aid to +general culture. The thing I mean by liberal education is too elusive +for the man with the yard stick. + +With the modern theories of learning there has come some difference +of opinion regarding the educational value of books. Traditional +education consisted almost wholly of book knowledge. Knowledge of the +books written about a subject was rated as familiarity with the subject +itself. + +There is a recent tendency, both within and without institutions of +learning, to skim over as many as possible of the latest books. This +leaves little or no time for the great books, knowledge of which is +essential to a liberal education. In the library of a very up-to-date +writer on sociological and economic subjects, I did not find a single +book, except a few school texts, written before nineteen hundred. +Modern writers all seem to desire to express the movements of the day. +But it is difficult to see how one’s judgment of the present can be +very sound, if one has no background of the cultural traditions of the +race. Ideas of life gained from an exclusive study of the present are +necessarily second-rate. Professor John Erskine says, “To live only +in the moment, to imagine only one’s own place was once thought to be +the fate of the stupid. We have made it the ideal of education.... No +college is liberal which trains its students to identify the excellent +or the important exclusively with the contemporary.” He says that +education should prejudice us in favor of authors who are wise, and +that there have not been many great men nor many great ideas. One may +acquire a liberal education from the reading of relatively few books. +“The Student ... ought to know Hobbes; he ought to know Pascal, and +Plato and Bacon and Homer, and Spinoza and Galileo, and Leonardo da +Vinci.” + +And I would add that anyone pursuing his education ought to know +Erasmus and Montaigne, Butler’s “Hudibras,” and something of Hume, +Voltaire, Anatole France, and the best of the classic poets. This is +not a great deal of reading. It can moreover be done in a leisurely +manner, and this is important. Our modern habit of cluttering up the +mind with all sorts of second-rate, up-to-date printed matter accounts +in part for the jumpiness and hectic quality of the modern spirit. No +one seems to take time for quiet reflection any more. Everyone is too +busy keeping up-to-date, gaining a superficial knowledge of the latest +thing, and before we can pause to separate the true from the false in +it, it is already out of date and something still more “modern” is the +fashion. + +There is a tendency among very modern educators to reduce book learning +to a minimum. It is said that book knowledge is only hear-say, +second-hand information. The student does not make a fact his own +so long as he must take someone’s word for it. What books tell you +prevents your finding out for yourself. You know an emotion only when +you feel it, a fact when you deal with it, a truth when you discover +it. “We learn by doing.” A leading progressive educator says, “The +school of tomorrow is going to get away from mere reciting what has +been got from books. That is, we are going to give up the notion that +the school is the place where we assign certain set tasks and the child +goes off and prepares those things and then comes back to convince us +that he has done what was required.... In the school of the future, +the child is going to live, really live. This means what he learns he +learns because he needs it then and there.” + +This rather extreme form of protest against formal book learning is +really an attempt to correct the opposite extreme. We all know persons, +conventionally educated, who substitute reading for living, and the +book for reality. There are those who never talk about events or ideas, +but always quote what some book says about them, as if they believed +that work, love, joy, pain, became fit subjects of contemplation +only in print. The world of actions and things gives way to a world +of words only. Human existence becomes a sort of grown-up children’s +game of authors. Education becomes an evasion of the challenge of +real situations. Emotion and fancy are exhausted in doing nothing. It +becomes preferable to read about things than to experience them. The +individual thinks he has acquired wisdom; he merely has a taste for +reading and a good memory. + +In these days when educators are frantically striving to find some new +method of teaching which will save democracy from mediocrity, it is +the habit to blame the older education for any and all intellectual +futility. I believe, however, that futile persons would be ineffective +no matter what the method of instruction. The statement quoted above +to the effect that in the schools of the future the children are going +to live and are to stop reciting required lessons and learn what they +need “here and now,” is a little like the platitude that one can learn +more out of life than out of books, a saying which always flatters the +illiterate. It seems to be thoroughly modern to believe that the best +way to get an education is to stop studying and just _live_,--whatever +that is. + +I am of the opinion, however, that anyone who can learn from life can +also learn from books without spoiling his mind. There is a difference +between learning from books and merely learning to repeat passages +from them, and I had thought that in really learning from books one +was learning from life. Whether one can get more information from +books than from things depends somewhat on the books, also what it is +one wishes to learn, as well as one’s capacity to learn. Manipulation +of objects--doing--has no more educational value than repeating +words. Either may become a mere routine exercise. Education is the +organization of knowledge into human excellence. It is not the mere +possession of knowledge, but the ability to reflect upon it and grow in +wisdom. It would seem that as few people acquire wisdom from practical +experience as from books. + +The high-school educated multitude, which prefers the radio to reading, +finds the tales of classic literature tedious except when presented in +the “movies,” reads history only in outline, and natural science only +when popularized in a series of ABC books, is probably correct in its +feeling that books cannot teach it much; and what it is learning from +life is manifest in the sort of life it lives. The habit of reading +good books, ability to know the good ones from the inferior, capacity +to enjoy books for the beauty and wisdom that may be found in them, are +essential parts of a liberal education. A school that implants good +habits of discriminating reading in its students is a good school. One +that fails to do this is a bad school. The modern educational system +has taught the public to read,--and the public reads mostly trash. + +That education in a so-called democracy may be official and +professionalized and at the same time superficial and illiberal is +manifest. Thomas Davidson, a pioneer teacher of adults in this country, +expressed great hope in the promise of public education in America. +But there is one fact about such intellectual life as there is in +this country which seems to have escaped Davidson’s attention, I +suppose because his own case was an exception. It is a fact which I +believe may be one of the causes of the small influence which learning +exerts in the daily life and thought and preferences of our people. +Thousands of people say that their education is of no use to them in +later years. It is an interest which they do not keep up but leave +behind at the school-house door. They think that education belongs +properly in the school, and except for some practical advantage most +people seldom think of making any cultural achievement of their own +outside the school. Most advance in scholarship in this country is the +work of professionals, members of university faculties. Outside the +institutions of learning, there is very little independent creative +thought. Exception must be made of our literary men, but these too are +professionals. There are almost no men of leisure who carry on the +progress of civilization as educated amateurs. In this respect we are +much like Germany before the war, where advance in scholarship was +almost confined to the universities and the attempt was made to create +knowledge by the machinery of organized research. + +An example of the situation in our country is to be found in the fact +that almost every member of the American Philosophical Association is +a Ph.D. and a teacher of philosophy in a degree-granting institution. +It might almost be said that philosophy, beyond the merest introduction +to the subject, is studied in order that students may become teachers +of still other teachers. I suspect that a similar situation exists +in other learned societies. This confinement of scholarship to the +professional student leaves the public without guidance and at the +mercy of quacks. It causes a break between education and other +interests which the public school strives in vain to bridge over, +because in such a situation the school itself becomes official and +sequestered. Thus education is constantly being done up in little +packages and sent out from the places where it is grown, like the +garden seeds which Congressmen used to send to their constituents and +which nobody planted. Education does not take root because nobody +plants it. People think that culture is the special function of the +professional gardeners, and there are even educators who would be +astonished and jealous if they saw anything but elementary scholarship +growing at large outside their walls. + +In this respect, it seems to me, Great Britain has had the advantage. +Many of her greatest contributions to science and philosophy came +from outside the regular university faculties. Such men as Hobbes, +Milton, Bacon, Locke, Hume, Spencer, Mill and Darwin may have received +conventional training, but they went out and did something with it +afterwards. They helped create an ideal of the educated man which we +have yet to gain. Hence Great Britain has had many amateur scholars who +were also men of affairs, men like Mr. Balfour and the Haldanes, whose +influence has helped keep education from being over-professionalized. + +Some of the highest educational attainments in history have been +reached without the setting up of any institution at all, in our sense +of the term. Protagoras, Socrates, and Abelard simply gathered groups +of fellow students about them who lived for years in their company, +first as disciples then as assistants. Such education to be sure was +for the selected few, but after a man had spent some time with his +teacher, he acquired a philosophy which changed his way of life. The +modern attempt to educate everyone really educates hardly anyone. The +public school imparts a certain elementary instruction--in eight or ten +years about as much as a normally intelligent youth could master in +two years if he set his mind to it. In matters of taste and standards +of value, public school education makes little difference; or in +developing thirst for knowledge, tolerance, independence of judgment. +The task of giving instruction to the youth of an entire community is +so great that thoroughness is almost impossible. The task falls to the +state, and the state is a vested interest and the protector of other +vested interests, interests which are not always consistent with the +desire for knowledge. There are factions in the community which the +public authorities must conciliate. We have seen what can happen to the +teaching of biology and history when such factions become organized to +control the public education of a state. Public servants are nowhere +eager to have education so free to pursue its proper function that +there is developed an alert and critically minded public to whom they +must justify certain of their practices. What the state desires of +education is soldiers, reliable voters, law-abiding citizens, contented +working men, prosperous traders. Hence a spirit of docility and +credulity, often of timidity, prevails in the school. + +Where there are large numbers in attendance, the individual student +receives little personal attention. The education of backward students +is sometimes given more consideration than that of the normally +intelligent. The chief aim is to get the student through and pass him +along to the next grade, and the pace at which the instructor moves is +set by the mediocre. Whether this state of affairs will be remedied by +the use of intelligence tests remains to be seen. At present mental +measurement is a sort of fad. The system requires that all shall learn +the same lesson in the same manner at the same time. + +Standardization develops a kind of mass mind, which in mature years +renders men very susceptible to crowd appeal. Learning imposed upon +the student by the system is put on the outside like a mental uniform. +Habits become stereotyped in the elementary, non-reflective aspects of +behavior and knowledge. There is little in this to guide the student +to the spiritual values of a liberal education. Most of those who pass +through the system never know that such values exist. + +The public school system is a great bureaucracy with autocracy at the +top and deference to authority all the way down through the hierarchy +of superintendents, principals, and instructors, to the students. +The administrator holds dominion over the teacher. Little is left to +personal initiative. Any system which requires little responsibility of +its employees but much deference to petty authority in time comes to +be filled with persons to whom such servitude is not irksome. Serious +scholarship is rare. The teacher is not encouraged to independence +of judgment concerning the subject which for years it is his work +to teach. Teaching becomes a trade and is practised with as little +intellectual interest as most trades. Other than idealizing the +existing situation together with whatever persons or interests control +the school system, little attention is given to the social setting into +which the school sends its students when they leave. + +Dr. Kallen says, “Free public education and private instruction +purchasable at a price are both but the community’s device to meet +present needs by transmitting the past unchanged. They provide a +grammar of assent, not a logic of inquiry. The mental posture they +habituate the youth in is not the posture of reflection. The mental +posture they habituate the youth in is the posture of conformity. +They require belief, not investigation. They impose reverence for +the past and idealization of the present. They envision the future +as a perpetuation of the past, not as a new creation of it. They are +Main Street’s most powerful instrument of self-reproduction without +variation.... They enable government both visible and invisible to +continue by consent, for they forestall and inhibit in the citizens +of the land the technique of doubt and dissent which is the necessary +condition of good government and the true inwardness of that eternal +vigilance so notoriously the price of liberty.” + +Here and there, in spite of the system, someone gets his feet on the +path which leads to liberal education. But in general it cannot be +said that the public school has realized the dreams of those who in +the early nineteenth century hoped that free universal education would +place democratic institutions on the solid foundations of enlightened +public opinion and general respect for truth. It was believed that the +curse of ignorance would be removed; that humbug and insolence would +be driven from the control of affairs; that labor would be ennobled by +understanding, and freedom secured by the attainment of self-mastery. +All were now to have access to scholarship; the precious wisdom of the +great minds of all times, no longer the possession of the favored few, +should be made to live in the daily experience of the nations. + +We are not so utopian in our hopes for the future of society as were +the Humanitarian idealists of the nineteenth century. Perhaps people +have expected too much of public education and have required too +little. We need not be astonished that the education of the public is +committed to a system which becomes an end in itself; that is human. +Nor need we be astonished that public education is administered and +carried on by persons most of whom do not know what education is; that +is the democratic way of dealing with public affairs. If you are to get +your education, whoever you are you must not be content to let it be a +public affair. You must make it your private affair. + +Severe criticism of both the public school and the university is +common. There is much talk about capitalistic influence, and the +denial of academic freedom by prominent business men who contribute +to endowments and constitute boards of trustees. In so far as this +criticism comes from professional radical propagandists it need not be +taken very seriously. Such persons merely want their own propaganda +included in the curriculum. University presidents no doubt often play +politics and do other things common to professional money-raisers. +Faculties are often little more than pedantic trade unions, and if we +are to judge the colleges of the country by the number of first-rate +scholars who graduate from them or by the extent of their influences as +a whole on the cultural standards of the country, we may well question +whether higher education in America succeeds any better than the public +school. + +But I wonder why so much criticism is directed at trustees and +faculties and so little at the students. The habit of constantly +denouncing someone because we are not better educated is rather +ludicrous. If our people really desire education they can have it. If +I am dissatisfied with my ignorance, I may seek knowledge at any time, +and no one else, in or out of college, can ever gain wisdom for me. +Anyone who has kept up his interest in his education after graduation +knows that what is learned in school and college is at best a small +part of it--merely the beginning of an education. Anyone who does not +continue his studies through the years of a busy life and thinks that +the brief introduction to the tools of scholarship which he received +in his adolescence is education, should apologize to his college, not +criticize it. Granted that there is much bad teaching, there is more +bad studying,--or I should say, hardly any studying at all. Professor +James Harvey Robinson used to say, “A college is a place where there is +much teaching and no learning.” + +Is it not possible that a large portion of the population cannot be +educated? Such persons are not all necessarily dull, they may be +naturally uninterested in education, and it is likely that many enter +institutions of learning with the mistaken notion that it is education +they desire, when what they really want is success, a good time, and a +little training in what they think are the manners and ways of speech +of polite society. The finishing school once supplied this need; now +the colleges have to do it. + +The motives which lead people to seek college education divide the +students into three types. First there are the few who love learning. +The spirit which once caused groups of young men to follow Abelard or +Erasmus still brings an occasional youth to college. Such students may +need guidance, advice and the fellowship of mature scholars. It is not +necessary to force them to study, or offer them “snap courses,” or +cram them for examination. Much of the procedure and regulation--the +regimentation common in institutions of learning--is unnecessary and +sometimes harmful to them. Most of them would become educated persons +even if they never saw a college class-room. + +A second type of student attends college and university in large +numbers. The motive is preparation for a professional career. Many of +the best students belong to this type. Whether in addition to their +professional training they ever gain a liberal education--we have +seen that the two are not necessarily the same--will depend largely +upon what they do after they get their degrees. If they then have an +interest in educating themselves, their technical training ought to be +an advantage, for most of them have learned how to study. But so much +purely technical knowledge must be drilled into a man’s head that the +student who is preparing for a degree in engineering, law, medicine +or scientific research has very little time for anything else. Many of +the most successful physicians, engineers and scientists need adult +education quite as much as do ordinary working men. + +The third type, the majority of undergraduate students, are for the +most part pleasant young men and women of the upper middle class. Their +parents are “putting them through college” because it is the expected +thing to do. A man wishes to give his children every advantage. While +a bachelor’s degree is not exactly a social necessity, there are many +who would have something like an inferiority complex without it. I knew +one family in New York City who almost went into mourning when the only +son failed in his Harvard entrance examinations. Students of this type +enjoy four happy years, largely at public expense, with other young +people of their own age in an environment designed to keep them out of +mischief. I have no doubt this grown-up kindergarten life is good for +them; most of them seem to appreciate it. In later years they remain +enthusiastically loyal to Alma Mater, coming back to football games +and class reunions and contributing to the support of the college. +As alumni their influence is not always on the side of progress in +education, but perhaps they make up for this failure in other ways. + +I am prepared, moreover, to say that the existence of hundreds of +centers filled with such care-free young people may be a good thing +for the country. They keep alive a tradition of good cheer and of +man’s right to happiness in a country that is otherwise sordidly +commercial. A leisure class is a social necessity for it serves as an +example to other people showing them how to enjoy their idle hours. The +English aristocracy with its horse races and other out-door sports has +done much to make life interesting to all classes in that otherwise +factory-ridden country, and its example has been followed by people in +other lands. Now about the only leisure class we have in America is the +undergraduate student body. A privileged class is always popular with +the rest of the population in a normally constituted state. And so the +whole country enjoys vicariously the amusements of its undergraduate +boys and girls. The college youth with his automobile, his pipe, and +his big fur coat is a favorite hero in the motion pictures. Moreover, +the fact that the period of loafing is limited to four years is a +blessing, for by taking turns a greater number may enjoy the privilege +than the industry of the country could possibly support in permanent +idleness. + +But while all this may be good for the country, it is not very good for +the colleges. It is bad for the morale of any institution to sail under +false colors, and colleges are popularly supposed to be educational +institutions. The college faculties themselves must to some extent +share this popular delusion, or else they would not permit the public +to go on believing it. The attempt to live up to this erroneous idea +puts everybody under a strain, students and faculty alike, and is +the one unpleasant thing about college life. Instructors are forever +annoying the students, trying to get some work out of them. Attendance +on classes is required, and a series of examinations is arranged which +nobody enjoys and which do no good anyway. They only make it necessary +to send an occasional student home, and then there are tears, other +students are frightened and sometimes lose sleep cramming for the next +examination, and the instructor loses popularity, especially if his +course is an elective one. + +It is among this type of undergraduates that “campus opinion” has +its origin. Campus opinion is distinctly hostile to learning, and it +holds sway over students with the same tenacity as other crowd ideas +among the uneducated elements of the population. The student who takes +his education seriously loses caste and is regarded as a joke. Few +young people are sufficiently non-gregarious to stand out against the +scornful laughter of their fellows. + +What the average student gets from college, then, is an opportunity to +complete his adolescence in an interesting and healthy environment, the +experience of being away from home and on his own, and fraternity and +club life--pleasant in itself--in which friendships are formed that +last through life and are often useful business connections in after +years. There is also athletics, through which the student may develop +his muscles, gain the desirable moral quality of good sportsmanship, +and satisfy any ambition he may have to become a college hero. One +always becomes famous in college outside the class-room, never in it. +Incidentally, if a student is naturally clever at picking up bits of +information with a minimum of reading, he gains a bowing acquaintance +with about as much knowledge as should be the possession of one with a +fair secondary education. Finally, he forms certain habits and acquires +certain manners and tastes which mould him to the type of the average +college graduate, and goes out in the world to take his place in the +social and business circles of his home town, where, if he should ever +mention Aristotle, people would think he was crazy. + +The college graduate can play a good game of tennis, wear his clothes +well, talk about the latest novel, walk across a room with grace and +dignity, and share the club opinions of his set, and there is nothing +offensive in his table manners. I do not mean to underrate these +accomplishments. The person who does not have them, however great his +achievement in scholarship, is a boor, too lacking in sensitiveness +to assimilate the knowledge he has stored in his head. But these are +accomplishments that should be learned at home, as a matter of course; +colleges ought not to be necessary for training of this sort. + +Wherein the education of the average college graduate fails of its +true ends is seen in what might be called the deeper things of the +spirit. No profound intellectual passion has been awakened, no habit +of independent judgment formed. The college man shares the usual +popular prejudices of his community. He runs with the crowd after the +hero of the hour, and shows the same lack of discrimination as do +the uneducated. He votes the same party ticket, is intolerant along +with his neighbors, and puts the same value on material success as do +the illiterate. His education has made very little difference in his +religious beliefs, his social philosophy, his ethical values, or his +general outlook on the world. Like all opinionated and half-educated +people, he jumps to hasty conclusions, believes what others believe, +does things because others do them, worships the past, idealizes the +present. + +In contrast with this, let me quote a passage from John Stuart Mill. +The author meant it to be a description of the scientist. It stands as +a suggestion of what a liberally educated mind should be. + + “To question all things;--never to turn away from any difficulty; + to accept no doctrine either from ourselves or from other people + without a rigid scrutiny by negative criticism; letting no fallacy, + or incoherence, or confusion of thought, step by unperceived; above + all, to insist upon having the meaning of a word clearly understood + before using it, and the meaning of a proposition before assenting to + it;--these are the lessons we learn ‘from workers in Science.’ With + all this vigorous management of the negative element, they inspire no + scepticism about the reality of truth or indifference to its pursuit. + The noblest enthusiasm, both for the search after truth and for + applying it to its highest uses, pervades those writers.” + +When all is said, the ignorance and folly of men are things that +institutions cannot cure. Each must discover the path of wisdom +for himself. One does not “get” an education anywhere. One becomes +an educated person by virtue of patient study, quiet meditation, +intellectual courage, and a life devoted to the discovery and service +of truth. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF DOUBT + + +The seventh book of Plato’s Republic begins with the Parable of the +Cave. To show “how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened” the +philosopher draws a picture of human beings living in an underground +den, all of them from childhood chained with their backs to the light +so that all they can see is moving shadows cast upon the opposite +wall. This world of shadows is the system of popular beliefs. To +these people “the truth would be literally nothing but the shadow of +images.” Plato tells us to imagine what would happen if the prisoners +were released and disabused of their error. If any one of them is +suddenly compelled to turn and face the light, the glare blinds him +and he suffers a sharp pain. If he is reluctantly dragged up into +the outside world of sunlight he is at first dazzled. After he is +accustomed to the new vision, all reality will appear different. He +will see the difference between shadow and substance. He will know that +popular belief is error. If now he should return, what a difference +there would be between his new wisdom and that which in the den passed +for wisdom! “And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among +themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows, +and to remark which of them went before and which followed after, +and which were together, and who were therefore best able to draw +conclusions as to the future, do you think he would care for such +honors and glories?--And if there were a contest and he had to compete +in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of +the den and while his eyes were yet weak,” we are told that he would +fumble and be ridiculous, and men would say, “Up he went and down he +came without his eyes,” and they would pass a law that no one should +even think of ascending any more or try to release another and lead him +up. + +I will not discuss the metaphysical implications of this parable about +which there is dispute. Plato says we shall not misapprehend him if +we interpret this upward journey as education. Whoever would face the +light must turn his back on the crowd and its shadows. He must climb +into another world of values. The educated man thinks differently. His +beliefs are different from those of the herd. He is being set free from +its delusions, even from what it holds to be important. This is not +because he wishes to be aloof or superior, but because he is gaining a +different conception of what believing itself is. He has a new approach +to things in general, new habits of judging. He is beginning to form +his own judgments, and to judge is to weigh, to consider, to question, +to seek evidence, to doubt. + +Common men cherish their naïve faiths and ask no questions. They +imagine that education is simply greater information of the same sort +which they also possess in some measure, and that it is the part of +wisdom to establish the reality of their shadows. They resent a wisdom +which is different from their own and unsettles belief. He who acquires +information without the will to doubt is a common man and his kind +understand him. Hence men tend to display their information and conceal +their education. However much a man may know, so long as he does not +become _re-oriented_, the crowd does not suspect him, but admires +his learning. He is like a former Mayor of New York in his high hat +at the head of the Policeman’s Parade. The multitude used to stand +with their mouths open gazing at him. Each in imagination saw in the +exalted figure himself risen to a place of honor and success. So it +is with the “brainy man.” The “lightening calculator” or the man who +can recite from memory the population statistics of the cities of the +United States is a museum wonder. But when it was announced in a New +York theater that only twelve men could understand Einstein’s theory of +relativity, I am told that the crowd hissed. + +Information is a kind of skill. Everyone can possess this skill to the +extent he chooses, and people do not resent an exhibition of unusual +skill of such a nature. In America most men and boys have some measure +of skill at the game of baseball, so this game is the popular national +form of sport. The skillful professional ball-player is simply one of +the common boyhood ideals realized. He differs from the spectators of +the game in degree, but not in kind. He plays the same game they all +played, and is the same sort of person they all were as boys--only more +so. So with most kinds of information, the amount one may acquire makes +only a quantitative difference, not a difference in kind. But as a man +becomes educated he discovers that he is playing a new game; he is +becoming a different kind of person, with different likes and dislikes, +different interests, different ideals and faiths, and such beliefs as +he has he holds differently. + +What the multitude most fears in education is the danger that the +crowd faith will be lost in the process. This fear is often justified. +Old beliefs will be lost and they should be. The fear appears in +consciousness as solicitude for the spiritual welfare of the person +being educated. It is really anxiety over the menace of education to +herd living and thinking. It is the function of education to lure the +individual out of the pack and give him opportunity to know his own +mind, a thing he can never do so long as he runs and barks and bites +along with all the rest. To return to Plato’s figure, every person who +climbs out of the cave not only loses his own faith in the reality of +shadows but weakens the faith of those who remain behind. Cave men +make strenuous efforts to resist education. Their common practice is +to maintain their own systems of pseudo education in which no one is +permitted to turn his eyes away from the wall. + +Again, education has been likened to leaven. When it is honest it is +very much like yeast. Before the culture is introduced the solution +of ideas is in equilibrium. The mind has simply accepted what was +poured into it by parents, teachers, priests, and politicians. In the +solution there is reflected a compact, “still,” neatly ordered little +system of knowledge. “God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.” +Duty is clear, all is conventionally arranged, truth is eternal and +logic can prove it. Human rights are decreed by the founders of the +republic. The course of destiny is disclosed to reason and faith and +the promise sealed in divine revelation. At this stage, most minds +are carefully sealed up or a prophylactic is stirred in, for if those +sugary solutions are exposed to a live spiritual culture they begin +to “work.” Then they are spoiled for certain purposes. With the +fermentation there is sometimes foam and gas; but a chemical change is +taking place, brewing a mind with a “kick” in it. It is interesting +that bread and wine and education are all made by a similar process; +hence an educational Volsteadism has often been enforced so that many +of the best minds have had to be “home brewed.” + +Professor Dewey somewhere speaks of education as freeing the mind of +“bunk.” It is a large task. No one wholly succeeds. I never saw a +completely “debunked” individual. Strive as we may to eradicate it, +there is always in our thinking an amount of error, of wish-fancy +accepted as objective fact, of exaggeration, special pleading, +self-justification. Many of our beliefs are not founded in reason at +all, but are demanded by some unconscious and repressed impulse in +our nature. Men make a virtue of their faith when in fact they are +_victims_ of it; they can no more help believing certain things than a +neurotic can stop a compulsive habit. + +It is said that it is easy to doubt and that to believe is an +accomplishment. It is not so. It is easier to believe than to doubt. +The things we must train ourselves to doubt are as a rule just +the things we wish to believe. It is children and savages and the +illiterate who have the most implicit faith. It is said that unbelief +is sin. This is not so; it is nobler to doubt than to believe, for to +doubt is often to take sides with fact against oneself. Nietzsche said +that this trait is characteristic of “higher men.” It was Huxley, as I +remember it, who considered that man could in nothing fall so low as +when he deliberately took refuge in the absurd. Even with a rationalist +like Huxley doubt is not merely a function of the intellect. Under +certain circumstances it is a moral necessity. + +The pursuit of knowledge is not the same, however, as scrupulous +avoidance of error. He who strives to do his own thinking must accept +responsibility for himself. He must expect that he will make mistakes. +He may end in total failure. He must take his chances and be willing +to pay the cost of his adventure. I know professional scholars who +are so afraid they may write or say something which their colleagues +will show to be wrong that they never express an opinion of their own +or commit themselves to any downright statement. Such equivocation +and qualifying--playing safe--is not what I mean by doubt. I do not +mean merely that one should be always on guard against the possibility +of error, but that one should learn to hold all one’s beliefs with +a half-amused light-heartedness. Most minds are loaded down with +the seriousness of their convictions. Solemnity in the presence of +our eternal verities is awkwardness, and makes us always a little +ridiculous, giving us the appearance of one about to shake hands with +the President. Why not enjoy the humor of the situation? Our great +truths may all the while be “spoofing” us. It will do no harm to give +them a sly wink now and then. + +Crowd men have no sense of humor. It is very difficult to educate +solemn and opinionated people. Like Omar, they always come out by that +same door wherein they went. I have known students to complete a course +of study having learned nothing, because of their disinclination to +consider any fact which might cause them to surrender some belief about +religion or economic theory with which they entered. Whoever leaves an +institution of learning with the same general outlook on life that he +had when he first came might better have employed his time otherwise. +He is not a student; he is a church-member. + +A well-known reformer says in his autobiography that his education, +to the present time, has been a long process of “un-learning.” The +progressive disillusionment began in college when he was forced to +abandon the religious dogmas of his childhood. It continued through a +series of hard experiences and misdirected efforts to improve the world +from each of which he reaped a harvest of doubt, leaving behind the +exposure of one economic or sociological fallacy after another, until +in the end he had left only his faith in Woodrow Wilson and in the +proletariat. Then he lost Wilson. + +Perhaps one who still has the proletariat is not utterly disillusioned. +If the education continues that too may go the way of earlier beliefs. +It is one thing to despair of a society only one section of which can +stand the test of our idealism. It is quite another matter if one is +led to re-examine one’s idealism. It is this latter kind of doubt which +has the greater importance. The significant thing is not the particular +belief which a man gives up or retains but the manner in which he +believes what he does believe. Change the latter and you change a basic +habit pattern; you change the man. + +Not all scepticism has educational value. There is a kind of doubting +which is merely the negative response of the unteachable, the +suspiciousness of the wilfully ignorant, the refusal of the incurious +to examine disturbing and challenging evidence. There are, as an +eighteenth century philosopher said, minds that are moulded to the form +of one idea. Many people, after they have accepted one idea, tame it +and keep it as a sort of watchdog to frighten all other ideas away. +This refusal to be convinced may appear to be scepticism; it is only +stubbornness. The late Mr. Bryan and his followers were very sceptical +of evolution. But this hostile attitude is very different from the +scepticism of those scientists who hold that the theory is a mere +working hypothesis which is yet to be confirmed. The scepticism of +ignorance is motivated by the desire to save an old faith. Savages have +been known to exhibit this incredulity toward certain aspects of our +more advanced knowledge. If you were to tell the natives of Borneo that +there is no dragon in the sky which eats up the moon during an eclipse, +that there are no spirits and no magic, I imagine they would laugh in +your face and think you a fool. Many a discovery and invention has been +greeted by a grinning and incredulous public even in civilized society. +The scepticism which has value is that which leads one on to further +study and investigation. And it is characterized by intellectual +modesty. + +Philosophic doubt is not the pitiable condition of the soul that timid +spirits imagine. It is not pessimism or cynicism, but a healthy and +cheerful habit. It gives peace of mind. Men who stop pretending can +sleep o’ nights. There is a certain scepticism which is in no sense the +spirit that denies. It is a frank recognition of things as they come. +It is almost a test of a man’s honesty, among those who have stopped +to think about the nature and limitations of our knowledge. Certainly +cultivated people do not exhibit the same degree of cock-sureness +as do the ignorant. People think the old saying about “doubting the +intelligence that doubts” is funny. Popular audiences will always +laugh at it. But why not? It is a platitude that the more a man learns +the more he realizes how little he knows. Existence is filled with +inscrutable mystery. To none of the profound questions that we ask of +it is there any final answer. We must be satisfied ultimately with +surmise, with symbol and poetic fancy. Speculations about the soul, +God, the ultimate nature of reality and the course of destiny, and as +to whether existence has any meaning or purpose beyond our own, or +whether our life itself is worthwhile--all these speculations and many +others of similar nature lead to no conclusions in fact, and we return +always to the point from which we started. The very terms in which we +put such questions are often meaningless when closely examined by the +intellect, and the answer to them is determined by our own moods. + +There is a general belief that science can answer the riddle. But +science is only one possible view of things, the one best adapted to +the needs of creatures like ourselves. It cannot deal with questions +of value. It can tell us how things operate, their relative mass and +positions in space and time, but it cannot tell us what they are in +themselves, nor why they exist nor anything about their goodness +or beauty. The more exact scientific knowledge becomes, the more +closely it approaches mathematics. Pure mathematics deals only with +abstractions and logical relations and can dismiss the whole world of +objects. Science presupposes the data of experience and the validity +of its own logical principles. It substitutes its mechanized order of +things for things as we experience them. + +Human reasoning is partial in all its processes. We think successfully +about things when we ignore all the aspects or qualities of them except +those which are relevant to the purpose at hand. The H₂O-ness of water +is no more the ultimate nature of water than is its wetness, or its +thirst quenching quality. That it is H₂O is only one of the things that +may be said about water. Now if we add together bits of one-sided and +partial scientific knowledge, we do not thereby gain a sum total which +is the equivalent of reality as a whole. We have a useful instrument +for dealing with our environment, because in thought we have greatly +simplified it by ignoring in each instance all that is irrelevant. But +what we now have is a universe of discourse, a human construction which +is what it is because we are always more interested in some aspects of +things than in others. + +All our ideas are views--they have been likened to snapshots. The +world of which we are part is in flux. It comes to us as process, +and our intellect does not grasp the movement any more than we can +restore the movement of a man running by adding together a series of +photographs. The movement always takes place between the pictures. +Intellect is an instrument, not a mirror. Our world is not reducible +to a form of thought, and when men speak of truth, reality, cause, +substance, they are really only saying what they mean by certain words. +The world, as James said, has its meanings for us because we are +interested spectators, and so far as we can see none of these meanings +are final. Whitehead and others have shown that some of the basic +concepts of physical science which have held sway since the seventeenth +century are now subject to revision. Santayana says that knowledge +is faith--animal faith. It would be strange if it were otherwise, if +hairy little creatures such we are, whose ancestors lived in trees and +made queer guttural noises, should so organize human discourse as to +be able to say the last word about reality as a whole. It is well that +we should marvel at our achievements of knowledge, for they are man’s +noblest work; but let us remember that human reason, itself a phase and +part of the process of nature, can only view the whole process from +its own partial standpoint, and that is enough unless we aspire to +infallibility. + +Man is a disputatious animal who loves to speak like Sir Oracle. +Uneducated people, ashamed of their ignorance, commit themselves +hastily and cling to their commitments, for to change one’s mind is an +admission that one was mistaken. We wish to be vindicated as having +all along been in the right. Hence it is more natural to contend for +a principle than to test a hypothesis. The ego becomes identified +with certain convictions. We feel ourselves personally injured if our +convictions are subjected to criticism. We are not ordinarily grateful +to the person who points out our errors and sets us right. But if our +education is to proceed, we must get over our delusion of infallibility. + +This fiction of infallibility is very common, and those who have not +learned to doubt this fiction, who are sure that they have the truth +and are on the side of the right are as a rule the more ignorant +and provincial elements of the population. It is no accident that +Fundamentalism, prohibition, and other forms of moral regulation exist +in inverse ratio to urbanity and have their strongholds in rural +communities. People to whom it never occurs to ask how they know so +clearly they are right when better informed people have doubts on the +subject, are the ones who naturally strive to coerce their neighbors. +To many minds there are no social or moral problems. The answer is +always known by the crusader. It is very simple. To him there can be +no two opinions. The standards which prevail in his own parish, the +self-expression of his own type, are the will of God. Principles of +right and wrong are known immediately without reflection or regard +to the situations where they are to be applied; they are revealed to +conscience. “Right is right and wrong is wrong everywhere and forever +the same!” + +Men who hold such a view learn little from experience, and this is why +crowds never change their minds. They have first to be disintegrated +and a new crowd formed about new standards, because each crowd +represents its will as a divine command, a matter of eternal principle. + +To learn anything from experience it is necessary to take into account +the results of our behavior. But when you do a thing merely because +it is demanded by a universal principle which must be vindicated at +all costs, or because it is a divine command to be carried out with +unquestioning obedience, you need not consider the results. Hence you +cannot be shown that you were mistaken. In this sense men’s gods and +their _a priori_ ideas have the function of preserving their fiction +of infallibility. There always appears what Professor Overstreet calls +the proclamation of “the One Right Way.” Differences of opinion are +held to be not mere differences of point of view, but the difference +between Right and Wrong, Good and Evil. Those who think differently +are the wicked, the ungodly, the _enemy_. They must be convinced by +being vanquished, silenced. Every knee must bow and every tongue +confess. There is no longer a meeting of minds in the search for +truth. The triumph of the Right is in the belief of the average man a +knockout. There must be no compromise; any attitude other than intense +partisanship is disloyalty. One in a discussion must line up for or +against a proposition, take sides, have a ready answer for anything +that the other side says, and be sure that nothing will cause one to +modify one’s views. Is any one ever convinced by public debate? Or does +one emerge from a church quarrel, a political campaign, a session of +the legislature, a convention of a trade union with a broader outlook +or better understanding? + +The egotism of the ignorant keeps them in ignorance. There is an +amusing notion that the masses are kept in ignorance by clever +conspirators against freedom and progress. The average man’s reasoning +consists chiefly of the repetition of cant phrases in support of +preconceived ideas. He wishes to hear only what he can applaud, and he +applauds what saves his face and puts his enemies to shame. Theological +disputation has always been carried on in this spirit, and so have most +popular discussions of morals, politics and economic problems. + +Professor Overstreet says that this “One Right Way” attitude is +essentially adolescent. This does not mean that it is essentially +youthful. Adolescence is the period when there is normally an +exaggerated emotional interest in the ego. A delayed adolescent type +of mentality is common. Psychologists speak of it as narcissism,--a +fixation of interest upon the idea of self. Among psychopathic +individuals and also among crowds this _narcissism_ is very dominant +and leads to exaggerated notions of self-importance and to other fixed +ideas. Inability to entertain any doubt of self becomes inability to +question any idea which one would like to believe true. Hence the +delusion of infallibility. I think that vast numbers of otherwise +normal people are made susceptible to crowd thinking because they +simply do not know that there are ways of life and thought different +from their own which good people may and do honestly hold. Crowd +appeal at once entrenches prejudice and flatters the ego, compensating +it perhaps for any half-conscious feeling of inferiority it may have +because for instance a man over-rates school education and “did not get +it.” + +It is interesting to note how this delusion of infallibility may often +lead men to believe and assert the most incredible fabrications. I +quote from a recent New York newspaper an exaggerated example which +will illustrate what I mean. + + “The League of Nations has been asked to do a lot of strange things + by people all over the world, but it remained for a New York business + man to request action on the most unusual topic of all. Announcement + is made by the league secretariat that it has received a letter + from the New Yorker declaring his opinion that ‘brain enslavement,’ + otherwise known as spirit writing or receiving messages from the + dead, is the cause of many evils. He said he wanted the league to + stop this system all over the world, making the specific charge that + the American courts of ‘so-called justice’ are controlled by the + spirit movement.” + +Note the last sentence; the “specific charge” is very typical. There is +not the least notion that so sweeping an indictment should be supported +by evidence. It _must be_ so, for how can the alleged tolerant attitude +of the courts be explained otherwise? An explanatory idea is asserted +as an established fact. Here we have a mind incapable of entertaining +doubt. As usual in unhealthy reasoning, the thinking in this case is +a syllogism. Spiritualism is a form of brain enslavement which is the +cause of wide-spread evil. All who do not sufficiently oppose it are +controlled by it. The courts do not sufficiently resist it. Therefore +the courts are controlled by the spirit movement. If the premises are +true the conclusion of course follows logically. The trouble with +diseased thinking is not its logic, but its inability to examine +its premises in the light of fact. A healthy mind would doubt these +premises before reaching such a ridiculous conclusion. Doubt makes for +sanity. + +I do not wish the force of this example to be lost. Most people will +see it so long as we are talking about spirits, for there is much +wholesome doubt about the doings of spirits. But let us substitute for +spirits something else concerning which surmise commonly passes as +established fact, and we have something very familiar. “The American +courts are controlled by Wall Street,” or by the Catholic Church, or +by British propagandists, or the attempt is being made by labor unions +or by Communists. So it is with popular thinking on most subjects. +Acquaintance with facts does not seem to be necessary for the formation +of opinion. I can easily assert alleged facts on my own authority; +it hurts my pride when I am asked for evidence. I once heard a +fundamentalist preacher say that everyone who doubted the infallibility +of the Bible merely sought an excuse for living a life of sin. Such +statements must be true; they are so logical, moreover they justify a +man in his fixed beliefs and put doubters always in the wrong. Many +people even in their reading do little more than seek confirmation +for notions founded on such thinking. The censorship of books is +hardly necessary to keep people’s minds in the beaten path. Many +people cannot read a book with which they do not agree. We disguise +our infallibility under the infallibility of our favorite author. He +becomes an authority. We read our own meanings into his text when +necessary. We pick out the passages which support us and quote them on +all occasions. For instance, a mind saturated with the teachings of +Karl Marx will take in nothing else and will view every other author +from the standpoint of his agreement with Marx. It is always so with +the sectarian mind, whether in religion or in politics. + +The sort of logic which we have just been considering leads men to +assume extreme positions of all sorts. Opinionated and undisciplined +minds always tend to carry an idea to extremes, to jump to a +conclusion, to let enthusiasm carry belief beyond the limits of good +judgment. This all or none attitude is supposed to be zeal in the +service of principle. It is merely intemperance. Education strives for +the virtue of temperance, and temperance--which among the uneducated +becomes merely abstinence from the use of alcoholic beverages--is the +avoidance of rash assertion, and of ill-considered and hasty inference. +The temperate man stops to think. Careful thought seldom leads one +wild. An educated mind is not so likely to “go off half-cocked.” It +has fewer enthusiasms and so accumulates a reserve; a sense of the +ridiculous helps it keep its balance. + +Most men feel uncomfortable when they must hold their minds open +and judgment in abeyance. Judgment suspended gives a feeling of +unstable equilibrium, of tension; it is irksome like resistance to +temptation. In addition to this discomfort in being unsettled, there +is a disturbing feeling of insecurity in the thought that we live in +a world in which certitude is rare and difficult. In many situations +it is necessary to act before all the evidence is at hand. We must act +on faith and take our chances. All men cherish their faiths, but few +have the courage to act on faith. We naturally wish to feel ourselves +more secure than we really are in a world where much is left to chance. +A formula generally believed gives such a delusion of security. The +greater the number of those who believe, the more convinced is the +average man of the truth of the formula and the more safe he feels. + +I think this wish to feel at home in the universe has inspired much of +religion. It is also one of the reasons why, as older religions wane, +each man must have his “cause,” his social gospel, his movement. These +things afford a sense of comradeship in which there is safety. They +give one “something to tie to,” something enduring to believe in. And +as each cause or movement claims the future and looks forward to sure +vindication and triumph, the future becomes predictable and congenial. + +This search for an ideal security has had its influence on philosophy. +Many philosophers, from the time of the ancient Greeks till now, +have sought to construct systems of ideas, verbal forms in which in +contemplation they could find refuge from the universal change in +which all things come and pass away. Inasmuch as it is possible to +think of an object or class and to mean the same even when the objects +themselves are no longer present, a system of abstract and unusual +universal ideas is set up and thought of as existing in itself, outside +the process of time and change. The system of thought so conceived +is held to be more enduring than the world of changing objects. The +ideal world is then the real world. In it alone is knowledge of the +Truth which abides forever. Such systems appear to me to be elaborate +attempts to sustain a fictitious security by taking refuge from reality +in a logical arrangement of man’s own empty forms of thought. From the +point of view of education it should be said that such philosophies +require much learning before one can understand them, but they tend to +dogmatism and the closed mind. + +A modern method of supporting the fiction of security--less austere and +sophisticated than some of those of official philosophy--prevails among +those who speak the language of science. It is known as mechanism. +As scientific _method_, mechanism is indispensable. It is found by +exact measurement and careful scrutiny that given two identical +material situations, the same result will follow. There is a certain +orderliness about the processes of nature, which if we ignore all else +but the movement and masses and temporal and spatial relationships of +particles of matter, lends itself to statement in mathematical terms. +In this manner events are predictable with great accuracy. And now +because it becomes possible for human reason to interpret facts of +nature when they are thought of only with respect to mass, movement, +position, it is held that nature itself is really nothing but mass, +motion, position, etc. The laws and methods of interpretation are +thought to constitute the nature of that which is interpreted. A method +deliberately adopted in order to give a mathematically rational account +of certain selected aspects of nature is now taken for a correct +picture of ultimate reality. The reason which measures masses and +distances believes it has discovered itself as the true nature of the +thing measured. The universe is held to be at once like a machine, and +at the same time essentially rational. Security is again grounded in +forms of thought. + +It is said that all futures are predictable by the new logic of science +if we only knew enough about complex phenomena to be able to strip them +down to that which can be expressed in mathematical terms. Of course +no one professes to be able to calculate the curve of the whole, or to +have worked out a quantitative statement of many of the phenomena of +life. But it is a scientific faith that it might conceivably be done. +This seems to me to be merely saying that we could reduce the universe +to reason if we only could do it, which is tautology. I am not sure +that a universe so reduced would be anything more than a bare system of +thought about only one aspect of the universe. But scepticism here is +as distasteful to many scientists as the scientists’ own scepticism is +distasteful to theologians. + +I am not asserting dogmatically that we cannot know truth or the +nature of reality. I am not suggesting that we cannot be educated +without ending in universal scepticism or agnostic negation. It seems +to me that we have, or can have, such knowledge as will make our +intellects fairly adequate instruments in the performance of their +proper functions. But I do not see what such functioning has to do +with ascribing finality to our beliefs or trying to legislate for +all possible worlds. I am not suggesting an attitude of despair in +the pursuit of truth, but am trying to state the very reason for any +learning at all, for what is the use of it if we know it all before we +start? + +Education may not end in doubt, but it ends when a man stops doubting. +But why speak of the end of a process that should continue through +life? As I see it, the process is more often discontinued at the point +of some fictitious certainty than in any moment of doubt. Doubt, the +willingness to admit that conjecture is subject to revision, is a spur +to learning. The recognition that our truths are not copies of eternal +realities but are human creations designed to meet human needs, puts +one in a teachable frame of mind. And the discovery that thinking +may be creative makes intellectual activity interesting. Much has +been written by indoctrinators about the wretchedness of the dogmatic +sceptic. I wonder how these writers, themselves so innocent of doubt, +know so much about him. I have never found such a man. I do not believe +he ever existed. There are writers who question things that most men +do not even know exist, compared with whom professional “freethinkers” +are often naïve. But such writers are often gentle and cheerful spirits +whose minds are not at all paralyzed by doubt, but are active, subtle, +stimulating. + +Humanity during the course of civilization has fixed certain habits, +made certain discoveries, constructed certain systems of ordered +knowledge by emphasizing the relevant and significant. There is little +likelihood that the whole structure will come tumbling about our +heads because somebody examines into its nature. In fact the highest +achievement of civilization would appear to be a mind capable of +understanding our human ways of thinking for what they are. But if +our learning should cause us to abandon all our consoling beliefs and +ideals and pet theories; if it should reveal human folly in our every +great cause, and futility in our every scheme of social reconstruction, +even then we cannot for such reasons shirk the task of educating +ourselves. There would remain for each of us the ideal of what an +educated mind might become; no knowledge could take from us the ideals +of courage, of preserving our integrity, of standing undaunted before +the challenge to our spirit. + +Again a question arises similar to that we discussed at the close +of the chapter on propaganda. Does not education, then, cause doubt +and indifference so that the educated remain aloof and fail to take +their share of social responsibility or participate in the activities +of their times? Is it not the mass of “common people” therefore, and +not the scholars, which accomplishes the overthrow of tyrannies and +achieves progress? In a day when everybody is a professional or amateur +reformer and people are led to believe that they can make their lives +count only as they participate in some mass movement, it is natural +that this question should present itself as we consider what education +means. + +History should aid us to an answer here. The author of “Our Times,” +Mark Sullivan, after giving an account of the partisan strife and +popular movements of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, +suggests that perhaps all this expenditure of energy and intensity +of enthusiasm was but part of the passing show and came to nothing, +while the so-called leaders who seemed to be creating history were but +the puppets of deeper and silent forces. He suggests that the enduring +changes are those of science and the arts. I believe we have here one +of the important lessons of history. Progress in civilization has been +the work almost wholly of scientists, philosophers, artists, engineers, +and unique individuals. The rest has been froth and foam, a struggle +to liberate mankind from the clutches of its most recent liberators, +crowd devouring crowd, mass movements marching to Utopia down blind +alleys. Unfortunately there is some truth in the statement that the +intelligence of the race has little influence upon mass movements. +This is not because scholarship is aloof, however, so much as because +the multitude in its enthusiasms does not heed the counsels of wisdom. +When I become a zealot for a movement I lose my critical faculties. +In exalting my cause I would persuade myself that my existence is of +more importance to the world than it really is. No one so devoted and +earnest could possibly be in the wrong, and in the righteousness of my +cause, I have infallibility. What need have I of the wisdom that comes +by taking thought when I have the truth by intuition and intensity of +feeling? + +If it is true that men can only be made to act under the lash of blind +faith and enthusiasm, then the estate of man is a sorry one indeed. +For most of the things done will end in tragic failure. It is only the +conceit of ignorance to believe that the world can be straightened once +for all by people who do not know what they are doing. Moreover, to say +that ignorance is necessary to the accomplishment of good is to say, +that ignorance is desirable and better for man than knowledge. There +have been those who held such a view. Obscurantists always hold it. It +is the philosophy of pessimism, and it is interesting to note that it +is the believer and the devotee, the man of action and not the gentle +doubter who finally ends in pessimism. + +For want of intelligence the devotees of causes have been the mischief +makers in all times. We cannot always know who does the most good +in the world, but the evil that men do lives after them and it is +sometimes possible to estimate the amount of harm done. Who has done +the most harm in human history, the sceptics or the believers, the +devotees of causes or the devotees of culture and urbanity? St. Bernard +with his crusade, or Abelard with his doubts? The men who conducted the +Inquisition, or the men who doubted the doctrine of the Trinity? Calvin +and the obscurantists on both sides of the Reformation, or Erasmus and +the Humanists? Cromwell and his Puritans or Voltaire and the Deists? +Robespierre or Goethe? + +The devotees to causes have kept human life in turmoil. If the +immorality they would cure has slain its thousands, their “morality” +has slain its tens of thousands. In most cases the strife has been +useless and for causes that might have been won in other ways, really +won. The devotee of a cause requires little provocation to practice +persecution, and only the opportunity to play the tyrant. + +Doubt not only has educational value: it preserves social sanity. I +would suggest as part of everyone’s education the reading of such +authors as Lucian, Epicurus, Abelard, Hobbes, Montaigne, Rabelais, +Erasmus, Lessing, Voltaire, Hume and Anatole France. There is no blood +on these men’s hands. They have quietly smiled in the face of bigotry +and superstition. In their words there is laughter and there is light. +Perhaps no one of them ever intended to be a liberator of mankind. They +merely thought and spoke as free spirits, and their very presence puts +sham and cant and unction and coercion and mistaken zeal to shame. They +have done more for freedom and truth than all the armies of crusading +devotees. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A MAN IS KNOWN BY THE DILEMMAS HE KEEPS + + +William James said that wherever there is selection among alternatives +there is mental life. Man is a choosing animal, and his choices +determine both the ends sought and the means to be employed. We +will not discuss the question whether our choices are spontaneous +or are determined wholly or in part by environmental and hereditary +factors. Whatever determines them, our habits of choosing,--the +general character of the things we prefer,--reveal the kind of people +we are. And as learning is not merely the acquiring of more and more +information but is accompanied by a gradual transformation of habit +systems, its progress is manifest not merely by what a man knows at +any stage in his education, but also by the kind of issue that is real +to him, the questions which he permits life to put to him, the sort of +temptations he has to struggle to avoid, the kind of goods that are +vital to him. When I was a boy my parents used to tell me, “A man is +known by the company he keeps.” The saying, while designed to protect +youth from the dangerous influence of evil companionship, is not wholly +true. Many persons, from ambition or other motives, seek the society of +persons unlike themselves. Those who are more gregarious than selective +may exercise little choice among their associates. But ordinarily +people like to be with their own kind. Criminals keep company with +other criminals, golfers with other golfers, stamp collectors with +others who have the same interest. We wish our friends to be interested +in the things that interest us. Groups long associated tend to become +homogeneous. When marked differences of taste and opinion develop, +companions drift apart. Hence it is obvious that the company one keeps +is determined in part by the dilemmas he keeps. + +We do not normally keep the same set of dilemmas through life. Each +stage of development presents new challenges, problems, alternatives; +as we mature our habits of judgment change. We see things in a +different light. What was once a matter of vital concern becomes a dead +issue. Our interest is caught and our choice determined by aspects of +situations to which we did not react at all at an earlier stage. We do +not solve all the problems of any stage, but we outgrow them,--get over +them. + +Psychopathology today has much to say about the nature and sequence of +the dilemmas which at any period haunt the mind of an individual. The +matter is so important that I wonder more has not been made of it by +those interested in education. The public, it seems, would have the +educator fill the student’s head with useful information but expects +the student to keep the same beliefs and general outlook on life that +he had before. We speak of rising to a higher mental plane; this is +little else than learning to wrestle with more and more significant +problems. A little girl in her third summer says, “I’m a nice girl; +I don’t bite sister now.” To bite or not to bite, to keep one’s self +clean, to refrain from crying, are normally the dilemmas of early +childhood. If they are not dead issues to a person twenty years old, +they may be regarded as psychopathic symptoms. When a mature individual +is found wrestling with impulses which should have been reduced to +habit and dismissed from consciousness in earlier years, we have a +phenomenon which psychologists call “regression,” or “fixation” of +emotional interest in mental habits that are normally outgrown. Toward +the tasks and situations of adult life, the individual strives to +maintain an infantile attitude and hence fails to adjust himself. +Sometimes the regression shows a preoccupation with infantile wishes, +and sometimes with those of early adolescence; in any case there is +struggle to maintain the inhibitions or the defenses which veil the +inadequately repressed impulses. + +The manner in which lessons learned from experience normally transform +an impulse from its expression in very simple and crude dilemmas to +its later and more subtle manifestations may be seen in the forms +with which people exhibit and disguise their egoism during successive +stages of development. When a very young child is beginning to +discover himself and his little world, he finds his own body and its +functions tremendously interesting. Soon he discovers that certain +of his performances command attention. He learns to make use of such +performances in order to get what he wants. He will exercise his power +over parent or nurse by throwing his toys on the floor again and again +and howling until some one picks them up. Long before he condescends to +talk, he notices when people admire him and say complimentary things +about him. A very young child will do little stunts by way of showing +off, and will exhibit irritation if ignored or left alone. He cries out +at any restraint upon his movements or resistance to his wishes. + +The egoism of everyone retains something of the infantile quality. But +family discipline, social experience, and the awakening of powers of +observation and thought result in new forms of expression. This ego +interest becomes associated with an ideal of self and its importance +which the individual guards as his honor, his reputation. Every man +is intent upon keeping up his feeling of self-importance; each feels +that one so important deserves special consideration. Egoism in normal +people becomes to some extent liberated from its infantile interests +and is sublimated, that is, attached to ends that are socially +permissible. The original impulse remains, but it wrestles with new +problems. The wish to be admired is a factor in all ambition, also in +romantic love. A love affair is even more a mutual admiration society +than a phenomenon of sex interest. The impulse to command which in the +nursery led the child to throw toys on the floor for others to pick up, +later becomes a desire for leadership, a struggle for political power, +a passion for manipulating or reforming others. + +We also find the infantile egoism transferred to religion, where +it plays an important part in adult life. Many of the very images +and emotional attitudes of infancy may thus be kept alive. The +believer may still feel that he is loved as the infant is loved by +the parent,--loved now by the Heavenly Father. He may again feel +that he can have what he desires by asking the father in prayer. +Self-importance survives as belief in the immortality of the soul and +as assurance of salvation. Thus with development and experience, the +same ego interest becomes transformed in the tasks it progressively +sets itself, and in widening the range of the ends for which it +strives. Each stage of development presents its peculiar problems, its +peculiar goods and evils, its possible alternative attitudes toward +the values of experience. Therefore it ought to be quite as possible +to determine a person’s mental age by noting the kind of things which +satisfy his ego interest, as by any other device of mental measurement. +In common practice this is the way in which we judge people. + +A man stands revealed both by the things he strives to gain and by +those he seeks to avoid. The thing that most easily shocks him is +usually that which he himself is struggling to overcome. It represents +something to which in his secret heart he can say neither yes nor +no. His dilemma troubles him. He seeks to avoid the inner gnawing by +carrying the fight into the open. He turns his personal conflict into +the appearance of a public issue, and you then have the moral reformer. +People who repeat scandal, demand laws for the censorship of books and +plays, and search through literature intent upon deleting passages they +think are obscene, are too much preoccupied with vice and obscenity. +They are like those compulsion neurotics who spend their time writing +alibis to prove their innocence of the crime they are constantly +tempted to commit. + +The thing a man must make an effort to conceal always betrays him. +We all know the type of person who strives in all things to appear +refined, who makes painful efforts for correct speech and proper +manners. There are those who are seriously concerned about being in +what they call society, and those who read books of etiquette and are +disturbed by such important questions as whether when escorting a lady +you should take her arm or let her take yours. And there is the man who +signs his name with ornate flourish and tries to impress waiters and +hotel servants with his importance, and there are the people who are +much exercised over the forgiveness of their sins. All in one way or +another place themselves on their own level. + +The correlation between people’s material desires and their general +intellectual interests is so universal that it is used as a guide +in placing advertisements. There are “class” papers, each designed +to appeal to readers who occupy a certain cultural stratum. The +advertising appeals which such papers carry vary with the reading +matter. The older, more literary magazines present a sharp contrast +both in reading matter and in advertising to the newer fiction +magazines. In the first group the essay predominates, with poetry +and literary criticism, and only an occasional work of fiction. In +the second group there is hardly anything but fiction, with possibly +a brief hortatory editorial. Both types are evidently published to +interest readers of average wealth. The number of advertisements of +automobiles, real estate, and securities and other investments is +in about the same proportion in both. But the former group, which +is obviously designed to appeal to more thoughtful and intelligent +readers, contains a larger number of pages given over to advertisements +of books, schools, colleges, places of travel, works of art. + +We need not discuss the cheaper fiction magazines. They are obviously +prepared for a still different reading public. The public to which +the better ones appeal is indicated by the dominant character of +the advertising, which consists largely of aids to beauty and +correspondence courses in self-improvement. The stories in such +periodicals are as typical as the advertisements. Thus it is that in +their daily preferences, as truly as in the greater issues of their +lives, people select themselves and are segregated into classes, +or spiritual types--types which may live in daily contact with one +another, yet worlds apart. + +Democracy strives to ignore the cultural differences among people. +Education intensifies them. The attempt to place everyone on the +same mediocre plane, even though it be a level considerably above +the lowest, is not education; it is a kind of social work. Education +means finding one’s own level. Like all progress it is qualitative +and differentiating. Just as organic evolution is a process which +can be measured only in the extent of the differences it has made +between higher and more complex organisms and lower ones, so with +education. It brings out distinctions of human worth, places people +on the rounds of a ladder, the gradations of which are discernible in +the kind of interests they have, in the quality of their choices, the +perplexities they wrestle with and overcome, the tasks and issues they +set themselves. + +The general advance of civilization is in some respects like that of +the individual. We may learn much about the general cultural attainment +of any age by noting the issues that divided people at that time and +the problems that troubled them. There are all sorts of “cultural lags” +in the course of progress, but it helps us to estimate the general +intellectual level Europe had attained at the close of the middle ages +to learn that whole communities could be terribly disturbed over the +question, “What is the evil omen of a comet which suddenly appears +in the zenith?”--so disturbed indeed that on one occasion it is said +popular pressure forced the Pope to go out and pronounce an official +curse upon a comet and command it to leave the sky, which it did much +to everybody’s peace of mind. Again, we can form something of an +opinion of the mentality of an age in which there is general interest +in such a question as “Shall a person accused of witchcraft be put to +torture to compel him to testify against himself?” or, “How far may one +walk on the Sabbath day without committing sin?” or “Does the doctrine +of the rights of man apply to negro slaves?” or “Who amongst us has +committed the unpardonable sin,” or “Will a child that dies without +baptism go to Hell,” or, by way of illustrating something of the spirit +of contemporary America, “Who’s your bootlegger?” + +I have said that many of our dilemmas are not resolved, but are +outgrown. This leads us to a further observation of their educational +significance. Many of the issues which stir a community are insoluble +because they rest upon presuppositions which are unsound and so long as +the assumption remains unchallenged the issue will haunt men’s minds. +When one goes back of the issue and sees the premises to be false, +the whole wrangle becomes meaningless. The question about torturing +people accused of witchcraft presupposes the superstition that it is +possible for an individual to enter into a contract with the devil. +Get rid of belief in devils and witch trials themselves cease. So the +nightmare about the “damnation of babes” ceases to be a live issue for +a mind that has become sufficiently civilized to have passed beyond the +primitive man’s terror of Hell. And so I think it is with most popular +beliefs and public issues and partisan conflicts, as well as with many +of our private dilemmas. As stated they presuppose a disguised error, +or are the fruit of factors that remain unconscious. So long as we +accept the fatal assumption the issue is real to us. We are caught and +held in the dilemma and our educational progress stops. + +Progress in thinking, without which learning is mere repeating, comes +by examining foundations. The educated mind differs from the uneducated +in the insight which enables it to file a demurrer, dismiss the case, +or restate it in terms that lead somewhere. It is in getting us over +our dilemmas that education frees our minds. + +It is often said that the aim of education is to equip the student with +a set of principles and beliefs which will serve him through life. +Yes, but principles are _leading ideas_. Their function is to lead +us to correct conclusion and right action. They are instruments, not +ends in themselves, and they must occasionally be re-tested. They are +not final statements of the issues of living. Much misunderstanding +and mental suffering--most of our false dilemmas--grow out of popular +confusion about principles. Men feel that if they change their beliefs +or arrive at unexpected conclusions or resolve their dilemmas away they +are losing or compromising their principles. There is no sacrifice of +principle in re-stating an issue as a result of better knowledge and +insight. There is no defense of principle in a controversial spirit +which cares more for partisan victory than for truthfulness. The level +on which a controversy is waged is often a matter of greater importance +than the victory of either side. If the victory of either means the +triumph of the same irrational type of man, it makes little difference +who wins. In most partisan and sectarian struggles the principle at +stake--if any--is lost sight of in a mass of confusion. It frequently +happens that both sides contend for the same “ideal” and base their +contentions upon the same mistaken premises. In most cases men’s +principles are little more than phrases which justify in their own +minds their contentiousness and will to power. + +An examination of its presuppositions may transform an issue into a +very different sort of problem. There is, for instance, the controversy +now raging in parts of America between religion and science. Many +educated persons say there is no conflict between religion and science. +In their own thought there may be none, because they do not mean by +either of these terms what the man on the street means by them. To him +religion is a system of dogma based upon divine revelation. He cannot +conceive of religion without belief in the stories related in the +Bible or belief in the teachings of his church. By belief he means the +firm conviction that alleged historical events and miracles happened +just as related. He conceives of science also as a body of doctrine +according to which the specific teachings of religion are held to be +untrue. Stated in these terms conflict is inevitable, a person who has +scientific knowledge cannot be religious, and the issue must be fought +to the end. + +For the thinking mind the problem becomes a quite different one. +Science is a method, not primarily a system of doctrine. It is a way +of discovering truth which must be followed wherever it leads, and it +presents us with the problem of how we are to value and interpret its +discoveries. The problem presents itself differently from an ascending +series of points of view. + +A student who has grown up under traditional religious influences +and has probably given the matter little thought, begins the study +of natural science, biology or geology, let us say, and learns +something of the evidence for the theory of evolution. He begins to +speculate upon its implications. He may, as many do, strive in some +manner to reconcile evolution with the account of creation set forth +in the Bible. After further thought and study this simple device for +reconciling science and religion may not satisfy him. He sees that +something more than the reinterpretation of a text is necessary. +He finds himself striving to reconcile two entirely different +world-views. As a rational explanation of the world and its origin, +religion is wholly incompatible with science. The student, considering +that this is the function of religion, and finding that as a method +of giving an account of natural processes religion fails, may discard +it, and become an apostle of science, and an opponent of religion, +save as a system of ethics. Persons who hold this rationalistic view +of religion commonly try in turn to make a gospel of science. Religion +is darkness; science is light. Religion enslaves; science liberates. +Religion holds progress in check; science is the Religion of Humanity, +and the triumph of Reason is the promise of the salvation of the +world. This view was widely prevalent in the nineteenth century. It is +the stage at which the average person with some knowledge of science +breaks off and considers the problem settled. It is an honestly taken +position, which often requires no small courage. I hope no one will +think me an apologist for religion if I suggest that this is a rather +innocent and unsophisticated attempt to solve the problem. It assumes +that it is the proper function of religion to explain nature and +improve the life of humanity. What a simple and straightforward affair +the human spirit appears to be from this point of view. No subtle +twistings and turnings, no hidden pitfalls, no twilight regions, no +dark secrets. + +Suppose now one were to cease expecting religion to do the explanatory +task of science, and were also to cease trying to make a new religion +of science, is it not likely that the conflict, or contrast, between +the two might appear in altered perspective? It is possible to regard +both scientific and religious concepts as symbols--figures of speech, +each expressive of its exclusive values. In another study, I likened +the difference between science and religion to that which exists +between the two recognized symbols of the United States of America--the +map and the flag. The former is the scientific symbol; it has to do +with position, movement, measurement of distance. Maps exist for the +intellectual and practical interest. The flag stands for the emotional +interest; it has to do with certain historical associations, but is +itself no guarantee of the accuracy of any historical tradition. It is +poetry. + +Once we grant that religion is poetry, a new set of problems emerges. +Is the poetry good or bad? What valuations of the possibilities--or +impossibilities--of experience are here expressed in these symbols? +Which of my ideas about the world are maps and which are flags? Much +of the popular conflict of religion and science arises out of general +confusion on this point. A super-patriot might conceivably be such a +worshipper of the flag that he would resent the disclosure of certain +geographical or historical facts which would lead to revaluation of +some of his emotional attitudes. Doubtless many Americans have an +exaggerated and emotionally determined idea of the history if not of +the geography of their country, yet it is unthinkable that they should +confuse the flag with the map. But existence as a whole is not so +easily surveyed, and such maps as we have of it often extend beyond +the comprehension of the average man. In all lower approaches to the +problem of religion, the flags which symbolize certain emotional +appreciations of the universe are confused with maps of it. In his +religion the average man is still an idolator, psychologically similiar +to the poor heathen who cannot distinguish between his god and his +wooden image. On the popular level, the conflict of religion and +science is an elaborately rationalized struggle for supremacy by a type +of mind which has not yet grasped the true inwardness of its emotional +attitudes. While the consideration of the problem remains on this +level, nothing is gained for education. There is mental grasp of the +situation when the problem is re-stated in terms of the inwardness of +religion and the objectivity of science. And it then becomes possible +to form hypotheses which inspire further pursuit of knowledge. New +knowledge leads to the better organization of knowledge previously +acquired. + +We have another familiar example of the educational value of displacing +lower dilemmas by higher ones by examination of the presuppositions. +For a generation and more many minds have been preoccupied with +some aspect or other of the controversy between conservatism and +radicalism. There have been so many varieties of opinion on both sides +that it is impossible to make a clear-cut statement of the issue or +to find any particular group or theory which is representative of +either side. From the standpoint of the majority of the United States +Senate, the followers of Mr. La Follette were dangerous radicals. +From the standpoint of the communists these same La Follette men +were conservatives, counter-revolutionaries. In general the conflict +has been between those who are interested in preserving the present +order of things intact together with its traditions, established +institutions, privileges and inequalities, and those who favor some +basic changes which they believe will remedy the situation. We will not +discuss the merits of either side to this conflict. In some form or +other it comes up repeatedly. It is a real issue, but the discussion +of it may proceed on various levels of thought, and this fact has +something to do with education. Intellectuals believe that their +radicalism is the result of enlightenment, while their opponents +believe that on the whole education makes for conservatism and that +radicals are ignorant foreigners who have been misled by professional +trouble makers. The present controversy is not conducive to education +in any of its forms, or on either side. It tends to divert education +from its true aims into partisan service, and to produce in both +parties a fixed and unteachable type of mind. As the case is ordinarily +presented, a stupid and panicky conservatism is faced by a superficial +and equally intemperate radicalism. + +The problem cannot be discussed intelligently, nor can the +consideration of it lead to increase of knowledge, until its +presuppositions are critically examined, and the whole matter is +re-stated in more intelligible terms. It is these presuppositions to +which I wish to call attention, for without them the controversy could +not have arisen in its present forms. Although there is a great variety +of these forms, the same presuppositions are common to all and are +usually accepted without question by both sides. The disposition to +go back and question the presuppositions is evidence that education +is going on. We have some such evidence in recent years for many have +modified their positions in regard to various aspects of the social +problem. + +More attention has been given to the changes of view among radicals +than to those which have taken place among conservatives. Since events +of recent years have greatly encouraged self-expression on the part of +misinformed noisy extremists who appoint themselves spokesmen of the +latter group, we sometimes get the impression that conservatives learn +nothing. But I incline to the opinion that there has been perhaps an +equal proportion of learning by the more thoughtful minority on both +sides of the controversy. + +Among radicals modification of views has occurred sufficiently to +arouse general interest in the questions “What has become of the +pre-war liberals?” “What has happened to radicalism?” A former +member of the radical group some years ago wrote a book entitled +“Tired Radicals,” in which he adopted the usual view that the change +of outlook among radicals was the result of the loss of energy and +enthusiasm which comes with middle age. But if radicalism were merely +a form of youthful enthusiasm, I believe the movement would be more +wide-spread than it has ever been in America. The suggestion is worth +considering that in some cases the change of views might indicate that +the individual has learned something. By learning I mean the better +grasp of the subject which comes when one examines the presuppositions +of both sides. Conversely, those who have not examined their +presuppositions during the last twenty years have learned nothing. +They continue talking, but they are addressing a generation that is +past and gone. Anachronisms of this sort are common occurrences among +conservatives. They occur with equal frequency among radicals. And when +a man whose education has stopped leaves the radical movement and joins +the opposition, he frequently shows himself to be not an aging prophet +who has lost his enthusiasms, but the same intensely opinionated and +militant person he was before. + +When, therefore, I suggest that a change of attitude toward the social +question may be indicative of learning, I do not mean to imply that +it is the function of education to turn radicals into conservatives. +Rather its function is to give the men on each side a different mental +outlook. Back of the controversy as it has existed in our times there +is a certain presupposed philosophy which is passing away as education +increases, and its passing modifies the thinking of persons on both +sides. Humanism in education is supplanting the older Humanitarianism. +Interest in cultural values is supplanting the earlier naturalism. +Rousseau and Bentham and Comte and D. F. Strauss and William Morris +are making way for the coming social psychologists. Social philosophy +becomes analytical. The sweeping generalizations of Marx and the day +dreams of Bellamy begin to have interest chiefly for the historical +student. Democratic dogma, little questioned in the nineteenth century, +is now subjected to criticism. A different intellectual spirit is +abroad which necessarily modifies the general outlook of those who +share in it. + +Let us note more specifically some of the presuppositions behind the +Radical-Conservative dilemma. There is the Humanitarian doctrine that +man is naturally good and daily growing better. All that is needed +for his perfection is freedom or opportunity. This assumption is +common to both parties, one holding that such opportunity is under +the present system granted to all who wish to take advantage of it, +the other that under the present system opportunity is granted only +to the privileged few and denied to the toiling masses, who are kept +down in wage slavery. All the evils of human life are attributed to +the present system. Remove the evil system and everybody will be good +and happy. There is much talk about “the emancipation of labor.” Both +sides assume that social justice is possible, each maintaining that +its own triumph is the triumph of justice. And both sides are disposed +to estimate the values of civilization and the meaning of personal +success in terms of material possession. The good life is the life of +the man with plenty of money. We hear much of the materialism and the +dominance of business interests today. Everyone is urged to get ahead. +A man measures his worth by the amount of his income. Conservatives can +see no ground for dissatisfaction with a system which makes for unusual +prosperity. Radicals deny that prosperity is universal, say that the +rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, interpret +all history in terms of the struggle for wealth, and spread before +the masses the promise of abundance with a minimum of toil. On both +sides we find that easy optimism which is said to be characteristic +of half-educated minds. It is assumed that the evils of the world are +only superficial, that they are contingent upon purely environmental +factors, and can be removed by legislation or by mass action. Progress +is assured. No one doubts that a prosperous and happy life is possible +to all if only wealth were properly distributed. As the control of +affairs passes more and more completely into plebeian hands and as the +tastes and dilemmas of mediocrity come to set standards of value, the +world is supposed to be getting better. + +This questionable assumption leads to distortion of fact by both +parties, and must continue to do so as long as the controversy is kept +on this level. I wonder what would happen if instead of merely drawing +hasty inferences from these naïve assumptions, it should become the +practice to examine them. Perhaps the issue might be re-stated in +more significant terms. But what concerns us at present is not the +social problem as such, but the fact that the attempt to clear up the +intellectual muddle about it means that education is going on. + +A glance at the nature of the presuppositions we have been discussing +will help us to understand why it is that they are so seldom examined. +They flatter. Apart from their radical or conservative implications, +such ideas are congenial to the average man. They pat him on the +back. It is no small satisfaction to believe that the environment is +responsible for all human ills, that evil may easily be removed by +mass action; that given material abundance, the good life follows +automatically; that distinctions among men are reducible to economic +factors; that the supremacy of our own type is the goal of progress. I +believe that the level at which one’s education stops, the particular +set of dilemmas in which one’s mind becomes fixed is usually determined +by some self-satisfying assumption. If my ego can remain elated over +the possession of an automobile, or the right to vote, or the belief +that I and my kind are or ought to be socially superior, or because I +can play the saxophone, or am able to resist the temptation to pick +pockets, the problems which have live interest for me will be the +problems which lie on these levels. I recently talked with a man who +was quite pleased with himself because for some years he had not been +in jail. He frequently compared the advantages and disadvantages of +life “on the inside” and “on the outside.” To his mind all days and all +people were thought of as “inside” or “outside,” a point of view which +I imagine few people linger over or find personally gratifying. But the +virtues men pride themselves on are as a rule those which compensate +them for the particular vices to which they are tempted. + +The house I live in had for a number of years been rented to an elderly +Scotch woman who kept it as a “rooming house.” When she moved out she +said to me, “I hear you are going to do this house over and make it +your own home. Some day you may be sitting here and thinking, ‘What use +to go on in this house of mine?’ It’ll be a satisfaction to you to +know that you are in a respectable place. Never once in all the years +that I rented out furnished rooms did the patrol wagon have to back up +to this door at midnight.” + +The things which people find consoling both reveal and determine +the plane on which their thinking takes place. I have heard a young +man say with a note of defiance, “Yes, sir, I’m a single-taxer and +I’m proud of it.” So involved is the ego in our dilemmas that we +often require the assistance of a specialist in getting over them. +Psychoanalysts whose task is chiefly that of helping people face +certain facts about themselves, speak of their work as re-education. +In a sense all education is re-education, the untying of the knots in +which our self esteem in its defense has entangled itself. Perhaps +nothing is so effective a bar to education as intellectual immodesty. +A man’s education stops at the point where he becomes incapable of +self-criticism. And because egotism is always a bit ridiculous, the +conceited mind protects itself from criticism by making its interests +sublime. In the presence of the sublime, laughter is taboo. The subject +concerning which man has lost his sense of humor is just the subject +concerning which criticism leads to self-criticism. There are persons +who cannot take a joke about “The Grand Old Party,” or the Government +at Washington, or the teachings of Karl Marx. Recently a group of +church men publicly denounced the New York newspapers because of +their humorous remarks about prohibition. Once when I was asked for a +definition of a radical I seriously offended a prominent socialist with +the innocent remark that a radical is a man who loves Labor and hates +work. + +Lack of humor is always evidence of unteachableness. Ignorance is +pompous. The holy tone with which people proclaim their convictions is +uncivilized. When the American people are better educated, there will +be less solemn pantomime in the land. We could not with straight faces +indulge ourselves in the hysterical reforms, the bitter partisanships, +religious fanaticism and race prejudice which at present show how +seriously we take ourselves. Education should help people make an art +of living, and the art of living, like all arts, is play. Learn to play +with your ideals, even with your sublimities, and you will break the +hold upon you of many a crude and hampering dilemma. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE FREE SPIRIT + + +Freedom is not as precious to the members of this postwar generation +as it was to some of their ancestors. The nation which once followed +the leadership of Mazzini and Garibaldi now suffers a dictatorship with +apparently little protest. In England, the stronghold of liberalism, +a conservative government places a censorship upon the words of the +man who is probably that country’s best-known writer. Socialism has +its beginnings in that passion for freedom and humanity which inspired +the youth of the early nineteenth century and ends at Moscow with a +constitution from which even a Bill of Rights is omitted. In America +we now see that democracy does not guarantee liberty. The government +shows decreasing respect for the immunities of the individual. Crowd +movements spread intolerance and are ever demanding more strict +regulation in matters of personal conduct and private judgment. One +frequently hears the remark, “The talk about personal liberty is +disgusting nonsense.” + +There are various reasons for this change of spirit. The individual +rather willingly permits himself to be transformed from a private +person to a numerical unit in his group or mass because as part of +a public he gains power through the force of numbers. Individualism +in a society in which every one is chiefly interested in industrial +competition tends to become little more than the stock argument of +those who wish to defend economic privilege. Other privileges are lost +sight of in a standardized world. Moreover, as people begin to see that +freedom is not something with which all men are equally endowed by +their creator, but is achieved in varying degree, there is a tendency +to minimize its importance. We are naturally somewhat suspicious of +the freedom of others. Those who themselves have little capacity for +it would impose their own limitations upon all others. From childhood +onward we wish to be able to do what we see others doing. When this +is impossible, there is a tendency to restrain them from doing what +we cannot do. Masterful spirits grant themselves privileges which may +appear wicked to the crowd. The free mind allows too much. When on +the other hand a person who has not attained some degree of mastery +declares his independence, we do not speak of him as free, we say that +he “takes liberties.” + +Thus where the ideals of the educated mind prevail there is a general +gain in freedom through increase in mastery. Where the ideals of the +ignorant and wrongly educated predominate, there is a decline in +freedom and an increase in the disposition to take liberties. It is the +custom today to rule out of the consideration of values any reference +to the things of the mind, and to try to ground all values, freedom +included, on a strictly economic and legal foundation, as if they were +produced by and existed only for a brainless and impersonal equilibrium +of social forces. We are beginning to see that for a people which loses +sight of the inwardness of the sources of freedom, constitutional +guarantees do not long guarantee, and each power-seeking group begins +to take liberties with the organized life of the community. The +so-called liberalism of those modern writers who make apology for this +sort of thing has in it little of the spirit of liberal education. It +is rather the plebeianization of scholarship. I as a liberal am not +obliged to throw my hat in the air over each degradation of value that +marks the triumphant progress of democracy. + +It is the ideal of the educated man, not the demands of the crowd which +is the best guarantee of freedom. I believe we are chiefly indebted to +this ideal for such freedom as we enjoy. Education when it is genuine +must for its own sake move in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom. +It must wander where truth leads the way. It must attain independence +of judgment and a certain decent privacy for contemplation. It is in +itself freedom from servitude and from routine. It broadens one’s +interests and hence one’s sympathetic understanding of others. Nothing +human is alien to it. The educated mind, having business of its own, +minds its own business. Hence it grows in tolerance. Freedom is always +freedom for something,--freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom +from meddlesome interference, freedom from the crushing weight of +authority and tradition, freedom in matters of religious belief. Every +such freedom is largely the result of the influence of education, and +each exists in any community in inverse ratio to its ignorance and +provincialism. + +The classical tradition has its origin, as we saw, in the efforts of +Greek philosophers to teach free men the essentials of the good life. +It has by no means remained true to its ideal, but each rediscovery +of its meaning has had a liberalizing effect. The modern sense of the +worth of the individual--which is only recently on the decline--and +the humanist philosophy of education alike show the influence of the +Renaissance. The eighteenth century, stilted and formal as it was, +could with some justification call itself the age of the Enlightenment. +It was the age of Voltaire, the age of great educational advance. It +was also the age from which we derive most of our pronouncements about +liberty and the rights of man. I would almost go so far as to say that +when education is not liberalizing, it is not really education but is +a highly systematized species of propaganda. This liberalizing quality +is so essential to education, and is so clearly a way of the spiritual +life, that its presence determines the genuineness of any movement or +philosophy that may bear the name Liberalism. + +The term “free spirit” has been so frequently abused, that I hesitate +to use it. It suggests Rousseau’s Emile, educated to obey only the +benign laws of nature and his own impulses. “He follows no formula, +yields neither to authority nor to example, and neither acts nor speaks +save as it seems best to him.” One thinks of such phrases as Max +Stirner’s “Ego and His Own,” or Whitman’s “Spontaneous Me,” or “The +Beautiful Soul” of nineteenth century Romanticism. One is reminded of +the young woman from Nebraska who came to live in Greenwich Village, +New York City, and said her soul felt as if it had taken off its shoes +and stockings. The cult of spiritual freedom had quite a vogue in New +York a few years ago. I believe it originated in the Latin Quarter of +Paris. The devotee of it displayed his free spirit by wearing a flowing +tie and corduroy trousers, by his obvious disdain of barbershops and +laundries, by his talk which was mostly about sex, socialism and the +new art, and by his general air of lassitude and disillusionment. + +I believe that this pose, together with much of the sentimental +liberalism which passes for “emancipation” among intellectuals, may +be traced back to Jean Jacques Rousseau. Nearly all the basic ideas +of contemporary liberalism as well as those of the “newer education” +frequently associated with the liberal movement, may be found in the +writings of Rousseau. It is amusing to hear liberals proclaim these old +ideas as if they were the most advanced theories of life and education. +And you have but to compare Rousseau with Erasmus or Voltaire or Huxley +to see how far away he is from the spirit of liberal education. The +latter is tender-hearted and hard-headed. Rousseau is soft-headed and +hard-hearted. An emotional egoism feeds on dreams of social revolt +and of an idyllic return to nature. Rousseau hates civilization, with +its duties and responsibilities. He becomes romantic and sentimental +about Nature. His ideal of the free man is Robinson Crusoe. “We are +born sensible.” “The natural man is complete in himself; he is the +numerical unit, the absolute whole, who is related only to himself or +to his fellow-man. Civilized man is but a fractional unit.” “Civilized +man is born, lives and dies in a state of slavery. At his birth he +is stitched in swaddling clothes; at his death he is nailed in a +coffin, and as long as he preserves the human form he is fettered by +our institutions.” Hence if you would educate, “Observe nature and +follow the route which she traces for you.” “All wickedness comes from +weakness. A child is bad only because he is weak; make him strong and +he will be good.” “Keep the child dependent on things alone, and you +will have followed the order of nature in his education.” “Do not let +him know what obedience is when he acts, nor what control is when +others act for him. Equally in his actions and in yours let him feel +his liberty.” + +“O men, be humane; it is your foremost duty.... Why would you take from +those little innocents the enjoyment of a time so short and of a good +so precious which they cannot abuse? Why would you fill with bitterness +and sorrow those early years so rapidly passing, which will no more +return to them than to you? Fathers, do you know the moment when death +awaits your children? Do not prepare for yourselves regrets by taking +from them the few moments which nature has given them.” + +“The only habit which a child should be allowed to form is to contract +no habit whatsoever.” + +“It is absolutely certain that the learned societies of Europe are but +so many public schools of falsehood; and very surely there are more +errors in the Academy of Sciences than in the whole tribe of Hurons.” + +“Happy the people among whom one can be good without effort and just +without virtue.” + +I trust that these passages selected almost at random from Rousseau’s +treatise on education, “Emile,” do not give a wholly unfair impression +of this author’s philosophy of life. Man in the state of nature is wise +and good. Civilization has corrupted him by enslaving him. If he does +evil it is not because he is bad, but because he is weak. We should not +hang the criminal but blame the society which made him what he is. + +The proper function of education is to enable the individual--the +little innocent--to grow up naturally without discipline, without +forming any habits, never sacrificing present enjoyment to future +knowledge, inspired always by the ideal of that happy state in which +one may be good without effort. The ideal education therefore is the +life of the North American aborigine or what Rousseau imagined such a +life to be. Freedom here is the return to nature. + +From the times of Hobbes and of Montaigne onward there seems to have +been a growing interest in “Man in the state of nature.” But whereas +with most writers this interest was largely a matter of theory and +speculation, with Rousseau man in the state of nature becomes an ideal, +a norm. + +It would appear that in this dream of the return to nature, there +is symbolized an infantile wish to escape from the tasks and +responsibilities and restraints of adult life. Psychologists speak +of such an “infantile return” as _regression_. This regressive ideal +of freedom is a very different thing from the liberalizing influence +of education as I understand it. I have characterized education as a +victory won over one’s wish-fancies and childish egoism, as the lifting +of the problems of life to higher and more significant dilemmas, as +the attainment of mastery. A humanistic liberalism seeks freedom +as broadmindedness; it strives for a highly civilized, urbane and +sophisticated state of mind in which insight is deepened and interest +is widened. Rousseauian liberalism seeks freedom in relaxation of +effort, in denial of the claims of civilization, in the idealization of +nature and of primitive man. + +Many persons who today style themselves liberals are of the Rousseauian +type. There are those who proudly call themselves rebels. A certain +naturalism is carried to the point of hostility to form as such +and to orderliness of any sort. There is frequently a disdain of +“respectability,” and a tendency to play the intellectual vagabond. +I think this is one reason why certain liberals are much taken with +modern imitations of the primitive in art. The element of regression +which characterizes the paintings and sculpture of certain “rebels” is +patent to the psychologist. Many of these works of art closely resemble +the typical drawings of dementia praecox patients. In dementia, +regression, or infantile return, is complete and final. The patient +is free from a disturbing world, having returned to precisely the +“sensibility,” as Rousseau terms it, with which he was born. + +Utopian schemes of social reconstruction, and the notion that merely +changing the present system would put an end once for all to human +misery, are in many cases disguised forms of the wish to return to +childhood and thus escape the vicissitudes of adult life in civilized +society. The burden of our industrial civilization is so great that it +is no wonder many should take this path of escape. However, the utopian +fantasy is by no means confined to those who have the hardest struggle. +And there can be no objection to it when it inspires well-considered +efforts for social improvement. There is a type of “liberal” however, +who regards the attempt to solve any concrete problem of civilization +as a compromise of his idealism. + +Another aspect of the philosophy of Rousseau has influenced +contemporary liberalism with somewhat paradoxical results. The basis of +that happy state in which one may be just without virtue is elaborated +in “The Social Contract.” Rousseau was not the first to hold the +contract theory of organized society. Both Hobbes and Locke made use +of this idea. But with Rousseau it becomes a doctrine with distinctly +illiberal implications. The argument is somewhat as follows: + +Man finds it impossible to continue in the blissful state of nature. +In order to preserve their freedom, men voluntarily enter into a +mutual agreement, according to which each gives over his individual +sovereignty and receives back an equal portion of the common will, +leaving him as free as he was before. Thus there comes into being a +collective sovereign power. All others are of course usurpations and +are destructive of freedom. This new sovereign can do no wrong, there +is no need to protect the individual against it because it is made up +precisely of the wills of all individuals, and the people will not do +injury to themselves since each seeks happiness. Such sovereignty, +which is really the absolute dominion of the mass over its members, can +neither be delegated nor divided, and its exercise is _liberty_. + +But is it? This tree is known by the fruit it bears. Notice that for +purposes of this theory, all aspects of the individual will are now +denied except those which may be pooled into a sort of group will and +drawn out again in equal and identical portions for all men. That is, +society is transformed from a plurality of individuals to the unity +of a mass. Man acting as a mass unit takes precedence in all things +over man acting as a private person. Privacy is gone. Liberty is not +personal independence, but the freedom of the group to do what it wills +unchecked. Mass action can do no wrong. According to the logic of this +view no proper bounds may be set to the rule of “the people,” except +such as the sovereign will itself chooses to set. Accordingly, liberty +becomes the rule of all over each in any matter whatsoever concerning +which neighbors choose to restrain or meddle with one another. This +means that myself as person must in all things take orders from that +attenuated public-meeting self of me and of other men which we have +each received in equal portion from the mass will. Everything unique in +me is whittled away from this mass-self and I count only by virtue of +my membership as a numerical unit of the group. And now since any check +or hindrance to the sovereignty of the mass is seen as an unjustifiable +restriction upon its liberty, there is a tendency to extend the tyranny +of the mass to every possible human concern. The demand for liberty +is no longer the assertion of the right of private judgment for those +capable of exercising it; it is “Let the people rule.” No wonder men +come to distinguish between personal liberty and the rights of The +People. The idolatry of the mass turns freedom inside out. + +So much for theory. In common practice each majority tends to regard +itself as the sovereign will and play the tyrant, all in the name of +liberty. Each militant minority and struggle group in society seeks +by hook or crook to capture the machinery of law and force its will +upon the public, and in the effort to make its own group will the +sovereign will, the members of each group persuade themselves that in +thus resisting restraint upon their particular mass movement they are +fighting for liberty. A spirit of factiousness spreads through the +community, restriction and regulation increase and multiply, all in +the exercise of crowd-liberty. If your crowd is now in possession of +social power, you are called a conservative. If it is still struggling +to make its will supreme, you may call yourself a liberal. It is an +ironical turn of history that brings it about that many restrictions +upon the freedom of the individual are advocated in the name of +liberalism. Liberalism shades off into a form of radicalism which would +set up a dictatorship to accomplish its ends. Many people use the terms +interchangeably. Radicals in recent years, as the illiberal aims of the +movement unmask themselves, tend to repudiate the name liberal, and +to denounce the liberal as one who having started out along a certain +road, hesitates or turns back at the last minute. Such liberalism finds +itself in the difficult position of having proposed measures which it +hesitated to carry out. It is embarrassed by its own radical offspring. + +Such liberalism has little in common with that which is the aim of +liberal education. As it appears in contemporary America, it is a +sort of abortive mass movement caused by the mingling of two social +philosophies which for want of better terms I will call the Lockean and +the Rousseauian traditions. + +John Locke wrote his essay on Government at the close of the +seventeenth century. This book together with his “Essay on the Human +Understanding,” did much to shape the thinking of the eighteenth +century, and made a strong impression upon Samuel Adams, Thomas +Paine, Jefferson and other leaders of the American Revolution. The +“self-evident truths” set forth in our Declaration of Independence +clearly reveal this influence. I do not wish to imply that Locke +was the author of American liberalism. He merely has his place in a +tradition which goes back to Magna Charta and is essentially British. +The quarrel between the colonies and the ministers of King George was +a phase of the greater struggle between Parliament and the crown. +For centuries the Englishman has stood up for his individual rights, +has stubbornly resisted any attempt of the sovereign to invade his +privacy or to seize his property without his consent. The Englishman is +naturally jealous of his government. He looks upon it with suspicion +and seeks to limit its exercise of power. He gives it no peace until it +guarantees him security from interference with his personal freedom. +Jefferson’s remark that that government is best which governs least +is typical of the spirit of British liberalism. It was this spirit +which inspired the revolt of the Puritans against both the King and the +Church. The same sentiment is expressed in the petition of Rights which +was presented to the throne about the time that Locke wrote the essay +on government. And it was in this same spirit that the founders of the +Republic framed the Constitution of the United States. They rather +grudgingly granted the government certain specific powers, and sought +by means of various checks and balances to limit the exercise of them. +Even then the public was so alive to the dangers of the new sovereignty +that it refused to adopt the constitution until it was amended by the +addition of the Bill of Rights. + +There were added to this assertion of the inalienable rights of the +individual in opposition to the sovereign power the deeper sense of +the importance of the individual gained in the Reformation, and the +insistence upon the right and duty of exercising private judgment which +came with the rationalism of the eighteenth century. The eighteenth +century, with its “appeal to reason” in opposition to the authority +of priest and Bible, was in fact an intellectual declaration of +independence which became for educated minds an essential part of the +liberal tradition. Liberalism owes much to the Deists and men like +Hume. It is not a mere coincidence that a large number of the leaders +of the American Revolution were “freethinkers.” Thus liberalism became +something more than a political movement. It became a philosophy of +personal liberty, of independence of authority, of tolerance. The +rights which the liberal claimed for himself he was--at least in +theory--willing to grant to others. He took the side of the “under +dog.” The tradition is best represented in England by such men as +Priestley, Martineau, Kingsley, Cobden, Bright, Morley, J. S. Mill, +Huxley, and in America by Paine, Jefferson, Channing, Emerson, Theodore +Parker, Lincoln, and Ingersoll. + +The decline of liberalism to the level of Bryanism, the betrayal by +“One Hundred Percent Americanism” of the spirit in which the Republic +was founded, the spread of bigotry among the masses, the prevailing +partisan spirit and the illiberalism of professed “liberals,” the +changing of our constitution from a guarantee of personal liberty to +the authorization of Federal interference with the daily habits and +customs of the individual--these are not matters for which we may hold +recent immigrants responsible. They are, I regret to say, symptomatic +of tendencies which are most commonly manifest among Americans of +British descent. They show how far the spirit of a nation may drift +in one hundred and fifty years when it renounces its intellectual +leadership. + +Liberalism as a political movement was early divorced from liberalism +as an intellectual movement. The former became Andrew Jacksonism, +“shirt-sleeve democracy,” free-soil-ism, abolitionism, populism, the +Single Tax movement, opposition to big business, Progressiveism. +Ever since the time of the settlement of New England the pioneer and +frontiersman, the “debtor class,” the town laborer and the farmer, +have had to carry on a struggle against the “money powers” of the +large industrial centers. The conflict of “the poor against the +rich”--generally characterized by a demand for governmental regulation +of industry and cheap money--reached its culmination in the “Free +Silver” issue of 1896. Of this “battle for humanity,” the author of +“Our Times” quotes William Allen White. + + “It was a fanaticism like the Crusades. Indeed, the delusion that was + working on the people took the form of religious frenzy. Sacred hymns + were torn from their pious tunes to give place to words which deified + the cause and made gold--and all its symbols, capital, wealth, + plutocracy--diabolical. At night, from ten thousand little white + schoolhouse windows, lights twinkled back vain hope to the stars. + For the thousands who assembled under the schoolhouse lamps believed + that when their legislature met and their governor was elected, the + millennium would come by proclamation. They sang their barbaric + songs in unrhythmic jargon, with something of the same mad faith + that inspired the martyrs going to the stake. Far into the night the + voices rose--women’s voices, children’s voices, the voices of old + men, of youths and of maidens, rose on the ebbing prairie breezes, as + the crusaders of the revolution rode home, praising the people’s will + as though it were God’s will, and cursing wealth for its iniquity. It + was a season of shibboleths and fetiches and slogans. Reason slept; + and the passions--jealousy, covetousness, hatred--ran amuck; and + whoever would check them was crucified in public contumely.” + +The demand for governmental regulation has been on the increase since +1896 and has almost worked a revolution in our form of government. I +will not discuss the degree to which such an extension of the powers +of the central government is desirable. I am aware of the fact that +the motive is largely that of protecting the economic independence +of the average individual. The point I wish to make is that the +methods advocated reveal the change that has come over liberalism. +Notwithstanding Jefferson’s statement about the government which +governed least, the extensions of the powers of government have not +ever been limited to matters industrial, and we find men calling +themselves liberals accepting all sorts of restrictions upon their +liberty without complaint. Liberalism has taken on a partisan +spirit with all the intolerance, hysteria, and coerciveness that +usually characterizes crowd movements. The same elements that voted +“liberal” with Mr. Bryan thirty years ago, later supported Bryan the +fundamentalist, and today are staunch prohibitionists. I cannot help +feeling that something of the fundamentalist was lurking under the +skin of the American liberal all along. The tradition of personal +independence derived from our British ancestors had about reached this +stage of decline, when efforts were made to supplant it with a very +different type of liberalism from continental Europe. + +The “old liberalism” was in theory individualistic; the “new +liberalism” was socialistic. It brought with it such ideas as “the +class struggle,” “mass action,” the “cooperative commonwealth.” +Freedom was to be gained for all in the form of the “emancipation” +of the working class. Youthful intellectuals idealized the +proletariat, organized socialist locals, talked about the “materialist +interpretation of history,” denounced “the capitalists,” addressed +one another as “comrade,” closed their letters to one another with +the words, “Yours for the Revolution,” and a few took the trouble to +study the writings of Karl Marx. The old liberalism was seen as mere +“bourgeois idealogy,” mental slavery, a system of ideas fabricated by +the master class in order to keep the working class in perpetual wage +slavery. The new liberal felt himself intellectually emancipated. If +he was very, very liberal, he styled himself a radical. The movement +reached its maximum strength about the year 1910, and then began +to decline. It appealed to some who had been liberals of the older +American type, but the response of labor was negligible. Radicalism +professed to be a spontaneous revolt of oppressed working people. In +fact it was a cult, with its dogmas about labor, which existed chiefly +among middle-class intellectuals. Its leaders--and it consisted mostly +of leaders with very little rank and file--were seldom working men. + +Although its economic creed is the product of the nineteenth century, +a study of the history of this movement would show it to be in direct +line of descent from Rousseau. Many of the basic ideas are distinctly +Rousseauian. Civilization, which Rousseau hated, is now the wicked +capitalist system. There is the same emphasis on the collective will, +on mass action, on the idea of revolution, the same belief that The +People is the only rightful sovereign, that society exists by virtue +of a sort of covenant among men which can be altered at will, and that +universal happiness may be attained by changing the system which is +responsible for all misery and misbehavior. + +Radicalism, carried to its logical conclusion, is Communism, in which +there is no pretense of liberalism, no place for freedom. It has +greatest appeal for a type of mind which is by nature doctrinaire +and inelastic, and its propaganda tends to fixed opinion and to +illiberalism. A generation ago Nietzsche said of it, + + “In every country of Europe, and the same in America, there is at + present something which makes an abuse of this name: a very narrow, + prepossessed, enchained class of spirits, who desire almost the + opposite of what our intentions and instincts prompt.... Briefly and + regrettably, they belong to the _levellers_, these wrongly named free + spirits--as glib-tongued and scribe-fingered slaves of the democratic + taste and its modern ideas: all of them men without solitude, without + personal solitude, blunt honest fellows to whom neither courage nor + honorable conduct ought to be denied; only, they are not free, and + are ludicrously superficial, especially in their innate partiality + for seeing the cause of almost _all_ human misery and failure in + the old forms in which society has hitherto existed--a notion which + happily inverts the truth entirely! What they would fain attain with + all their strength, is the universal, green-meadow happiness of the + herd, together with security, safety, comfort, and alleviation of + life for everyone.” + +The word liberal is commonly associated with that extension of +democracy which the crowd thinks is progress. If you favor this +progress, you are said to be a liberal. If you doubt that it is +progress you are thought to oppose progress as such and so are +a conservative. If the progress of democracy were accompanied +by a corresponding advance of culture and gain in wisdom and +broadmindedness, this use of the term liberal would be appropriate. + +Men become free only as they achieve self-government. I take it that a +man governs himself to the degree that he acts upon his own judgment. +Freedom thus presupposes first that people are capable of judging +things for themselves, and second, that they are permitted to do so. +If the progress of democracy resulted in fewer laws and wiser laws, +we should in time have self-government. But the reverse is the case: +the extension of democracy brings about an extension of the powers of +government and the multiplication of foolish laws. It does not follow +that people’s judgment is improved because they can vote about more +and more things. Nor is there any assurance that they will not begin +voting about things that are none of their business and thus destroy +the right of private judgment, which is the exercise of freedom. You +do not decide things for yourself when everything is submitted to a +referendum or regulated by the legislature. If the people or their +representatives should vote to establish a censorship of books, or to +prohibit smoking tobacco, or to compel church attendance on Sunday, +that would be democracy; but it would not be a gain for freedom. +Self-government is impossible when every private matter is turned into +a public question. Men with third-rate minds--and there are enough of +them once they get together to constitute a solid majority--shrink from +the responsibility of exercising private judgment, but are prepared and +eager to decide any matter whatsoever once it becomes a public issue. +They are, moreover, disinclined to allow a large measure of personal +freedom to one another or to any one. Self-government in a democracy +therefore means not private judgment but national independence, +universal franchise, and no constitutional restraints upon the will of +the majority. In common practice, “liberty” is the legally recognized +right of the crowd to tell the individual what he may not do in matters +which concern only himself. Any man has _liberty_ when he has a voice +in the government of the land. He has _freedom_ when he governs +himself. His freedom may be prevented either by lack of judgment or by +outside interference. The effect of education in the community is to +improve judgment and lessen outside interference with the exercise of +it. Properly defined, a liberal is a person who strives for precisely +these results. Liberalism, in this sense, and education are the same. + +I said that a man is free when he acts according to his own judgment. +This does not mean that the free man is able to choose anything he +wishes. Necessity constrains him just as it does the unfree. It means, +however, that his assent or dissent in any matter follows from his +personal insight into the implications of the situation. He does the +required thing even when he does not like it, because he has the +intelligence to see that it is required under the circumstances. He is +not compelled to take some other person’s word as to what is required. +He is free not only because he is independent of the will of another in +reaching his decision, but primarily because he knows what he is doing +and why he does it. + +There is a very old, extra-canonical legend according to which the Lord +Jesus, passing by, saw a man digging in the field on the Sabbath day, +and he said to the man, “If thou knowest what thou doest, blesséd art +thou; if thou knowest not, curséd art thou.” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE APPRECIATION OF HUMAN WORTH + + +I have a number of neighbors whose sons and daughters are at present +suffering the agony of preparation for college. What a nightmare it +is possible to make of education! Three or four years of attendance +at expensive private schools where the sole aim seems to be to get +the student through his college entrance examinations with a passing +grade. Students terrified, parents anxiously awaiting reports of work +done or not done, teachers tired out, one student fails in his Latin, +another in algebra, a third is sent home because of loss of interest in +study, and there are tears, family conferences, special tutors, reviews +and memory drills in vacation time, until finally the student “gets +through” and drops the subject, his interest in it dead. + +I am not one of those who believe that education may be achieved +without effort. But study is not work only, it is also a form a +enjoyment. There are many things which it is a delight to know, not +because such knowledge is useful or is required for a passing grade, +but because it is an aid to the appreciation of value. It is fun. + +There are people who attend concerts from a sense of duty, striving +thereby to improve their souls, but it is possible to listen to music +with no other motive than the wish to enjoy it. It is the person who +enjoys music who in the end becomes the discriminating listener. The +same is true of the reading of books. William James once said the +classics are necessary to education because knowledge of them makes us +“connoisseurs of human excellence.” Literature has a charm which is +often lost when it is made “required reading.” + +An intelligent boy of seventeen who was having difficulty with his +school work recently said to me, “I think it is because I really am +not interested, and the things I wish to know they do not teach in our +school because the colleges will not give credit for them.” When I +asked him what study would interest him, he replied that he thought he +would like to try philosophy and requested me to suggest a good book +for a beginner, declaring that he intended to take up this study in +addition to his school work. + +I have no doubt that had he made this request of one of his instructors +he would have been told that he had better spend his time preparing +his lessons. But I took a chance that his interest might be genuine, +and told him that I thought he would find Plato’s “Republic” a good +introduction to Philosophy, and suggested that he read the first +four books. During the previous semester he had been permitted to +drop one of his courses because reading was “too great a strain upon +his eyes.” When I next saw the boy I inquired how he had got on with +the “Republic.” He said, “Why, I found it so exciting that I did not +stop at the end of the first four books, but read all ten.” When I +asked him what he found interesting in the dialogues, he said, “I do +not understand many of the conclusions they reached, but I enjoyed +listening in on those conversations. They are so logical, and I liked +the way Socrates leads the others along, springs surprises on them, and +makes them see what they mean by what they say. I begin to see what the +difference is between thinking and just talking--and many passages +were beautiful also.” For the first time in his life, he had realized +that the pursuit of knowledge could be an interesting adventure. +Moreover, his parents told me that he had shown improvement in his +regular studies. + +When the ancients said that knowledge is knowledge of the good, +they meant in part that with the increase of knowledge comes better +discrimination. If education is _for_ anything it is that we learn to +choose the good. By the “good” I do not mean good in general, or good +as an abstraction of philosophical discourse, nor the conventionally +good. I mean any excellence whatsoever. In order to see and appreciate +excellence, you must yourself have struggled for it. He who has never +striven to surpass himself, surrounds himself with the shoddy, the +second-rate, the cheap. In matters of taste, of sentiment, of good +workmanship, he cannot distinguish between that which is genuine and +that which is imitation. In matters of taste there is much that is +purely arbitrary and conventional, so that what is good taste in one +age may be bad taste in another. Nevertheless, there is a psychological +soundness in our use of the word taste to designate certain judgments +of worth. It implies some degree of self-restraint, a sensitiveness to +subtle stimuli which comes with the habit of giving attention to minute +differences of quality. In contrast, animals which gulp down their food +hastily and in great quantities do not pause to taste it. Similarly, +the mind which has not disciplined itself “swallows things whole,” +as we say. It is not disturbed by the incongruous or the hideous. It +is sensitive only to coarser stimuli: it prefers the hackneyed, the +raucous, the loud and flashy. + +I once knew a church in a small town which worshipped in a plain +rectangular old building with colonial windows. When a rival +denomination erected a monstrous building with a huge circular +stained-glass window facing the street, the group which worshipped +in the old structure became dissatisfied. After much difficulty +in securing the money, a committee was sent to a near-by city and +purchased a quantity of gaudily-colored translucent paper similar to +that one used occasionally to see on the front door of a saloon. This +paper the congregation proudly pasted on its colonial window panes. + +The architecture of the average church in this country and the hymns +the people sing are much better indications of the level of their +spiritual life than are the creeds they profess. The general cultural +level of the population is revealed by the style of houses men build, +the kind of furniture with which they surround themselves, the type of +motion picture which becomes popular, the magazines on the news stands, +the character of the journals which have the largest circulation, +the “song hits” of the day, the programs which are broadcast for the +radio. These things all have spiritual significance, they indicate a +prevailing type of reaction toward all the values of experience. + +The public is curiously indifferent to the lack of genuineness of +sentiment; “hocum” and bathos; deliberate and obvious counterfeits +of emotional reactions characterize practically every appeal to +the general public. Think of the popularity of a play like “Abie’s +Irish Rose,” or of that, a generation ago, of a song like “After the +Ball,” or of a book like “The Man Nobody Knows.” Think of the typical +Chautauqua lecture or political address. Think of the notorious +insincerity of the motion pictures. People ask, “What is the matter +with the movies?” The answer is, the audience. Half-educated people do +not seem to be sensitive to the difference either between good and bad +workmanship or between artistic sincerity and insincerity. Standards +of value, in all the older forms of art, have been set by the knowing +ones. The artist was obliged to submit his creation to the criticism +of persons who had some background of tradition and general knowledge. +With the quantity production methods of the motion pictures, it becomes +possible for the first time to make the man on the street the critic, +on whose judgment depends survival, and as the New Testament says, +“By what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.” In selecting our +preferences we pass judgment on ourselves. + +The multitude dupes itself with its desire to get something for +nothing; hence its love of the miraculous. All appeals to it are thus +over-capitalized, and made to appear grand and glorious. Shirking +the effort necessary for real achievement leads to the preference of +quackery. There is a story that a physician who had yielded to the +temptation to make easy money by advertising himself as the discoverer +of a magic remedy for disease, received a call from a former friend and +colleague who disapproved of the practice. When the visitor sought to +persuade him that such methods would not pay, the other stepped to the +window and said, “Come now, look with me at the faces of the people +passing along the street; how many of them do you think would become +your patients and how many mine?” I am told by a professor of biology +who gives a pre-medical course in a Western university that less than a +third of the cases of sickness in the country are treated by reputable +members of the medical profession. + +I have been somewhat interested in the popularization of psychology. +On the occasion of a visit to a great public library, I was assured +by the librarian that there was a tremendous popular demand for books +which deal with the subject of psychology. I was shown a section in +which these books were kept so that they would be easily accessible. +The greater number were written by persons who had no knowledge of +the subject. They were utterly misleading. Psychology was commonly +presented as a wonderful, easily practiced device for performing +miracles, a system of secret formulae for curing disease, for getting +into harmony with the divine source of all being, for manipulating the +“subconscious” in ways that assured peace, prosperity, self-mastery, +and power over others. I think it is a conservative statement to +say that nine-tenths of the stuff that bears the name “Psychology” +in popular magazines devoted to the subject, in widely advertised +books, in lectures and correspondence courses in self-improvement, is +pure charlatanism and sleight-of-hand arranged for those who wish to +indulge themselves in systematic self-deception. It is not mere lack of +information which causes people to prefer the cheap. With respect to +the things of the mind, people have various standards of living. + +A teacher of economics says that by a person’s standard of living we +mean to designate those things which he insists upon having even if +it is necessary to give up marriage and parenthood to possess them. +However much people may desire and strive for comfort and abundance, +from the standpoint of economics, those who marry and beget children +in poverty have a low standard of living. Hence the standard is +not directly a function of the amount of per capita wealth, but is +psychologically determined. And the standard often applies to other +things besides material possession. Persons who have a high standard +are often poor. They might easily turn their efforts to the acquiring +of wealth, but they will deprive themselves and postpone marriage for +the sake of some cultural interest, education, a scholarly or literary +career. They will go without a motor car in order to have money to +buy books. It would be interesting to make a comparative study of the +families of college professors and certain groups of artisans, who have +about the same income as that of the average professor, in order to +see which type had the greater number of children, and which sent the +greater number of their young people to college, also which possessed +the greater number of automobiles or radios. Thus the standard of +living applies not to what one wishes to possess, but to what one is +willing to pay for a certain kind of living. It has to do with quality, +not mere quantity. This principle applies to intellectual standards of +value. People are content with the second-rate because it is easier. + +With learning there comes a new reverence. Perhaps I might speak of +it as the educated man’s faith. Respect for the excellent is possible +only to a mind which has learned to recognize distinctions of worth. +An undiscriminating multitude clings to its idols or substitutes new +idolatries for old precisely because it is blind to those differences +of value which constitute the meaning of existence for mankind. People +seek something “given” to believe in, some universal formula of +salvation, because they are unable to distinguish the relative worth +of concrete experiences actual or possible. Those who shrink from the +responsibility of their own yes or no take refuge in an imaginary +_cosmic_ yes and no. But ground your faith in the difference between +the better and the worse, and you have a faith which grows stronger +with the increase of knowledge. All other “faiths” grow weaker because +they are substitutes and evasions, futile attempts to possess value +without the exercise of discrimination. + +If existence as a whole has a purpose or a universal meaning, I do +not see how our minds could know it, or what use it could ever be to +the mind that grasped it. I have tried to show that our thoughts and +beliefs are _human ways_, that our thinking is partial. As James said, +all meanings depend upon the fact that we are “interested spectators” +and prefer some things to others. Aside from our human interests and +preferences, everything being so far as we can see equally inevitable, +has the same degree of existence, or right to be, and all is equally +important. Nothing then has any special importance. And if nothing is +important, nothing has any meaning. It might be said that each thing +has meaning for the whole. But since the whole lies beyond our ken, +such a statement does not help us much. The world of meanings and of +truths therefore does not have an independent existence but is related +to our preferences and is a human creation. I am not, however, at +present concerned with the problem of the meaning of truth. Truth is +itself a value. I am trying to state a simple creed by which a man may +best order his life and discover that which an intelligent mind may +reverence. It is, “I believe in the distinction of worth.” + +The loss of belief in distinction turns both society and the world of +values upside down. It is symptomatic of the dominance of mediocrity. +With the degradation of power there is a corresponding degradation of +value. The power which rules the modern world is the power of numbers. +Many will say it is the power of money. This too is a numerical force, +having nothing to do with quality or the discrimination of value: the +possession of money does not as such lift the possessor out of the +mass. There is much talk about the conflict of the masses with the +capitalists, but since on both sides the struggle is one for economic +advantage rather than for spiritual value, it may be regarded merely +as the conflict between successful and unsuccessful mass units over a +common interest. Money power and the power of numbers are not really +a confrontation of contrasting valuations of the possibilities of +experience. On both sides the conflict is waged on about the same +level and for identical ends. Capitalism is not really the foe of +democracy, it is democracy’s first-born child. The self-made successful +business man is the “success” in democratic society, its ideal. He is +what the mass as a whole strives to become. Some people think this is +individualism. Infrequently it is, usually it is not. Dollars still +are numbered, and money power is the power of numbers. Its power is +the same as concentrated mass power, since it is of this same order. +We speak of “amassing” money. The mass idea and the ideals of the mass +prevail all round. Capitalism holds sway by virtue of its mass appeal, +and by virtue of the fact that the capitalist is the realization of the +average man’s ambition. The mass because it is powerful and can grant +or withold favors, lords it over the realm of values. Emphasis is laid +upon that which produces an identical type of reaction in a maximum +number of people. The commonplace is rated high because it is the +average. + +The rare, the unique, the excellent, cannot be syndicated and +drops out of consideration. The standards which prevail are those +of undifferentiated men. Mass appeal asserts the equal importance +of all individuals, as if a man’s worth consisted in his mere +“number-oneness.” This is the democratic dogma of equality. Critics +of the dogma frequently say that it represents the foolish attempt to +declare all men equal in all respects. I doubt this. It seems to me +that this dogma is perfectly correct so far as it goes. It declares +all men to be equal _before the law_. And law is no respecter of +persons, hence all men are equal before that which does not respect +their personalities. Which is to say that all men are equal in one +respect--that each is a numerical unit when he is considered as a +member of the mass. It is not denied that men may be unequal in other +respects. The point is that these “other respects” do not get a +hearing. But the only recognition of the individual that amounts to +anything is that which recognizes the differences of one from another. + +When we emphasize excellence, good workmanship, sincerity, ability, +virtue, wisdom, we have in mind matters concerning which the +differences among men are the differences between superiority +and inferiority. Hence discrimination of value is recognition of +distinctions of worth among men. Lose sight of distinctions of +worth--of the very desirability of distinction as a social good--and +all values decline to the level of mediocrity. + +In the supremacy of man as mass the mediocre man, he who in all things +corresponds to type, and is most reducible to average, is King. For him +books and journals are published; clergymen and editors speak for him +and say what they think he believes; laws are made in his interest. +Programs for the radio and motion pictures are made to please him. His +dilemmas are held up as the dilemmas of every one. His goods become the +standards to which all are expected to conform. He has purchasing power +and he has votes. He can make and unmake heroes. He determines the +direction of the course of events in his day and generation. Society +moves in the direction of the type of man about whom there is most +general concern, the man whose preferences set the pace. + +The goal set by “modern ideas” would seem to be not the attainment of +a higher level of values, not greater personal worth among men, but +the more complete supremacy of man as mass. Recognition of personal +worth is discouraged, for it necessitates the admission that some +persons are by nature, or as a result of effort, superior to others. +Such an admission is contrary to the idealization of the mass, which is +the worship of the power of numbers. Personal distinction is frowned +upon and discounted. Differences of superiority or inferiority are, +if grudgingly admitted, said to be the result not of difference in +native endowment or of individual achievement, but mere products of +environment. Hence human excellence is an accident. + +There is a wide-spread tendency to minimize and deny the significance +of personality. An advanced school of psychology holds that belief +in the existence of personality is a superstition. Personality is +simply the way the nervous organization works and is similar to the +running of a gas engine. Any hereditary differences of capacity or of +teachableness are negligible. All individual traits are reducible to +conditioned reflexes which are what they are because of the coincidence +of certain stimuli. I am what I am because somebody co-operating with +the environment conditioned me in this way. I have absolutely nothing +to do with the matter. Consciousness, interest, attention, will, have +no place in this psychology. The same may be said of all attempts to +explain the phenomena of life in mechanistic terms. Historic movements +are explained as if individuals had nothing to do with them. Social +change is said to be the product of impersonal economic forces, and +progress the result of mass action. Thus the Great Man at best only +represents the mass tendencies of his times. Even for discoveries in +science and creative achievement in the arts, the mass is given credit +although it may have resisted these things when they were new. + +I believe that such attempts to _depersonalize_ humanity are +consciously or unconsciously motivated by the wish to avoid the +recognition of the possibility of superiority in an age when the +values of civilization are largely committed to the tender custody of +man acting as mass in the struggle for power. Whether distinctions of +worth are recognized or not, deny that they may exist, deny that men +may have greater or less worth in themselves, and human achievement +becomes merely the attainment of bodily comfort, or social power, or +satisfaction of egoistic desires. There are many who would hold that +such is the case. But our existence is not measured by what we can +get or what we can do, but by what with our getting and doing we may +_become_. Mankind differs from other animals not merely in getting and +doing, man is himself different, and is more than they. It is in this +that his evolution is seen. The same is true of the individuals in the +mass; some are more in themselves than others. So obvious a truth would +never require statement except in a standardized, crowd-manipulating +age in which there is much that encourages the inferior to abound. + +I am not suggesting that we devise some plan for picking out all the +superior individuals for preferment and honor, or that we weed out the +inferior ones by some process of elimination, or that the educated man +should or could pose as a superior person. He who must make an effort +to exhibit any excellence has attained little of it. If the world is +spiritually right side up, people will be selected by the standards +of value that prevail. When you buy a newspaper, vote a party ticket, +go to a theatre, listen to a lecture, read a book, express a moral +sentiment or show any preference whatever, you are doing more than just +that thing. Our daily choices determine what we ourselves become, and +they do something else also; the total of them has survival value for +some particular type of man. We are thus daily deciding whose dilemmas +shall determine the quality of living, and what kind of human life is +to be lived on this planet, and who shall thrive and who shall perish. + +Human progress is not something we achieve directly by joining a +movement and forcing our convictions upon others. It is something we +help determine every day in the choices we make. The elements of it +come like the variations which appear in the structure of plants and +animals. And as Darwin said it is the function of the environment, +in causing modifications of species, to select certain variants +for survival and to eliminate others; so also in the progress of +civilization do our daily preferences operate. Natural selection and +primitive custom operate blindly and automatically and without reason. +It is because education improves judgment and the appreciation of value +that Thomas Davidson spoke of it as “conscious evolution.” + +The education of a people at any time is its answer to the riddle of +life. This answer is more than giving an account of the processes of +nature; it is the opening and closing of doors upon the possibilities +of experience--and upon various human types. Thus education is +selective. It is the sifting out of the relative worth of men. It finds +the significance of living to be the struggle for excellence. Its goal +is a higher type of living man and woman. Its great task therefore, +in the modern world, is the reassertion of the _inequalities_ which +mass appeal ignores, the rediscovery for the modern spirit of the +distinction between superiority and inferiority. It is impossible +to lift any mind from a lower to a higher plane when that which +distinguishes one plane from another is obliterated by placing all on +a level. Appreciation of distinctions of worth is an essential of a +liberal education, as it is of the whole spiritual life of man. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +EDUCATION AND WORK + + +In the closing sentence of the preceding chapter, I used the words +“spiritual life.” Perhaps it is unnecessary to say that I did not have +in mind anything vaguely metaphysical, supernatural or mystical. I +meant the phrase to designate a hierarchy of values which is possible +to an organism capable of exercising choice among its experiences. +It is in the sense that it deals with qualities and their relative +importance that education may be said to be spiritual, spiritual in a +purely naturalistic sense. It is the ordering of interests and habit +patterns so that behavior is characterized by a tone and a significance +that it would not otherwise possess. + +There are those who write and speak of education as if the mind and its +ideas existed in a world apart from the world of things. It is possible +for a man to pursue his studies in complete isolation from the world +about him. But as mental life is possible only in response to some +environment, such pursuit of learning merely substitutes an artificial +and sequestered environment for the actual one. If the meanings and +values disclosed in this artificial environment remain permanently +different from those which might be realized in the world of our daily +tasks and relationships, such education is merely an elaborate escape +from reality. The educated mind responds to our common world. It +differs from the uneducated mind not in that it responds to a different +set of situations, but in that it responds with a different system of +values. Education is not so much a special interest separated from +other interests as it is a method of transforming all our interests. + +It ought to have something of importance to do with work, since most +people are engaged in some form of work most of their time. And when in +an industrial age like the present, the whole life of society revolves +about the system of production of wealth, it is impossible to precede +with education and ignore the challenge to it of our industrialism. It +may not be the task of education to provide a solution of the labor +problem. But education certainly fails of its function when men are +unable to retain its values while struggling with such problems. + +People rarely behave like educated human beings when they are +confronted by an economic issue. Liberality of outlook, tolerance, +temperance of judgment, self-control, ability to see when one is +making oneself ridiculous, respect for the truth, are not often found +on either side of an industrial conflict. Fantastic notions of the +relation of education to work abound because there is much confusion +about the meaning and value of work for human personality. Labor is at +the same time idealized and despised. + +Ruskin, Carlyle, and many humanitarians have held labor to be most +praiseworthy. Work is a blessing, in it are peace of mind and +self-respect. Work is noble, and it ennobles him who does it. A +contemporary writer on the subject of education warns us that the hand +may not be “dishonored with impunity.” By dishonored he means that hand +work may be considered inferior to brain work to the extent that there +is great disparity between the rewards. Distinction has been made +between work of hand and work of brain. The former is real work. Once +in a parade of working men in Pittsburgh, I saw on a banner carried +at the head of a column of metal workers, these words in very large +capitals, _We Work_. The implication was that some others, slightly to +their discredit, did not really work. From the idealization of work to +the idealization of the worker is a logical step. The working class, +a class which in earlier centuries was looked upon as the despised +“proletariat,” attained a new status in nineteenth century thought. +Men began to look to labor as the one class capable of righting the +age-long wrongs of humanity, and to believe the control of society by +organized labor to be the only means to the establishment of peace and +justice. Most of the writers who praised labor were themselves members +of the so-called leisure class. A few like Tolstoi vainly tried to +support themselves by manual toil. Many who wrote convincingly of the +blessings of labor did not personally avail themselves of its ennobling +advantages. In the earlier humanitarian sentiment of the nobility of +labor, the worker was envisaged as a free and independent person in +whose wholesome activity there was healthfulness. Good workmanship +commanded general respect and revealed the dignity of labor. There were +simplicity and grandeur in the primitive act of a man eating his bread +in the sweat of his brow. He who lived close to earth gained something +of the silent, calm majesty of nature. Able to cope with natural forces +and giving mankind as good as he received, he need ask favor of no man. + +Rousseau says, “Outside of society, an isolated man, owing nothing to +any one, has a right to live as he pleases; but in society, where he +necessarily lives at the expense of others, he owes them in labor the +price of his support; to this there is no exception. To work, then, is +a duty indispensable to social man. Rich or poor, powerful or weak, +every idle citizen is a knave. + +“Now of all the occupations which can furnish subsistence to man, that +which approaches nearest to the state of Nature is manual labor; of all +the conditions the most independent of fortune and of men, is that of +the artisan. The artisan depends only on his labor. He is free--as free +as the husbandman is a slave; for the latter is dependent on his field, +whose harvest is at the discretion of others. The enemy, the prince, +a powerful neighbor, may take away from him this field; on account +of it he may be harassed in a thousand ways; but wherever there is a +purpose to harass the artisan, his baggage is soon ready; he folds his +arms and walks off. Still, agriculture is the first employment of man; +it is the most honorable, the most useful, and consequently the most +noble that he can practice. I do not tell Emile to learn agriculture, +for he knows it. All rustic employments are familiar to him; it is +with them that he began, and to them he will ever be returning. I +say to him, then, Cultivate the heritage of your fathers. But if you +lose this heritage, or if you have none, what are you to do? Learn a +trade.... I wish to give him a rank which he cannot lose, a rank which +will honor him as long as he lives. I wish to raise him to the state of +manhood; and whatever you may say of it, he will have fewer equals by +this title than by all those which he will derive from you.... It is +important to learn a trade, less for the sake of knowing the trade than +for overcoming the prejudices which despise it. You say you will never +be compelled to work for a living. Ah, so much the worse--so much the +worse for you! But never mind; do not work from necessity, but work +for glory.... + +“You enter the first shop whose trade you have learned: ‘Foreman, I am +in need of employment.’ ‘Fellow-workman, stand there and go to work.’ +Before noon comes you have earned your dinner, and if you are diligent +and frugal, before the week has passed you will have the wherewithal +to live for another week; you will have lived a free, healthy, true, +industrious and just man. It is not to lose one’s time to gain it in +this way.” + +Here as always Rousseau is romantic. This is all very beautiful--until +you try it. I am inclined to think that most men who entertain this +view have never worked for a living. The happy few amongst the +toilers of earth may here and there have enjoyed this independence. +It is certainly not the experience of the rank and file in our +present industrial system. With the development of the system, and +the consequent organization of labor, the idealization of work is +supplanted by the idealization of the labor movement and its aims. +In the writings of Marx, labor as work is represented merely as so +much homogeneous effort-filled time which is measured and reckoned in +strictly numerical terms, as if its qualitative or personal elements +could be ignored or were non-existent. Skill and artistic genius are +represented as the mere telescoping or contraction of a number of +labor-time units into a given period--a speeding up, as it were, not +something inherently superior in kind. This point of view might satisfy +one who was concerned only with the number of hours of employment +and indifferent to what he did or how he did it. But it takes little +account of that pride in achievement without which those who assert the +dignity of labor are making a virtue of necessity. + +Marxians assert with much truth that pride in achievement is crushed +by the methods of machine production and by the exploitation of +labor under a system of “wage slavery.” But this is to abandon the +older idealization of work and of workmanship. Labor is now viewed +_realistically_ as an irksome servitude. Marxians argue that labor +creates all wealth and is therefore justly entitled to it all. It is +beside our point to enter into a discussion of this proposition. I am +merely seeking to show that in this philosophy, emphasis is shifted +from the idealization of work to the idealization of the labor movement +itself. A Marxian could agree with Aristotle that mechanical toil is +debasing, only he would add “under the present system.” Emancipate +labor, give it its rights, reward it justly and force all to do their +share of it, and then work will be ennobling. Which is to say, work +will be ennobling only in an ideal society. This position is an attempt +to restore with one hand what is taken away with the other. Work is +robbed of its dignity when excellence in it is not thought worthy +of consideration, when superiority of workmanship is represented +merely as a greater quantity of abstract labor-time. Advocates of +the cause of labor do not say much about the distinction between +superior and inferior workmanship. And here we have an example of +the mass-psychology of which I spoke earlier. In the degree that you +consider men as mass, you ignore individual worth. + +There has been a slight tendency to regard labor as an instinct. The +impulse to work is of course a universal human trait. Work is normal, +natural, right, and those who have no desire for it are going contrary +to the demands of human nature. Some such position as this is taken by +Mr. Veblin in his delightful satire, “The Instinct of Workmanship.” +The author of this book holds with McDougall that man has an instinct +to work, but that unfortunately the instinct has been corrupted. This +corruption began in primitive times with elders, medicine men and +warriors. And throughout historic time, with each succeeding privileged +class, human nature has become steadily more perverted and abject, +until this instinct reaches its final stage of corruption in the +present capitalist system. Thus a last count is added to the indictment +of capitalism. It has corrupted labor’s instinct of workmanship. + +I have never known whether Mr. Veblin meant his humor to be taken +seriously, or intended his book to be a subtle thrust at the +theologians. His argument may be regarded as a clever parody of +the doctrine of the fall of man in Adam’s sin, with the consequent +curse upon all the descendants of our first parent. In any case, his +contention adds somewhat to the confusion as to the true significance +of labor. I have not found evidence to prove that man has an instinct +of workmanship. Hence the relation of education to work is not that of +the rational control of instinct, for if the knowledge of simple labor +processes were innate, men would not even need “practical” education in +them. + +Not all men have held a high opinion of labor. Nietzsche says work is a +disgrace. There are doubtless many people who secretly agree with him. +I have known working men who suffered from an “inferiority complex.” It +is possible that the protest of labor is not wholly against injustice, +but is in part a protest against the feeling of inferiority. It is +not uncommon to find young people who are ashamed to work. It is not +only among the rich and privileged that we find those who look down +on labor. The same attitude exists in all classes, for much the same +reason that the majority of people despise the poor and emulate the +rich. Work has in the past been the lot of the slave. Most men are at +present driven to labor by necessity, and many entertain the hope of +escaping from the necessity as soon as possible. + +We have even Biblical authority for this attitude. The punishment of +Adam for his act of disobedience is a life of labor. Henceforth he must +earn his living, tilling the ground and eating his bread in the sweat +of his brow--in other words, labor is a curse. And so it is regarded +by the law of the land. When a man is convicted of a crime the court +sentences him to prison and to “hard labor”--until such time as he is +pardoned and may return to his career of crime and life of leisure. + +It is interesting to note the place assigned to work by the Hebrew and +Christian religions which, having their origin in the folkways and the +daydreams of the masses, are very sympathetic to the poor toilers of +earth. Yet we are told that to keep the Sabbath holy, the day must not +be defiled with labor. There is no mention of the blessedness of labor +in the Beatitudes; the command to consider the birds of the air and the +lilies of the field which toil not neither do they spin and yet are +clothed and fed, reveals a spirit very remote from that of industry. +Heaven is thought of as a place of eternal rest. + +A similar popular valuation of labor is revealed in the myths of +antiquity. The gods do not work. Vulcan, the exception to this rule, +is always made to appear ridiculous among the gods; they are said to +laugh at his awkwardness. The “labors” of Hercules are not really +toil but exhibitions of miraculous strength. For the most part in the +legends which have expressed the wish-fancies of mankind, the hero +does everything but work; he fights, makes love, kills dragons, goes +on strange voyages, wins a kingdom, in fact, his adventures may be +interpreted as symbolic expressions of the wish of mankind to escape +the common burden of toil. + +I think, moreover, men belittle their work when they accept the +broad distinction between the “brain” worker and the “hand” worker. +Psychologists say that thinking is as truly bodily activity as is any +other form of labor, and there is very little so-called work that does +not require thought. There is every conceivable gradation from that +labor which is almost wholly routine, to that which consists of nothing +but solving problems. No one knows the point where labor ceases to be +brain work and becomes manual. The world’s work requires of men many +kinds of activity, some of great importance, some of little. There is +no use either of idealizing it or in despising it. Men do their work +because they have to and are neither noble nor ignoble because of it. + +The problem is how can I in my situation make my position a place +where a man has really lived and toiled and thought and realized +values through his effort, and has not permitted himself to become an +automaton or a fool. The labor problem however tends to become one +primarily not of the significance of work at all, but of improving the +material conditions of those who toil. This latter problem is wholly +justifiable. But because of the prevailing mental confusion about labor +itself, it is generally assumed that if a man works he should receive a +different sort of “education” from that of other educated people, and +that his training should be the means to ends that have little to do +with interest in education as such. + +There are those who always view the education of workers strictly from +the standpoint of its value for social security. Just as a well-known +statistician not long ago advised the American investor to support +the Church, whether or not he agreed with its doctrines, because +the influence of the Church upon the masses, he said, was on the +side of invested capital, so there are those who believe that giving +educational opportunity to working men is a sort of premium paid upon a +general policy of social insurance. + +The fear of the menace of labor often inspires efforts for the +education of workers in the hope that with better knowledge labor will +become safe and sane. There is a wide-spread belief that education +like religion is a conservative influence. If working men were only +better informed they would have a more sympathetic understanding of the +intentions of their employers; they would show some appreciation of +their economic opportunities under our free institutions; they would +know better than to go on strike, or listen to their union leaders, +or dally with socialistic ideas. Perhaps so, but I have yet to see an +educational effort which was consciously directed to these ends that +was either sincere or intellectually respectable. + +From a wholly different point of view, the relation of education to +work would seem to present no problem at all. Work itself is said to +be the only genuine method of education. A popular writer who holds +advanced ideas on this subject, says that the four years at college are +wasted, that “as early as fifteen or sixteen a youth should be brought +into contact with realities and kept in contact with realities from +that age on. That does not mean that he will make an end of learning +then, but only that he will henceforth go on learning--and continue +learning for the rest of his life--in relation not to the ‘subjects’ of +a curriculum, but to the realities he is attacking.” In this passage +one detects the odor of Rousseau. We discussed this theory when we were +considering liberal education as animal training. At best it is but +half true. If learning necessarily came from contact with realities, +every one would be educated. But there is no assurance that people will +see the significance of the realities they “attack.” The importance of +experimental study is not a new discovery. Science has long employed +the laboratory method. And even laboratory work, work done in an +environment which is carefully arranged to stimulate discovery, does +not always develop habits of independent judgment. + +The notion that experience is necessarily the best teacher is popular. +The newspapers encourage it. If a man makes a success in business, +interviewers seek his opinion on every conceivable subject. In worker’s +classes there is occasionally a student who has no doubt that his +experience in the shop is a better education than that which people get +from books. Such students do not as a rule gain much from study, for no +matter what subject is under discussion, they always know more about it +than the instructor. + +Experience as such teaches just what is experienced and nothing more. +Few minds are able to reflect judiciously upon experience or to draw +correct conclusions from it. Labor is something that can be known only +by one who has experienced it, and this experience is important for +anyone who desires a broad knowledge of human life. But it is with work +as it is with travel: each is an aid to education only as it quickens +insight. The man on the Bowery who boasts that he has traveled over +America from coast to coast may really never have left the Bowery; in +each place he has visited, he finds himself in the same sort of lodging +house, in the same environment, among the same sort of companions, all +with the same interests. + +So with many kinds of work. Much of it is mere routine. He who from day +to day does the same thing, until he is able to perform the movements +with a minimum of effort and attention, is certainly acquiring a habit, +but we have seen that not all habit formation is education. Those +who work with certain kinds of machinery frequently complain of the +monotony of their work. I think that one of the serious objections to +such work is that it has so little educational value. Perhaps this +objection may be offset by the fact that machine production makes +possible a shortening of the working day and hence gives the worker +more leisure time. Some think that adult education is important because +it gives people something to do in their unemployed hours. But people +do not always improve their minds during the time when they are free +from labor, and many whose work is routine, possess by nature or +develop routine habits of mind which interfere with their education. +They become victims of fixed ideas, of slogans and catchwords. + +Perhaps the nearest approach to a real integration of education and +work is vocational training. This is the “education” which most people +seek. Universities offer an increasing number of courses in practical +subjects such as engineering, mining, business methods. Various trades +are taught in public schools. By far the greater number of courses +offered to adult students are sold with the promise that they will +increase the purchaser’s efficiency and “put more pay in his envelope.” +I have already discussed this useful knowledge. Both the individual +and society profit by it. And in addition to its practical advantages, +there is a sincerity and lack of pretense about such education which +distinguish it from much of the traditional education. It must be +thorough or it cannot meet the test of practical experience. If +men learned mechanics with no more thoroughness than that which +characterizes the study of the classics, the country would go into +bankruptcy. + +But as I have tried to show, this training for practical efficiency +is too narrow. It does not necessarily widen the student’s interests +or deepen his insight or improve his judgment concerning matters that +lie outside the range of his technical information. Advocates of this +type of education often become partisan and declare that it alone is +education. + +It is doubtless too soon to speculate upon the effects of our new +policy of reducing immigration to the point where it is almost +negligible. Whether the effect is to intensify competition among +working people, or to lessen it because of a labor shortage, in either +case the result is obvious. Somebody must do the actual work of the +country. We shall soon have a working class in America that is more +than one generation old. That is, we are now for the first time in +our history tending toward a relatively fixed and permanent working +class. The various national strains in it will be held together long +enough to become acquainted with one another, long enough to find more +in common than a common opposition to capital, long enough to develop +a working class tradition which is American. Workers will not only +strive individually to become middle class; they will be obliged to +improve their condition as a class. To the economic struggle there +will be added efforts for culture. Many workers are already beginning +to seek education as an aid to a more satisfactory and less sordid +existence while working at their tasks. Sooner or later education +must cease to be the distinguishing mark of a privileged class, or a +device which aids a man to the goal of his ambition; it must become a +universal practice of learning how to live like a civilized being in +any occupation. + +I have said that people’s ideas of the relation of education to work +are for the most part confused and fantastic, and that among the +causes of this confusion was a misconception of the meaning of labor. +We saw that the older romantic idealization of labor gives way to +the idealization of Labor not as work but as an organized movement. +There are “friends of Labor” who think of workers’ education as class +education. And by class education they do not mean the extension of the +opportunity for liberal education to people who toil for their daily +bread. They are not interested in liberal education, any more than +they are interested in work. They wish working men to be given such +instruction as will be useful in the “class struggle.” Labor is to have +its own kind of education. + +It is said that educators are but the retainers, the “high-brow” +policemen of the vested interests and must always teach what the +masters require. The educators’ task is to train the masses to be more +productive and willing servants of the masters, to train the sons of +the owners in the idealogy so that they may work it to advantage, to +mould them to the type of the most successful and provide them with the +insignia and passwords of culture which will show that they belong to +the fraternity of the privileged. Traditional education, being nothing +but a weapon of the ruling class, is not for the workers. The workers +are now passing through a period of discipline which is preparing +them to be the future masters of the world. As the old education was +for the old master class, the new must likewise be the ideology of +the future master class, the organized proletariat. The workers must +educate themselves, for any education that capitalists provide for +them will be the capitalist education which enslaves the worker. The +new education in proletarian ideals must be wholly different from the +past. Its aim is not to provide useless and ornamental knowledge, or +escapes and consolations, but to equip labor to emancipate itself from +the rule of capital and to conquer and control industrial society. Thus +labor education is sometimes little more than old fashioned radical +propaganda. Where this is not the case, workers may still be urged to +the pursuit of knowledge by militant appeal. The following is quoted +from a bulletin issued by a state director of labor education in the +West: + + “He (the worker) lives in a society committed to the practice of + buying his labor cheap and selling its product dear, to the theory + that property is sacred and life of little value. In support of this + position toward labor, the press, the pulpit, and too often the + school lend their aid.... + + “All this passion for justice will accomplish nothing, believe me, + unless you get knowledge. You may be strong and clamorous, you + may win a victory, you may effect a revolution, but you will be + trodden down again under the feet of knowledge unless you get it for + yourselves. Even if you should win that victory, you will be trodden + down again under the feet of knowledge if you leave knowledge in the + hands of privilege, because knowledge will always win over ignorance.” + +If as an individual a man is interested in his education only in so +far as it may be to his economic advantage, we regard him as a rather +stupid materialist. It is no less stupidly materialistic to urge a +class to seek knowledge merely for the sake of a common economic +advantage. As a rule, ignorant men place a strictly material valuation +upon education. If education is nothing but the training of certain +groups of animals in the best methods for taking material advantage +of one another, it makes little difference which group wins in the +class struggle. This theory means that the belief that education can +make a difference in the kind of living is a delusion, and that the +only significant differences in human life are the results of economic +forces. + +Have we, in the notion of a special type of education for the working +class, a correct view of the relation between education and work? +Let us admit for the sake of argument, that traditional education is +class education, elaborated in the interest of the dominant elements +in society. Even then it might have a function other than that of an +aid to systematic exploitation. It might serve as a guide to the use +of leisure time. It might aid men in discriminating between ends which +were worthy of effort and those which were not. It might be necessary +for the development of personality, and to enable people to discover +that which would give some intelligible meaning to their existence. +Hitherto the privilege of the fortunate few, it might conceivably be a +good which may now be the possession of the many. + +I cannot see that the interests I have just mentioned are necessarily +those of any particular class. And it would seem that insofar as +traditional education has failed, the failure has been the result of +subordinating these very universal human interests to the special +economic advantages of a particular class. Along with the class spirit, +irrelevant factors enter into education. Education becomes illiberal +and propagandist, a drill in herd opinion. Prejudice is not removed; it +is intensified. A spirit of intolerance is bred concerning anything +which might effect class interest. + +And now it is argued that since liberal education has been spoiled by +one class in making it the servant of its class interests, the working +class is justified in again spoiling it for its own special interests. +If men prefer a substitute to the real thing, it is their own affair. +But a person is either being educated or he is not, and whether he is +or not is a matter quite independent of his particular occupation. Of +course a man’s education will make a difference in the spirit in which +he works and in the quality of his workmanship, for it changes the man. +If traditional education is unfit for the working man, it is not fit +for anyone. I can see no reason why economic differences should be made +the basis of cultural differences. The knowledge that has value should +be accessible to all regardless of their economic interests, or the +profession they practice. If a bad education should not be given to a +worker, it is not because he is a working man but because he is a man. +Anything that it is good for one class to know is good for another. A +banker may appreciate Shakespeare’s sonnets, so may a tailor; but there +is not one Shakespeare for the first and another Shakespeare for the +second. If biology is worth knowing, its value is not changed because a +machinist studies it. If a philosophy is true, it is true for the man +who can understand it, whether he be a railroad president or a coal +miner. There is no proletarian arithmetic or capitalist algebra or +Marxian astronomy. + +To be sure, a worker’s education should take account of the economic +situations in his environment. So should the education of all men. +It is sometimes said that within the ranks of labor there is a new +civilization in the making. Working men are said to have ideals and +standards, an ethic and culture of their own which are now manifest +as working class “idealogy.” I have not noticed it. From the time I +was a small boy, I have had somewhat unusual opportunities to know the +labor movement, and during the last twenty years have sought to make +a psychological study of it. The “labor point of view” is commonly +that which propagandists wish the worker to have. In America the +“revolutionary class-conscious proletariat” exists only on paper. If +we consider the ideals, habits and ambitions of working people, it is +difficult to conclude that they form a culture group apart. The working +man votes for Al Smith and Calvin Coolidge, dresses like the grocer +and the bank clerk, drives a motor car if he can afford it, reads the +popular journals, has about the same ideas of patriotism, morals, +government, and success in life as his employer, and tends in every way +to become more and more “middle class.” + +Suppose the change contemplated by many radicals should occur and +that there should be a “social revolution.” What of the education of +workers then? The worker would still spend his days at the machine or +bench. Is it not conceivable that men might then in their pursuit of +knowledge have some interests other than the economic? Under no system +should people permit their entire personalities to be drawn into and +used up by industry. Industry is a means, not an end. It is in its +proper place when it makes possible the achievement of culture. As a +man becomes educated, he should learn so far as circumstances permit, +to put his work in its proper place. The relation of education to work +is no different from its relation to all the interests and activities +and demands which life makes of us. A community may be said to have +a culture only when all men--each in his own way,--cooperate in the +realization of certain values, which give to all their actions and +strivings a perspective, an order, a meaning. It is in this sense that +Europe in the thirteenth century may be said to have had a culture. +In discussing the cultural values of any period of history, there is +danger of over-simplification. The picture which I have of that century +may not be historically correct, but it will serve to illustrate my +point. Catholic Christianity at the close of the Middle Ages possessed +a set of values which entered into everything that people did or +thought and gave it meaning. The secular did not really exist for +the men of that age. All work was religious work. Everywhere there +was ceremony, the shrine, sacredness. The fields were blessed before +plowing; harvest was a gay religious festival. Every labor process +and every station in society was brought to the service of the common +ideal, and from it gained added significance. For it the peasant tilled +the ground, its themes were the inspiration of the sculptor, the +painter, the musician, the builder. In the service of this valuation of +the experiences of life the King ruled, the soldier fought, the monk +said his prayers, the philosopher meditated. + +The cultural ideal of an age is revealed in the type of man for whom +the people have greatest reverence. Such a man is the meaning of +living for the men of that age. Inquire of the thirteenth century in +whom is its ideal realized, and the answer is clear. It is realized in +the saints. I do not mean to suggest that everybody in those days was +saintly. But there was common agreement that human life existed for +the achievement of sainthood. People achieved it in varying degrees +and by methods which appear strange to us of the twentieth century. +But all men hoped to achieve it in the next world if not in this. The +existence of the saints in Heaven was a storehouse of merit upon which +all could draw. And one living saint was held to be enough to justify +the existence of an entire age. + +I trust it is not necessary for me to add that the saint is +not my ideal of the meaning of life. Ideals of asceticism and +other-worldliness have no interest for me. But I wonder what would +happen if people should “go in” for education with the unanimity +of agreement as to its value that they once showed with regard to +religion. I hesitate to make the suggestion lest I appear to suggest +something solemn, sanctimonious, pious and official. We have enough of +that sort of thing now among professional educators. + +If instead of the attainment of sainthood the attainment of wisdom +could be made the commonly accepted goal and meaning of the activities +of modern men, we should again have a culture in which industry would +take its proper place. We have for it now no other goal than the +making of money, and hence industry runs amuck while the spirit of +commercialism crushes out all our values. We keep the wheels going +round, but the quality of living and the meaning of our work decline. +Cooperation in the service of the ideal gives way to a competitive +struggle for material possession and power and our lives are used up in +making a living. Only the peoples that have achieved a culture have a +goal for which to labor. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +EDUCATION AND MORALS + + +The source of much of our interest in public education is concern for +our neighbors’ morals. This is doubtless why in America we commonly +think of adult education as something which should exist for other +people rather than for ourselves. We are a nation of moral reformers. +Education is often proposed as an alternative to moral legislation. +There is an increasing demand for more effective moral education in the +public schools. + +When the educator becomes an “uplifter” the moral interest is always +a little forced and education suffers. Moral enthusiasm, when it is +enthusiasm for the good of others, tends to make of education a species +of organized charity. Seek education for yourself and it is the search +for the good life. From ancient times men have sought knowledge that +they might become better judges of good and evil. To one who is seeking +to know what is good, all popular moral conventions, taboos, and +alleged divine commandments become proper subjects of study, criticism +and possible revaluation. Moral education is not mere drill in the ways +of the herd. The good man’s first duty, as Professor Erskine says, is +to be intelligent. Good intentions alone do not enable a man to judge +wisely or behave well. The prevailing idea that one can be at the same +time good and stupid has strongly influenced our education. Moral +education becomes moralizing. The phrase “ethical culture” is either +tautological or it is a contradiction in terms. + +If we were each more genuinely interested in our education there would +be much less talk about morality and less occasion for such talk. The +moralist is as a rule the person with a lower middle-class mind, who +insists upon calling general attention to his own dilemmas. Mediocrity +makes parade of virtue a claim to superiority, presenting a picture of +itself as the likeness of the good man. Goodness is defined in negative +terms. The good man is he who observes the “thou shalt not,” not he +who can do the rare and difficult thing. It is in the localities where +there is least artistic appreciation or intellectual curiosity or +cosmopolitan spirit, the places where people have nothing with which to +occupy their minds, that we find the strongholds of “morality.” Where +education prevails, people learn to behave themselves as a matter of +wisdom and good taste. Those who are sufficiently practiced in the art +of living to be able to observe the common decencies without always +“watching their step,” may sometimes look up from the ground and take a +broader view. + +Much of the ethical instruction which is given in school is both +bad education and bad morals. Those colleges in which there is most +talk about “education for character” are as a rule those which most +patently fail as educational institutions. The instructor tends to +“protest too much.” The attitude of authority discourages the spirit of +search and criticism. Popular prejudice is intrenched. Non-essentials +are over-emphasized. Crowd-mindedness, rather than independence of +judgment, prevails. Every crowd persuades itself that it is vindicating +the right and justifies its behavior with fine moral sentiments. The +student in school is made susceptible to catchwords and is prepared +to become the typical crowd man of the future. To this end he is +given “ideals,” that is, he is taught to worship certain words such as +“justice,” “purity,” “brotherly love.” Instead of learning to enquire +what such words mean when applied to concrete situations, he is led +to believe that he possesses the realities for which they stand when +he has an attitude of adoration for the words. Henceforth, he can, +without using his brains, be always right even in matters where he +knows nothing, by the trick of seeing in each practical problem a moral +issue. It is in this manner that the majority is always right in a +democracy. If you question its wisdom, you are put in the position of +one who attacks its moral ideals. From the first day in school on, the +child is drilled in cant and in deference to prevailing public opinion. +He is brought up in an atmosphere of sex morality by a stupid and +shame-faced policy of expurgation and censorship, the assumption being +that apparent ignorance is “purity.” A student in a woman’s college +preparing to become a teacher of English literature, elected a course +in the eighteenth century novel, and after listening to the lectures, +she felt it her duty to look over some of the books. Unable to find +the works of Fielding in the library, she inquired of the instructor +where she could secure a copy of “Tom Jones.” The instructor replied, +“Heavens, child, you are not going to _read_ it!” This is perhaps an +extreme case, but it illustrates much of the influence of morals upon +the education of the young. + +Is the student to acquire the virtue of patriotism? Then he is not +to be shown the full force of the example of those who have resisted +tyranny, but must have his head filled with a glorified version of +his country’s history. Is he to learn respect for law? He is not +equipped with principles which enable him to discriminate between +wise and foolish legislation. His teachers and preachers tell him that +law is divine and must be obeyed because it is the law. After three +generations and more of such education, we have a population in which +moral independence is decidedly on the wane. The statute book, not +private judgment, becomes the guide to conduct, and the Federal courts +the safeguard to morals. Open protest against official invasion of +individual rights gives way to furtiveness and evasion. Moral training +which does not encourage critical examination of popular ideas of what +is right and good, does not tend to make men better, but only of one +mind. + +Popular suspicion of intelligence and the belief that one may be good +and do right without it, is carried over into the field of education. +Moral education becomes a special kind of education. It is thought that +there is a “moral knowledge” which is different from other knowledge. +The attempt is made to train character as if character did not include +intelligence. Education, then, intent upon character, distrusts +intelligence. The moral interest results in routine drill in current +precepts and values, not in the awakening of moral responsibility. +Professor Dewey says, + + “Morals are often thought to be an affair with which ordinary + knowledge has nothing to do. Moral knowledge is thought to be a + thing apart, and conscience is thought of as something radically + different from consciousness. This separation, if valid, is of + special significance for education. Moral education in school is + practically hopeless when we set up the development of character as + a supreme end, and at the same time treat the acquiring of knowledge + and the development of understanding, which of necessity occupy the + chief part of school time, as having nothing to do with character. On + such a basis, moral education is inevitably reduced to some kind of + catechetical instruction, or lessons about morals. Lessons ‘about + morals’ signify as a matter of course lessons in what other people + think about virtues and duties. It amounts to something only in the + degree in which pupils happen to be already animated by a sympathetic + and dignified regard for the sentiments of others. Without such a + regard, it has no more influence on character than information about + the mountains of Asia: with a servile regard, it increases dependence + upon others, and throws upon those in authority the responsibility + for conduct. As a matter of fact, direct instruction in morals has + been effective only in social groups where it was a part of the + authoritative control of the many by the few. Not the teaching as + such but the reënforcement of it by the whole régime of which it was + an incident made it effective. To attempt to get similar results + from lessons about morals in a democratic society is to rely upon + sentimental magic.” + +I do not see how it is possible to isolate moral education as a special +discipline and have either a liberal education or a sound sense of +moral values. + +In institutions of higher learning, “Moral Philosophy” or the “Science +of Ethics” is sometimes thought to be training in morals. It is so +only to the extent that such study is itself good education. I find +that many students have the same experience that I had with my college +course in Ethics. I took up the study believing that at last I should +learn what is right and how to do it. I soon discovered that I had +entered upon the driest and least practical course of study offered in +the college. Insofar as I could see there was nothing in Ethics that I +could turn to for advice about any of the problems of my own conduct. +I understand that in some institutions the students’ demand for advice +has resulted in courses of ethics which consist of case studies. No +doubt the opinions of the students and the instructor concerning +certain hypothetical dilemmas of conduct are very interesting. But as +Plato would say, such study is made up of “opinion,” not “knowledge.” +It is doubtful if such discourse ever results in modifying behavior. + +“Pure” ethics consists of _a priori_ arguments about the teachings of +philosophy concerning such abstract concepts as the moral judgment, the +nature of the Good, the idea of Duty in general, not of my particular +duties. Such study may be good training in logic, but it has no more to +do with conduct than has formal logic, and not as much as mathematics, +for one may apply the principles of mathematics to concrete problems. +Perhaps the greatest gain for the student from such study is the +discovery that philosophers do not agree upon any one system of morals, +and that in strict logic we do not know what we mean by our moral +generalizations. The more universal an ethical concept is, the more +it exists wholly within and for reason, the less is it a deduction +from experience and the less use is it as a guide to behavior. Ethics, +as moral philosophy, is not a descriptive study of the customs and +practices of people, or of what things men in diverse times and places +have held to be good or evil, right or wrong; this is anthropology. +It is not the study of the mental processes of judging or of forming +habits or of that quality of actual experience which men call good; +this is psychology. Ethics, moreover, is not a scientific study of the +means of accomplishing any good whatsoever; for this at once leads out +of pure ethics into economics, mechanics, medicine, etc. Pure ethics is +pure logic applied to ultimate concepts _about_ morality in general. +It is the “formulation of the Good as it would hold for all possible +worlds,” a kind of speculation or contemplation. Its good does not +exist in experience anywhere; it is metaphysical and exists only for +philosophizing. Hence ethic, strictly speaking, is concerned with ends +not with means, and the ends are not experienced, they are only thought +about. As an example of such an approach to morals, there is Kant’s +Categorical Imperative, from the consideration of which everything +concrete, empirical, personal is removed. + +I quote some typical passages from the discussion of the teaching of +ethics in a contemporary Journal of Philosophy, + + “The task of moral philosophy is, by analysis of the moral judgments + men actually make, to arrive at clear notions about obligation, + rights, good, punishment and the like. And the point of honor, the + chastity of the philosopher’s mind, should be never to suffer his + genuine moral judgments to be warped in deference to his theory. For + that is to poison the wells of truth. All that is valuable in ethics + is formal.... + + “Finally, it may be asked, has then moral philosophy no practical + value? I think its prime value is purely speculative,--the supreme + interest of the topic for thoughtful minds and its importance for + metaphysics. But, like everything else, it has its effects. I think + it is, when studied in its purity, an unrivalled mental training. + I believe that the more (apart from casuistry) we reflect on the + nature of the moral law the more we are likely to reverence it. + And lastly I think that nearly every human being does and must to + some extent philosophize. We are all apt to form crude principles, + as that morality consists in keeping the law, or obeying the ten + commandments, or realizing our selves, or seeking the common + good. And then we are apt pendantically and priggishly to distort + our genuine moral judgments in accordance with these inadequate + generalizations. Moral philosophy criticizes such formulas and shows + that they are either untrue or circular. Either self-realization + means realizing the _right_ part of the self or it is not always + right. Promoting the “common good” either means bringing about those + satisfactions which moral reason judges _ought_ to be brought about + (e. g., those which are _just_ or of a _higher_ value) or it is not + always right. And so a truer moral philosophy releases us from the + false dogmatisms which may, though usually they do not, corrupt our + practise.... + + “On the other hand, members of my class actually approached me, as if + I were a father-confessor, for the solution of special problems in + conduct!” + +In the following quotation from the same Journal, a different view is +expressed. The author believes that ethics is sometimes concerned with +the practical problems of conduct, but admits that this inclusion of +practical interests results in some ambiguity and confusion. + + “Conceding that there is a science of ethics that does not teach us + either to be good or that we ought to be good any more than logic + teaches us how to think or that we ought to think, or esthetics + teaches us how to appreciate beauty and that we ought to love it, + there yet remains the question, is there a legitimate place in + philosophical education for a science of ethics which frankly does + not disclaim a “practical” interest? Is there a science of ethics + that is “practical” in something more than the Protagorean sense of + supplying instruction in “how to manage our homes in the best way, + and to be able to speak and act the best in public life?” (Such + instruction might well encourage sophistry and the casuistry of which + Professor Carritt speaks.) Is there, in other words, a science of + ethics which is “practical,” not in the sense of telling the pupil + what moral decisions to make, but in cultivating the ἔρως φιλοσοφίας + which would render possible well-considered choices? If there is not + a place for such a science, it seems hardly forthright or consistent + to perpetuate the ambiguity. If there is a legitimate place for + it, it is the duty of moral philosophers to terminate the present + ambiguity by explaining it. We can scarcely afford to laugh at or + deny it.” + +The relation of morals to education is to be found neither in special +discipline and habit formation in the effort for character apart from +intelligence, nor in drill in the logic of an _a priori_ science. When +moral training is made a special interest set off from other aims of +education, it defeats itself. There is no such thing as a moral good +separate from other goods. A moral good is simply the best choice among +the conflicting goods of experience, actual or possible. As James said, +the good is that which satisfies a desire. _A priori_, every desire +should be satisfied, since considered in itself it is a demand for a +satisfaction. But since desires are in conflict, choice is necessary. +The good deed is the right thing to do, or the right way of doing it. +All education if it is really education is moral education. It is +because people do not grasp this fact that futile efforts at special +moral training are made in which the connections with education are +artificial and extraneous. Thus the pursuit of knowledge is shorn of +its significance for conduct, and morals is divorced from intelligence. +As Professor Dewey says, + + “A narrow and moralistic view of morals is responsible for the + failure to recognize that all the aims and values which are desirable + in education are themselves moral. Discipline, natural development, + culture, social efficiency, are moral traits--marks of a person + who is a worthy member of that society which it is the business of + education to further. There is an old saying to the effect that it + is not enough for a man to be good; he must be good for something. + The something for which a man must be good is capacity to live + as a social member so that what he gets from living with others + balances with what he contributes. What he gets and gives as a human + being, a being with desires, emotions, and ideas, is not external + possessions, but a widening and deepening of conscious life--a more + intense, disciplined, and expanding realization of meanings. What + he _materially_ receives and gives is at most opportunities and + means for the evolution of conscious life. Otherwise, it is neither + giving nor taking, but a shifting about of the position of things in + space, like the stirring of water and sand with a stick. Discipline, + culture, social efficiency, personal refinement, improvement of + character are but phases of the growth of capacity nobly to share + in such a balanced experience. And education is not a mere means to + such a life. Education is such a life. To maintain capacity for such + education is the essence of morals.” + +Moral behavior is not only social. It is also _intelligent_ behavior. +An act has moral significance when the performance shows _insight_ into +the situation. An action done under compulsion or without understanding +has no moral value. A machine may behave very correctly but it is not +a moral being. An act has moral meaning to just the extent that its +author grasps the implications of the situation in which he must act +and is guided by consideration of the results. An act is judged, not as +moralists would have it, merely by the intention, but by its results. +It is the aim of education to develop the insight and foresight and +breadth of vision which make it possible for an individual to take +responsibility for the results of his behavior. The greater the +intelligence, the more nearly does the consideration of an act approach +the estimate of the total result. Thus _the aims of education and +morals are the same_;--the good life in so far as it may be attained by +intelligent choice and behavior. + +Men have long sought to reconcile the true and the good. But what they +have sought to reconcile were as a rule mere _ideas_ about the true +and the good. It is not as logical abstractions that the true and the +good are one, but in the recognition that the really wise act is the +good deed. It is in this sense that wisdom is virtue--in the sense +that virtue is wisdom. But the objection will be made that educated +men are sometimes clever rascals who are only the more evil for all +their knowledge. I do not think I beg the question when I say that such +men are not wise but merely clever. Nor do I mean that good conduct +is merely a matter of reasoning and calculating. No one denies that +desire and instinct and purpose are involved. But if I am not mistaken +it is generally recognized that education and morals alike have +something to do with training and controlling these aspects of human +nature. Intelligence is not mere intellect. It is the whole man wisely +directing himself with respect to his environment and its alternatives. + +From one age or locality to another fashions in behavior patterns +change. These fashions seem to be important at the time they hold +sway. People confuse them with morals. Efforts are sometimes made by +reformers to introduce innovations similar to those which designers +of clothing each season create in haberdashery. A liberal journal in +New York recently published a series of articles dealing with “The New +Morality.” But morality is neither new nor old. Rules of conduct which +can be made mere matters of style are applicable chiefly to actions the +results of which are unimportant. Such rules have really very little +moral value. They constitute, however, the customs or folkways which +prevail at a given time. Conformity in such matters is required by the +herd. Often this requirement is the only reason for observing certain +rules; the opposite course would be just as good. It is with respect to +such matters that education has the effect of liberating the individual +and improving morals. It breaks the hold of the taboo, makes it +possible to discriminate between the important and the unimportant and +leads to the formation of principles based upon consideration of the +results of behavior. The differences in conduct that count are those +between stupid deeds and well-considered deeds. Intelligence takes into +account the fact that no action of man can be isolated and judged apart +from its place in the social environment, and its effects both for the +author and for his human relationships. Long ago Aristotle showed that +each of our virtues unless intelligently exercised tends to extreme and +to become a vice. A virtue is what it does, not what it feels like to +its possessor. Much is said today about the necessity of loyalty. There +can be no social stability without it; but there is probably no more +serious social menace than unintelligent loyalty. + +Men persist in ascribing to their moral principles a sanctity, +a sublimity, which makes them appear to have an independent and +eternal existence and to be ends in themselves. I believe this to +be a superstition. In what respect is a moral principle more to be +reverenced than a principle of mechanics? To worship Duty in general +is simply to make a god out of a human generalization. The “rightness” +about which men grow eloquent exists simply as the implications of the +concrete situation in which an act is performed. As the ability to +grasp such implications improves, principles of conduct are employed +which are relevant to the situation. I spoke of insight into the +situation toward which action is taken as being alike essential to +education and to the moral judgment. He whose conduct is regulated by +his own insight and by principles which are relevant to the situation +at hand is a morally responsible being, and to the degree that a man +assumes responsibility for his conduct, he reveals the quality of his +education. Those who seek to avoid responsibility substitute for their +own insight rules of behavior which have as their basis something that +lies outside the demands of the situation where the behavior takes +place. Judge your conduct by this other, outside something and ignore +the lessons written in the results of your deed, and you cease to learn +anything from your behavior; your education in this direction has come +to a stop. + +Education frequently comes to such a halt when moral teaching is +carried on as part of religious instruction. There is a common belief +that religion is the real basis of morals. I think this belief has +its source in the fact that religious institutions in the past, being +by nature conservative, have sought to perpetuate the folkways. The +church is a form of social organization and has its own interest in +maintaining among its members certain standards of behavior. Often +it has been the only existing agency for the instruction of the +young. Most religious systems carry with them certain commandments +and precepts the keeping of which they secure by means of promises of +future reward or threats of punishment. Since both the precepts and the +religious beliefs and ceremonies have evolved together out of primitive +man’s ideas of divine authorship and authority, men do not see that +the basis of morals lies in social necessity--the need for mutual +adjustment among men. The church’s preëmption of the field of morals is +allowed to stand long after its squatter rights in other fields--art +industry, science, etc.--have been challenged. We forget that religion +was once thought to be the basis of all the interests of civilization, +so that naturally the moral interest came under its sway. + +It is obvious that every society, whatever be its religion, must +develop its moral codes as men learn to live together. In the community +everyone is part of the environment of everyone else, and each must +adjust himself to such a human environment. Adjustment is impossible +if there is no order in the environment. Hence from the beginning +certain habits and customs have existed which make it possible for men +to predict to some extent what their neighbors will do. These habits +and customs are the primitive morals which it is the task of wisdom +to inquire into and revalue and gradually improve or discard, and +substitute intelligently considered means and ends. + +When moral precepts are presented in the form of divine commandments, +morality is merely obedience; it consists in keeping the commandments, +not in acting according to the demands of the situation. The problems +of the control of behavior are solved in advance, and the solutions +learned by repetition and memory drill. If I act in strict obedience +to a divine command, the results of my deed are not my affair. The +responsibility for the result is upon the deity. I can ignore, in +fact, should ignore, the lessons of experience and of conduct. The +commandment does not require of me any insight into the situations in +which I act. I have no moral responsibility. People whose conduct is +guided by such morality have committed many outrageous deeds and have +with good conscience closed their eyes to the terrible consequences +of their behavior. From the standpoint of their education, they are +children; they have never yet attained the age of moral responsibility. +It is in matters of moral education that the infantile attitude of +mind which religion preserves in the adult life of the race becomes a +serious obstacle to a liberal education. + +Again there is a tendency to disregard the consequences of my acts if +I seek, as many moderns do, to make a religion of morality itself. It +is often said, religion is a life, the religious man is the good man. +“My religion is the Golden Rule,” or some other rule. It all depends on +what you mean. If you mean that in a vague sort of way you try to be +good and that a certain moral earnestness is religion enough for you, +very well, but you have not said much. Thomas Paine said, “To do good +is my religion.” But I am not sure he added much to his good will by +styling it a religion. He might as well have said, “I desire very much +to do good.” So do all right-minded people, the difficulty comes when +we try to find out what specifically we mean by doing good. + +Again it is said there is “salvation by character,” but one does not +possess a character. One either is or is not a character. One does +not become a character as a result of routine moralizing or of mere +conformity to conventional standards. President Wilson is quoted as +saying, “There is no more priggish business in the world than the +development of one’s character.” Run away from the man who would be +good to you in order to develop his character. Do the thing that in +your best judgment is the thing to do under the existing circumstances, +do it as well as you can, watch what happens and learn your lesson from +it, and if you _are_ a character you will not go far wrong. + +In all behavior, he who takes responsibility takes chances. There +are those who demand moral certainty. They imagine an absolute good, +a universal principle of right and duty, to be the elemental law of +the universe. Duty is sublime, the Moral Law is God. People persuade +themselves that their adoration of this impersonal god develops in them +the “moral will,” when in fact its function is to provide them with a +fictitious sense of security. I think the ethical philosophy of Kant +is motivated by this wish for security, rather than by an interest +in morals as such. He seeks a good which is to be possessed merely by +thinking it, a maxim which is universally valid. But if I have such a +maxim, assuming that it can be made applicable to any concrete problem +of conduct, then all I need consider is whether I have acted according +to the rule. Here again I need not be concerned about the results of my +behavior. It is not the consequences of my act that show it to be right +or wrong. My deed is right if it is the act of the moral will. + +Another method of escaping moral responsibility is to run with the +crowd. The crowd never considers consequences; it is bent upon +vindicating its principles at any cost. It is anonymous; in it the +individual may not be held to account. The crowd is not the same as +the multitude; it is a distinct phenomena of social psychology. We +all have in our natures certain anti-social impulses. The crowd is +a sort of pseudo-social environment in which these impulses are not +inhibited but are indulged with mutual moral approval. All crowds +profess to be devoted to some moral ideal. Their moral idealism is +mere self-justification and pretext for letting oneself go. It is +a weapon useful in partisan strife; it puts the opposition in the +wrong and justifies hostility. Hence public questions tend to become +moral issues, and the attempt to understand the situation gives way +to righteous indignation toward anyone who witholds approval of the +crowd’s aims and methods. + +And the crowd strives to hold its members in line. Conformity to its +ways and standards is required of all, and becomes an end in itself. +One does things because others do them. The crowd man is shocked by +the unconventional because it is unusual. His ideas of right and +wrong, which he thinks he has by _a priori_ intuition or moral sense, +are merely those which prevail in his set or parish. The average +man’s conscience, which seems to him to be an infallible moral guide +and which he holds to be sacred and personal, is little more than a +reflection of herd opinion. And as men become marshalled in the mass +movements of present-day society, they tend more and more to submit the +control of conduct to the “public conscience” and to leave less and +less to private judgment. _There is no judgment but private judgment._ +The public conscience is a creature of emotional instability. It is +characterized by periodic obsessions similar to those of mania. It will +remain utterly indifferent to glaring evil and every appeal to it is +unheeded; then all of a sudden perhaps over a trifle, or an unconfirmed +rumor, it is stirred to the highest pitch of excitement. It has a +“cause” and for a time is occupied with nothing else. All realities +are thrown out of perspective. The cause is vindicated regardless of +consequences; it is carried triumphant at the head of a procession +of human wreckage, bitterness and folly. As soon as the mischief is +complete, the cause is abandoned. Men begin to “come to,” and public +conscience sleeps until the next episodic attack. + +It is precisely in regard to matters which most deeply stir the public +conscience that the educated man will be on his guard. He will not +be easily bullied into surrendering his private judgment to public +opinion. He will not permit the big words of herd morality to scare him +away from the consideration of cold facts. Before a man can think for +himself, he must have learned to think at all. There is only one sound +method of moral education. It is in teaching people to think. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE CLASSICAL TRADITION--PLATO AND ARISTOTLE + + +The classical tradition in education is one of the ironies of history. +That pedants should have succeeded in making this tradition into a mere +convention is almost incredible. In the poetry, drama and philosophy +which we have inherited from ancient Athens there is a spirit of youth, +of freedom, of inquiry, of adventure. In the estimation of Egypt or of +India, the culture of Greece was _parvenu_. The striking thing about +the Greek spirit is its humanism, its lack of priestly tradition, its +independence of religious authority. The men of the fifth century +before Christianity were creators, not imitators. They were following +many lines of inquiry for the first time, unhampered by the prestige +of orthodoxy. A noisy populace could condemn the philosopher but could +not secure his deference to its beliefs. No idea, no institution was so +venerable or sacred as to escape critical examination. The practice of +examining all things was the method of education; its aim was the life +of Reason. There was no official instruction, no established truth, +no traditionally recognized knowledge. Student and teacher together +pursued wisdom not as scribes and custodians of ancient and hallowed +doctrine, but rather in the spirit of those who enter upon a voyage of +new discovery. Such is the spirit of the classical tradition and no +education is liberal which loses that spirit. + +If we wish to know the meaning of a liberal education, we should turn +to those in whose lives and thoughts it was a living reality. I do +not believe that the student who grasps the significance of Plato’s +Apology, or the Phædo, or the Republic, can ever after be quite the +same. I once overheard a group of sophomores discussing the relative +greatness of various historical characters. Each had his favorite hero, +a conqueror, a statesman, an orator. One of the boys, who I afterwards +learned had discovered Plato’s dialogues for himself, said, “You +fellows are just repeating what you have heard people say or have read +in your history books. You’ll never know what a great man is till you +know Socrates. I think he was the greatest man who ever lived.” I saw +in his face a look of quiet earnestness which I have never forgotten. +Something was happening in that boy’s thinking. He was living through +an educational experience. + +To the question what is an educated person like, one answer is, he +is like Socrates, or like Plato. Whitman said, “I and my kind do not +convince by argument; we convince by our presence.” In the Dialogues +there is a presence. Here the personality of a great genius stands +revealed. You really come to know Socrates. In his company you cannot +fail to delight in his humor, his brilliant flashes of insight, the +subtlety and tenacity and wide sweep of his thought, his daring, his +unfailing reasonableness, his candor and freedom of spirit. Whether +this personality is the Socrates of history or a creation of Plato’s +genius or a mixture of both is a matter that need not concern us +at present. Our aim is to “find” the educated man. Here by common +agreement is the supreme type. + +Outside the Dialogues and a few such sources of information as the +writing of Xenophon, we know little that is authentic about Socrates. +Before Socrates there had been much speculation about natural phenomena +and the laws which govern the universe. Philosophers had begun to seek +naturalistic rather than mythological explanations of the world of +objects. This scientific interest was genuine, but the Greeks lacked a +logic of scientific method. Before man may think correctly, understand +his world or live wisely he must develop habits of exact thinking; +he must know what he means by what he says. He must examine his own +sentiments and beliefs, and presuppositions. + +As an educator Socrates was positively revolutionary, subversive, +disconcerting. He stands out in sharp contrast to the other great +teachers of antiquity, and to most of those who have lived after him. +He gives mankind an entirely different idea of what education is. He +pursues knowledge; the others proclaim it. Unlike the philosophers of +India and Egypt or the prophets of Judea, _Socrates has no gospel_, no +creed, no made-in-advance message, no “thus saith the Lord,” no system +of “truth.” Others indoctrinate; Socrates proclaims his ignorance. He +is not a sceptic, for he believes that knowledge is not only possible, +but that men possess it, though they seldom make use of that which they +possess. Although not a sceptic, Socrates is decidedly an agnostic. He +shows popular ideas to be ignorance, mere opinion. Living at a time +when even the intelligent few had hardly begun to question traditional +illusions, he did not seek to lure his students back to acquiescence to +authority, but to develop a technique for testing all things. To use a +modern colloquialism, Socrates simply strove to “debunk” the minds of +his students. He tried to aid Athenian youths to understand themselves, +to think their way to some degree of freedom and mastery, to ground +their ideas of virtue, justice, government, in well-considered reason, +to gain temperance of judgment, to re-examine what they thought they +knew and see if it were knowledge or only opinion. And his was no mere +idle curiosity, but a serious and courageous facing of the elemental +problems of human living. He set the precedent for all subsequent +liberal education. + +The herd loves nothing so little as the Socratic dealing with its +opinions. Such questioning is a challenge to popular faiths; it demands +that men reorient their minds to the values of experience. It arouses +in the opinionated the unwelcome suspicion that possibly they may be +deceiving themselves. It carries with it the suggestion that those +who uncritically accept dogma and custom are possibly intellectually +less alert than the critically minded few. It gives the hint that +conformity and moral earnestness are not enough for the good life and +that those who lay claim to ideas they have not thought out are a +little ridiculous. Every man who rises out of crowd-mindedness into +independent thinking weakens to that extent the faith of the crowd in +itself, and puts it on the defensive. Aristophanes gained popularity in +Athenian democracy by holding up the figure of Socrates to ridicule. +And when Socrates’ challenge could no longer be met with laughter, the +Fundamentalists of his day condemned the old philosopher to death on +the charge that he was corrupting the youth. As Woodrow Wilson once +said, “The human race has inexhaustible resources for resisting the +introduction of knowledge.” + +How the influence of Socrates survives in the work of his pupil Plato +every school boy knows. It is also a matter of common knowledge that in +the beautiful dialogues which Plato wrote many years after his master’s +death, the figure of Socrates becomes little more at times than a +vehicle of the author’s own thought. But not every one thinks of the +dialogues as primarily a record of a great work of adult education. +The Socratic method of education is retained by Plato, but he modifies +the objectives. Plato has something to “teach.” Knowledge is still +found by the method of clarifying men’s thinking. But if men are to +live the life of reason, their knowledge must give them a definite +outlook on life. Plato seeks something to tie to. He is occupied with +the search for reality, “pure being.” His interest in mathematics +leads him to attempt to construe the world according to principles +of abstract thought. The world of _ideas_ is seen to be the ultimate +reality, the world of objects is but a manifestation,--as James put +it, but a “stereotyped copy of the deluxe edition” which exists in the +eternal. Hence knowledge is not only clear thinking; to know is to +possess reality. The real world consists of form, of idea, of universal +and abstract principle. Education becomes philosophic contemplation +of the ideas of the good, the true, the beautiful. A Francis Bacon or +an Isaac Newton in Plato’s situation would doubtless have developed a +logic of science. Plato elaborates a metaphysic. But it would be an +error to suppose that Plato is occupied merely with meditation upon +the transcendental. All knowledge is one. The truth, of which the mind +bears witness to itself, must ultimately prevail in the affairs of men. +The idea of the good must take the place of the old mythology. Wisdom +is virtue. The people are enemies of the truth and hate philosophy +largely because they have never known “a human being who in word +and work is perfectly moulded as far as he can be into the likeness +of virtue--such a man ruling a city which bears the same image.” Of +existing states, “not one of them is worthy of the philosophic nature.” + +“But no one is satisfied with the appearance of good,--the reality +is what they seek; in the case of good, appearance is despised by +everyone.” + +“Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes the end of +all his actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end and +yet hesitating because neither knowing the nature nor having the same +assurance of this as of other things, and therefore losing whatever +good there is in other things--of a principle such and so great as this +ought the best men in our State, to whom everything is entrusted, to be +in the darkness of ignorance?” + +Thus Plato’s greatest dialogue, “The Republic,” interweaves the +speculative with the practical; it is at once a treatise on reality +and appearance, an inquiry into the nature of the good, an elaboration +of the abstract principle of justice into the constitution of an ideal +aristocratic republic, and a philosophy of education. + +Jowett, in his introduction to the third edition to the English +translation of this dialogue, says, + + “The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, + of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and + Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he has + a revelation of another life; like Bacon, he is profoundly impressed + with the unity of knowledge; in the early Church he exercised a real + influence on theology, and at the Revival of Literature on politics. + Even the fragments of his words when ‘repeated at secondhand’ (Symp. + 215 D) have in all ages ravished the hearts of men, who have seen + reflected in them their own higher nature. He is the father of + idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many of the + latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such as the + unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of the sexes, + have been anticipated in a dream by him.” + +“The Republic” begins with a discussion of justice. It is agreed that +justice is virtue and wisdom, and injustice is vice and ignorance. +Justice is the virtue both of an individual and of a state. In order +to discover the nature of this virtue, the author proceeds to “create +in idea a State.” The state must be protected from evil, it must +have guardians. The guardians need to have both natural gifts and +the qualities of a philosopher. The good watchdog must be able to +distinguish between the face of the friend and that of the foe. “And +must not an animal be a lover of learning who distinguishes what he +likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance?” + +“When we have found the desired natures, and now that we have found +them, how are they to be educated? Is not this an inquiry which may +be expected to throw light on the greater inquiry which is our final +end--How do justice and injustice grow up in States?” + +Justice, he says, is each man doing his own business and not being a +busybody. One should practice the thing to which his nature is best +adapted. Justice is harmony, and harmony in the State is like harmony +in the nature of the individual. Intelligence must direct and control +the emotions, and the movements of the body. Hence in the just State, +men are to be divided into classes according to their degree of native +superiority. + +This is not an easy task, for men will not easily be persuaded to +accept such distinctions of worth among themselves. + +“How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods ... just one +royal lie which may deceive the rulers if that be possible, and at any +rate the rest of the city?” + +“Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how to look you +in the face, or in what words to utter the audacious fiction, which +I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the +soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their +youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received +from us, an appearance only; in reality during all that time they were +being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves +and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured; when they were +completed, the earth, their mother, sent them up; and so, their country +being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise for +her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens they are +to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers.... + +“‘Citizens,’ we shall say to them in our tale, ‘you are brothers, yet +God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, +and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also +they have the greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be +auxiliaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has +composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved +in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden +parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden +son. And God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers, and above +all else, that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, +or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the purity of the +race. They should observe what elements mingle in their offspring; for +if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and +iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the +ruler must not be pitiful towards the child because he has to descend +in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may be +sons of artisans who having an admixture of gold or silver in them are +raised to honour, and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle +says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be +destroyed.’” + +Plato’s ideal state is thus an aristocracy of intelligence and of +virtue. There must be selection of those who are to rule. A series of +tests is proposed. Those selected must have shown greatest eagerness +to do what is good for their country. The youth are to be subjected +to various trials, toils, pains, conflicts, to determine whether they +can be forced to change their opinions by suffering pain, or by the +influence of enchantments, or the lure of pleasure, or as a result of +fear. Only those who come out of the trials victorious are to be made +rulers. + +Their education is to be a rigid discipline, and it is to continue as +long as they live. Along with the tests which they must endure, the +young are to grow up in a healthy environment, and in an atmosphere of +simplicity. First a censorship is established to guard them against +evil influences. Only authorized tales are to be told them. Erroneous +representation of the gods is forbidden. As the young cannot judge +what is allegorical and what is literal, the state is to determine the +general forms in which the poets may cast their tales. Mothers may not +frighten children with myths. The Gods must never be represented as +the authors of evil. Nor may one be allowed to say that wicked men are +often happy and the good miserable. Elsewhere Plato says that no one +shall be permitted to travel abroad until he reaches the age of forty. +When he comes home he must tell the youth that the institutions of +other states are inferior to their own. If any man blasphemes, he is +to be put in the reformatory for five years. If in the end he remains +unrepentant he is to be put to death. + +Plato requires that the young receive training in gymnastics and music +before entering upon the study of philosophy. Certain kinds of music +they may not be allowed to hear. Flute players are not to be admitted +to Plato’s state. Those who are clever at pantomime are to be exiled. +The theater is frowned upon, for the guardians must not be trained +to be imitators. Certainly they may not learn to imitate any kind of +illiberalism or baseness. In their acting they may not imitate slaves, +nor bad men, nor madmen, nor the neighing of horses, the bellowing +of bulls, nor the roll of thunder; nor may they represent smiths, +boatswains, or other artificers. And they may not play the part of a +woman old or young quarreling with her husband, or in conceit of her +happiness or when she is in affliction or sorrow or weeping--“and +certainly not one who is in sickness, love, or labor.” + +There must be temperance and order and not too much laughter. There +must be no sensuality and coarseness. There will be no need of lawyers +and physicians. “There can be no more disgraceful state of education +than this; that not only artisans and the meaner sort of people need +the skill of first-rate physicians and judges, but also those who +profess to have had a liberal education.” + +Thus would Plato direct the early education of the guardians of the +state. He has much more to say about protecting them from what he +regards as dangerous influences than about the subject matter in which +they are to be trained. His guardians are to become noble men; they are +not to be imitators or trained animals or exploiters or traders. It +is often said by those who believe in the materialist conception of +history that education is an instrument for exploitation by the ruling +class. In Plato’s state education is a mark of privilege, but his ideal +nobleman is a communist. He must not touch silver or gold; he must live +like a Spartan. He may call nothing his own, neither house nor wife nor +child. The rulers are to be philosophers, and philosophers, kings. + +Hence the education of later life is the pursuit of philosophy. It is +knowledge of the idea of the good. True knowledge is drawn from within, +it is the turning of the eyes toward the light shed by the world of the +Idea, the spiritual world. It is the awakening of memories of ideas +seen by the soul of an earlier existence. Our world of concrete objects +and of sense experience cannot give this knowledge. Education deals +almost wholly with abstractions and with universals, and its method is +dialectic. + +I think that much of the illiberalism of Plato grows out of his theory +of knowledge. To him as to Socrates, knowledge is of universals. Mere +awareness of concrete objects we will agree is not knowledge. If we +only knew unrelated things--just one thing and then another, as we have +them in sense experience, we could have knowledge _of_ them but not +_about_ them. It is the knowledge about things that gives the world +its meanings. Much of the significance of things depends upon how we +conceive their relations. Every concept is an abstraction; it signifies +not some concrete fact, but a class or a common quality which inheres +in a number of objects. So the Greeks sought to find concepts which +would not be self-contradictory and would hold for all of the class +to which they were applied, and for nothing else. The Greeks did not +seek accurate information concerning facts. They believed they had +exact knowledge when they had discovered just what they meant by any +concept. They had almost no experimental science. They had begun to +be deeply interested in the phenomena of nature but their interest +was largely speculative as yet. If they had possessed the modern +scientific laboratory their knowledge could still have been abstract +but it would have remained knowledge about nature. Knowledge would +have increased as men carefully observed objects, classified them, +studied their relations and made note of the changes which take place +under fixed conditions. By the method of forming hypotheses and then +trying to verify them by fact, knowledge could have been at once both +of the universal and of the concrete. It would have been recognized +all along that universals are merely descriptive terms signifying +common properties and that they do not stand for realities which are +independent of or outside the several individual objects in which these +properties are found. With Socrates, I believe, knowledge is about +universals, but he is primarily concerned with attaining clear and +workable abstractions, that is, he is interested chiefly in sharpening +the _instruments_ of thinking. + +With Plato the interest in ideas is very different. He is a +mathematician. He is fascinated with ideas of number and of geometrical +form. Mathematics to many minds seems to consist of a world of pure +reason which is more permanent than the world of things. Philosophers +before Plato had wrestled with the problem of change. Existence was +seen to be a stream in which everything is carried along toward +its inevitable destruction. Every object at any moment is but the +cross-section of the process of its becoming something different. Our +bodies grow and perish, so also does all pass away. The rivers run to +the sea, the plants die, the temples of the gods crumble. Even the +mountains are but waves on the surface of a sea of time into which all +things sink and are lost forever. How can the temporary objects which +whirl past in the course of their transformation be said really to +exist? Existence surely must be endurance. + +I think that Plato, like many thinkers since, saw the terrifying +significance of the flow of things and sought security and “reality” +in something permanent outside the process of change. What was more +natural than that he should turn to the realm of abstract thought? The +objects we perceive change, but a concept always means the same. The +world may pass away, things may each turn into other things, as water +into vapor and fire to smoke and the body to dust, but two and two are +still four, and the sum of the angles of a triangle remains constant. +Hence above and behind the world of objects there is a world of ideas +into which the teeth of time cannot gnaw. + +You have only to believe that ideas have an existence independent of +the minds which think them and all is transformed. Instantly you step +out of Time into Eternity; form without content; number without things +to be counted; common properties of objects stripped of the objects in +which such properties inhere; the forms of logical discourse, minus +the things talked about and the talkers as well; goodness, without +anything in particular to be good; beauty in general, independent +of any concrete beautiful thing, truth universal and absolute and +outside experience. All this is now the _real_ world, and the world +of troublesome, fleeting objects becomes a shadow and a delusion. +Knowledge is knowledge of the “real.” In other words, knowledge is +about itself. The more abstract and universal an idea is the more +reality it has. The mind persuades itself that it possesses Being, +Motion, the Good and the Beautiful merely by the magic of thinking +about them in abstract terms. The universe is transformed into an +ordered system of postulates and verbal exercises. Education now is +something more than the clarification of concepts; it is initiation +into the superworld of eternal verities. + +It is not my purpose to attempt a discussion of Platonic Idealism. +It has fascinated many of the most subtle minds of the race down to +our own times. It is the foundation of much Christian theology. Its +re-affirmation at the time of the Renaissance has brought with it the +restatement of many problems which must be considered in the course of +one’s education. My point is that Plato with all his genius contributed +to the tradition of liberal education a system of values very different +from the humanism and agnosticism of Socrates. His influence has often +tended to make the aim of education mere intellectuality, rather than +intelligent grappling with the problems of living, and to transform the +search for the good life into a flight from the realities of experience. + +Go one step further and you land in ascetic mysticism. The Soul, +the Knower, is no more at home in the world of objects than is the +philosopher in the market place. It belongs to the spiritual world, the +higher realms of Being, in which ideas are forever pure and free of +distortion by matter. In the Phædo, Plato says that if we are to have +pure knowledge, the soul must be quit of the body which ever thwarts +it. Body and soul belong to different worlds. Plato thus prepares the +way for St. Paul and his doctrine that the spirit lusteth against the +flesh and the flesh against the spirit, and that to be present in the +body is to be absent from the Lord. + +If matter is corruption and mankind is during life chained to the +material body, human nature ceases to be trustworthy. Plato’s distrust +of human nature bears fruit some centuries later in the statement that +the natural man is sin and death, and in the doctrine of regeneration. +And unregenerate man is prone to error. Knowledge of the truth comes +by divine revelation and is to be sustained by infallible authority. +Dissent is heresy; assent may be required in the interest of salvation. +We have not yet reached the position of Tertullian, “I believe that +which is absurd,” but Platonism is headed in that direction. Knowledge +which feeds on itself in the end eats itself up. + +But there is in Plato something of far greater educational importance +than any metaphysic or theory of knowledge. When James said that in +the study of the classics one learns to recognize human excellence, +I wonder if he had Plato in mind. I have no doubt that Nietzsche was +thinking of him when he turned to philosophy for an answer to his +question, “what is noble?” One who deliberately strives to imitate +the manners and acquire the virtues of noble spirits, is a prig and +a clown. But unless education ennobles the mind, one becomes only a +well-informed cad. Nietzsche’s catalogue of noble traits is a little +absurd. We learn what is noble only when we see it. And efforts at +education “for character” are little more than cheap conventional +substitutes for such excellence. But there is a loftiness and sweep in +Plato’s thought which are more than genius; a graciousness which is +more than skill; a sincerity which is more than moral earnestness. He +has wrestled with the most searching problems that existence presents +to the mind of man, problems which each must face and to which he must +give his answer if ever he is to become a master spirit. Would you know +what nobility of mind is? Study Plato. + +The tradition of liberal education is a golden thread woven into the +fabric of civilization. Viewed in the perspective of history, the +thread is often broken. It is worked into various patterns according to +the divergent interests of successive ages, each pattern expressive of +the values and meanings which men once held important. The patterns, +whether lovely or grotesque, whether they are woven in or are merely +_appliqué_, are the creations of the time. The thread belongs to all +times, and whether for this tradition we are more indebted to Plato +than to Aristotle is a question we leave to those who are interested in +the history of education. We are seeking to know what the tradition is. + +I recently heard a teacher of philosophy say, “Aristotle is dead.” His +influence has died many times since the early death of his pupil, the +Macedonian conqueror, left the philosopher to the tender mercies of a +suspicious Athens. It would seem that the interest in Aristotle dies, +only to reappear subsequently in new configurations. He has something +that we always come back to when sanity returns after an epoch of +exaggeration and over-emphasis. If Socrates is critical intelligence, +and Plato nobility of spirit, Aristotle is sanity. All three are +essentials of liberal education. + +One can hardly over-rate the extent of Aristotle’s influence upon the +education of western Europe. For many centuries men spoke of him as +“The Philosopher,” drilled their minds in his logic, added little to +his metaphysics, his natural philosophy, his principles of ethics and +politics. Three periods of intellectual awakening may be attributed +largely to the revival of interest in his writings--that of Rome at +the time of Cicero, whose education and philosophy was essentially +Aristotelian; that of the brilliant Arabic culture which preceded the +Crusades; and that of the scholastic education of western Europe, +at the close of the Middle Ages. In the last, Aristotle’s teaching +was very much distorted as a result of theological interest and of +ignorance of the Greek language; and his hold upon education had with +much difficulty to be broken before men could turn their attention to +the study of nature or develop a logic of science. Aristotle could not +have anticipated that his authority would one day become an obstacle to +the study of nature. He himself was the great naturalist of his age. +His extensive work of research and classification of natural phenomena +remained unequalled until modern times. Had the Greeks not despised +mechanics, Aristotle might have possessed the necessary instruments +for scientific experiment, and our knowledge of nature might have been +centuries ahead of where it is today. + +Unlike Plato, his former master, Aristotle did not displace the world +of objects by a world of abstract thought. He seems to have held that +universals are real, but only as an account of the order which prevails +in the world. His logic is primarily instrumental. His whole philosophy +is an attempt at well-ordered common sense. + +The “Politics” and “Ethics” contain Aristotle’s philosophy of +education. It is the task of the legislator to consider how his +citizens may be good men. This is also the task of the educator. +Goodness is not represented as obedience to divine commands. Neither +is its aim that of securing reward in a future life. The aim of +goodness is the good life, and the good life is the happy life, the +life that is lived well. Such a life requires certain material goods, +also friendships, health, good looks, leisure and _aretè_. There is no +word in English which is the exact equivalent of _aretè_. It is often +translated virtue, or excellence. But Aristotle has in mind a definite +quality of excellence, which includes distinction, good breeding, +self-command, wisdom, balance and poise, and equanimity in all things. +_Aretè_ is the art of living. + +Nothing could be farther from Aristotle’s thought than that education +should become a separate interest or pursuit of a knowledge that +has nothing to do with the kind of life a man leads. To his mind +the central question for education is, what sort of man is it most +desirable that one should become. Moderns may justly criticise him +because he omits any reference to work, other than to say that it is +debasing. His philosophy of education is that of a leisure class. And +since work makes up the greater portion of most men’s experience in +life, it may be said that Aristotle would train men to possess the +subjective qualities of virtue only, and without reference to their +tasks and duties. It cannot be denied that his theory of education +has often been so employed. I have already discussed at some length +the relation of education to work. While Aristotle, like others of +his time, looks down upon labor, it does not follow that a man is +necessarily shut off from the good life as Aristotle depicts it merely +because he earns his own bread. Let us say that Aristotle is in error +when he says that work is debasing. We may still hold that if his “good +life” is good at all, it is good for the man who works for his living. +My point is that this philosophy of education is not unrelated to the +ordinary affairs of life, but that it points out those habits which +best enable one to turn such affairs to value and to happy use. + +Aristotle has set forth his idea of the good man in no uncertain terms. +The good is not Plato’s absolute or ideal good--good in general; it +is _happiness_. It is to be attained not merely by philosophical +speculation, but by “an energy of the soul according to reason,” +by well-considered habits of choosing. Happiness is the aim of all +knowledge and of every act. But the educated do not agree with the +vulgar as to what it is. The latter believe it to be the accident of +good fortune. The former hold that it is the result of virtue. Virtues +are praiseworthy habits. “Virtue” therefore is a habit accompanied +with deliberate preference, in the relative mean defined by reason, +and as the prudent man would define it, “It is the mean state between +two vices, one in excess, the other in defect. Temperance and courage +are destroyed both by the excess and the defect, but are preserved by +the mean. Virtues are neither passions nor capacities.” They are not +mere moral enthusiasms nor any subjective state of mind. Wisdom and +deliberation are required for virtue. _The good man is the educated +man._ + +Education is not merely the teaching of morals, or the laying down +rules for behavior. The virtuous habits are not acquired by rote nor +exercised automatically. The habit of virtue is that of _appropriate +response_ to the situation, the response which is right because +“nothing may be” taken away from it nor added to it without causing it +to tend toward vicious excess or defect. There must be discrimination +or one will go to extreme. Courage is not mere bravery; it is that +well-considered “mean state” between fear and over-confidence. +Aristotle quotes Socrates to the effect that courage is a “kind of +science.” + +The temperate man does not feel desire “except in moderation, nor more +than he ought, nor in any case improperly.” He does not desire things +which are dishonorable or beyond his means. He is in the mean in all +things, his desires are “according to the suggestions of right reason.” +Liberality is the mean between prodigality and stinginess. It is not +virtuous to give unless one gives wisely. “The liberal man therefore +will give for the sake of the honorable, and he will give properly for +he will give to proper objects, in proper quantities, at proper times, +and his giving will have all the other qualities of right giving, and +he will do this pleasantly and without pain; for that which is done +according to virtue is pleasant.”... “But if it should happen to a +liberal man to spend in a manner inconsistent with propriety and what +is honorable, he will feel pain, but only moderately and as he ought, +for it is characteristic of virtue to feel pleasure and pain at proper +objects, and in a proper manner.” + +Magnanimity is a virtue if accompanied by intelligence. The magnanimous +are concerned with honor. He who being really worthy, estimates his own +worth highly, is magnanimous. He whose worth is low and who estimates +it lowly is not magnanimous, but modest. He who estimates his worth +lightly when he is really unworthy is vain. He who estimates it less +highly than it deserves is “little-minded.” In good or bad fortune, +the magnanimous will behave with moderation, he will not be too much +delighted with success nor too much grieved at failure. He must take +more care for truth than for the good opinion of men. He will not be +servile, for all flatterers are mercenary and low-minded. He will +not be given to the habit of too much admiring the great, nor will he +be fond of talking about himself or about other people; he will not +recollect injuries, nor be over-anxious, nor disposed to praise or +blame. “The step of the magnanimous man is slow, his voice deep and +his language steady: for he who only feels anxiety about a few things +is not apt to be in a hurry: and he who thinks highly of nothing is +not vehement and shrillness and quickness of speaking arise from these +things.... But vain men are foolish and ignorant of themselves ... +little-mindedness is more opposed to magnanimity than vanity, for it +is oftener found and is worse.” Hence a just appreciation of one’s +worth--knowledge of self, as Socrates would have said--is essential to +Aristotle’s ideal man. + +Furthermore, meekness is a virtue only when it is a sign of +intelligence. “He who feels anger on proper occasions, at proper +persons, and besides in a proper manner, at proper times, and for a +proper length of time is an object of praise.” The meek man is not +carried away by passion. He who is excessively sensitive to anger is +irascible. He who is unsensitive is a fool. + +Even the virtue of truthfulness must be exercised in moderation and +with good judgment. The excess of it is arrogance, the defect is +cunning or false modesty. Wit is also a virtue; the excess, Aristotle +says, is buffoonery or sarcasm, the defect is clownishness. + +Justice is discussed in a manner quite different from that of Plato. +The problem of universal justice is dismissed, and justice is +considered in relation to various transactions between man and man. +Hence the necessity of defining “right reason.” Aristotle turns to a +discussion of Prudence, Intelligence, Deliberation, Wisdom. He says, +“It is not sufficient to know the theory of virtue,”--the end is +in “practical matters.” Aristotle holds the relation of morals to +education is much the same as that which we found it to be in the +preceding chapter. Mere precept and example are not enough; there must +be general culture, and education should extend throughout a lifetime. + +“But reasoning and teaching, it is to be feared, will not avail in +every case, but the mind of the hearer must be previously cultivated +by habits to feel pleasure and aversion properly just as the soil +must be which nourishes the seed. For he who lives in obedience to +passion would not listen to reasoning which turns him away from it: +nay more, he would not understand it. And how is it possible to change +the convictions of such a man as this? On the whole, it appears that +passion does not submit to reasoning, but to force.... + +“Perhaps it is not sufficient that we should meet with good education +when young: but since when we arrive at manhood we ought also study +and practice what we have learnt we should require laws also for this +purpose.” + +Aristotle discusses the desirability of public education. He thinks +that first men must become fitted for the duties of the legislator. +And since, he says, all previous writers have discussed the subject of +politics without scientific examination of the subject, he proposes to +undertake such an examination for himself. + +Let us note that neither Plato nor Aristotle when considering the good +life, thinks that the individual may attain it in isolation. It is not +merely a quality of the soul, but has to do with all of one’s human +relationships. Aristotle says that it is very difficult for the young +to receive a good education under a bad government. He would seem to +make the state and the laws a means to education. And it is the aim +of both the state and education to enable the citizen to live happily. +Education is training in wisdom and virtue, and the exercise of these +is freedom. Those who are incapable of education are slaves by nature; +those who obey only passion and abstain from vicious things not because +they are disgraceful but for fear of punishment, cannot be reasoned +with; they must be restrained by force. Education is liberal in that it +enables a man to govern himself. + +In comparison with Plato, Aristotle appears prosaic, worldly, +and lacking in charm and humor. Much that he says appears to us +platitudinous, for the same reason that the woman found Shakespeare’s +dramas full of familiar quotations. We forget how subversive of +convention and dogma it is to found the good life in the life of +reason. Aristotle has passed by mythology and tradition and the +sanctions of religion and has achieved a purely secular guide to +conduct. He has made freedom and happiness the goal of virtue and +education, and has done this without descending to utilitarianism. He +has made right reason the standard of life and has at the same time +given to the standard an æsthetic valuation. He has linked education +with conduct, and suggested a moral training which gives human nature +credit for some degree of intelligence. Aristotle is no longer “the +Philosopher.” Education in the modern world is necessarily set to tasks +very different from those of ancient Greece. But the good life is still +the goal, and Aristotle’s good man has remained one of the ideals of +liberal education. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HUMANISM: ERASMUS AND MONTAIGNE + + +Each man’s education is a unique achievement. There are as many kinds +of education as there are kinds of men. In every educated mind there +is a mixture of temperament and learning, a selection and emphasis, an +elusive quality like that which haunts a work of art. We may recognize +this elusive something but we cannot define it or describe it. Such +words as wisdom, virtue, independence of judgment, freedom, cannot give +us the meaning of education. We must know the educated man. If you +read and understand Erasmus of Rotterdam, you will see what education +is better than if you read all the books written about theories of +education. A liberally educated person is like Erasmus. + +I do not mean that Erasmus is the only type of educated mind, or that +the educated man is like him in all respects. Certainly I would not +suggest that one living in the twentieth century should strive to +imitate a scholar who lived in the fifteenth. Change of environment +calls for a different response. But there are certain constant factors. +New modes of response may be necessary in order to recreate the +values which men of other times discovered, values the loss of which +in our times would cheapen our whole existence. If this were not so +there would be no point in trying to learn anything from men of other +times. There are those who have such faith in the infallibility of +contemporary opinion that they are convinced the past has nothing to +teach us. The ways of the present are “progress,” and progress is its +own criterion of the good and needs no other guide than the interests +of the hour. Such persons are usually to be found cheering for “the +latest thing.” As a rule they are people without background or reserve. +We live in the present, to be sure. But if we are really to live in it +and are not content merely to act a part in the passing show, we must +consider the values which are at issue in the responses we make. To +that end there is enlightenment in knowing the values for which other +men of other times struggled. The kind of living we are to achieve with +our environment is not determined by the environment itself, but by the +kind of men and women we are--by what we bring to our environment from +the widest possible knowledge of what is worth doing. Men like Erasmus +and Montaigne lived better lives than most of their contemporaries +because of the wisdom of the ages that was in them. It may be said that +other men in their times also shared this ancient knowledge, for was +not The Revival of Learning at its height? Many did and were better +men for it. Many were fascinated by the Renaissance who merely shared +its externalities but did not thereby become wiser men; they remained +creatures of their own times. It became “the latest thing” to ape the +ancients without understanding them. Among obscurantists, and fanatics +and corruptionists, Erasmus and Montaigne lived like educated men. + +At the close of the fifteenth century, it was said, “Whatever is +artistic, finished, learned and wise is called Erasmian.” It is +difficult to speak of Erasmus except in terms of the superlative. +The most broadly educated man of his times, he was not only the +representative scholar of his generation; he remains an example to +us all of the truly civilized man. His polished wit, his humanity, +his gentle irony, his unfailing reasonableness, his ability to see +through cant and superstition, his philosophic calm in the midst of +intense partisan strife, his good taste and sense of proportion: these +qualities of mind belong to no one age, they are the constants of which +I spoke a moment ago; they are the essentials of a civilized attitude +toward life in any age. Without them man is a barbarian. + +The Great Humanist saw as no one else did the spiritual significance +of the revival of learning, and he came to represent all that was best +in it. Scholarship to him was more than erudition and pedantry and +literary style. He found in classic literature a window opening upon a +new vision of the meaning and possibilities of living. He became the +champion of a new way of life and thought. Past and present met and +mingled in his thought and became a new life of reason. “He quietly +stepped out of medievalism,” the first modern man, the forerunner of +Descartes and Voltaire. + +In a time when all human interests were submerged in religion, Erasmus +sought to humanize the Church, and leave it an international fellowship +of culture, free of dogma and superstition. He turns from knowledge of +divine things to human letters as the guide to living, and from blind +faith to reason. The Gospel becomes for him the “philosophy of Christ.” +With equal impartiality he could translate the mocking dialogues of +Lucian and provide the coming Reformation with its first standard Greek +text of the New Testament. His boldness in omitting passages from this +latter work, which he found not to be authentic, and his occasional +unconventional commentary on the text brought him under the suspicion +of being at heart a sceptic and a heretic. + +With bigotry and persecution almost universal all around him, Erasmus +taught tolerance, moderation, respect for truth. In a splendid +biographical study, Professor Preserved Smith says that Erasmus’s +“Colloquies” did more for the spread of liberal ideas than any book +of the sixteenth century. Another historian says, “Almost all the +liberating ideas on which the international culture of the present +rests, are present in germ in his thought.” + +The continent of Europe in the year fifteen hundred was culturally far +inferior to Asia. Compared to the civilization of Greece and Rome, all +Christendom was barbarian. The wave of interest in education which in +the thirteenth century had caused the universities to become crowded, +while it had not passed, had subsided into a dull scholastic dialectic. +Education had little effect upon the life of the masses or their +rulers. In Italy art and letters were breaking away from religious +tradition, but the new spirit which prevailed at Florence, Padua, and +Rome had little sway north of the Alps. Mediæval Christianity had +reached its culmination and was in a period of moral and intellectual +decline. Thoughtful men everywhere were dissatisfied. The time was soon +to come when this dissatisfaction could no longer be held in restraint, +when throughout a century of bloodshed, civil war, and violence and +hatred such as Europe had never known, the Church would be torn asunder +and anarchy and terror reign until modern nationalism and industrialism +could painfully emerge from the smouldering ruins. + +It is said that when Leo X ascended the Papal throne, there was placed +above his head in Latin the inscription, “_Nunc tempora Pallas +habet_,”--Now Athene reigns. Not many years were to pass before the +sacred walls, which had under the Pontificate of his predecessor been +decorated by Michelangelo and Raphael, were to echo the sound of church +bells ringing out the tidings of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day. +Soon all over Europe the floodgates would be open and Christendom would +be inundated by torrents of fury. Soon in defense of the sacred Gospel, +Christians would tear at Christians’ throats. With instruments of iron, +tongues would be wrenched from the mouths of men and women, eyes gouged +from their sockets, limbs broken on the rack. The bed of torture and +the heap of burning faggots would become commonplace spectacles for +the public to gaze upon. For a hundred years and more Europe was to +be ablaze with war on every hand, until it should sink exhausted by +the mutual destruction of Christian armies into almost unimaginable +misery and poverty. And this struggle which was destined to breed +hatreds and sectarian divisions lasting even till today, might have +been avoided, probably could have been averted, could the spirit of +Erasmus have prevailed. Protestants hold the Catholics responsible for +the horrors of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Catholics +hold the Protestants responsible. Both were equally guilty, for they +were equally ignorant and barbarous and deluded with superstition. This +is the kind of thing that happens and always will happen when ignorance +breaks loose in the world. Then in the general madness even learned men +like Melanchthon and Œcolampadius and the Medicis lose their poise and +become partisans. + +Erasmus during the most trying time kept his sanity. And both sides +denounced him bitterly. He was accused of taking a cowardly middle of +the road position. What neither group of militant partisans could +see was that Erasmus, far from being in the middle of the road, was +not on their wretched highway at all. He remained true to the issue +for which he had struggled from the first. Erasmus saw that what was +wrong with Europe, indeed what really gave rise to the abuses of +mediæval society, was barbarism sanctioned by religious superstition. +He knew that vice and folly and brutality and hypocrisy were not to +be removed by religious warfare, but rather deepened. He saw the same +spirit of doctrinaire scholasticism, the same intolerance and cruelty +and pious ignorance on both sides of the coming controversy. He knew +that conditions could be improved only when the leading minds of +contemporary Europe could acquire the decencies which characterize the +liberally educated of all times. Whether history has vindicated Erasmus +in this conviction of his is a matter concerning which opinions differ. +I think it has. Such liberty and cultural progress as the modern world +enjoys it would seem to have derived from the Erasmian tradition, not +that of Luther, Calvin or Wesley. Protestantism without the humanism +of Erasmus is Fundamentalism. And conversely, Paris and Vienna and +Munich are nominally Catholic, but they have known the influence of +Erasmus and Voltaire to a degree that many Protestant communities have +not known such influence, and so far as the advance of civilization is +concerned, I think that life in such localities will compare rather +favorably with that of certain strictly Protestant communities. I +believe that those movements of the present day which have greatest +spiritual significance and value--modernism in religion, liberalism in +education, the dawning recognition of the necessity of intelligence and +of individual responsibility in matters of belief and conduct, efforts +for the humanization of industry and the state--are but the belated +resumption of the humanizing work begun in northern Europe by Erasmus +and others and broken off by the Reformation. From this point of view +the Reformation is not the continuation of the Renaissance, but would +appear to have been something of a bourgeois reaction against it. + +Long before the storm broke, Erasmus was carrying on a brave work +against ignorance and obscurantism. In our times, we have seen +something of the conflict of science with theology. This issue is +tame in comparison with the conflict of theology with Humanism which +occupied scholars at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is +difficult for us now to imagine that there could be bitter opposition +to the teaching of the Latin and Greek literatures. The issue is +blurred for us. Theologians are less acrimonious than they once +were, and Scholasticism has long been on the decline. The classics +moreover, are taught in such a manner that few students see the deep +spiritual chasm which separates the Christian approach to life from +that of the Latin and Greek poets and philosophers. It was pretty well +recognized on both sides of the dispute that the ancients were pagans, +rank heathen. Those who opposed these unchristian writers did so for +much the same reason that early Christians in the second century had +assailed “the present evil world” and all its works. + +In Italy the Renaissance tended for a time to take on a definitely +pagan aspect. Imitation of the ancients became a rather ridiculous +gesture, and the fad was often carried to extremes which were little +less than childish. Cardinals assumed the speech and manners of ancient +Roman senators. Sermons were preached in sonorous Ciceronian style. In +certain quarters Christ was identified with Apollo, and God the Father +with Jupiter. Nuns were spoken of as “vestal virgins,” and painters and +sculptors created figures of Mars and Venus and mingled these and other +heathen idols with the images of the saints. + +The apparent sympathy of high ecclesiastical personages with such +goings on was one of the causes of the hostility to the Papacy which +later swept over northern Europe. + +The sanity of Erasmus saved him and helped save the revival of learning +from such superficiality. He found in Humanism a balanced and serious +wisdom which he strove to combine with the Christian philosophy of +life. The synthesis he achieved was not a new system of theology; +it was the gradual merging of an older outlook upon life into a new +outlook, a transformation of intellectual interests. Professor Smith +quotes a passage which indicates something of Erasmus’s position +regarding the classics. That this literature was pagan he well knew, +but its paganism did not to his mind exclude it from the spiritual life +of mankind. He says of an essay of Cicero’s, “A heathen wrote this to +heathen and yet his moral principles have justice, sincerity, truth, +fidelity to nature; nothing false or careless is in them.” “When I read +certain passages of these great men, ... I can hardly refrain from +saying, ‘St. Socrates, pray for me.’” + +Erasmus found himself the leader of Humanism as an educational +movement. He stated the issue in precisely the terms that gave sincere +and intelligent men a new vision of the spiritual life. And he did it +with such a wealth of learning, such reasonableness, such unanswerable +irony and wit that his name became the symbol of the new scholarship. +His books had a larger circulation than those of any other writer of +his generation. And as for many years he travelled about Europe, +moving from one center of learning to another, his coming was hailed +with triumph. Scholars everywhere attended him, sat at his feet, took +up the cause he championed. The Humanists were winning victory after +victory and could look forward to the triumph of their movement in the +education of western Europe. How rapidly the spread and advance of +culture might have proceeded or what directions it might have taken if +men’s thoughts had not been turned again to theological controversy +and to bitter warfare, no one can say. Perhaps the masses were not +prepared to accept or tolerate so sudden a change as that for which +Erasmus strove, for Humanism was a much more radical departure from +the mental habits and standards of value of the Middle Ages than was +Protestantism. The leaders of the Renaissance did not accept the +Reformation because they regarded it as a backward step. Perhaps they +had themselves gone too far ahead. Perhaps the representation of the +good man as the intelligent man, an ancient Greek idea which the +Humanists revived, will always be offensive to the masses. Erasmus +seemed--he still seems to many--to have lacked moral earnestness. He +generated light and what mankind wants is heat. At any rate, the masses +in the nations where the new scholarship was being carried, showed +that they did not want the pagan wisdom. Instead they suddenly became +possessed with a longing for the primitive faith of the first Christian +century, or what they thought was that faith. They followed the leader +who gave them not insight, but a moral issue. + +Both Luther and Erasmus had visited Rome. Each was impressed by the +“sight of antique monuments.” Each saw evidence of the corruption and +veniality which along with luxury surrounded the gay Papal court. +Luther later spoke of Rome as the “sink of every abomination,” a +conviction which doubtless had much to do with determining the course +of events which led to his break with Papal authority. + +Of the effect of all this on the mind of Erasmus, we have the record in +a book, one of the great classics of literature, “In Praise of Folly.” +In the letter of dedication to his friend Sir Thomas More, Erasmus says +that in his late travels from Italy, that he might not trifle away his +time in the rehearsal of old wives’ fables, he began reflecting upon his +past studies, and thought it good to divert himself by drawing up a +“panegyrick upon Folly.” He suggests that this trifling may be a whet +to more serious thought and that “comical matters may be so treated +of, as that a reader of ordinary sense may possibly thence reap more +advantage than from some more big and stately argument.” He hints that +he does not wish to be so carping that he will fail to instruct, and +says that he who points indifferently at all, can hardly be accused of +being angry with any one man or one vice. And he wonders at the “tender +humor” of an age in which some are so “preposterously devout that they +would sooner wink at the greatest affront against our Saviour, than be +content that a prince or a pope should be nettled with the least joke +or gird, especially in what relates to their ordinary customs.” + +Here we have the characteristic reactions of two contrasting types +of men who probably can never understand each other. To Luther the +vices of Rome are sin; to Erasmus they are folly. The one is filled +with moral indignation at the iniquity of the world, and rushes into +the fray to stamp it out, puts it on the defensive, attacks it in its +stronghold. The other makes iniquity ridiculous, renders it defenseless +by laughing away its pretexts at justification, showing it to itself +as folly and reminding all men that their foolishness may be removed +only by wisdom. No doubt without more moral indignation in the world +than Erasmus seems to have shown there would be too easy tolerance of +abuse. On the other hand, without his insight and scepticism and irony, +indignation turns to malice, men lose their perspective, and their +power of self-criticism; they become so intent upon the struggle for +righteousness that they forget what they are struggling for, and when +the great cause finally triumphs, it carries to victory the same old +iniquities in new dress. + +It is evident from a reading of “In Praise of Folly” that Erasmus’ +thought made deeper inroads into the very spirit of Mediæval thought +and religion than did Luther’s moral indignation. It undermined many +things that the Reformer left standing. “In Praise of Folly” was +written eight years before Luther’s break with the Pope, and it reveals +a mind emancipated from much more than the Papacy. The man who could +write this satire must have regarded the Reformation as a quarrel which +dealt with only the surface of the problem. I do not wonder that later +both Catholics and Protestants considered him a sceptic. It is my +belief that he was too sceptical to become greatly excited about the +Reformation. He is impressed with the whole stupid comedy of the life +about him. + +Knowledge of this book should be part of every man’s education. It has +much more than a historical interest for the modern student. In form +it is an oration which Folly delivers in praise of herself. She makes +a good case; perhaps too good a case. Folly says that however slightly +she is esteemed in the common vogue of the world--being often decried +even by those who are themselves the greatest fools--yet she is _the +deity who really rules the world_ and is the source of most men’s +happiness. “At first sight of me you all unmask and appear in more +lively colors.” + +Without Folly society would go to pieces. Indeed no one would ever be +born, for would women ever have children or marry except for Folly? And +except for Folly marriages would be few and divorces many. How could +the government exist without Folly? Have not wise legislators in all +times recognized the necessity of fooling the people? After showing +how Folly reigns in the arts and the professions, and how each nation +has its pet folly and self-conceit, the speaker sums up, “I am so +communicative and bountiful as to let no particular person pass without +some token of my favor, whereas other deities bestow gifts sparingly +and to their elects only.” + +Let us note this reference to Folly as “deity.” Does Erasmus mean to +imply that Folly is the deity that mankind really worships and has been +worshipping all the while? He makes Folly say, + + “Well, but there are none (say you) build any altars, or dedicate + any temple to Folly. I admire (as I have before intimated) that the + world should be so wretchedly ungrateful. But I am so good natured + as to pass by and pardon this seeming affront, though indeed the + charge thereof, as unnecessary, may well be saved; for to what + purpose should I demand the sacrifice of frankincense, cakes, + goats, and swine, since all persons everywhere pay me that more + acceptable service, which all divines agree to be more effectual and + meritorious, namely, an imitation of my communicable attributes?... + Farther, why should I desire a temple, since the whole world is but + one ample continued choir, entirely dedicated to my use and service? + Nor do I want worshippers at any place where the earth wants not + inhabitants. And as to the manner of my worship, I am not yet so + irrecoverably foolish, as to be prayed to by proxy, and to have my + honour intermediately bestowed upon images and pictures, which quite + subvert the true end of religion....” + +But Folly has not time to recount all the foolishness of the ignorant, +neither is it necessary. She confines herself to the follies of those +who make pretense of wisdom. Of these the theologians doubtless “least +like to be reminded of their dependence upon Folly,” but in evidence of +this fact, + + “They will cut asunder the toughest argument with as much ease + as Alexander did the Gordian knot; they will thunder out so many + rattling terms as shall fright an adversary into conviction. They + are exquisitely dexterous in unfolding the most intricate mysteries; + they will tell you to a tittle all the successive proceedings of + omnipotence in the creation of the universe; they will explain + the precise manner of original sin being derived from our first + parents; they will satisfy you in what manner, by what degrees, and + in how long a time our Saviour was conceived in the Virgin’s womb, + and demonstrate in the consecrated wafer how accidents may subsist + without a subject. Nay, these are accounted trivial, easy questions; + they have yet far greater difficulties behind, which nothwithstanding + they solve with as much expedition as the former; ... whether Christ, + as a son, bears a double specifically distinct relation to God the + Father, and his virgin mother? whether this proposition is possible + to be true, the first person of the Trinity hated the second? whether + God, who took our nature upon him in the form of a man, could as + well have become a woman, a devil, a beast, an herb, or a stone? and + were it so possible that the Godhead had appeared in any shape of an + inanimate substance, how he should then have preached his gospel? + or how have been nailed to the cross? whether if St. Peter had + celebrated the eucharist at the same time our Saviour was hanging on + the cross, the consecrated bread would have been transsubstantiated + into the same body that remained on the tree?” + + “Further, does any one appear a candidate for any ecclesiastical + dignity, why an ass or a plough jobber shall sooner gain it than a + wise man.”... + + “All their preaching is mere stage-playing, and their delivery the + very transports of ridicule and drollery. Good Lord! how mimical are + these gestures? What heights and falls in their voice? What toning, + what bawling, what singing, what squeaking, what grimaces, making + of mouths, and apes’ faces, and distorting of their countenance; + and this art of oratory as a choice mystery, they convey down by + tradition to one another. The manner of it I may adventure thus + farther to enlarge upon. First, in a kind of mockery they implore the + divine assistance, which they borrowed from the solemn custom of the + poets.... + + “Now as to the popes of Rome, who pretend themselves Christ’s vicars, + if they would but imitate his exemplary life, in the being employed + in an unintermitted course of preaching; in the being attended with + poverty, nakedness, hunger, and a contempt of this world; if they did + but consider the import of the word pope, which signifies a father; + or if they did but practice their surname of most holy, what order or + degrees of men would be in a worse condition? There would be then no + such vigorous making of parties, and buying of votes, in the conclave + upon a vacancy of that see: and those who by bribery, or other + indirect courses, should get themselves elected, would never secure + their sitting firm in the chair by pistol, poison, force of violence. + How much of their pleasure would be abated if they were but endowed + with one dram of wisdom? Wisdom, did I say? Nay, with one grain of + that salt which our Saviour bid them not lose the savour of. All + their riches, all their honour, their jurisdictions, their Peter’s + patrimony, their offices, their dispensations, their licences, their + indulgences, their long train and attendants, (see in how short a + compass I have abbreviated all their marketing of religion;) in a + word, all their perquisities would be forfeited and lost.”... + +Finally, after quoting many passages in praise of Folly and of foolish +actions and foolish persons which occur in his precious classic +literature, Erasmus does a surprising thing. At the time this book +was written those who later were to become the Reformers were already +disposed to appeal to the Bible as an infallible authority equal to, if +not above, that of the Church. That Erasmus placed the Holy Scriptures +in the same category as other ancient literature is indicated by his +free and easy treatment of it. He humorously quotes many passages to +prove that the Bible actually enjoins men to practice folly and eschew +wisdom. Were not our first parents expelled from Eden in punishment for +the sin of eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge? He does not +even spare the New Testament. + + “Now therefore I return to St. Paul, who uses these expressions ‘Ye + suffer fools gladly,’ applying it to himself; and again, ‘As a fool + receive me,’ and ‘That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, + but as it were foolishly’; and in another place, ‘We are fools for + Christ’s sake.’ See how these commendations of Folly are equal to the + author of them, both great and sacred. The same holy person does yet + enjoin and command the being a fool, as a virtue of all others most + requisite and necessary: for, says he, ‘If any man seem to be wise in + this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.’... + + “Nor may this seem strange in comparison to what is yet farther + delivered by St. Paul, who adventures to attribute something of Folly + even to the all-wise God himself, ‘The foolishness of God (says he) + is wiser than men’ ... wherein is to be understood that other passage + of St. Paul, ‘The preaching of the cross to them that perish, is + foolishness.’ But why do I put myself to the trouble of citing so + many proofs, since this one may suffice for all, namely, that in + those mystical psalms wherein David represents the type of Christ, + it is there acknowledged by our Saviour, in way of confession, that + even he himself was guilty of Folly; ‘thou (says he) O God knowest + my foolishness?’ Nor is it without some reason that fools for their + plainness and sincerity of heart have always been most acceptable to + God Almighty.... So our Saviour in like manner dislikes and condemns + the wise and crafty, as St. Paul does expressly declare in these + words, ‘God hath chosen the foolish things of the world’; and again, + ‘it pleased God by foolishness to save the world’; implying that by + wisdom it could never have been saved. Nay, God himself testifies + as much when he speaks by the mouth of his prophet, ‘I will destroy + the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nought the understanding of the + learned.’ Again, our Saviour does solemnly return his Father thanks + for that he had ‘hidden the mysteries of salvation from the wise, and + revealed them to babes,’ i. e. to fools.” + +The book ends with these words, “I hate a pot-companion with a good +memory: so indeed I hate a hearer that will carry anything away with +him. Wherefore in short, farewell: be jolly, live long, drink deep, ye +most illustrious votaries of Folly.” + +It is said that Luther was repelled by this book. I do not wonder. +Erasmus would seem to be as far removed from the spirit of +Protestantism as from that of mediæval Catholicism. Has Erasmus, +perhaps without wholly realizing the fact himself, stepped quite +outside the traditional Christian system of beliefs and values into +a world-view which is partly that of the ancient philosophies and +partly that of the eighteenth century Rationalist? I do not know. He is +certainly a liberal in matters of religion, but unlike our contemporary +liberals, he shows little interest in natural science. + +He was severely criticised for refusing to participate in the +Reformation on the side of the Reformers. The following bits of +correspondence which I quote from Professor Smith’s biography indicate +the esteem in which he and Luther finally held each other. Luther wrote +about the year 1524: + + “Since we see that the Lord has not given you courage and sense to + assail those monsters openly and confidently with us, we are not the + men to expect what is beyond your power and measure.... We only fear + that you may be induced by our enemies to fall upon our doctrine with + some publication, in which case we should be obliged to resist you to + your face.... Hitherto I have controlled my pen as often as you prick + me, and have written in letters to friends, which you have seen, that + I would control it until you publish something openly. For although + you will not side with us, and although you injure and make skeptical + many pious men by your impiety and hypocrisy, yet I cannot and do + not accuse you of willful obstinancy.... We have fought long enough; + we must take care not to eat each other up. This would be a terrible + catastrophe, as neither of us wishes to harm religion, and without + judging each other both may do good.” + +Erasmus wrote to his friend, Everard, + + “With what odium Luther burdens the cause of learning and that of + Christianity! As far as he can he involves all men in his business. + Everyone confessed that the Church suffered under the tyranny of + certain men, and many were taking counsel to remedy this state of + affairs. Now this man has arisen to treat the matter in such a way + that he fastens the yoke on us more firmly, and that no one dares to + defend even what he has said well. Six months ago I warned him to + beware of hatred. ‘The Babylonian Captivity’ (a bitter treatise which + Luther wrote) has alienated many from him, and he daily puts forth + more atrocious things.” + +And again to Luther, in reply to a very unkind letter, + + “Your letter was delivered to me late and had it come on time it + would not have moved me.... The whole world knows your nature, + according to which you have guided your pen against no one more + bitterly and, what is more detestable, more maliciously than against + me.... The same admirable ferocity which you formerly used against + Cochlaeus and against Fisher, who provoked you to it by reviling, + you now use against my book in spite of its courtesy. How do your + scurrilous charges that I am an atheist, an Epicurean, and a skeptic + help the argument?... It terribly pains me, as it must all good men, + that your arrogant, insolent, rebellious nature has set the world in + arms.... You treat the Evangelic cause so as to confound together all + things sacred and profane as if it were your chief aim to prevent the + tempest from ever becoming calm, while it is my greatest desire that + it should die down.... I should wish you a better disposition were + you not so marvelously satisfied with the one you have. Wish me any + curse you will except your temper, unless the Lord change it for you.” + +Much has been made of the following “damning” admission: + + “Would that some ‘deus ex machina’ might make a happy ending for this + drama so inauspiciously begun by Luther! He himself gives his enemies + the dart by which they transfix him, and acts as if he did not wish + to be saved, though frequently warned by me and by his friends to + tone down the sharpness of his style.... I cannot sufficiently wonder + at the spirit in which he has written. Certainly he has loaded the + cultivators of literature with heavy odium. Many of his teachings and + admonitions were splendid, but would that he had not vitiated these + good things by mixing intolerable evils! If he had written all things + piously, yet I should not have courage to risk my life for the truth. + All men have not strength for martyrdom. I fear least, if any tumult + should arise, I should imitate Peter (in denying the Lord).” + +It is doubtful if Erasmus meant this confession of weakness to be taken +literally. Cowards are not often so honest with themselves, nor do +they make such candid revelations of their fears, but rather affect a +show of bravery so long as it is possible to disguise their weakness +of character. Had Erasmus been less strong, he would have yielded to +pressure, joined the reformers and sought refuge among them. Instead, +he stood against the crowd, knowing well that although he might decline +to join the ranks of Luther, there was no refuge for him amongst the +churchmen whom he had been attacking for many years. He did not betray +his own cause, the Renaissance, but remained true to it in opposition +to bigotry and ignorance on both sides of the controversy. In support +of the revival of learning he was courageous enough. Surrounded as he +was by madness, he conceived it to be the task of the wise man to keep +his balance and work for peace and sanity. + +I believe this to be the first social task of the educated. Could +a Socrates, or a Seneca, or Cicero have returned to life in the +year 1525, it is difficult to imagine that he would have pursued a +course very different from that Erasmus pursued. A man’s intellectual +integrity does not require that he take sides when he believes that +neither side has the truth. I believe Erasmus took the longer view, for +today we find Humanism gradually supplanting orthodoxy among educated +Protestants, and I have no doubt that something similar is taking place +in Catholic centers of culture. The liberal Catholic and the liberal +Protestant are more nearly of one mind than is either of them with the +Fundamentalist in his own sect. And they are each nearer to Erasmus. +Erasmus did not suffer martyrdom, neither did he make martyrs of those +who opposed him. Persecution and martyrdom are the first things that +the uneducated think of in any social crisis. The masses are prepared +to make any conflict the occasion of both, and with only the vaguest +idea of what the killing is all about. If there were more men like +Erasmus there would be less occasion for such practices. His is the +cause which will never triumph by force. + +Humanism, which in the Italian Renaissance was something of a _parvenu_ +effort at culture, comes to its maturity with Montaigne. It is an +educational experience lived through, a wisdom grown into, as Montaigne +says, with everything in its season. Montaigne’s mind is stored with +the fruits of the wisdom of all historic times. He quotes the ancients +as only Erasmus could, yet he is never an imitator or copier. His is +one of the most original minds in literature, and his originality +increases as he grows older and has time to think. It is very different +from the rebelliousness of certain contemporary radicals, whose +liberalism might be characterized as retarded adolescence. + +A contemporary critic says of him, “Montaigne ... was one of the most +civilized men of whom we have any record: his intellectual curiosity +was matched by his magnanimity. He hated cruelty, prejudice, violence +and stupidity: his love of life was so great that it illumined every +object in the world of sense and in the world of thought. His style was +so original that his remarks on little things have outlived thousands +of works dealing soberly with portentous ideas. He could write on +trivial themes without becoming trivial.” + +Like Erasmus, he has a delicious sense of humor in which there is no +bitterness. He is so accustomed to ideas that he can play with them. +He can smile at his own weaknesses, and discuss every question with +open mind and with that “kindly irony which is perhaps the ripest of +all moods in which poor humanity can look at itself.” But Erasmus +was the professional scholar, and we think of him always moving in +circles where learning is of special interest. One does not think of +educational institutions when one reads Montaigne’s essays, but of the +educated man himself. He is the learned layman, the _amateur_ whose +learning is assimilated with all the interests of the daily routine of +living. He is not “taken in” by his culture so as to make it an end in +itself. He says, + + “I labor not to be beloved more and esteemed better being dead than + alive.... If I were one of those to whom the world may be indebted + for praise, I would quit it for one moytie, on condition it would + pay me before hand.... I make no account of goods which I could + not employ to the use of my life. Such as I am, so I would not be + elsewhere than on paper. Mine art and industry have been employed + to make myself of some worth; my study and endeavor to doe, and not + to write. I have applied all my skill and devoire to frame my life. + Lo--heere mine occupation and my work. I am a less maker of books + than of anything else.... Whosoever hath any worth in him, let him + shew it in his behaviour, manners and ordinary discourses; be it + to treat of love or of quarrels; of sport and play or bed-matters, + at board or elsewhere; or be it in the conduct of his own affairs + or private household matters.... Demand a Spartan whether he would + rather be a cunning Rhethorician, then an excellent souldier; + nay, were I asked, I wuld say a good Cooke, had I not some one to + serve me. Good Lord--how I would hate such a commendation, to be a + sufficient man in writing and a foolish, shallow-headed braine or + coxcombe in all things else.” + +He ridicules those who strive to make a show of learning and “alledge +Plato and Saint Thomas for things which the first man they meete would +decide as well.... Such learning as could not enter into their middle +hath staid on their tongues.” + + “Being young I studied for ostentation; then a little to enoble + myselfe and become wiser; now for delight and recreation, never for + gaine. A vaine conceit and lavish humour I had after this kinde of + stuffe; not only to provide for my need, but some what further to + adorne and embellish my selfe withall; I have since partlie left it.” + +He loves Letters but does not worship them. He remains a little +surprised and amused at his own bits of wisdom and does not quite know +how he came into the company of the philosophers. + + “Nothing may be spoken so absurdly but that it is spoken by some of + the philosophers. And therefore do I suffer my humors or caprices + more freely to pass in publike. For as much as though they are borne + with, and of me, and without any patterne; well I wot, they will + be found to have relation to some ancient humour, and some shall + be found, that will both know and tell whence, and of whom I have + borrowed them. My customes are naturall; when I contrived them, I + called not for the help of any discipline: And weake and faint as + they were, when I have had a desire to expresse them, and to make + them appeare to the world a little more comely and decent, I have + somewhat endevoured to aide them with discourse, and assist them with + examples. I have wondred at my selfe, that by mere chance I have + met with them, agreeing and sutable to so many ancient examples and + Philosophicall discourses. What regiment my life was of, I never knew + nor learned but after it was much worne and spent. A new figure: An + unpremeditated Philosopher and a casuall.” + +It is this unostentatious, unpremeditated, casual and chatty quality +of Montaigne’s writing that reveals the genuineness of his education. +A present-day critic would lead us to believe that he kept a note +book and patiently copied out of his classics the passages which he +might use as illustrations. In a characteristic bit of humor at his +own expense, Montaigne seems to justify this idea that he was a mere +compiler of other men’s thoughts. + + “We labor and toyle and plod to fill the memorie and leave both + understanding and conscience empty. Even as birds flutter and skip + from field to field to peck up corn or any grain and without tasting + the same carrie it in their bills therewith to feed their little + ones: so doe our pedants glean and pick learning from books and + never lodge it further than their lips only to disgorge and cast + it to the wind. It is strange how filthy sottishness takes hold of + mine example. Is not that which I do in the greatest part of this + composition all one and self same thing? I am forever here and there + picking and culling from this and that book the sentences that please + me, not to keepe them (for I have no store house to reserve them in) + but to transport them into this: where to say truth, they are no more + mine than in their first place.” + +But it is obvious that these essays were not the product of a mind +which worked in such a sophomoric manner as this. Montaigne’s mind +is saturated with “ancient humor.” There is no pretense or conscious +effort to appear erudite. While many other Renaissance scholars were +writing in Latin and affecting a Ciceronian style, Montaigne wrote +in French. He is, I believe, the creator of the essay as a form of +literary expression, a style which is more free and informal than the +conventional forms of his day. + +A man who spent his days in seclusion in his library in the tower +of his castle, he writes not of books but of every conceivable +human interest and commonplace reality. His wisdom turns to such +considerations as, “By diverse means men come to a like end.” “How +the soul dischargeth her passions upon false objects.” “Whether the +captaine of a place besieged ought to sally forth to parley.” He writes +of “Idleness,” of “Liars,” or “Virtue,” of “Drunkenness,” of “Exercise +or Practice,” of “Profit and Honesty,” of “Repenting,” of “Coaches,” +of “The Verses of Virgil,” of “Vanity,” of “The affection of fathers to +their Children,” of “Seneca” and “Plutarch” and “Julius Caesar.” Always +his interest is in human experience. Shrewd personal observations are +mingled with stories from antiquity and quaint philosophic maxims in a +mind which is at once mature and inquisitive, loquacious and sceptical, +candidly self-revealing, without pretention, equally at home among +books and things. Let those who object to the teaching of the classics +on the ground that they tend to a “separation of education from life” +go back and re-read Montaigne. + +Although the two were by temperament very different, Montaigne would +have pleased Erasmus. His education and philosophy of life were very +much the type that Erasmus strove to encourage. When Montaigne was +born, in 1533, the influence of the Renaissance had already made +itself felt in France. He was three years old when Erasmus died. But +his casual mention of “The Adages” and “Colloquies” of Erasmus would +indicate that sometime in his youth these books formed part of his +education. His knowledge of Greek and Latin began at a very early +period in his life. It is said that when he was a mere infant his +father placed him in the home of a neighboring scholar so that he would +grow up with the same familiarity with these languages as with his +mother tongue. He entered what was called a “college” at the age of +six. It was, I suppose, a preparatory school. It must have come under +the influence of the revival of learning for it had on its faculty some +of the ablest scholars in France at that time. At the age of thirteen +he entered a university to study Law, took his degree at twenty, and at +twenty-one was appointed councilor for the Parliament of Bordeaux. He +seems to have had some military experience also, and to have spent some +gay years at court. + +When he was thirty-nine years old he inherited the estate and castle +of Montaigne near Bordeaux. He married, and except for the few years, +when against his inclination he served as Mayor of Bordeaux, he spent +the remainder of his days in private life, looking after his estate and +enjoying hours of unbroken meditation in his tower library, reading his +Horace and Plutarch and the ancient poets and philosophers generally. +He says he was not a great reader, but that he liked to have his +books about him. He especially enjoyed the privacy of his library, +from which, he gives us to understand, his wife and the rest of the +household were excluded. + +Montaigne began writing brief essays when he was forty-five years old, +not at first for publication but rather so that he might present a true +picture of himself to his family and friends. The writing evidently +amused him for as the years passed the essays grew longer and their +content more serious. + +If we are to see the full significance of the essays as the revelation +of an achievement in education--and that is our present interest in +them--we must remember what was happening in the world at the time +they were written. The struggle of the Reformation was in full swing. +Montaigne’s lifetime coincides with what was doubtless the most bitter +and acrimonious period of that religious conflict. Everywhere there +was persecution, riot, intrigue, retaliation; men seemed to have lost +utterly the liberal spirit of the Renaissance and to have forgotten +that there was such a virtue as tolerance. + +Montaigne was an exception. It is said that during the years of +bloodshed in France, his castle was never fortified, nor closed, and +that both Catholics and Protestants were welcome there. The battle does +not disturb Montaigne’s equanimity, nor warp his judgment; it remains +to him a little more than a fight in the street. I should like to call +attention to this indifference to the great mass movement of the times, +for there are those who contend that philosophy, art and letters are +but the by-products of such movements. At a time when nearly every +one is eaten up with partisan zeal, Montaigne hardly mentions the +Reformation. He says, “I perswade you, in your opinions and discourses, +as much as in your custom, and in every other thing, to use moderation +and temperance, and avoid all newfangled inventions and strangenesses. +All extravagant wais displease me.” + +While others are resorting to torture and massacre for the sake of a +faith which they do not question, Montaigne quietly retires and has +time to see when he is making himself ridiculous. + + “It is not long since I retired my selfe unto mine owne house, with + full purpose, as much as lay in me, not to trouble myselfe with any + businesse, but solitarily and quietly to weare out the remainder + of my wellnigh spent life: when me thought I could doe my spirit + no greater favor than to give him the full scope of idlenesse, and + entertaine him as best he pleased, and withall to settle himselfe as + best he liked: which I hoped he might, now being by time become more + settled and ripe, accomplish very easily: but I finde + + ‘... evermore idlenesse + Doth wavering mindes addresse.’ + + That contrariwise, playing the skittish and loose broken jade, he + takes a hundred times more cariere and libertie unto himselfe than + he did for others: and begets in me so many extravagant chimeraes + and fantastical monsters, so orderless, and without any reason, one + huddled upon the other, that at leisure to view the foolishnesse and + monstrous strangeness of them, I have begun to keep a register of + them, hoping, if I live, one day to make him ashamed and blush at + himselfe.” + +Toward the multitude and its judgments of value he is indifferent, + + “Our soule must play her part, but inwardly, within our selves, + where no eyes shine but ours: ... not for any advantage but for the + gracefulness of honestie itselfe. This benefit is much greater, and + more worthie to be wished and hoped, then honor and glory, which is + naught but a favorable judgment that is made of us.... Is it reason + to make the life of a wise man depend on the judgment of fooles? + Nothing is so incomprehensible to be just waied as the mindes of the + multitude.... + + “... In this breathie confusion of brutes and frothy chaos of reports + and of vulgar opinions which still push us on, no good can be + established. Let us not propose so fleeting and so wavering an end + unto ourselves. Let us constantly follow reason: And let the vulgar + approbation follow us that way, if it please. Of the many thousands + of worthie, valiant men which fifteen hundred years since [the day of + Juvenal] have died in France with their weapons in their hands, not + one in a hundred have come to our knowledge.... It shall be much, if + a hundred years hence the civil warres which lately we have had in + France be but remembered in grosse.” + +Yes, the multitude may follow if it pleases; Montaigne will not urge +it. He may remind it that in a few years its cause may be forgotten. +But how free he is from the righteous indignation and vindictiveness +and factiousness which everywhere storm about him. He has that urbanity +of which I spoke, and the serenity of one who has learned to laugh at +his own prejudices. + + “Surely, man is a wonderful, vaine, divers and wavering subject: it + is very hard to ground any directly constant and uniforme judgment + upon him.” + +His wisdom leads him to see not only the folly of mankind, but also +his own folly and weakness, which he does not strive to conceal, but +relates with amusing candor. + + “I have, a kind of raving, fanciful behavior that retireth well into + myselfe: and on the other side a grosse and childish ignorance of + many ordinary things: by means of which two qualities I have in my + daies committed five or six as sottish trickes as any one whatsoever: + which to my derogration may be reported.... + + “For my part, I may in generall wish to be other than I am: I may + condenme and mislike my universall forme: I may beseech God to + grant me an undefiled reformation and excuse my natural weaknesse: + but me seemeth I ought to tearme this repentance, no more than the + displeasure of being neither an Angell nor Cato.... + + “When I consult with my age of my youthe’s proceedings, I finde that + commonly (according to my opinion) I managed them in order. This + is all my resistance is able to perform. I flatter not myselfe: in + like circumstances I should be ever the same. It is not a spot, but + a whole dye that staynes mee. I acknowledge no repentence (that) is + superficiall, meane, and ceremonious. + + “Crosses and afflictions (works of penance) make me doe nothing but + curse them. They are for people that cannot be arroused but by the + whip.... The happy life (in my opinion, not as said Antisthenes, the + happy death,) is it that makes man’s happinesse in this world. + + “I have not preposterously busied myselfe to tie the taile of a + Philosopher unto the head and bodie of a varlet: nor that this + paultrie end, should disavow and belie the fairest soundest and + longest part of my life. I will present myselfe and make a generall + muster of my whole, everywhere uniformally. Were I to live againe, it + should be as I have already lived. I neither deplore the past, nor + dread what is to come.” + +The man who can speak so of himself is not likely to hold up any +universal standard of faith or practice. He is not the man with the +message for humanity, as were the Reformers and their enemies in the +church. He is not a partisan because he has gone beyond such dilemmas. +His knowledge of many books and of many and diverse explantations of +the riddle of life and many kinds of goods and evils has made him +see that there is no “one right way.” Reason has often been opposed +to faith. Montaigne sees that reason too is faith, and faith all too +human. There can be no finality. + +I suspect that his tolerance and aloofness during the Reformation in +France were the result of a point of view somewhat similar to that of +Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise,” and his story of the three rings. No one +possessed the original, which was supposed to entitle the owner to +the ancestral blessing and inheritance. All, like all religions, were +counterfeits of the lost article. + +Montaigne gives his ideas of religion and philosophy in the longest of +his essays, “An Apologie of Raymond Sebond.” He says that his father +once requested him to translate a book on natural Theology by an +unknown Spanish writer of this name. His remarks reveal the extent to +which his mind is freed from both rationalism and religious dogmatism. + + “We should accompany our faith with all the reason we possess: yet + always with this proviso, that we think it does not depend on us, + and that all our strength and arguments can never attain to so + supernaturall and divine a knowledge.” + +His remarkable detachment is seen in the following. He says that the +best test of Verity is the practice of virtue. + + “And therefore was our good Saint Lewis in the right, when that + Tartan King who was to become a Christian intended to come to Lions + to kisse the Pope’s feet, and there to view the sanctitie he hoped + to find in our lives and manners, instantly to divert him from it + fearing lest our dissolute manners and licentious kind of life might + scandalize him and so alter his opinion foreconceived of so sacred a + religion. How be it the contrary happened to another who for the same + effect being come to Rome, and there viewing the dissoluteness of the + prelates and people of those days, was so much more confirmed in our + religion, considering with himselfe what force and divinity it must + of consequence have since it was able, amidst so many corruptions and + so viciously poluted hands to maintain her dignitie and splendor.... + + “Our zeale worketh wonders when ever it secondeth our inclination + toward hatred, cruelitie, ambition, avarice, detraction or + rebellion.... Among other discommodities of our nature this is + one, there is darkness in our minds, and in us not only necessity + of erring but love of errors.... Presumption is our naturall and + originall infirmitie. Of all creatures, man is the most miserable + and fraile, and therewithall the proudest and disdainfullest ... + he ascribeth divine conditions unto himselfe that he selecteth and + separateth himselfe from out the ranke of other creatures.... By + what comparison from them to us doth he conclude the brutishness he + ascribeth unto them? When I am playing with my cat who knows whether + she have more sport in dallying with me than I in gaming with her? We + entertain one another with mutuall apish tricks.” + + “We understand them (the beasts) no more than they us. By the same + reason may they as well esteem us Beasts, as we them. It is no great + marvell if we understand them not: no more doe we understand the + Cornish, the Welch, or Irish.” + +He is persuaded he says, that if anyone who has pursued knowledge will +“speak in conscience, he will confess that all the benefit he hath +gotten by so tedious a pursuit, hath been that he hath learned to know +his own weaknesse.” + + “My profession is not to know the truth nor to attaine it. I rather + open than discover things. The wisest that ever was, being demanded + what he knew, answered that he knew nothing.” + +He speaks with approval of the doubters, the Phyrronians who “but +desire to be contradicted, thereby to engender doubt and suspense of +judgment which is their end and drift.” Thus these men have attained +the condition of a quiet and contented life, exempted from the +agitations which beset ourselves because we imagine we have a certainty +and a knowledge that we do not possess. + +After all “that ignorance which knoweth and condemneth itselfe,” is +not absolute ignorance. Montaigne seems to hold that it is the best +we may attain and that in knowing and condemning our ignorance we may +avoid much of the misery and mischief we inflict upon ourselves and one +another. The fears and revenge and jealousies and partisan strife and +rebellion and envy and immoderate desires which everywhere he finds +about him all proceed, he thinks, from presumptuous ignorance which +does not know itself to be ignorance. In the midst of theological +disputation he smilingly reminds his neighbors that as, + + “Xenophanes said pleasantly that if beastes frame any gods unto + themselves (as likely it is they doe) they surely frame them like + unto themselves and glorifie themselves as we do. For what may not a + Goose say this? All parts of the world behold me, the earth serveth + me to tread upon, the sunne to give me light, the starres to inspire + me with influence: this commodity I have of the winds, and this + benefit of the waters: there is nothing that this world’s vault doth + so favorably looke upon as me selfe: I am the favorite of nature. Is + it not man that careth for me, that keepeth me, and serveth me? For + me it is he soweth and reapeth and grindeth. If he eat me, so doth + man feede on his fellow, and so doe I on the wormes that consume and + eat him.” + + “I commend the Milesian wench who seeing Thales the Philosoper + continually amusing hemselfe in the contemplation of heaven’s wide + bounding vault and ever holding his eyes aloft, laid something in + his way to make him stumble, thereby to warne and put him in minde + that he should not amuse his thoughts about matters above the clouds + before he had provided for and well considered those at his feet. + Verily she advised him well, and it better became him rather to looke + to himselfe than to gaze on heaven.” + +“_The wisest judging of heaven is not to judge of it at all._” His own +modest answer to the riddle of existence in contrast to those who would +“turne and winde God Almighty according to their own measure,” is “Que +scay-je?”--What do I know? + +Montaigne is not a hard and soulless sceptic. He is a well poised, +modest thinker and an honest man. He is not a denier, but one whose +mind is free from cant, humbug, pretentiousness. Historically he is one +of the links between the best in modern education and the questioning +Socrates whom he knew and loved. I trust that in presenting the +Humanist tradition in this concrete manner, I have been able to suggest +something of its spirit. It has a necessary place in liberal education +because it helps liberate the mind from the clutches of opinionated +ignorance, from the follies which prevail as truth in our own age, and +from conceit and vanity to which our human nature is ever prone. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION--HUXLEY + + +When the ancient Humanist, Protagoras, said, “Man is the measure of +all things,” he probably did not mean that all things may be measured +by man, for in his following sentence he is sceptical of our knowledge +of many things. He meant rather that all our measurements are human. +This independence of supernaturalism was not always characteristic +of educated minds of antiquity, but it is one of the distinguishing +features of the educational tradition which we have derived from Greece +and Rome. Thus Aristotle would establish ethics in the life of reason. +This same naturalistic bias also inspires those early attempts at +science which were broken off under the influence of Christianity. + +The Renaissance was accompanied by a re-awakened interest in nature, +and in human nature as part of nature as a whole. The trend toward +naturalism is seen in art, in the resumption of scientific research and +experimentation, and in the effort to supplant scholastic theology by +the study of human letters. To Da Vinci, for instance, science, art, +and letters were but the varied aspects of the same cultural awakening. +But for the greater number of those who felt the influence of the +Renaissance, science and letters became quite separate interests. +The new learning of the Humanists was almost exclusively a literary +scholarship. Erasmus and his followers had very little interest in +natural science. They found in classic literature a body of mature +wisdom ready to hand. Science on the contrary, was obliged to begin +_de novo_, and slowly construct its instruments of thought, building, +gradually a new system of knowledge. The brunt of the conflict with +scholastic education fell upon the humanists. The real renaissance of +science did not take place until the seventeenth century. + +Meanwhile the Reformation had caused a revival of religious interest, +and in Protestant countries like England, and later America, the +influence of religion upon higher learning remained powerful. It +permitted the classical tradition to survive in letter rather than in +spirit. The naturalistic implications of the classics were ignored; +commentators whenever possible read into the texts the conventional +beliefs and sentiments of Protestantism. Humanism became “traditional +education,” a new scholasticism, formal and innocuous, a mark of +intellectual respectability, a “refining” influence, an embroidery of +familiar quotation in the speech of parsons and country squires. + +Successive generations of grown-up schoolboys in Gothic halls, +laboriously translated, over and over again, hackneyed passages from a +literature that in the fifteenth century had been carried about like +the fire of Prometheus, kindling defiance to Heaven all over Europe. +Often men could think of no better reason for the study of the ancient +classics than that in the tedium and monotony of language drill there +was a “discipline” which was good for the soul. The student’s attention +was centered upon the niceties of construction and upon the task of +memorizing rules of grammar and a vocabulary, all stuffed into his head +in the most artificial manner conceivable. He was not likely to be +puzzled over the discovery that there might be something spiritually +irreconcilable between Lucretius and the Thirty Nine Articles, or +between the dialectic of Socrates and the Westminster confession of +faith. + +There is a world of difference between this _denatured_ Humanism and +that of Erasmus or Montaigne. That this traditional education made +for polish and good breeding cannot be denied. Neither, I think, +can it be denied that there was something sterile and illiberal in +Protestant-classical education. It is significant that both the +Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and the progress of science in +the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries took place chiefly outside the +established universities and sometimes in spite of their opposition. + +I do not see how the situation could well have been otherwise. In the +first place the older Humanists themselves dealt the naturalism of +the ancients and such of it as was again coming to life a severe blow +when they championed letters and remained indifferent to science. +In the second place, the Reformation quite side-tracked the revival +of learning, superseded it, and took over into its own service only +so much of it as it found congenial to its religious interests. It +was a mass movement, an attempt at a restatement of Christianity in +terms of the philosophy of the common man, a philosophy to which +the questioning, enlightened common sense and worldly wisdom of a +Montaigne, a Voltaire or a Hume is never very congenial. Santayana +says, “The philosophy of the common man is an old wife that gives him +no pleasure, yet he cannot do without her, and resents any aspersions +that strangers may cast on her character. + +“Of this homely philosophy the tender cuticle is religious belief; +really the least vital and most arbitrary part of human opinion, the +outer ring, as it were, of the fortifications of prejudice, but for +that very reason the most jealously defended; since it is on being +attacked there, at the least defensible point, that rage and alarm at +being attacked at all are first aroused in the citadel. People are not +naturally sceptics, wondering if a single one of their intellectual +habits can be reasonably preserved; they are dogmatists angrily +confident of maintaining them all. Integral minds, pupils of a single +coherent tradition, regard their religion, whatever it may be, as +certain, as sublime, and as the only rational basis of morality and +policy. Yet in fact religious belief is terribly precarious, partly +because it is arbitrary, so that in the next tribe or in the next +century it will wear quite a different form; and partly because, +when genuine, it is spontaneous and continually remodelled, like +poetry, in the heart that gives it birth. A man of the world soon +learns to discredit established religions on account of their variety +and absurdity, although he may good-naturedly continue to conform +to his own; and a mystic before long begins fervently to condemn +current dogmas, on account of his own different inspiration. Without +philosophical criticism, therefore, mere experience and good sense +suggest that all positive religions are false, or at least (which +is enough for my present purpose) that they are all fantastic and +insecure.” + +Speaking of the Reformation and its relation to science, Whitehead +says, “We cannot look upon it as introducing a new principle into human +life.” Perhaps he is inclined to over-emphasize the assertions of +the Reformers that they were only restoring what had been forgotten. +But he says, “It is quite otherwise with the rise of modern science. +In every way it contrasts with the contemporary religious movement. +The Reformation was a popular uprising and for a century and a half +drenched Europe in blood. The beginnings of the scientific movement +were confined to a minority among the intellectual élite.” + +It is doubtless because the Humanists remained relatively indifferent +to science, that its early struggles with theology were comparatively +mild. It was permitted to make remarkable progress in the seventeenth +century without raising an issue too great for its strength. It is +interesting to note that when in the nineteenth century the conflict +of natural science with theology became acute, science was at the same +time engaged in a struggle for recognition by the official educational +system in which the classical tradition held sway. + +The outstanding public champion of science in this conflict was Thomas +H. Huxley. He could say of university education in England in the year +1868, that the colleges no longer promoted research in science, and +were hardly more than “boarding schools for bigger boys.” Once they +had been homes for the life study of the most abstruse and important +branches of knowledge. + + “I believe there can be no doubt that the foreigner who should wish + to become acquainted with the scientific, or the literary, activity + of modern England, would simply lose his time and his pains if he + visited our universities with that object. + + “The countrymen of Grote and of Mill, of Faraday, of Robert Brown, of + Lyell, and Darwin, to go no further back than the contemporaries of + men of middle age, can afford to smile at such a suggestion. England + can show now, and she has been able to show in every generation + since civilization spread over the West, individual men who hold + their own against the world, and keep alive the old tradition of her + intellectual eminence. + + “But in the majority of cases, these men are what they are in virtue + of their native intellectual force, and of a strength of character + which will not recognise impediments. They are not trained in the + courts of the Temple of Science, but storm the walls of that edifice + in all sorts of irregular ways, and with much loss of time and power, + in order to obtain their legitimate positions. + + “Our universities not only do not encourage such men; do not offer + them positions, in which it should be their highest duty to do, + thoroughly, that which they are most capable of doing; but, as far as + possible, university training shuts out of the minds of those among + them, who are subjected to it, the prospect that there is anything in + the world for which they are specially fitted.--Imagine the success + of the attempt to still the intellectual hunger of any of the men I + have mentioned, by putting before him, as the object of existence, + the successful mimicry of the measure of a Greek song, or the roll of + Ciceronian prose!” + +Twelve years later Huxley was still waging his contest for the +admission of science to the curricula of school and college against an +opposition the obstinacy of which is a little difficult for us today to +understand. + + “For I hold very strongly by two convictions--The first is, that + neither the discipline nor the subject-matter of classical education + is of such direct value to the student of physical science as to + justify the expenditure of valuable time upon either; and the second + is, that for the purpose of attaining real culture, an exclusively + scientific education is at least as effectual as an exclusively + literary education. + + “I need hardly point out to you that these opinions, especially the + latter, are diametrically opposed to those of the great majority of + educated Englishmen, influenced as they are by school and university + traditions. In their belief, culture is obtainable only by a liberal + education; and a liberal education is synonymous, not merely with + education and instruction in literature, but in one particular form + of literature, namely, that of Greek and Roman antiquity. They hold + that the man who has learned Latin and Greek, however little, is + educated; while he who is versed in other branches of knowledge, + however deeply, is a more or less respectable specialist, not + admissable into the cultured caste. The stamp of the educated man, + the University degree, is not for him.” + + “The representatives of the Humanists, in the nineteenth century, + take their stand upon classical education as the sole avenue to + culture, as firmly as if we were still in the age of Renascence. Yet, + surely, the present intellectual relations of the modern and the + ancient worlds are profoundly different from those which obtained + three centuries ago. Leaving aside the existence of a great and + characteristic modern literature, of modern painting, and, especially + of modern music, there is one feature of the present state of the + civilized world which separates it more widely from the Renascence, + than the Renascence was separated from the middle ages. + + “This distinctive character of our own times lies in the vast and + constantly increasing part which is played by natural knowledge. Not + only is our daily life shaped by it, not only does the prosperity + of millions of men depend upon it, but our whole theory of life has + long been influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by the general + conceptions of the universe, which have been forced upon us by + physical science.” + + “The scientist, no longer disposed to remain on the defensive with + the usual apology for science, carries the battle into the opposing + camp and indicts the opposition, with some justice I think, for + its failure even when judged by its own traditional standards of + education. + + “There is no great force in the _tu quoque_ argument, or else the + advocates of scientific education might fairly enough retort upon + the modern Humanists that they may be learned specialists, but that + they possess no such sound foundation for a criticism of life as + deserves the name of culture. And, indeed, if we were disposed to be + cruel, we might urge that the Humanists have brought this reproach + upon themselves, not because they are too full of the spirit of the + ancient Greek, but because they lack it. + + “The period of the Renascence is commonly called that of the “Revival + of Letters,” as if the influences then brought to bear upon the + mind of Western Europe had been wholly exhausted in the field of + literature. I think it is very commonly forgotten that the revival of + science, effected by the same agency, although less conspicuous, was + not less momentous.... + + “We cannot know all the best thoughts and sayings of the Greeks + unless we know what they thought about natural phenomena. We cannot + fully apprehend their criticism of life unless we understand + the extent to which that criticism was affected by scientific + conceptions. We falsely pretend to be the inheritors of their + culture, unless we are penetrated, as the best minds among them were, + with an unhesitating faith that the free employment of reason, in + accordance with scientific method, is the sole method of reaching + truth. + + “Thus I venture to think that the pretensions of our modern Humanists + to the possession of the monopoly of culture and to the exclusive + inheritance of the spirit of antiquity must be abated, if not + abandoned.” + +Huxley was one of the few educators of his time who ought to have seen +clearly that in the education of the ancients there was no conflict +of interest between science and letters; the two were one in the +naturalistic minds of the Greeks. He is aware of the fact that both +science and letters were revived by the Renaissance, but it would seem +that he permits his zeal in the cause of scientific training to force +him at times into a rather one-sided and partisan position. + + “But for those who mean to make science their serious occupation; + or who intend to follow the profession of medicine; or who have to + enter early upon the business of life; for all these, in my opinion, + classical education is a mistake; and it is for this reason that I + am glad to see ‘mere literary education and instruction’ shut out + from the curriculum of Sir Josiah Mason’s College, seeing that its + inclusion would probably lead to the introduction of the ordinary + smattering of Latin and Greek....” + + “The great peculiarity of scientific training, that in virtue of + which it cannot be replaced by any other discipline whatsoever, + is this bringing of the mind directly into contact with fact, and + practising the intellect in the completest form of induction; that is + to say, in drawing conclusions from particular facts made known by + immediate observation of nature.” + +The struggle for recognition of the liberalizing educational value of +science was carried to successful issue in the nineteenth century. +In backward communities, Fundamentalism still sets its face against +certain of the anti-supernaturalist implications of science, and it is +always possible that if at any time the populace now dazzled by the +“wonders” of science, should suspect the full meaning of the world-view +which science would substitute for the older anthropomorphic ideas +about the universe, there may be a wide-spread popular reaction against +it in the name of religion. But at present in educational institutions +generally, scientific courses tend to predominate over the classical. +Most of the struggles for “academic freedom” and most of the live +problems in education revolve about the teaching of the sciences. +A vastly greater number of minds are today set free from dogma and +superstition and childish deference to authority by methods of +scientific research than by the study of the classics. The latter is on +the decline and I suppose must continue to be so until Humanism again +possesses that vitality and naturalism, and independence of judgment +which men had when the Greeks set out to discover the Good Life. + +Dewey says that without initiation into the scientific spirit one is +not in possession of the best tools which humanity has so far devised +for effectively directed reflection. In it may be realized that desire +for exact knowledge as different from mere opinion which the ancients +sought. It tests all things in the light of experiment and by appeal +to cold objective fact. It is often said that science is Reason in +contrast with Faith. Certainly the scientist cannot in his research +permit himself to be swayed by religious belief and remain scientific. +He must accept no conclusion on authority or because he wishes to +believe it. But the scientific mind is not, as a matter of fact, as +strictly rationalistic as was the scholastic mind. The logic of the +latter is a formal vindication of The Truth conceived in advance of +knowledge of fact. The reasoning of the former proceeds by a succession +of shrewd guesses which are held to be mere hypothesis until verified +by the facts. This necessity of holding judgment in abeyance, and +of being willing to discard any belief or postulate that may not be +confirmed by objective reality, has the greatest educational value. In +spite of the everlasting deceitfulness and conceit of human nature and +notwithstanding the fact that pompous ignorance and fraud are often +palmed off upon the public as scientific knowledge, I should say, +precisely because of these things, training in scientific methods is +the best device available to the educator for instilling into the human +mind some measure of respect for truth. + +To this end Huxley would introduce scientific experimentation into the +elementary school and would establish “scientific Sunday schools,” + + “Would there really be anything wrong in using part of Sunday for + the purpose of instructing those who have no other leisure, in a + knowledge of the phenomena of Nature, and of man’s relation to + Nature? + + “I should like to see a scientific Sunday-school in every parish, + not for the purpose of superseding any existing means of teaching + the people the things that are for their good, but side by side with + them. I cannot but think that there is room for all of us to work in + helping to bridge over the great abyss of ignorance which lies at our + feet. + + “And if any of the ecclesiastical persons to whom I have referred + object that they find it derogatory to the honour of the God whom + they worship, to awaken the minds of the young to the infinite wonder + and majesty of the works which they proclaim His, and to teach them + those laws which must needs be His laws, and therefore of all things + needful for man to know--I can only recommend them to be let blood + and put on low diet. There must be something very wrong going on in + the instrument of logic if it turns out such conclusions from such + premises.” + +There is an intellectual cleanness, something downright and honest +about the scientific pursuit of knowledge, and this uncompromising +mental integrity characterizes everything that Huxley said and did. +There is nothing shifty in a mind trained as his was. His is like a +cool north breeze on one of those clear summer days that sometimes +follow a period of sultriness, fog and rain. If things are a little too +sharply outlined, they are at least recognized for what they are. No +evasive mistiness obscures the landscape. To Huxley the foundation of +morality is to give up pretending to believe that for which there is no +evidence. He held that the lowest depths to which the human race could +fall--after knowing what science now reveals of nature--would be to go +back and deceive itself with comforting fictions. You will remember +his correspondence with Kingsley when death had entered his home. The +grief-stricken Huxley refused the consolations of a faith in which he +could not whole-heartedly believe. Like Socrates and Montaigne and +many educated men today, Huxley was candidly agnostic with respect to +matters which lie beyond the radius of human knowledge. + +Huxley was a determinist, but it is doubtful if he was a materialist. +At least he held to a materialism which in one sense might be +reconciled with a form of idealism. In the address in honor of Joseph +Priestley he said, + + “Without containing much that will be new to the readers or Hobbs, + Spinoza, Collins, Hume, and Hartley, and indeed, while making no + pretensions to originality, Priestley’s ‘Disquisitions relating to + Matter and Spirit,’ and his ‘Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity + Illustrated,’ are among the most powerful, clear, and unflinching + expositions of materialism and necessarianism which exist in the + English language, and are still well worth reading. + + “Priestley denied the freedom of the will in the sense of its + self-determination; he denied the existence of a soul distinct + from the body; and as a natural consequence, he denied the natural + immortality of man. + + “In relation to these matters English opinion a century ago was very + much what it is now. + + “A man may be a necessarian without incurring graver reproach than + that implied in being called a gloomy fanatic, necessarianism, + though very shocking, having a note of Calvinistic orthodoxy; but, + if a man is a materialist; or, if good authorities say he is and + must be so, in spite of his assertion to the contrary; or, if he + acknowledge himself unable to see good reasons for believing in the + natural immortality of man, respectable folks look upon him as an + unsafe neighbour of a cashbox, as an actual or potential sensualist, + the more virtuous in outward seeming, the more certainly loaded with + secret ‘grave personal sins.’ + + “... I must confess that what interests me most about Priestley’s + materialism, is the evidence that he saw dimly the seed of + destruction which such materialism carries within its own bosom. In + the course of his reading for his ‘History of Discoveries relating + to Vision, Light, and Colours,’ he had come upon the speculations of + Boscovich and Michell, and had been led to admit the sufficiently + obvious truth that our knowledge of matter is a knowledge of its + properties; and that of its substance--if it have a substance--we + know nothing. And this led to the further admission that, so far + as we can know, there may be no difference between the substance + of matter and the substance of spirit (‘Disquisitions, p. 16’). + A step farther would have shown Priestley that his materialism + was, essentially, very little different from the Idealism of his + contemporary, the Bishop of Cloyne.” + +Perhaps William James may have had Huxley or his type in mind when +he wrote his famous passage about learning “to stand this universe.” +Yet I suspect that Huxley’s universe was more simple and benevolent, +more naïvely conceived than was that of James. Huxley was to the end a +rationalist, and lived and worked in a period when Nature was thought +to be essentially reasonable. Man need only learn the laws of nature +and obey them to become wise and happy and good. The aim of education +was to acquaint the student with the laws of nature. + + “Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty + game. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect + in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things + and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the + affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move + in harmony with those laws. For me, education means neither more nor + less than this.... + + “Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every + one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing + a game of chess. Don’t you think that we should all consider it to + be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the + pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the + means of giving and getting out of check? + + “Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the + fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of + those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something + of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than + chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man + and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or + her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena + of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws + of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know + that his play is always fair, just and patient. But we also know, to + our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest + allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest + stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which + the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is + checkmated--without haste, but without remorse. + + “My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which + Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. + Substitute for the mocking friend in that picture a calm, strong + angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than + win--and I should accept it as an image of human life.... + + “That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so + trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and + does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it + is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with + all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, + like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the + gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is + stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature + and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is + full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to + heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has + learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate all + vileness, and to respect others as himself. + + “Such an one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education; + for he is, as completely as a man can be, in harmony with Nature. He + will make the best of her, and she of him. They will get on together + rarely; she as his ever beneficent mother; he as her mouthpiece, her + conscious self, her minister and interpreter.” + +But surely liberal education is more than becoming the mouthpiece +of a benevolent nature. It seems to me that Huxley omits one of the +essentials. Just as the nineteenth century Humanists, because of +their neglect of science, possessed only a distorted and one-sided +view of Humanist education, so it would seem to me that nineteenth +century science in its opposition to traditional education, failed to +see that science is itself a part of Humanism. It is not merely the +discovery of given “Laws” which exist independently in a benevolent +and rational universe. It is the observation of certain relationships +and recurrences and the statement of these things in general terms +that will give them significance for _human beings_. What nature is +aside from the fact that we are interested spectators does not concern +us. Science grows out of the fact that we are more interested in +some things than in others. It is a human achievement; it is one of +the answers that mankind gives to the riddle of existence. It is not +existence which gives that answer, it is man. And education must not +only seek knowledge of the facts of nature, but having obtained such +knowledge, _must try to understand what to do about it_. Now that we +understand our natural environment, what kind of life can we best +achieve with it? What valuations have men put upon deeds and things? +What values is it possible to achieve? Our education is not done when +we have learned Nature’s _yes_ and _no_; we have our own _yes_ and _no_ +to give. + +Scientists quietly observing certain aspects of reality--those which +lend themselves to knowing as a specialized undertaking--are happy +to find that their abstract conceptions mutually imply and support +one another in an ordered system of knowledge. Their own reason which +they are thus able to impose upon nature, they believe they have +discovered in nature itself. Hence nature appears to be more ordered +than it really is, and to be essentially reasonable and beneficent. +Compare Huxley’s picture of nature as a beneficent mother of whom the +educated mind “makes the best, and she of him,” he “her conscious +self, her minister and interpreter,” with William James’ statement +about “this partially hospitable and ‘stepmotherly’ world of ours.” +The latter is surely the more profound and correct view. Water is not +only H₂O, it may drown you or quench your thirst. Fire is not merely +a process of oxidation, it is hot. It may be your willing servant, or +your relentless enemy. The modification of species which nineteenth +century scientists held to be the outcome of natural selection is not +what natural selection means to the organisms which experienced it. +To them it is a relentless struggle for a precarious and fleeting +existence in which satisfactions and victories are mingled with terror +and starvation and agony. And man placed in the midst of such a world +seeks education not only that he may interpret its happenings to an +intelligence which is part of the natural process, but that he may +select wisely among the alternatives which Nature presents to him, lift +himself above chaos and the slime, and achieve an existence that, at +least while it lasts, has some significance and quality of decency and +worth. + +It is to this end that science is education; a true Humanism is +impossible without it. Such a Humanism is as anti-supernaturalistic as +determinism. But it is naturalism with mankind, however, not merely +pictured as a passive resultant of natural forces, but actively +selecting and creating value. As Huxley himself says, its aim is to +provide criteria for a “criticism of life.” + + “Moreover this scientific ‘criticism of life’ presents itself to + us with different credentials from any other. It appeals not to + authority, nor to what anybody may have thought or said, but to + nature. It admits that all our interpretations of natural fact are + more or less imperfect and symbolic, and bids the learner seek for + the truth not among words but among things. It warns us that the + assertion which outstrips evidence is not only a blunder but a crime.” + +He saw a new culture in process of development, one which would enlist +the whole spiritual life of mankind, + + “The scenes are shifting the great theatre of the world. The act + which commenced with the Protestant Reformation is nearly played out, + and a wider and deeper change than that effected three centuries + ago--a reformation, or rather a revolution of thought, the extremes + of which are represented by the intellectual heirs of John of Leyden + and of Ignatius Loyola, rather than by those of Luther and of + Leo--is waiting to come on, nay, visible behind the scenes to those + who have good eyes. Men are beginning, once more, to awake to the + fact that matters of belief and of speculation are of absolutely + infinite practical importance; and are drawing off from that sunny + country ‘where it is always afternoon’--the sleepy hollow of broad + indifferentism--to range themselves under their natural banners. + Change is in the air. It is whirling feather-heads into all sorts + of eccentric orbits, and filling the steadiest with a sense of + insecurity. It insists on reopening all questions and asking all + institutions, however venerable, by what right they exist, and + whether they are, or are not, in harmony with the real or supposed + wants of mankind.” + +Huxley’s services to education were more than his struggle for the +recognition of the educational value of science. His own contributions +to the science of biology and his able championing of the case which +Darwin had made in favor of the hypotheses of evolution did much to +place the biological sciences in their present position of preëminence +and to aid in placing both education and modern thought upon the basis +of a philosophy of evolution. + +After receiving his degree in medicine, Huxley was appointed to the +position of assistant surgeon in the British navy. As he cruised about +on the war-ship ‘Rattlesnake,’ he began his studies of marine animals. +Darwin, you will remember, had also spent long months on southern seas +as government naturalist assigned to the Beagle. During the years that +followed each had risen to a high position as a British scientist, +conducting research, publishing papers, making new discoveries, all of +which contributed to make the nineteenth century, as John Fiske said, +“the century of science.” + +During the years when Darwin was patiently elaborating the theory of +“descent with modification” which was destined within his own lifetime +to bring about a revolutionary transformation in the philosophy of +nature, Huxley did much to organize the science of Biology as a +definite branch of natural history. His great energy and industry, his +passion for exact knowledge and his genius for clear and comprehensive +statement made him one of the outstanding scientists of England. As +professor of Natural History at the Royal School of Mines, and later in +the Royal College of Surgeons, and as publicist and member of numerous +commissions on science and education, he was in a position to throw +a tremendous weight of influence to the support of his convictions, +should he be drawn into a scientific controversy. + +When in 1859 Darwin published the “Origin of Species,” Huxley was one +of the small group of eminent scientists whose favorable judgment +Darwin felt would be necessary if the theory of natural selection were +to command the attention of the scientific world. Darwin did not invent +the doctrine of evolution. This idea had from time to time suggested +itself to men’s minds whenever a naturalistic account of creation was +attempted. The increase of knowledge of comparative anatomy, of geology +and of zoölogy, and the discovery of certain structural likenesses +and differences among both living organisms and the fossil remains +which were found in the several layers of the earth’s surface, could +not fail to suggest to many minds the thought that perhaps all forms +of life might be related in one comprehensive evolutionary process. +Although the evidence against the dogma of special creation was rapidly +accumulating, no valid explanation had been found. Lamarcks’ theory +that the structural modifications which characterize the various +species of organisms were the result of effort and use and of special +energizing and development of various organs, was under discussion. +The theory did not, however, interest Huxley, because it implied that +modifications which occurred as a result of effort and use could be +inherited, a belief for which there was not sufficient evidence. + +Darwin’s book put the whole problem in a new light, and stated the +hypotheses of organic evolution as an alternative to “special creation” +in terms which were comprehensible to a mind trained in natural +science. Heretofore a mysterious principle of development had been +substituted for a miracle of creation. Darwin did not invoke any such +principle but with good scientific logic sought his explanation of the +origin of species in the casual connections among observable facts. + +It is not my purpose now to enter upon a discussion of Darwinism, or +its present status in biology, a general understanding of which I think +should be part of the education of a modern man. I suspect that many +moderns who “believe in evolution” merely cherish a popular faith in +some mystical law of unusual progress, such as is expressed in the +verse, “Some call it evolution and some God.” + +Huxley was uncompromisingly opposed to all such romantic theologizing +in science. He was moreover, aware, as Darwin himself was, of the +difficulties of Darwin’s theory. But he grasped the significance of +what Darwin had done and saw the ground upon which he had placed the +discussion of the problem, and he held that in the main Darwin was +correct. Gracefully and courageously he took his stand at Darwin’s +side. In various addresses, essays, books, he drew upon his extensive +knowledge for evidence in support of the theory. In “Man’s Place in +Nature” he uncompromisingly placed the origin and development of the +human race within the process of the evolution of animal organisms. He +did not remain indifferent to the storm of ecclesiastical indignation +and popular abuse and ridicule with which a grateful humanity greeted +the most important scientific discovery of the century. He accepted +the challenge, and during the decades that followed 1860 he was +probably the outstanding champion in England, not only of evolution, +but of science itself. In 1925, upon the centennial of his birth, his +grandson, Julian Huxley wrote, + + “Of the general truth of the evolutionary hypothesis, its enormous + value to biology, and the necessary reorientation which it would give + to the general current of thought, he had no doubts; nor did he spare + himself in the cause. It is sometimes as well, in these easier-going + and theologically more tolerant days, when we are reaping what he + and others like him sowed, and may sometimes be tempted to think of + his criticism as essentially destructive, to remember what power of + inertia, what violence of the odium theologicum there was in the + opposition. ‘Professor Huxley’ became a sort of bogy in orthodox + lower middle-class families, almost as ‘Boney’ had done for the + nation in earlier days. He was attacked as irreligious, immoral, + unscrupulous, on the platform, in the press, by letter. That sort of + opposition cannot be persuaded; it must die out or be destroyed.” + +The scholar confronted by the fury and stupidity of the mob, and +counted a fool for his pains when he strives to induce it to listen to +reason, has often turned aside in disgust. Henceforth he will write and +speak for the learned few. Let the masses, who think that a scientific +demonstration may be satisfactorily refuted with derision and slander, +consume themselves in their own ignorance. They have made it clear +that learning is not for such as they. In the Theatetus Plato tells +us of the discomfiture of the philosopher in the marketplace. As “the +rabble” is in all times heedless or hostile to reason, there has often +developed the idea that any belief that is popular is thereby shown +to be untrue and vulgar. Cato at once became suspicious of himself +when any utterance of his met with applause. Among would-be educated +minds this suspicion becomes a cult. Anything is “refined” and true +to the extent that it is unpopular--and for the reason that it is not +shared by the many. Today this attitude--which is really intellectual +snobbishness--gains plausibility from the fact that much of the +popularization of science is base caricature and misrepresentation. + +It is obvious that the wider the circulation of pseudo-science, the +greater is the need of genuine instruction in the elements of science +and of general culture. I can see no other way by which modern learning +or modern civilization may be sustained. The man on the street has +power to determine which values shall survive in our common life, and +which shall perish, to a degree that he never had before. He exercises +this influence upon our culture in many ways both direct and indirect, +and his sway is not likely to be diminished in an industrial society +which increasingly tends to give social power to the various groups +which compose it in direct proportion to their numerical strength. + +Moreover, it is not likely that a strictly esoteric intellectualism can +survive at all, much less attain that leadership which is the proper +function of intelligence in human affairs in a world organized as ours +is. As I have said before, our intellectual hold upon reality, even +for the best trained minds, is more precarious than we think. A slight +general shifting of emotional interest or of perspective--the spread, +let us suppose, of Fundamentalism through lower middle class minds +generally,--a sudden spasm of popular disillusionment regarding the +“wonders” of science or of hostility toward scientific methods which +are ever upsetting the consolations of faith,--might conceivably occur +at any time, and bring the beginning of the end of all that scholars +have struggled for since the Renaissance. If as Huxley said, the epoch +which began with the Reformation is about played out, it is not by +any means a foregone conclusion what the sequel is to be. If science +and letters are to join forces in the achievement of a truly Humanist +culture, this culture must be rooted in the life and thought of the +community. It will not likely be again a fifteenth century Italian +mimicry of the age of Cicero; neither can it support itself like a +bridge over an illiterate and enslaved populace, after the fashion of +ancient Athenian Humanism. This modern public can read, it is very +vociferous, it has votes and purchasing power and it pays to flatter +it. But there is in the modern public a small and growing minority, +scattered throughout all classes in the community, who honestly desire +knowledge of science and the humanities. + +Professional scholarship has in the example of Huxley a splendid +precedent for any attempts it may care to make to ally itself with +this teachable minority. I once invited a neighboring biologist to +participate with other research scholars, in a course of lectures at +Cooper Union on scientific methods. He declined, because he believed +that a scientist who lectured to popular audiences cheapened his +reputation. I wondered if he had forgotten the great service to science +rendered by Huxley, who did not think it beneath the dignity of one +who was perhaps the leading biologist of England to wage the struggle +for scientific advance in the presence of a public which was much +less trained in the principles of natural science than the people who +regularly attend the lectures at Cooper Union. + +Huxley seemed to believe that the outcome of the struggle of evolution +against popular ignorance and superstition was inseparable from the +fate of science itself. He set himself to make knowledge of the +principles of science universal. He did a work of adult education +that has not been surpassed in modern times. If today there is greater +freedom for scientific research and teaching, and in general a more +liberal and tolerant attitude on the part of official and popular +religion toward scientific discovery, our generation is in no small +measure indebted to Huxley. + +In reply to the commonly expressed fear that liberal education may give +us a type of mind which is sceptical and ineffective, I offer Huxley. +The educated man may not perhaps take sides on the ever recurrent +question who is to profit at another’s expense, nor easily give his +devotion to the particular Utopian scheme of social reorganization +which happens to be the fashion of the reformers of his day. But if he +is like Huxley, he will be alert enough when he finds that intellectual +integrity and cultural progress are at stake. Like Erasmus, Huxley +survives in the philosophy of modern education as a symbol of +enlightenment in its struggle against obscurantism. Both insist upon +the recognition of the value of one aspect of a developing educational +tradition which has its origin in ancient Greece, and is in sharp +contrast both with popular opinion and with mediæval scholasticism. +As I have indicated, it was unfortunate that these two educational +interests did not develop out of the Renaissance, as one, for a +well-rounded Humanism is an integration of both. Erasmus champions the +cause of “human letters” and in the end classical education degenerates +into a species of Protestant scholasticism. Huxley champions science, +but is unable to liberate science itself from a mechanistic philosophy +which became associated with it two centuries earlier. The struggle +of science with theology was but a continuation of the spirit of the +Renaissance. The struggle of science against an entrenched classical +tradition meant that _the Renaissance had become divided against +itself_. This dualism is reflected in science down to the present time. +It is revealed in Huxley’s type of agnosticism, which is really naïve +in comparison with the sophisticated, mellow scepticism of Montaigne or +Hume, or in our own day with that of Mr. Santayana, who sees that all +knowledge is faith. + +It was not so with Huxley; about the finality of the knowledge that +can be brought within the scope of scientific method he had no doubt +whatever. Of other knowledge he is sceptical because of want of +evidence. This is courageous and honest, and, from the standpoint +of the struggle in which science was then engaged with theological +rationalism, the issue cannot be compromised without the surrender of +science to superstition. Although Huxley is an evolutionist and clearly +sees that human intelligence is part of the behavior of an organism +which is itself a cross-section as it were of a process of nature, +he seems to hold that morality and truth are absolute and eternal +principles which exist outside the process and constitute the very +basis of existence. Reason which knows these eternal principles and +in which they inhere, must then also exist outside the process. But +we have seen that reason is a function of the behavior of an animal. +Huxley is thus a Rationalist; as much so as any Scholastic. The body +of scientific knowledge which we possess is the revelation of the +true nature of the facts which we experienced. It is the intellectual +equivalent of reality. + +But is scientific knowledge knowledge of facts taken in their +wholeness, or is it in each instance knowledge of some special _aspect_ +of the facts--fact reduced to abstract quality, to number and point in +space and to a multiple of smaller and “more real” units all conceived +in logical relationship rather than as experienced? Suppose we should +say that scientific ideas do not exist independent of the minds that +think them, are not equivalents of independent truths which reason +discovers, but are the devices which an unusually intelligent animal +constructs out of the many kinds of relationships it is able to notice +amongst the objects which interest it. + +From this point of view, the one most consistent, I believe, with +a biology and a psychology which must take evolution into account, +scientific ideas are seen to be humanly created symbols, not cerebral +photographs of the ultimate nature of things. Why should the ultimate +nature of a lobster be the fact that a morphologist discovers it to be +an “articulate,” anymore than that I discover that it turns red when +put in boiling water? Scientific ideas are instruments. Abstraction and +classification are in a sense labor-saving devices, according to which +we may hold that what is true for one object or event is true for all +of its kind. + +But the success of our thinking depends upon which of these many +aspects and relationships we observe and hence how we classify them. +All aspects and relationships are equally true, as James said, if true +at all. Correct thinking is the thinking which seizes upon those which +are relevant to our interest and purpose. And the interest and purpose +are human, not inherent in the world of things. Hence the order science +finds in nature is not _given_; it is the order of human thought +itself. Thus science also is “human letters.” + +The humanist, or organic, view of the world of science differentiates +the twentieth century philosophy of nature from the mechanistic +philosophy of earlier science. Mechanism, which is faith that the +universe is reducible to Reason is, I hold, a survival from the old +religious dualism, according to which matter and spirit were separate +entities each belonging to its own world of phenomenon. The existence +of Reason as an entity in itself could be taken for granted, because +Reason belonged to the realm of spirit or mind, which though it existed +outside the material order of being, had yet established this order in +conformity to Reason. + +Huxley’s agnosticism properly denies that man can have knowledge of +this world of spirit, yet retains from that realm the principle of +reason which it re-discovers in the world of material phenomena. Hence +Huxley was more religious than he knew. It is not the agnostic who is +the non-religious man, but the naïve realist who sees every fact and +situation uncolored by fancy or theory or illusion. For such a mind, +spiritual values do not exist. This kind of materialism is a different +thing from philosophical materialism, which is very theoretical and +fanciful. There are persons who approach this naïve realism, but I +doubt if anyone is wholly lacking in poetry and fancy. Certainly Huxley +was not. + +Ordinarily we see our environment in a perspective of wish-fancy and +traditional myth and magic. To more logical minds the world of objects +is colored by the “sentiment of Rationality.” The universe appears to +them to be governed, not by an indulgent or harsh imaginary Father, but +by a principle of Reason. In each case, the fiction of security gives +the feeling of salvation. In a wholly rational universe salvation is +explanation. Everything is reasonable, hence right, if only we could +explain it and show its place in the whole. Nineteenth century science +could conceive of the world order as a mechanism and believe that it +had passed from faith to knowledge in its agnosticism of the things of +the spirit, but as Whitehead says, “the faith in the possibility of +science generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific +theory is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology.” + +The conflict in the nineteenth century on behalf of science has +effected education in various ways. It has not emptied the churches, +but it has had a marked liberalizing influence, causing various groups +of believers to seek to modify the public expressions of their faith +in the light of modern knowledge. It has given the average educated +person of today a very different conception of his world from that +commonly held a century ago. It has to some extent revived the Socratic +insistence upon clear and accurate thinking as the first requirement +of an educated mind. It has brought a greater degree of objectivity +and wholesomeness of outlook to bear upon the formation of the mental +habits of students. It is by its insistence upon the biological point +of view, causing marked changes in men’s ideas of human nature and +society, gradually turning their thought away from the political dogma +of the eighteenth century to a less doctrinaire social philosophy. + +On the other side, it may be said to be in part responsible for the +over-specialization common in our educational institutions. It has +left on the mind of the public the impression that science is a new +kind of magic, sometimes actually augmenting the general credulity and +gullibility. Almost any sort of nonsense may now find space in the +columns of the Sunday papers and pass current with the assertion that +it is “scientific.” Minds stuffed with a smattering of science may be +just as opinionated as minds stuffed with a smattering of theology. + +A result which could perhaps not have been foreseen in 1875--and +which I believe twentieth century science is destined to remedy--grew +out of the one-sidedness of the Humanism of Huxley and others of his +day which I have discussed. The scientific interest tended to have +a mechanizing influence upon all life and culture, to ignore and +sometimes deny all values which resisted laboratory methods. And having +reduced all possible phenomena of life to a statement of the movements +of particles of matter which were said to underlie and cause all else, +this purposeless correlation of matter, space and movement expressed in +mathematical formulae was frequently given out as the true picture of +the nature of all existence--human life included. + +Biologists and psychologists often have resorted to rather amusing +gestures and have deliberately ignored possible lines of inquiry +in order to imitate as closely as possible the physicists and the +astronomers. Just as matter was thought to consist of combinations +of atoms, so living organisms consisted of cells, and complex acts +of behavior were seen to consist of combinations of simple reflexes. +The cell and the reflex, being the irreducible minimum of physiology +and of psychology, were said to be the realities which constituted +the nature of the organism and its acts. All phenomena of life were +but combinations of these elemental realities. Find the smallest +particles in the combination, show how by a mechanical principle +they are inevitably placed in certain temporal and spacial and +other quantitative relationships, and behold, science has led you +to _Reality_. All this seemed to be very certain in the nineteenth +century; it alone was _knowledge_, all else was mere opinion and error. + +Professor Whitehead says, “But the progress of biology and psychology +has probably been checked by the uncritical assumption of half-truths. +If science is not to degenerate into a medley of _ad hoc_ hypotheses, +it must become philosophical and must enter upon a thorough criticism +of its own foundations.... + +“There persists, however, throughout the whole period the fixed +scientific cosmology which presupposes the ultimate fact of an +irreducible brute matter, or material, spread throughout space in +a flux of configurations. In itself such a material is senseless, +valueless, purposeless. It just does what it does do, following a +fixed routine imposed by external relations which do not spring from +the nature of its being. It is this assumption that I call ‘scientific +materialism.’” + +“The progress of science has now reached a turning point. The stable +foundations of physics have broken up: also for the first time +physiology is asserting itself as an effective body of knowledge, as +distinct from a scrap-heap. The old foundations of scientific thought +are becoming unintelligible. Time, space, matter, material, ether, +electricity, mechanism, organism, configuration, structure, pattern, +function, all require reinterpretation. What is the sense of talking +about a mechanical explanation when you do not know what you mean by +mechanics?” + +It is this disposition to find the real nature of the facts in the +smallest homogeneous particles, in other words, “atomism,” which +science in the twentieth century modifies. The parts themselves, +considered without regard to their position in the whole event, are +nothing. The reality is the organism, the situation as a whole. The +unity of a tree is very different from that of a machine, and even +physicists are beginning to suspect that they also deal with the +former kind of unity. The effect of this change of view upon education +is difficult to predict. I believe there are indications of a better +synthesis of science with general culture than that which obtained in +Huxley’s time. And as science modifies its mechanistic presuppositions, +there will doubtless be an increase of the importance of philosophy +in education, less pretense at finality, greater intellectual modesty +and more general appreciation of human worth than is possible when +educational philosophy is under the sway of a scientific dogma which +dehumanizes the individual, reduces him to atoms, and regards him as a +machine. + +The recognition of the probability that much even of our established +scientific knowledge is a human convention, should have a liberalizing +effect upon the education of the present generation. Compare the +assurance of Huxley with the following passages which I quote from the +writings of Bertrand Russell, the first from his book on “Relativity,” +and the second from the closing words of “The ABC of Atoms.” + +“What we know about the physical world, I repeat, is much more +abstract than was formerly supposed. Between bodies there are +occurrences, such as light waves; of the _laws_ of these occurrences, +we know something--just as much as can be expressed in mathematical +formulae--but of their _nature_ we know nothing. Of the bodies +themselves, as we saw in the preceding chapter, we know so little +that we cannot even be sure that they are anything: they _may_ be +merely groups of events in other places, those events which we should +naturally regard as their effects.... Perhaps an illustration may make +the matter clear. Between a piece of orchestral music as played, and +the same piece of music as printed in the score, there is a certain +resemblance, which may be described as a resemblance in structure. +The resemblance is of such a sort that, when you know the rules, +you can infer the music from the score or the score from the music. +But suppose you had been stone deaf from birth, but had lived among +musical people. You could understand, if you had learned to speak +and to do lip-reading, that the musical scores represented something +quite different from themselves in intrinsic quality, though similar +in structure. The value of music would be completely unimaginable to +you, but you could infer all its mathematical characteristics, since +they are the same as those of the score. Now our knowledge of nature is +something like this. We can read the scores, and infer just so much as +our stone-deaf person could have inferred about music. But we have not +the advantages which he derived from association with musical people. +We cannot know whether the music represented by the scores is beautiful +or hideous; perhaps, in the last analysis, we cannot be quite sure that +the scores represent anything but themselves.” + +“The theory of relativity has shown that most of traditional dynamics, +which was supposed to contain scientific laws, really consisted of +conventions as to measurement, and was strictly analogous to the +‘great law’ that there are always three feet to a yard. In particular, +this applies to the conservation of energy. This makes it plausible +to suppose that every apparent law of nature which strikes us as +reasonable is not really a law of nature, but a concealed convention, +plastered on to nature by our love of what we, in our arrogance, choose +to consider rational. Eddington hints that a real law of nature is +likely to stand out by the fact that it appears to us irrational, +since in that case it is less likely that we have invented it to +satisfy our intellectual taste. And from this point of view he inclines +to the belief that the quantum-principle is the first real law of +nature that has been discovered in physics. + +“This raises a somewhat important question: Is the world ‘rational,’ +i. e., such as to conform to our intellectual habits? Or is it +‘irrational,’ i. e., not such as we should have made it if we had been +in the position of the Creator? I do not propose to suggest an answer +to this question.” + +No, we do not know whether the world is such as we would have made +it if we had been in the position of the Creator. But it is possible +for us to gain some intelligent idea of what we can and should make +of our world so far as lies within our human power and understanding. +Throughout all historic times men have striven to attain that insight, +discrimination and foreknowledge which would enable them to become +“legislators of values”--to give their existence quality and their +experiences an order of preference that would lend beauty and harmony +and some permanence to the half-chaotic stream of events and objects +which swept through their lives. This is the aim of the pursuit of +knowledge. It is to give to existence an “order of rank.” What if the +order be a human one? General coöperation in its development is what we +mean by culture. And education is not mere perpetuation of the order of +the past. The hierarchy of values must be constantly recreated if it is +to survive. Knowledge of the past is the inspiration to such creative +effort and knowledge of nature is a guide to it. A generation ago +William James, whose philosophy of science was thoroughly Humanistic, +suggested that the fascination of the pursuit of knowledge was that +we might thus be in at the places where truth is actually in the +making, and that we should never know what sort of world this would be +“till the last man’s vote is in and counted.” What we are to make of +this unfinished world depends largely upon the power and wisdom and +appreciation of value which we may attain through our education. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE + + +Finally, with what appraisement may the seeker for knowledge view +education itself? In the course of our study we have cast aside +numerous idols and comforting fictions. We have seen that in the +process of a liberal education old dilemmas are outgrown; that the +habit is formed of questioning all things; that the educated mind +becomes capable of amused self-criticism, attains urbanity of spirit +and tolerant scepticism of the crowd and its partisan controversies, +and with civilized resignation learns that it may not possess finality +in matters of truth and right, but that a man must order his life +according to the wisest discrimination of value of which he is capable. + +Now, I believe, the wise man will pursue his education always viewing +it with a certain light-heartedness and detachment. Wisdom itself will +not be taken too seriously by one who sees that in the best of it there +is an entertaining amount of human folly. Like Falstaff’s confession, +“I am not much better than one of the wicked,” Socrates, the wisest, +knows he is not much better than one of the foolish. People who +solemnly try to improve their minds, with groanings of the spirit that +cannot be uttered, determined to reach some cultural “Pike’s peak or +bust,” do not often become educated; they become intellectual bores. + +Education is a way of living, but it is never a substitute for life. +Rational living does not mean that interest, feeling, love, respect, +practical achievement, do not count, or that in the end education +should make of life a mere _knowledge affair_. One does not pursue +scholarship merely for the sake of philosophical contemplation, or as +an intellectual trick. And there is no magic about education, but plain +common sense. I think we may safely say that a life guided by reason +and good taste is better than one enslaved to tradition, tabu, narrow +utilitarianism, conventionalism and passion. But surely education is +not a hair shirt to be worn in order to discipline the spirit and +achieve the modern idea of salvation. Neither is it something to be +attained by practicing before the mirror. It is nothing ostentatious. +Nor is it to be made a cult of. It does not work miracles, nor can it +create out of airy nothingness an intelligence that does not exist. + +I think much of the criticism of education that one frequently hears +these days grows out of an exaggerated notion of the transformation +which some people expect a few years of education to work. I know a +number of college graduates who are very bitter in their criticism of +college education, protesting that they did not learn anything that did +them any good. Perhaps they expected too much for the amount of effort +put forth and tried to do too great a business on a small intellectual +capital. Or perhaps such criticism is in part a pose; in certain +circles it is now “the thing.” + +An article which recently appeared in a student’s journal is typical +of this attitude toward College education. The writer asks, “Are the +American colleges worth their keep?” They have not, he says, given to +the nation the trained leadership which we had the right to expect of +them. Enter any University Club and you will find yourself far removed +from that intellectual atmosphere which should be characteristic of +education in a great democracy. Few college men may be found fighting +on the side of social justice. Few have the courage to deviate in any +way from the totums and tabus of a plutocratic, materialistic society. +Few have any very different ideas from those of their chauffeurs of +what constitutes success in life. Men’s colleges are no different +from girl’s finishing schools; they are not educational institutions, +but exist merely to impart information of the ways and manners of +upper-class society. Instructors are devitalized, for none but a +devitalized person could endure the system. Trustees have the habit +of judging colleges by the same standards they apply to business, yet +judged even by such standards, the author thinks higher education is a +failure. If Mr. Henry Ford turned out motor cars as bad as the products +the colleges turn out, he would soon be bankrupt! + +In so far as such sweeping indictments are inspired by a feeling of +antipathy toward the so-called upper classes, it is not necessary for +us to discuss them. But I think that criticisms of this sort also +reveal a tendency to expect too much of education. We become more +charitable when we pause to consider how small a part, even at best, +intelligence plays in the control of human behavior. We have seen what +Erasmus thought about this subject. Most of those who call attention to +the general lack of intelligence, draw a distinction between the amount +of it in existence and the amount in common use. This is a democratic +view of the matter. It flatters the average man if you tell him that he +possesses more intelligence than he is using. A more correct view is +perhaps that of Freud, who says that most of us in modern civilization +are living “psychologically beyond our means.” + +A good example of this democratic view may be found in a discussion +of “Intelligence in Our Time,” by a very able professor in one of +the Eastern colleges. “The general state of intelligence in our time +is of the strangest. It is richly and splendidly equipped and it is +tragically unsuccessful,--unsuccessful, that is, in the conduct of +life, both personal and social.” You may test it, broadly speaking, +by the troubles of the world. “One of the foremost failures of human +intelligence is not to remember its own importance.” In other words, +I suppose we haven’t enough intelligence to use our intelligence. We +live in “a sea of loose and floating ideas, more of them produced +daily, and no clearly recognized way of deciding, to the coercion of +all trained minds, which is right.... When people go wrong in reasoning +they usually do so in obvious ways, by violating obvious rules.” +Intelligence has its standards, but does not enforce them; it “lacks +confidence in itself.... On most important subjects opinions differ. In +each case something else appears as more important than intelligence, +something else has the right of way.” + +In other words, we know better than to believe and behave as we do +most of the time. But I doubt if this unfortunate state of man is a +peculiarity of our times. I suspect that there has long been more +knowledge than intelligence in the world. The difficulty is that we +frequently do not know how to use the knowledge we possess, for to +use knowledge well requires wisdom, and no one can give us wisdom. +I can see no gain in condemning the human race for not using its +intelligence. I suspect that the beliefs we entertain and the deeds +we perform or leave undone are the best measure of the intelligence +we possess. Let us each own up to a certain native stupidity and +deceitfulness of heart which no amount of education can wholly cure or +even successfully disguise. The admission will to some extent save us +from that childish pride of intellect which is a common affliction of +those who “go in” for education. + +Sometimes pride of intellect disguises itself with a holy tone and +reverential mien, as if education were a very solemn affair. When I +was a school boy, there was in our town a woman librarian who presided +over our little public library with deadly seriousness. She filled the +place with a crushing and awesome silence, as with reverential whispers +she quietly moved on tiptoe among the books like one ministering in the +house of the dead. I have known people to behave in this spirit toward +literature. I have seen school teachers and professors take such an +attitude toward education. It characterizes the average baccalaureate +address and is discernible in much that is said and written about +education. I know several “prophets” of adult education who succeed in +giving a similar impression. Their very souls creak under the weight of +the world-mending “spiritual values” of adult education. If people will +take their education as hard as the Kantians take morality, they are +welcome to their “sublimities.” There are minds which seem to have been +formed only for the service of the sublime and do not work well except +when closeted in its presence. But I would rather dwell in the tents of +the wicked than be a door-keeper in such a house of serious thinkers. +Extravagant claims for education lead to pretense, to painful efforts +at keeping up appearances, to exposure and ultimate disillusionment. + +Several times in history there has occurred a wide-spread reaction +against education, followed by a long period of decline of interest +in it. Usually such reactions have taken the form of a revival of +religion and have followed upon a period of general intellectual +awakening. The Augustan age is followed by primitive Christianity, the +Renaissance by the Reformation, the eighteenth century, the age of “the +Enlightenment,” by those distinctly anti-intellectualist movements, the +Revival, the Revolution and Romanticism. May not one of the causes of +such reactions be the fact that people have been led to expect too much +of the prevailing education? Men for a time believe that education will +disclose some wonderful secret which is about to transform the world, +and when they find that the learned doctors do not reveal the secret +because they have none to reveal, and that the world does not at once +proceed to transform itself, they turn from learning to religion where +the secret is kept from the wise and revealed unto babes. No one is +more concerned than I that the interest in education be as wide-spread +and as genuine as possible. But I would not force its growth lest we +get all foliage and no fruit. It is better that in its due season the +tree be known by the fruit it bears. + +Just as some believe that education is a sort of gospel, there are +others who contend that knowledge makes for unhappiness. One evening +at an informal dinner in New York a small group of thoughtful people, +all of middle age, were discussing in a rather desultory manner the +education of the younger generation. Suddenly the conversation became +serious. One of the women said, “They are hard, disillusioned young +realists. What else could we expect? It is the result of the education +we are giving them. They know too much.” She continued, “I wish, though +I do not see how it could have been done, that we could have retained +the simple beliefs of our parents. It was very comforting to believe +those things. It seems to me that everything I learn robs me of some +consoling ideal and makes the world appear cruel and terrible.” + +To the question, what shall we put in the place of the old faiths which +education leads us to doubt, there is perhaps no other answer than +that we shall _exchange an infantile mentality for a mature one_. Most +people will agree that it is better to grow up, but as to whether we +are happier without our childish illusions, opinions differ. + +Much of the tenderness which people show for small children is a +mixture of pity and envy. The other day I saw a business man about +fifty years old gaze long and wistfully at an infant playing with his +toys. He said as he turned away, “I wish I could remember what it feels +like to be his age. Can you imagine what this world must look like to +him?” There is my own small son who is now just learning to stand on +his feet and speak a word or two. How trusting and sweet he is. He is +not afraid of any one or any thing. No one would of course wish him to +live always surrounded only by pretty pictures and parental kindness. +But it is easy to understand how one in moments of weariness and doubt +might envy him his brief day of blessed ignorance. Think of it, he does +not even know that people have to work, and that it is the common lot +of mankind both to endure and inflict suffering. He does not suspect +the existence of such things as hospitals, slaughter houses, war, +slums, jails, policemen or Congress. He does not know that he is not +immortal, or that he must ever part with those he loves. He must know +these things since they exist, and must learn about many other facts +equally hard to endure. And as he grows up I want him to learn to cut +his way through the fictions with which men strive to disguise the +significance of many painful realities from which there is no escape. + +Such is knowledge, and such is the price we pay for it. One reason +why mankind persistently resists the introduction of knowledge is the +disinclination to pay the price. It is not altogether easy, as James +said, to “stand this universe.” The longing for the irresponsibility +of childhood is very common among mankind, and it gives rise to many +comforting fictions which yield reluctantly to knowledge of fact. The +general attitude toward wisdom has in it always a touch of the dread +of the unknown. There is a very old legend that our first parents +were expelled from paradise after eating of the fruit of the tree of +knowledge. + +Even our boasted practical knowledge of nature and of mechanics can +hardly be said to be an unmixed blessing. We are not quite so utopian +in our enthusiasm over applied science as we were twenty years ago. I +once burst into eloquence with an entertaining peroration something +like the following: “Everywhere as science displaces the hallowed +survivals of primitive magic and superstition, man emerges from +darkness with dignity and freedom in his bearing and titanic power in +his hands. The great friend for whom humanity has waited is the quiet +man in the laboratory amongst his test tubes and apparatus. What kings +could not command, nor priests call down from an unanswering heaven, he +can command and bring into being to enrich the heritage of happiness +for all. The earth blossoms for science. Where the medicine man in the +desert once vainly prayed for rain, science digs an irrigation ditch +and waste lands turn into fields of grain. Since the beginning of time +men have cringed in the shadow of death as the specter of plague +walked in their midst heedless of the prayers of faith. Science offers +no sacrifice to propitiate revengeful gods: it drains the swamps: it +resorts to such mundane devices as screens, vaccine and the quarantine, +and for the first time in all history the human race is freed of its +most terrifying scourge. Science has drawn the nations together as +its lines of mechanical communication have annihilated the spacial +distances which have hitherto isolated man from man. It has lightened +the burden of toil and has multiplied the productive force of labor a +hundredfold. It has lengthened the span of the average human life by +nearly a decade. + +“And with what a wealth of unforeseen goods it has supplied us, motor +cars, and aëroplanes, and talking machines, and a countless variety of +new chemical products. What indeed can we not achieve with its aid; we +can send our messages around the world, dig the Panama Canal, throw a +dam across the Mississippi and turn the wheels and light the homes of +distant cities. We can make the lightning our household servant, we +can fly through the clouds, we can weigh distant suns, and by throwing +their light waves through a spectroscope, analyze them chemically and +tell whether they are composed of gas or solid matter and whether they +are moving towards us or receding. As science is giving us mastery +over nature, why should it not likewise give man control over his own +nature? The existence in a scientific age of poverty and crime and +injustice and corruption is an anachronism. Human reason has at last +decided to make itself at home and put the house of life in order, and +all nature smilingly welcomes it. It is flushed with success and well +it may be, for in it is the promise of the final triumph of man on the +earth.” + +We are not so sanguine now. We have seen the destructive uses to which +scientific knowledge may be put in warfare. We are not so hopeful about +the easy control of human nature by means of it. It cannot be said that +there has been a general gain in intelligence, corresponding to the +increase of specialized scientific knowledge. The disturbing thought +has been expressed that the tremendous power of the engines created +by applied science for our generation is something like dangerous +explosives in the hands of young children. We are like passengers on a +steamship speeding through fog with an empty pilot house. + +We move swiftly from one place to another, but it is doubtful if we +find more happiness or good when we reach our destination, or if we +behave more wisely than do men who know nothing of the fruits of +science. Those who are acquainted with China, a country in which a vast +population has maintained the oldest civilization extant without any +science at all, say that the cultural level of that nation has not been +raised by the occasional importation of western methods of sanitation, +military science, electric lights and chewing gum. + +Medical research has saved the lives of countless numbers of children, +so that infant mortality is negligible now as compared with that of the +ages that had no science. I am sure no one would wish to give up such +a splendid application of modern knowledge to human welfare. Yet even +this has its price. There are biologists who doubt if the amount of +human suffering has been so greatly reduced as we at first supposed. +They say that many physically unfit persons are thus preserved, only to +suffer in later life, and that the survival to maturity, of such poorly +equipped organisms and their reproduction lowers the quality of the +racial stock of the nation. This is an extreme position and is perhaps +a premature conclusion, but it illustrates my point that at best our +modern knowledge may not be had without paying some price for it. + +Theoretical knowledge of nature may be said to be no less costly than +applied science. In the sixteenth century man could without fear of +contradiction proclaim the earth to be the center of the Universe and +his own welfare and salvation the purpose of creation. Every step in +the progress of science from Newton to Einstein has tended to rebuke +the egotism of man--unless perchance he could find compensation in +the fact that he is a creature who has the intellectual courage to +saw off the bough of sustaining belief that he is sitting on. Early +astronomy revealed to man that his earth, far from being “the Center” +was but a perishable and relatively very small kind of moon whirling +about a slowing cooling sun, by no means the best of a galaxy of bigger +and brighter suns all moving by necessity through freezing space in +utter indifference to the inhabitants of this little planet. Chemistry +showed man that his glowing life was a molecular process. Physics +taught him that all change and movement were but the redistribution of +a meaningless and purposeless energy the quantity of which remained +forever constant. Geology reminded him that he was but a newcomer among +the forms of life which had lived and left their remains in the crust +of the earth. Biology revealed to him his kinship with other animals +and his lowly origin. Psychology sought to find his soul, and gave up +the search, finding it easier to account for his behavior in terms +of animal impulse and reflex action. Anthropology discovered for him +the origin of his cherished beliefs in the customs of primitive man. +Sociology reduced his individual existence to that of a statistical +unit in the mass. + +It now appears probable that science may abandon in time its +traditional mechanistic conceptions of the cosmos and of life, but +there is little likelihood that such a change of outlook will restore +man to the place in nature which he once thought he occupied. Nor may +we expect it to envisage for him a world more conducive to his wishes +than that pictured by the science of the nineteenth century. Indeed, +it is possible that he may have to learn to live without even those +fictions of security which were features of the older rationalism of +science. + +Now I have tried to state the situation in its bold harshness, for the +educated mind today must know all this and must wrestle with it. The +knowledge cannot of itself lead to happiness, nor do I think that it +necessarily leads to unhappiness. All depends upon what we are able to +make of our existence in such a world. Although we possess different +and more precise instruments of knowledge, I do not think this is the +first time that thoughtful minds have seen through popular fancy and +the shows of things. I believe wise men of all times have suspected +that existence is different from what people naïvely imagine it to be. +And it is precisely because they wrestled with such suspicions, asked, +“what then?”, and have sought to give their existence some meaning and +worth, that their words are precious. Now that education is general, +and vast numbers seek it, it is well to remind ourselves that no one of +us can really find wisdom until he has alone struggled for value with +destiny and naked fact. + +The fear that most men cannot do this, and that they will turn aside +with some substitute for knowledge or with that “little learning +which is a dangerous thing” has led some writers, wrongly I think, to +question that any good may come of universal education. This esoteric +point of view is dramatically stated by Dostoevsky in “The Brothers +Karamazov,” in the person of the Grand Inquisitor who rebukes the +Christ on the occasion of his return to Seville to comfort the victims +of the Inquisition. The Inquisitor tells the Christ that he has +demanded too much of mankind. What the masses need is not freedom of +the spirit, but mystery, miracle, and authority; someone to take their +bread from their hands, bless it and give it back to them; someone who +will permit them to sin, and take the responsibility on his own soul, +someone who will _guard the secret_ and deceive mankind every step of +the way as he leads it down to death. The old Inquisitor says to the +Christ, “If at the last day you condemn me, I will defy you to your +face, for I too have eaten bitter roots in the wilderness.” + +Nietzsche in his lectures on “The Future of our Educational +Institutions” at Bâle, takes a similar position. Nietzsche believed +that to the degree that education is extended it is weakened and +minimized. The masses think they can reach at a single bound what the +wise man has had to win for himself only after long and determined +struggles to live like a philosopher. + + “And do you not fear that solitude will wreak its vengeance upon you? + Just try living the life of a hermit of culture. One must be blessed + with overflowing wealth in order to live for the good of all on one’s + own resources! Extraordinary youngsters! They felt it incumbent upon + them to imitate what is precisely most difficult and most high,--what + is possible only to the master, when they, above all, should know + how difficult and dangerous this is, and how many excellent gifts + may be ruined by attempting it!... No one would strive to attain to + culture if he knew how incredibly small the number of really cultured + people actually is, and can ever be.” + + “... those blatant heralds of educational needs, when examined at + close quarters, are suddenly seen to be transformed into zealous, + yea, fanatical opponents of true culture, i. e., all those who + hold fast to the aristocratic nature of the mind; for, at bottom, + they regard as their goal the emancipation of the masses from the + mastery of the great few; they seek to overthrow the most sacred + hierarchy in the kingdom of the intellect--the servitude of the + masses, their submissive obedience, their instinct of loyalty to the + rule of genius.... The education of the masses cannot, therefore, + be our aim; but rather the education of a few picked men for great + and lasting works. We well know that a just posterity judges the + collective intellectual state of a time only by those few great and + lonely figures of the period.... What is called the ‘education of the + masses’ cannot be accomplished except with difficulty; and even if a + system of universal compulsory education be applied, they can only be + reached outwardly.... + + “We know, however, what the aspiration is of those who would disturb + the healthy slumber of the people, and continually call out to them: + ‘Keep your eyes open! Be sensible! Be wise!’ we know the aim of those + who profess to satisfy excessive educational requirements by means of + an extraordinary increase in the number of educational institutions + and the conceited tribe of teachers originated thereby. These very + people, using these very means, are fighting against the natural + hierarchy in the realm of the intellect, and destroying the roots of + all those noble and sublime plastic forces which have their material + origin in the unconsciousness of the people.” + + “This eternal hierarchy, towards which all things naturally tend, is + always threatened by that pseudo-culture which now sits on the throne + of the present. It endeavors either to bring the leaders down to the + level of its own servitude or else to cast them out altogether.” + +Whether Nietzsche’s theories of education were derived from his +political philosophy, or the reverse, I do not know. We are not, +however, interested in discussing political and sociological theories. +The point is that Nietzsche held that education is difficult and +dangerous, and that only the rare, strong, courageous spirits may +attain it. The many really do not want education at all, he thinks, but +only that cheaper knowledge which will give them success and enable +them to take their places in the rank and file; seeking such education +the herd tramples culture under foot, like cattle in growing corn when +the fences are down. Difficult and dangerous as knowledge is, it is +to Nietzsche the most precious possession of man. All his writing on +this subject is a warning cry that the cultural values of civilization +are in danger of being lost in an education for democracy. I think he +had a real issue, although I wish he had possessed more self-control +in arguing his case; he had always something of the intemperance and +over-excited gestures of a religious evangelist or soap-box orator. + +A much more sane statement of the true aims of education in conflict +with Philistinism is that of Matthew Arnold. I hesitate to mention +Arnold because those who are still guilty of the errors he exposed will +say he was a Victorian, and how could his ideas of education have any +value for a progressive twentieth century population? I doubt if many +men of today, advocates of advanced theories of education included, are +as far removed from the vulgarities and pseudo-culture of the Victorian +age as Arnold was. Like Nietzsche, he holds that the multitude gives +evidence that it does not really want education. Unlike Nietzsche, he +does not think that knowledge is some grim secret which only a few +heroic supermen may attain. The fruits of knowledge are not merely +ideas about life and reality which men may or may not believe in, but +are to be known in the quality of life and thought which characterize +the educated mind. + +Arnold’s phrase “sweetness and light” is a little suggestive of a +Unitarian sermon, or of some cult of the “higher life.” It is obvious +that if a man deliberately set out to drill his soul in the ways of +sweetness and light he might become a very lady-like individual; he +would not necessarily become an educated person. All such deliberate +efforts at self-improvement, if they are not characterized by a +sentimental insincerity which is content with imitation and appearance, +are at least a little like the effort of Benjamin Franklin to school +himself in the moral virtues, who, finding the task too great, decided +that he could best gain proficiency by practicing his desired virtues +one at a time. + +You may rest assured that Arnold had nothing of this sort in mind, +much as he seems at one time to have admired the wisdom of Franklin. +He meant that certain mental traits are sufficiently characteristic +of educated minds generally to be the distinguishing marks which +differentiate them from the uneducated. To be sure, it is a thankless +task to call attention to such traits, and no one who does it may +expect to be very popular, but sometimes, when the culture of a +nation is in danger, it has to be done. Arnold has in mind characters +like Socrates, Erasmus, Montaigne--no muddle-headed, opinionated or +narrow-minded men, but men who had attained clarity of thought and the +insight which pierces the glamour of things and the follies of men, and +yet could speak and write without bitterness or rancor or malice. + + “Here culture goes beyond religion, as religion is generally + conceived by us. + + “If culture, then, is a study of perfection, and of harmonious + perfection, general perfection, and perfection which consists + in becoming something rather than in having something, in an + inward condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of + circumstances,--it is clear that culture, instead of being the + frivolous and useless thing which Mr. Bright, and Mr. Frederic + Harrison, and many other Liberals are apt to call it, has a very + important function to fulfill for mankind. And this function is + particularly important in our modern world, of which the whole + civilisation is, to a much greater degree than the civilisation + of Greece and Rome, mechanical and external, and tends constantly + to become more so. But above all in our own country has culture a + weighty part to perform, because here that mechanical character, + which civilization tends to take everywhere, is shown in the most + eminent degree. Indeed nearly all the characters of perfection, + as culture teaches us to fix them, meet in this country with some + powerful tendency which thwarts them and sets them at defiance.... So + culture has a rough task to achieve in this country. Its preachers + have, and are likely to long have, a hard time of it, and they will + much oftener be regarded, for a great while to come, as elegant or + spurious Jeremiahs than as friends and benefactors.... + + “Faith in machinery is, I said, our besetting danger; often in + machinery most absurdly disproportioned to the end which this + machinery, if it is to do any good at all, is to serve; but always in + machinery, as if it had a value in and for itself. What is freedom + but machinery? what is population but machinery? what is coal but + machinery? what are railroads but machinery? what is wealth but + machinery? what are, even, religious organisations but machinery? Now + almost every voice in England is accustomed to speak of these things + as if they were precious ends in themselves, and therefore had some + of the characters of perfection indisputably joined to them.... But + culture indefatigably tries, not to make what each raw person may + like the rule by which he fashions himself; but to draw ever nearer + to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, graceful, and becoming, and + to get the raw person to like that.... + + “The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are + proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and + thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call + Philistines. Culture says, ‘Consider these people, then, their way of + life, their habits, their manners, the very tones of their voices; + look at them attentively; observe the literature they read, the + things which give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of + their mouths, the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; + would any amount of wealth be worth having with the condition that + one was to become just like these people by having it?’” + +As Nietzsche sees that education must struggle for its values if it is +to survive in a democracy, Arnold is equally aware of its conflict with +middle-class English Puritanism. He will give the Puritan credit for +his moral earnestness, but-- + + “the Puritan’s ideal of perfection remains narrow and inadequate, + although for what he did well he has been richly rewarded. + Notwithstanding the mighty results of the Pilgrim Fathers’ voyage, + they and their standard of perfection are rightly judged when + we figure to ourselves Shakespeare or Virgil,--souls in whom + sweetness and light, and all that in human nature is most humane, + were eminent,--accompanying them on their voyage, and think what + intolerable company Shakespeare and Virgil would have found them! In + the same way let us judge the religious organizations which we see + all around us. Do not let us deny the good and the happiness which + they have accomplished; but do not let us fail to see clearly that + their idea of human perfection is narrow and inadequate, and that + the Dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant + religion will never bring humanity to its true goal.” + +Of the relation of education to the growing power of nineteenth century +democracy, Arnold says, + + “Other well-meaning friends of this new power are for leading it, + not in the old ruts of middle-class Philistinism, but in ways which + are naturally alluring to the feet of democracy, though in this + country they are novel and untried ways. I may call them the ways of + Jacobinism. Violent indignation with the past, abstract systems of + renovation applied wholesale, a new doctrine drawn up in black and + white for elaborating down to the very smallest details a rational + society for the future.... Culture is the eternal opponent of the two + things which are the signal marks of Jacobinism,--its fierceness, + and its addiction to an abstract system. Culture is always assigning + to system-makers and systems a smaller share in the bent of human + destiny than their friends like.” + +The following is as truly the problem of education today as it was on +the day it was written, and the answer that our generation gives to the +problem will determine the whole quality of the fruit of knowledge for +our lives. + + “... Plenty of people will try to give the masses, as they call them, + an intellectual food prepared and adapted in the way they think + proper for the actual condition of the masses. The ordinary popular + literature is an example of this way of working on the masses. + Plenty of people will try to indoctrinate the masses with the set of + ideas and judgments constituting the creed of their own profession + or party. Our religious and political organisations give an example + of this way of working on the masses. I condemn neither way; but + culture works differently. It does not try to teach down to the level + of inferior classes; it does not try to win them for this or that + sect of its own, with ready-made judgments and watchwords. It seeks + to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and + known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an + atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they may use ideas, as it + uses them itself, freely,--nourished, and not bound by them. + + “The great men of culture are those who have had a passion for + diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society + to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time; who + have laboured to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, uncouth, + difficult, abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanise it, to + make it efficient outside the clique of the cultivated and learned, + yet still remaining the _best_ knowledge and thought of the time, + and a true source, therefore, of sweetness and light. Such a man was + Abelard in the Middle Ages, in spite of all his imperfections; and + thence the boundless emotion and enthusiasm which Abelard excited. + Such were Lessing and Herder in Germany, at the end of the last + century; and their services to Germany were in this way inestimably + precious.... And why? Because they _humanized_ knowledge; because + they broadened the basis of life and intelligence.” + +The human race has demonstrated how it can get along without knowledge; +it has not on any general scale demonstrated how it can get along with +knowledge. Ignorance and vulgarity have amazing survival value in human +society. Knowledge has its dangers. One may lose one’s faith in the +pursuit of it or expend much effort, and never attain it; and, what is +worse, never know that one has not attained it. Or having gained some +bit of knowledge, one may not store it up as final truth and abide with +it, but having seen must pass on to other knowledge. The pursuit of +knowledge is an open road. + +All, or nearly all, who have pursued knowledge will say that such a +pursuit is a great adventure. It is an adventure which never goes +stale, nor loses its lure, nor grows old, and there are indirect +results of such an adventure which cannot be measured. Just as he who +has traveled in many lands returns and views his home with new eyes +never really having seen it before, so he who follows knowledge in time +sees the things about him in new light. They have a richer meaning and +better perspective for they have a wider reference. + +What might happen if a considerable portion of the population should, +or could, become devoted to education in the way that men have engaged +themselves in religion, war, and commerce, we perhaps can never know. +Men have been converted to religion and have “back-slid” or have +outgrown their faith. Men have gaily marched off to war and before +the conflict ended have grown sick of it. Men have given up commerce, +finding that it does not satisfy some deep longing in their natures. +Most of those who begin their education leave off before they learn +what it is about. But the few who have remained to taste the fruit of +knowledge as a rule become addicted to it, and never leave off, being +never satisfied with what they have yet attained. If for eating this +fruit they find themselves outside the paradise of childish innocence +and popular belief, they do by their bearing give us the impression +that the experience is worth its cost. It is only the half-educated, +those who would follow wisdom and at the same time look back over their +shoulders casting longing glances at comforting ignorance, unable to +say farewell, who dwell upon the painfulness of knowledge. I have the +suspicion that those who wear a long face as if they knew some dreadful +secret that would break the heart of the world if the rest of mankind +knew it, are men who find in the Byronic attitude a convenient way of +convincing themselves that they are intellectual heroes. Or they are +romanticists who enjoy the sorrows of Werther. + +For the encouragement of those who might wish to continue their +education or assist in the education of another, I have tried to +present certain historical examples of men who have attained wisdom. +They are brave men and true; they do not make us ashamed of our race. +It is a pleasure to try to understand such minds, and I trust that in +these times when every fence is down and there are in the field of +education many strange animals and much shouting and confusion, we +may have been able to gain something, from turning our attention to +Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and Erasmus and Montaigne and Huxley +and Nietzsche and Arnold, that will help us to see the meaning of +education. But we can never be sure whether we like its fruits until we +taste them. + + + + +CHAPTER XV--POSTSCRIPT + +ADULT EDUCATION IN AMERICA + + +When the European universities were established in the late +Middle Ages, they were not, like our modern American colleges, +super-high-schools. It was not their primary purpose to give to +undergraduates and aspiring professional students a maximum fund +of information during a brief period of residence. There were many +thousands of such students, but the college or university was in a real +sense an institution for adult education. It was a place of residence +for mature scholars, a center where such men could pursue their +studies and live the life of education, just as in the monasteries men +could live the “religious” life. The teaching which went on in these +universities was in a sense a secondary activity. + +Among the many changes which have occurred in life and education +since the thirteenth century, that represented by Goethe’s “Faust” +has special interest for us. The modern man attempts to live the life +of the spirit outside the cloister. In this respect we are, as I have +said, more like the ancient Athenians who formed themselves into little +groups and attached themselves as disciples to their teacher for an +indefinite period of time. We may easily imagine the students and +friends of Socrates continuing with him for years their philosophical +inquiries, while at the same time engaged in the conduct of their +duties as citizens and householders. Both Plato and Aristotle, as we +have seen, thought of education in this way. It was an interest which +as a matter of course extended into adult life. This continued emphasis +upon the education of the mature mind is important, for it is in +contrast with much modern thought on the subject. Modern educators are +chiefly interested in the problems of teaching children. + +But there is a still more significant fact about such adult education +as we may have today which necessarily differentiates it from both the +thirteenth century and the ancients. The average mature individual, +is not like the ancient Greek student, a member of the leisure class, +nor may he like the mediæval scholar retreat to a cloister. He must +earn his living and seek education during his leisure time. To be +sure, the formal and professional education of our time has still the +advantages of a certain privilege and seclusion. Adult education must +necessarily proceed without these valuable aids to learning. In earlier +ages it was generally believed that education could not be achieved +without these advantages. Modern men insist that the spiritual values +of life be realized not in contemplative aloofness but in the life of +activity. They also demand a satisfactory existence for as many people +as possible; hence all are to have opportunity to share in the cultural +goods of civilization. Education is made universal and, below a certain +age, compulsory. But it is obvious that unless education is to remain +the privilege of a few professionally trained scholars, large numbers +of people must be given the facilities for continued study after school +or college days are passed. + +In other words, the aim of adult education is the cultivated amateur. +I have tried to show that this is precisely the aim of all liberal +education. Learning which is discontinued when one leaves school has +been for the most part wasted effort. Education is not culture unless +outside college halls it is a permanent and wide-spread interest +which makes a difference in the tastes and habits of thought of the +community. We have seen that Huxley deplored the fact that much of the +intellectual leadership of Victorian England was found outside the +university faculties. While this may have been a just criticism of +the universities, it was a sign of intellectual vigor in the nation. +Education may be said to be achieving its purposes in a nation to the +extent that quiet reflection supplants superficial cleverness, and that +minds with patience and grace and breadth of outlook, with indifference +to fads and catchwords and with respect for excellence, supplant the +“go-getter,” the “movie-fan,” the worshipper of Mammon, the sensation +monger and the narrow sectarian. + +The extent to which our education is a reality in the life of this +Republic is almost daily brought to our attention. A very small +percentage of the population spends four years at college, during which +time most of it retains very much the same general habit patterns +and beliefs and outlook on life that it had when it entered. After +graduation, students bring home little cultural interest or added civic +virtue. They for the most part vote the regular party ticket, support a +church in which they happen to have been brought up, play golf, dance +to jazz music, talk prohibition and drink synthetic gin, repeat the +shibboleths of the group in which they grew to maturity, and make money. + +A small minority of students attend post-graduate schools, become +research scholars, and within the radius of their special branch of +study often reach high proficiency and unequalled scholarship. In the +universities of New York City are gathered many of the most eminent +scholars in America. But it must be said that very little educational +influence passes over the chasm which separates our professionalized +education from the man in the street. Today a mob is moved to tears of +a patriotic fervor and to murderous indignation at the sight of a woman +removing from the front of her property some faded red, white and blue +bunting which had been hung up by a tenant for the occasion of a street +festival some days previous; tomorrow an empty-pated multitude tries to +break into an undertaker’s establishment and tramples hysterical women +under foot in the effort to view the body of a deceased motion picture +actor; and anon half the city runs oggling and open-mouthed after a +young woman who can swim across the English Channel. + +Without background or tradition other than folkway and a perishing +ancient dogma, and with quantity production methods devised to pamper +to its fancy, this multitude tends to cheapen the quality of everything +it comes near, while it parades its material prosperity before the +world as evidence of superior American virtue. Education has not +yet taken root in our soil. It is a potted plant, like those little +evergreen trees which may be seen growing in painted tubs on the stoops +of New York houses. Such ancestral systems for valuing experience and +controlling behavior as people brought to this country were mostly +cast aside in the process of Americanization; the swift tempo of +industrialism supplanted the slow process of spiritual maturing, and a +newspaper-fashioned public opinion became the dominant cultural force +for the country at large. + +We do not know at present whether the alleged general interest in +adult education is evidence of a spontaneous and growing desire for +knowledge, or is something promoted, worked up by interests which +would “educate the masses” in order to attain certain economic ends, +individual or social. Nearly three million persons are said to be +annually enrolled for various courses of study outside the resident +classes of established institutions of learning. Undoubtedly a great +variety of motives prompts these hundreds of thousands of people +to take up the task of study. But wide-spread as this interest is, +popularization of knowledge is not the same as the humanization of +knowledge. We have seen how the values of religion may decline into +empty caricatures of the spiritual life amongst certain popular sects. + +Those engaged in the work of adult education, often fear that the +movement may become standardized after the fashion of the public school +system. Is it possible to keep up the standards without resorting to +the mechanical uniformity we commonly call standardization? I think +this is possible only if we are guided by a philosophy of liberal +education. Lose sight of such a philosophy and adult education +becomes a confusion of tongues. In such confusion there is of course +freedom from uniformity, yet there may be much standardization; each +educational cult may easily degenerate into a doctrinaire, misguided +sect. If I am correct in holding that the aim of liberal education +is to produce the cultivated amateur, who possesses in general the +mental traits which in the preceding chapters of this book we have +seen to characterize the liberally educated mind, we have in the +pursuit of such a goal the very thing that will save adult education +from degenerating, like Protestantism, into a conflict of narrow +orthodoxies. Without such a goal, any passing fancy or popular +prejudice, however ungrounded in philosophy, may come to serve as a +dominant ideal of education. Adult education then becomes the means to +every sort of propaganda and personal ambition. + +One educator of adults conducts short-time “institutes” for farmers +in which during a period of two or three weeks instruction is given +in such subjects as the fertilization of the soil, rotation of crops, +marketing, and the elements of bookkeeping. Others offer instruction to +industrial workers which will improve their efficiency and deepen their +loyalty to the company. Others teach various trades and professions. +Much of the Americanization propaganda which gave employment to +uplifters during the years following the war is now called adult +education. There is a group of very serious idealists who believe that +by means of adult education they may initiate working people into the +“proletarian culture of the future,” and arm the working class with +the necessary weapons for a social revolution. Others would conduct +schools in which young people may be trained to become professional +labor leaders. To still others the task of adult education is very +clear and simple: it is nothing else than the transformation of our +entire civilization by the method of leading people back to nature +and enabling them to express their emotions, to which end classes in +appreciation and self-expression are organized, and students are sent +out after two or three months of such training prepared to teach the +emotional awakening to others. + +Adult education thus becomes a matter of slogans. Each educator is sure +he has it and can give the formula. It is that “every man be given +opportunity to think for himself,” or it is to give people “a new and +modern world view,” or to help people “get out of the ruts in which +they find themselves,” or to enable one to “evaluate his experience,” +or it is “an adventure in independence.” + +Many of these things may be very desirable, but are they education? +Taken together, they reveal something of the confusion which always +results when men try to find their standards of value in the passing +interests of the hour. Adult education is a democratic movement and +hence tends to make the desires and ideals of the uneducated rather +than those of the educated its standards and aims. The idea sometimes +prevails in education, just as it has prevailed in religion and in +politics, that if only the masses may emancipate themselves from the +past and start all over again, setting up their own values, there will +necessarily be great improvement. Hence Labor, for instance, is to have +“its own education,” whatever that is. To be sure, every person, be he +a laborer or anyone else, must in the end educate himself, and perhaps +the masses in insisting upon their own values and ideals can make +no worse business of their education than when they are “given” the +education which someone equally uneducated and materialistic thinks is +good for them. + +It is obvious that the _methods_ of adult education must be different +from those in common use in teaching children. The instructor cannot +compel attendance; he cannot require submission to his authority; he +must realize that he is among people who, though they have not his +special knowledge, have yet each his own experience, and he must see +the relations of his knowledge to such experience; and in fact he must +make himself a student with the others. Now because the methods differ +from those of formal education, people frequently infer that the _aim_ +also is different. There are many things which would seem to lead to +such an inference. + +In the first place, in all education, attention is focused almost +exclusively upon methods of teaching rather than upon the question, +“what is an educated person?” Again many of those who are interested in +adult education both as instructors or as students have grown up in an +environment of traditional education, they have seen the futility and +meaninglessness of much that passes for education in the schools and +colleges, and are often moved to protest against the system and all its +works. I have tried to show that the failure of formal education is the +result of the fact that educators frequently do not know what liberal +education is. But many people who are irritated with the school system +seem never to have raised the question whether what is taught in school +is liberal education. They assume that it is what it appears to be, and +hence, instead of seeking the meaning of liberal education, they turn +away and strive to set up a hastily considered educational aim of their +own. + +Finally, adult students are sometimes very opinionated--especially +when they first come to class. Often they have violent prejudices and +are extremely “advanced.” Such minds are very much creatures of the +popular movement of the hour. The educator, if he is to keep his hold +upon these persons, must gain their favor and sustain their interest. +The easiest way to gain and keep a following is to make concession to +popular prejudice. Classes in adult education, like the reading public, +wish to be told what they would like to regard as true. One of the +great “truths” for which they often seek support is the belief that +the increasing or anticipated supremacy of the mass is “progress.” +Men wish adult education to be modern, to reflect current thought and +present-day tendencies. In an earlier chapter I tried to show how +much of the popular thought that men believe very advanced is really +unrecognized Rousseauism. Often the idea of a new start in education +is only a survival of Rousseau’s revolt against civilization. Since +the influence of Rousseau serves always to rationalize any plebeian +wish-fancy whatsoever, it is not surprising that it should sometimes +appear to set the goal of adult education. To the degree that the +desire for education is genuine and spontaneous, the demand will +naturally be for what people think, is education. + +But in spite of all the chaos and confusion as to aims, adult +education, when the initiative comes from people who are hungry for +knowledge, even though they do not know what education is, shows more +promise than when the initiative comes from the professional school +teacher. In the former case, there is some likelihood that someone will +stumble upon the meaning of a liberal education. As a form of protest +against the established educational system, I think adult education +is a wholesome movement. The school authorities frequently show an +interest in this new thirst for knowledge which is met with suspicion. +I do not wonder. They have not shown themselves so uniformly successful +in the training of youth that they are justified in seeking to extend +their machinery over adult efforts for knowledge. Much that school +superintendents regard as adult education is really only elementary +education, primary instruction offered to adults. _The surest way to +defeat learning is to place it in charge of those whose own education +has stopped._ Their influence is everywhere to divert this mature +interest in learning to the only ends such professional educators know; +service to the state, conformity and routine, material advancement and +industrial efficiency, the uplift of the masses. + +In the words of a great educator of the nineteenth century, we should +“inquire whether it is the masses alone who need a reformed and +improved education.” Adult education is not something to be “given” +to the masses, while college education may be kept for the sons of +privilege. There is no such thing as “mass education.” Throughout +the mass of mankind, college graduates included, there are scattered +here and there persons who can learn something and have the desire +to continue learning. It is as important for us to consider for whom +adult educational opportunities should exist as it is to consider what +education is. Such opportunities are for people who are worth educating. + +Adult education is selective. Its aim is not to provide a slight +increase of information and a few noble sentiments for the rank and +file, but to select out of the undifferentiated mass those who are +naturally capable of becoming something more than automatons. These +need no credits or examinations or promise of diplomas to spur them +to intellectual effort. They would gain wisdom if there were no +educational institutions, or classes, or lectures. But they need advice +and the fellowship of other studious minds, for they are often lonely. +Very few even professional students can easily carry on their studies +when isolated from their kind. Hence the existence of universities. +The rush and racket of our industrial civilization are so great that +there is need to establish for those whose minds can rise above it, an +environment where thought is leisurely and where people may be found +who have had learning long enough to be at home with it. The isolated +student, like the person learning to swim, makes much needless effort. +He tries to stuff his head with learning. He needs time to meditate +upon what he learns, talk about it, assimilate it, see its relations to +his knowledge and experience as a whole. I believe this to be the value +of group discussion, where there is a real meeting of minds. I do +not, however, as some seem to do, believe that a company of uninformed +people talking nonsense are necessarily engaged in a work of mutual +education. It is not as groups that men may attain wisdom. With all +the aid possible from others, education is necessarily an individual +achievement. + +We need adult education not because it is a path to some Utopia, +or imaginary triumph of the masses, or because it will add to the +contentment of the poor, or improve their morals and their industrial +efficiency, or raise the tone of politics. We need adult education for +the same reason that we need any education at all. From the beginning +of time men of a certain type have sought such knowledge of the riddle +of existence as would make some measure of excellence possible to +man. The result of all their striving is a vast body of knowledge +which is the heritage of the men and women of our time. To share in +the possession of this knowledge and to work for its improvement and +increase is to men and women of a certain type simply to attain to +their true human estate. They desire education because that is the kind +of animal they happen to be. Such persons are different from the common +lot. It is not that they may possess some secret information which the +others may not have. They have a different _goal_. + +Such decency and tolerance and good sense and genuine idealism as exist +in the midst of general human folly are largely the indirect results of +the efforts of these men and women for knowledge and wisdom. Society as +a whole is the gainer for their education. To the end that such minds +may find themselves, together with the work and the adventure which +are their destiny, the widest possible efforts at general education +should be made. It is because of what people are in themselves and may +become, not because of something they may get, that liberal education +is the duty of man. What Huxley said of England in 1868 is true for +America today: + + “a few voices are lifted up in favour of the doctrine that the masses + should be educated because they are men and women with unlimited + capacities of being, doing, and suffering, and that it is as true + now, as it ever was, that the people perish for lack of knowledge.” + + +THE END + + + + +_Announcing_ + +THE NEW SCIENCE SERIES + + +One of the most significant developments in our life today is that as +scientific knowledge almost daily advances, educated people are left +more and more in ignorance of its achievements. Scientists for the most +part write for each other and the general reader is forced to resort to +popularizers of science for his information. It is apparently forgotten +that many of the greatest scientists from Galileo and Copernicus to +Darwin and Huxley wrote largely for the public they wished to reach +with their ideas. + +The publishers have this tradition in mind in offering THE NEW SCIENCE +SERIES which will present the latest scientific trends and discoveries +from all parts of the world in a series of books written by leading +scientists or those in close touch with their work. It is the aim of +this series to help modern men and women to know more about themselves +and their world, and to feel that they understand something of what it +is all about. + + +EDITED BY C. K. OGDEN + + VOL. I. MYTH IN PRIMITIVE PSYCHOLOGY BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI, Ph.D., + D.Sc. + + VOL. II. SCIENCE AND POETRY I. A. RICHARDS, M.A. + + VOL. III. FATALISM OR FREEDOM C. JUDSON HERRICK, Sc.D., Ph.D. + + +_Other Volumes in Preparation_ + +EACH VOLUME $1.00 + + + _For descriptive catalogue, ask your bookseller or write + W · W · NORTON & COMPANY_ + 70 Fifth Avenue New York + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber’s note + + + + +Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Spelling +was standardized except for quotes. Hyphenation was standardized where +appropriate. + +The following changes were made: + + Page 37: “Pavlow. A hungry dog” “Pavlov. A hungry dog” + Page 54: “information that anyone” “information than anyone” + Page 76: “in the early nineteeth” “in the early nineteenth” + Page 88: “Nietsche said that” “Nietzsche said that” + Page 123: “it not the social problem” “is not the social problem” + Page 130: “Max Sterner’s “Ego”” “Max Stirner’s “Ego”” + Page 137: “it hestitated to carry” “it hesitated to carry” + Page 141: “organized soicalist locals” “organized socialist locals” + Page 142: “sort of convenant among” “sort of covenant among” + Page 176: “its value it not” “its value is not” + Page 176: “a philosophy it true” “a philosophy is true” + Page 198: “creation of Plato’s genuis” “creation of Plato’s genius” + Page 199: “to aquiescence to authority” “to acquiescence to authority” + Page 224: “Michaelangelo and Raphael” “Michelangelo and Raphael” + Page 224: “Melanchthon and Œcolampadus” “Melanchthon and Œcolampadius” + Page 239: “matched by his magnaminity” “matched by his magnanimity” + Page 253: “fire of Promethus” “fire of Prometheus” + Page 256: “believe there an be” “believe there can be” + Page 304: “system-makers and sytems” “system-makers and systems” + Page 304: “destiny then their friends” “destiny than their friends” + Page 306: “a covenient way” “a convenient way” + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75711 *** diff --git a/75711-h/75711-h.htm b/75711-h/75711-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1219d9c --- /dev/null +++ b/75711-h/75711-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11335 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The meaning of a liberal education | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td { padding: 0.25em; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} +img.w100 {width: 100%;} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + + +/* Poetry */ +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +.author { + text-align: right; + margin-right: 20% + } + +.x-ebookmaker body {margin: 0;} +.x-ebookmaker-drop {color: inherit;} + +.ph2, .ph3, .ph4 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } +.ph2 { font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; } +.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } +.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: 1.12em auto; } + +.fs { font-size: small; } + +.tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; +padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; padding-left: .5em; +padding-right: .5em;} + +.indent { + margin-left: 2em; +} + + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp100 {width: 100%;} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75711 ***</div> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<h1> +THE MEANING OF<br> +A LIBERAL EDUCATION +</h1> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="ph2"> +<i>The People’s Institute</i><br> +<i>“Lectures-in-Print” Series</i><br> +</p> +</div> + + + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">PSYCHOLOGY</td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><p class="indent">by Everett Dean Martin</p></td> +<td class="tdr">$3.00</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">BEHAVIORISM</td> +<td class="tdl"></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><p class="indent">by John B. 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Gruenberg</p></td> +<td class="tdr">$2.50</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + +<p class="ph4"><i>Other Volumes in Preparation</i></p> + +<p class="ph3"> +<i>W·W·NORTON & COMPANY, INC.</i><br> +70 Fifth Avenue New York<br> +</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="ph2"> +THE MEANING OF<br> +A LIBERAL EDUCATION<br> +</p> +<p class="ph4">BY<br> +</p> + +<p class="ph2">EVERETT DEAN MARTIN<br> +</p> + +<p class="ph4"> +<i>Director, The People’s Institute, New York</i><br> +<i>Lecturer, The New School for</i><br> +<i>Social Research</i><br> +</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="title_decor" style="width: 12.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/title_decor.jpg" alt="logo"> +</figure> + +<p class="ph3"> +NEW YORK</p> + +<p class="ph2"> +W·W·NORTON & COMPANY, INC.</p> + +<p class="ph3"> +<i>Publishers</i> +</p> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="ph4"> +Copyright, 1926<br> +W·W·NORTON & COMPANY, INC.<br> +<br> +<br> +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br> +FOR THE PUBLISHERS BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS<br> +</p> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class ="center"> +To her who lovingly gave me the first and most<br> +important instruction, and inspired the<br> +desire for scholarship,<br> +MY MOTHER<br> +THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED<br> +</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2></div> + + +<p>Most books that deal with the subject of education, and +there are many, are concerned with the training of the +young. Much is said about educational methods but very +little about content. There is discussion, also, of the effectiveness +of institutions, schools and colleges, and the interest +of the State in education. This book does not deal +with such matters.</p> + +<p>It is concerned with other problems. What is an educated +person like? How does he differ from the uneducated? +Does he think differently and, if so, why? We +shall be empirical in our study. We shall study persons +who are generally recognized as outstanding educated +minds and ask what it is that characterizes them. Is an +educated person one who is like Socrates, Erasmus, +Montaigne, Goethe, Arnold, Santayana?</p> + +<p>The theme of this book is that education is more than +information, or skill, or propaganda. In each age education +must take into account the conditions of that age. +But the educated mind is not a mere creature of its own +time. Education is emancipation from herd opinion, self-mastery, +capacity for self-criticism, suspended judgment, +and urbanity.</p> + +<p>It is often believed that education, adult education in +particular, is an avocation or an interest to occupy the individual +in his leisure time, like music or stamp collecting. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</span>The work of The People’s Institute at Cooper Union, New +York, where these lectures were given, is essentially that +of adult education. I have tried to think through with +those who attended the lectures what it is that for ten +years we have been trying to achieve. Adult education is +now becoming an important interest in American life, and +the inquiry seems timely.</p> + +<p>This book, then, contends that education is a spiritual +revaluation of human life. Its task is to <i>reorient</i> the individual, +to enable him to take a richer and more significant +view of his experiences, to place him above and not within +the system of his beliefs and ideals. If education is not +liberalizing, it is not education in the sense of the title of +the book. I use the term “liberal” not in the political sense, +as if it meant half measures, but in its original sense meaning +by a liberal education the kind of education which sets +the mind free from the servitude of the crowd and from +vulgar self-interests. In this sense, education is simply +philosophy at work. It is the search for the “good life.” +Education is itself a way of living.</p> + +<p>I have written the book not from the standpoint of the +professional educator for whom education is frequently—if +it be adult education—an enterprise designed for the +uplift of other people, but from the standpoint of one who is +concerned that his own education shall not stop in middle-life. +No one is fit to be a teacher in whose own mental +process education has ceased to go on. One is a student +first and only incidentally a teacher. The best teacher +is the seeker after truth amongst his students. Probably +the most successful educator cannot tell what is the secret +of his success in teaching. That which is important about +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span>the philosophy of education is not method but that background +of knowledge which enables its possessor to judge +what is worth knowing and doing.</p> + +<p class="author"> +<span class="smcap">Everett Dean Martin.</span><br> +</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + + +<div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xi"></a>[Pg xi]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2></div> + + + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><p class="fs">CHAPTER</p></td> +<td></td> +<td class="tdr"><p class="fs">PAGE</p></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td class="tdl">PREFACE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tdl">INTRODUCTION</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tdl">LIBERAL EDUCATION VERSUS ANIMAL TRAINING</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tdl">LIBERAL EDUCATION VERSUS PROPAGANDA</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tdl">LIBERAL EDUCATION VERSUS BOOK LEARNING</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tdl">THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF DOUBT</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tdl">A MAN IS KNOWN BY THE DILEMMAS HE KEEPS</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tdl">THE FREE SPIRIT</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tdl">THE APPRECIATION OF HUMAN WORTH</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IX.</td> +<td class="tdl">EDUCATION AND WORK</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">X.</td> +<td class="tdl">EDUCATION AND MORALS</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XI.</td> +<td class="tdl">THE CLASSICAL TRADITION: PLATO AND ARISTOTLE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XII.</td> +<td class="tdl">HUMANISM: ERASMUS AND MONTAIGNE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_220">220</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XIII.</td> +<td class="tdl">SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION: HUXLEY</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_252">252</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XIV.</td> +<td class="tdl">THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_286">286</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XV.</td> +<td class="tdl">POSTSCRIPT—ADULT EDUCATION IN AMERICA</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_308">308</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="ph2"> +THE MEANING OF<br> +A LIBERAL EDUCATION<br> +</p> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[Pg 1]</span></p> +</div> + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I +<br> +INTRODUCTION</h2></div> + + +<p>The evidence is unmistakable that there is an important +change in the attitude of the public toward education. +There is an increasingly general demand for it in some form +or other. Everywhere and in all classes of society the +interest in acquiring better knowledge is apparent.</p> + +<p>In England and on the continent of Europe there are +thousands of classes and groups patiently pursuing long and +serious courses of study. American colleges and universities +are crowded and many students are each year turned +away. Vast and increasing numbers register annually for +correspondence and university extension courses. The demand +for more education is shown also in the increasing +number of lecture courses, people’s colleges, and other centers +of public discussion.</p> + +<p>While people do not always know just what it is they +demand and frequently the thing which they receive is not +education, nevertheless there is a new and very wide-spread +interest. This new interest shows itself not only in the +increasing number of persons engaged in some kind of educational +activity but also in the fact that people are beginning +to see that education properly may be extended into +adult life.</p> + +<p>Until recently, people have thought of education as something +for children, something which a man either got or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span>missed in his early years, something which he generally forgot +in his mature years. To the average person, education +was a matter of fond memories or of unpleasant associations +with teachers, school houses and experiences of childhood. +The “highly” educated person was the exceptional +person in the community, discussions of the philosophy of +education did not appeal to a wide public interest. Now +higher branches of learning are being pursued by numbers +of people outside regular educational institutions. Something +very significant is happening. Perhaps at no time +since the thirteenth century has the desire for knowledge so +nearly approached a mass movement.</p> + +<p>Certain qualifications must however be made. While +much of the demand for education is genuine and spontaneous, +much of it is spurious, irrelevant, inconsequential. +The increased attendance at school or university does not +necessarily mean that more education is going on. It is +frequently said that our colleges are crowded with inferior +students. Athletics, fraternities, schools of business and +the automobile tend to displace science and the classics. +American youth has acquired its ideal of college life from +the motion pictures. We should not infer from the large +numbers engaged in adult education that democracy has suddenly +decided to rid itself of intellectual shoddiness. If +the advertisements of correspondence courses in self-improvement +which regularly appear in the popular magazines +are an indication of the instruction offered for sale, +people might better spend their money for patent medicine +or in having their fortunes told. At best adult education +consists largely of brief courses of a vocational nature. +Even worker’s education, a movement which has inspired +hope in many liberals, may easily be over estimated. Much +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>of it is little more than a recrudescence of antiquated radical +propaganda, designed to enable the proletariat to “emancipate +itself from the slavery of capitalism,” and to get it +“ready for a millennial industrial democracy.” The initiative +often comes not from studious minded workers, but +from enthusiastic intellectuals and idealistic uplifters. The +cultural gesture is often pathetic or comic. It is not uncommon +for those who have completed the courses of +study in a “workers” college to find themselves more unadjusted +than they were before.</p> + +<p>It is sought to make of adult education something which +will broaden the interests and sympathies of people regardless +of their daily occupation—or along with it—to lift +men’s thought out of the monotony and drudgery which +are the common lot, to free the mind from servitude and +herd opinion, to train habits of judgment and of appreciation +of value, to carry on the struggle for human excellence +in our day and generation, to temper passion with wisdom, +to dispel prejudice by better knowledge of self, to enlist all +men, in the measure that they have capacity for it, in the +achievement of civilization.</p> + +<p>Adult education is a way of living which should be open +to all who care for it for its own sake. It is not surprising +that it frequently fails of its true aims. Education has +always been regarded as a mere means to ends that have +nothing to do with it. It is to be expected, therefore, that +education in our day should be regarded primarily as a +means of entrance to the already overcrowded professions, +or to material gain or better social position. Doubtless it +must remain so until the community becomes sufficiently +civilized so that some degree of liberal education is the +expected thing in all classes, an interest and a goal, a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>spiritual bond of union somewhat like the idea of catholic +religion in the middle ages. This is an ideal which will +not be realized by magic. There is no cheap popular +substitute for education. Nor are we nearing the goal +while as now almost anything passes for education.</p> + +<p>Almost any method of salesmanship or trick of influencing +people for any ends whatever is now “education.” +Every one educates the public. It is marvelous how large +a portion of the population of these states is qualified to +instruct. Education has become the game men perpetually +work to convert their neighbors. It is the cure for every +social ill. How shall we put an end to the crime wave, +abolish war, how to prevent social revolution,—or bring revolution +about, how induce unwilling people to accept +cheerfully the coercion of national prohibition or give lip +service to some one’s favorite brand of patriotism? The +answer is in all cases—education. If you are engaged in +increasing the sale of a certain soap, in putting everyone on +guard against that social disability of which one’s best +friend will not tell him, if you can frighten a multitude with +the danger of pyorrhea and thus increase your profit in +tooth paste—all this is now called education.</p> + +<p>Many see in the general movement for more education +a great hope for humanity. It was the belief in its political +benefits that led to the compulsory education of children in +the nineteenth century. Men were sure that all that held +the world back was ignorance. People would surely wish +to have their ignorance removed. Remove it, teach men +the laws of a reasonable and beneficent nature, and mankind +in general would be wise and happy and good. Ingersoll +used to rejoice whenever he visited a town where the +schoolhouse was larger than the church.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p> +<p>As the humanitarians of the nineteenth century held that +public school education must inevitably put an end to tyranny +and superstition, so many of our contemporaries look upon +adult education as the guarantor of a new and better civilization. +There is to be an end of bigotry and partisan +strife and of crowd hysteria and of the vulgarities which beset +democracy. They see genius appreciated, a selection +by the masses of a sincere and competent leadership. Men +everywhere are to learn “not only how to make a living, +but how to live.”</p> + +<p>Finally, it is hoped that adult education will give us new +methods and aims which will be carried back into our schools +and colleges and transform them. A better informed +adult population will naturally take a more active and intelligent +interest in the education of youth. And when +teachers try to instruct adults it will become necessary for +them to make their teaching interesting and significant. +The teachers will also learn something about life, gleaning +sheaves of ripe wisdom out of the mature experience of +their students; they will become better teachers. All this +may or may not come to pass. The point of interest is +that there is this tendency to make a gospel of education.</p> + +<p>We Americans have a weakness for new gospels. They +are a pleasant form of verbal exercise. Liberty, Democracy, +Social Reform, the Cause of Labor, Psychoanalysis—all +have been put to such evangelistic use. Now we are to +become an educated nation by the simple process of everyone +educating everyone else. Education is like reform, it is +something which is always good for other people. There is +much talk about adult education and there are many conferences. +But I have not attended a conference for the discussion +of this subject in which anyone spoke of adult education +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>as his own pursuit of knowledge. And as with most +gospels, we are in such a hurry to save souls that we would +begin proclaiming the new salvation to the nation before +pausing to find out what education is.</p> + +<p>Education has one thing in common with religion. One +must come to it with clean hands and a pure heart or one +can never know the secret power of it. This is as true of +a nation as of an individual. As a people we have certain +traits which may be praiseworthy in themselves, but are +distinctly hostile to the work of education. I will enumerate +them and then briefly indicate their element of hostility. +They are, first, our genius for organization; second, our +well-known utilitarianism; third, our cleverness in finding +shortcuts to the ends we seek; and fourth, our tendency to +make propaganda.</p> + +<p>The American way of doing things is to proceed to organize +them. Our genius for organization is probably our +most generally recognized national characteristic. It has +given us such prestige as we enjoy among the nations of the +earth. Ours is the land of the Woolworth Building, the +Ford factories, the Anti-saloon League, Rotary, the Ku +Klux Klan, and the college cheer leader. In organization +there is power and there is efficiency, as seen in the success +of our industries. Labor, politics, morals, religion, charity +have all followed the same course. In fact a man gains +recognition in this country only by virtue of his membership +in some power-seeking group. He who remains unorganized +is lost. And without a chairman, a committee, +an executive secretary and a press agent no human interest +can survive. We simply do not know what to do with it or +how to think about it.</p> + +<p>Organization, which is instrument or means, tends to become +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>an end in itself. This is the fate of most organized +causes; a movement arises with its standardized labels and +values, its stereotyped mannerisms, its rigamarole. Success +is estimated in terms of material effects, tangible results, +numbers and power. The organizer takes precedence +over those who possess the interest which it is his task to +serve. When a man becomes a labor organizer, he stops +work. Many university presidents are not themselves +teachers or even scholars. They are good organizers, and +with very much the same methods and standards of value +one could as well organize a labor union or an insurance +company. This is no criticism of the college president. +His practical ability is requisite of modern conditions. But +ways of thinking and of feeling are elusive and essentially +personal, and when the attempt is made to institutionalize +them they vanish and a lifeless imitation is substituted. +You may as well try to organize the weather as to organize +faith, hope and love. “Organized charity” is almost a +contradiction in terms. Organized religion is a garden of +artificial flowers, badly faded too. The spiritual life of +the race was carefully weeded out long ago.</p> + +<p>To know the effect of organization upon education, one +need only attend a convention of the National Educational +Association, or familiarize oneself with the public school +system anywhere. The system supplants education. The +present interest in adult education is in part a protest against +the system. The thirst for knowledge is nowhere more +genuine and healthy than in such groups as those which +attend The People’s Institute of New York and other educational +centers where learning is pursued with a minimum +of organization. In such places people who desire further +knowledge of some subject in which they are interested +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>come together, voluntarily, and their only basis of association +is their common intellectual interest. There is no cult +or “movement”; there are no promoters for there is nothing +to promote. There are no ulterior ends to serve and there +are no outside influences or regulations save those necessary +to insure honest scholarship and competent instruction. +Many adult students would resent any attempt at further +organization.</p> + +<p>There is in existence at the present time a World Association +for adult education, and there was recently formed an +American Association. But these associations have no +ambition to guide or control or to standardize. Nor are +they equipped to do so. One of the greatest services that +such an association, made up of teachers and students, could +perform would be to work to prevent the diversion of the +present interest in popular education to ends that are not +educational.</p> + +<p>“Adult Education” is becoming a slogan, a phrase to +capitalize, a label to attach to various activities which have +hitherto borne other brands,—Americanization for instance, +or social work, or community organization, or reforms +and propagandas of one sort or another. Much that +is now labeled Adult Education has a curiously familiar +look. There are faces one has seen before somewhere in +other climes that then enjoyed the sunshine of popular interest. +Praiseworthy enterprises no doubt, and not less +praiseworthy is the somewhat tardy discovery that the organizers +have all along been speaking the prose of adult +education without knowing it.</p> + +<p>The danger is that persons with long experience in promoting +and administering many things may also conceive +of each educational task as primarily one of organization. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>In a recent conference on adult education in a New England +state, an enthusiastic public school administrator in a burst +of oratory proposed that adult education be made compulsory. +Another called attention to the appalling extent of +illiteracy, particularly as regards the use of the English +language, and urged that adult education be promoted as +a preventive of crime. A third, a dean in an eastern +college, insisted that adult education at once be departmentalized; +graded, I suppose, into its primary, secondary, collegiate +and post-graduate branches. Nothing has yet been +said about an adult kindergarten, though doubtless many +people could profit by attending such an institution. Perhaps +the associated kindergartens have not yet discovered +the fact that they also have been engaged in adult education.</p> + +<p>We shall be disappointed if it is our hope to send the +grown-up population of the country back to Public School to +receive still more of the thing that caused many of them to +leave. One of the leading educators in America recently +asked a group of teachers whether any among them were so +well satisfied with what they had accomplished in their own +sphere that they could wish to extend their work through +the adult years.</p> + +<p>It is very difficult for the man of the system to think of +education itself, he is too much preoccupied with gradations, +requirements, discipline, reports, with seeing that a given +minimum of identical work is done by all in a given time. +He thinks in terms of buildings and equipment, submission +to authority, conformity to herd opinion, service to the +state. All or at least some of these things are necessary, +but it is obvious that they do not constitute an education. +This lesson America has got to learn. There can be no +quantity production of the things of the spirit.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p> +<p>Another national trait which influences our education is +our utilitarianism. I do not use this term in the sense that +it was used by those philosophers who held the principle of +the Greatest Happiness. I refer to that in us which is +spoken of as “Yankee shrewdness.” Except in politics and +religion, we are a sensible people. And by sensible I mean—and +most Americans would agree—practical. We can +be very efficient when we wish to,—that is, when there is +anything to gain by it. We are straightforward, and except +in matters concerning which we prefer to deceive ourselves, +not easily taken in. Whatever we profess, we are +born pragmatists. Our first question about anything is +‘what good is it’, that is, what use is it? We demand results +and we get them. We get things done because our philosophy +of life is one of action, and our prevailing ethical +standard is one of service. In the solution of a practical +problem, and most problems to which we give our attention +are practical, we pride ourselves on our directness. We +come to the point. We dispense with the unnecessary, the +ornamental, the traditional. It is a valuable trait.</p> + +<p>But things sometimes have meanings other than that of +usefulness. There are values which can not be measured +in terms of money or personal advantage, or of time lost or +gained, or of industrial efficiency. Health for instance is +good not merely because the healthy man can do more +work; it is good for its own sake. Yet people are frequently +advised to guard their health for strictly economic +reasons, and practical people have the habit of showing us +the cost of disease, presenting statistics of labor-time lost, +estimating the loss to the community as so many thousands +of dollars annually.</p> + +<p>I have known people to take a like utilitarian view of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>human relationships, making friends for the sake of commercial +and social advancement, furnishing their houses, +selecting their motor cars and even their clothes with the +view to keeping up their credit at the bank. Many a man +openly says that he belongs to certain clubs, and sometimes +one even joins a church, for business reasons. How much +the practical man misses is evident from the fact that it +never occurs to him that there are other reasons for doing +these things.</p> + +<p>Practical men love to philosophize about the value of +education. When I was a student I once rode up to the +college with a farmer who was passing the campus on his +way home from town. He informed me in no uncertain +terms that he had no use for that institution. It irritated +him to see all those “young loafers” wasting their time +learning Latin and Greek and lawn tennis. Not one of +them, not even the faculty, knew how to do anything; he +had recently tested them out. He had asked the professor +of Greek how many feet of lumber could be sawed from a +log twenty-three inches in diameter and twenty feet long, +and the professor did not know.</p> + +<p>The farmer’s point of view is now that of many modern +institutions of learning. Educators are determined to give +people the knowledge they need for success in life and work. +Courses are offered in scenario writing, millinery, salesmanship. +Whether courses are anywhere offered in paper +hanging—with credit toward the bachelor’s degree, I do +not know. But it is held that as thinking is really part of +acting, only that knowledge is real which can be put in operation. +There is a truth in this statement if one takes a +sufficiently broad view of activity. But the tendency is to +make an easy and crude distinction between knowledge which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>is useful, and that which is merely “ornamental.” This +distinction does not always hold. Knowledge may be like +art, it may have values which are more than use or ornamentation. +Dr. Horace Kallen divides values into economic +values and æsthetic values. Economic goods are +those which are valuable because they are the means of +getting some good other than themselves. Aesthetic goods +are those which have value in themselves. Art is excellence. +Education is the art of making living itself an art. +It is the achievement of human excellence; it transcends both +the useful and the ornamental. It is a way of life, just as +truly as the religious life is a way of life, or the moral life, +or the single life.</p> + +<p>People motivated by a narrow utilitarianism do not really +desire education. They are quite content with a vulgar +substitute—if it pays. Education does not transform +them; they tend to transform it after their own likeness. +That many are seeking “education” from such motives is +evident. One has only to study the advertising pages of the +popular magazines to note the kind of appeal that is made +to induce the ambitious to enroll in certain correspondence +schools. The prospective student is given the promise that +if he will subscribe for certain courses he may some day sit +in the boss’s chair, and associate with the big men at the top +who do real things. Usually there is an alluring picture of +these big men at their desks, thinking great ideas; a picture +which gives about the same notion of the lives of the successful +as one sees in the motion pictures. Sometimes the picture +is of two men one on either side of the manager’s desk. +One stands meekly, hat in hand, dressed as a laborer. On +his face are the marks of sorrow, humility, hunger. The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>other man has the look of the typical “go-getter.” The latter +is seated; he is evidently giving an order. Such a picture +is not intended to be a comment upon the inequalities +of our industrial system. The reader is informed that both +men started at the bottom, that one improved his mind and +his opportunities, the other’s is a wasted life.</p> + +<p>Such advertisements are typical, and are worthy of note +because they indicate something of the nature of the prevailing +American interest in education. Here is an illustration +of a domestic scene: The man stands at the door dejected. +He has just been discharged from his position, and has +come home to tell his wife. She sympathetically replies +that he ought long ago to have bought that course of lessons. +Or she consoles him with the question, “Why is it that all +the others have gone ahead and you have not?”</p> + +<p>By contrast there is a series of invitations to enter the +temple of knowledge in which a wife is portrayed leaning +affectionately over her husband’s shoulder. He holds a +pay envelope in his hand and says, “I am making real +money now.” It is well, when telling people of the advantages +of education, to give them an idea of the conversation +which takes place in the homes of the cultured.</p> + +<p>But that anyone should seriously enter upon a course of +study of the world’s classics in order that he may impress +people with his knowledge, appear genteel, make himself +attractive to women or gain entrance to an exclusive social +set, is, I believe, a distinctly modern contribution to educational +theory. There recently came into my possession +half a shelf of little old books bound in leather. They +contain a translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey, some +novels of Fielding and Smollet, and a book or two of seventeenth +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>century religious meditations. The volumes are +discolored with age and are worn with much reading, broken +bindings are carefully repaired with hand stitching and torn +pages pasted together by someone who prized and reverenced +their content. They are part of the small library of +a New England farmer of the early years of the Republic, +who read his books by his kitchen fireside when the day’s +work was done, who lived with them for years, and found in +them a perpetual source of interest and wisdom and a refuge +in an existence of loneliness and toil. Imagine anyone +trying to sell that man a work of art with the promise that a +casual reading of it would enable him to appear more cultivated +than he really was.</p> + +<p>Today a much advertised and in fact admirable selection +of classic literature is offered with precisely this appeal. +A full page display appears in the Sunday papers depicting +a gaudy dining-room with three people conventionally +dressed for dinner seated at the table. There are two men +and a beautiful woman. She is talking to the man on her +right, and is evidently fascinated with his brilliant conversation. +The man on the left sits dumb and miserable and unnoticed; +he can not join in such sophisticated and scintillating +discussion. We are informed that the poor man has +neglected to read his fifteen minutes a day. It is to this +sort of thing that popular utilitarianism, aided and appealed +to by commercialism, would divert a hesitating interest in +education.</p> + +<p>Even in the best of educational institutions the utilitarian +point of view with its emphasis upon a narrow efficiency +has its dangers. It is the source of that specialization +which crams the student’s head full of information concerning +one subject, leaving him in ignorance of all else and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>hence unable to gain a proper perspective of the knowledge +that he does possess.</p> + +<p>In “Science and the Modern World,” Whitehead says</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“The modern chemist is likely to be weak in zoölogy, weaker still +in his general knowledge of the Elizabethan drama, and completely +ignorant of the principles of rhythm in English versification. It is +probably safe to ignore his knowledge of ancient history. Of course +I am speaking of general tendencies; for chemists are no worse than +engineers, or mathematicians, or classical scholars. Effective knowledge +is professionalised knowledge, supported by a restricted acquaintance +with useful subjects subservient to it.</p> + +<p>This situation has its dangers. It produces minds in a groove. +Each profession makes progress, but it is progress in its own groove. +Now to be mentally in a groove is to live in contemplating a given set +of abstractions. The groove prevents straying across country, and +the abstraction abstracts from something to which no further attention +is paid. But there is no groove of abstraction which is adequate +for the comprehension of human life....</p> + +<p>The dangers arising from this aspect of professionalism are great, +particularly in our democratic societies. The directive force of reason +is weakened. The leading intellects lack balance. They see +this set of circumstances, or that set; but not both sets together. The +task of coordination is left to those who lack either the force or the +character to succeed in some definite career.... The point is that +the discoveries of the nineteenth century were in the direction of +professionalism, so that we are left with no expansion of wisdom +and with greater need of it. Wisdom is the fruit of a balanced +development. It is this balanced growth of individuality which it +should be the aim of education to secure.”</p> +</div> + +<p>A philosophy which reduces learning to mere efficiency, +makes of education only a means to something other than +personal development. It sees each good as an economic +good, a means only, making everything exist only for the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>sake of something else to be obtained. But there are goods +which exist for their own sakes and one such good is human +excellence.</p> + +<p>In the words of Dr. L. P. Jacks, “The civilization of +power aims at the <i>exploitation of the world</i>, which is +thought of as a dead or mechanical thing, existing that +men may exploit it. That of culture aims at the <i>development +of man</i>, thought of as a citizen of a universe which +can be loved, enjoyed and reverenced: education being the +name of the process which leads him to love, enjoy and +reverence it.”</p> + +<p>Another and even more serious danger is our passion for +shortcuts. Business prospers by rapid turnover. Practical +men demand quick results. We are an impatient people, +always in a hurry. We have not time for the tedious labor +processes necessary to produce well-made articles of handicraft. +Consequently we have learned to be satisfied with +hastily and cheaply made commodities which somewhat +resemble the real articles and will do just as well—for the +time being. Why should we not buy cheap furniture, when +we expect to move every first day of October? Why not +wear garments made of shoddy, when everyone knows the +fashions will change even before shoddy can be worn threadbare? +Why erect buildings that will stand for centuries in +cities where everything is torn-down and rebuilt in a decade, +and even churches move about following the shifting elements +of the population which constitute their membership? +Just why we are all moving about in such a hurry +no one knows. Some people think that this restless +haste is progress. Whether it is or not, it is certainly +modern.</p> + +<p>But something of the shoddiness enters into the minds +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>and hearts of men, when shortcuts are sought in matters of +mental growth which are essentially processes of slow +maturing. Education requires time. The only time wasted +is that spent trying to save time. There should be no +haste or crowding or cramming. Mastery of any subject +requires years of familiarity with it. The formal training +one receives in an institution is but the introduction. Most +people never get beyond a mere bowing acquaintance with +knowledge.</p> + +<p>A prominent American manufacturer, so we are told, +once made the statement that if he wished to know anything +he would employ an expert to tell him about it in five minutes. +Among workers in adult education there is a demand +for easy text books, primers which will give to people +in a few pages and in words of one syllable the essentials of +philosophy, psychology, literature and natural science. +Simple and clear statement is always desirable. No author +really knows his subject matter until he can “talk United +States” in presenting it. But that is another story. +People who can read nothing more profound than the +tabloid papers are a menace to education. They only +retard the progress of any class they enter.</p> + +<p>Yet there is a wide demand for tabloid information. +We like outlines of history, psychology, philosophy; primers +of relativity; ABC’s of atoms. Such books have value +only for the student who after reading them consults the +original sources. But what people want is education without +effort, ready-made education. I recently saw an advertisement +in which there was offered for sale “a whole +library in one volume.” Another advertisement offers +“The Essentials of a Liberal Education; Twenty Centuries +of thought on your Library Shelf,”—one shelf is all that is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>required! And in addition the publishers will provide you +with “easy reading courses.”</p> + +<p>The following example is typical of what happens to +education when wisdom lifteth up her voice in the street. +A full page advertisement appears in a Sunday newspaper. +There is a picture of two successful business men +looking at a newspaper. The article which has caught +their attention reads, “R. P. Clark Made President of Big +Mercantile Corp. Began as Office Boy 21 years ago.” +Here are a few lines quoted from their comments,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“That fellow amazes me! Do you remember when he first came +to us as an office boy?... and all the other fellows had a head +start on him with their college degrees. He must have found an unusual +way to make up for his lack of schooling—he must have found +a secret means of improving his chances both in business and society. +Clark knew how tremendously he was handicapped by his lack of +schooling and he determined to find <i>a shortcut to education</i>. And +this he found in Elbert Hubbard’s Famous Scrapbook.”</p> +</div> + +<p>There you have it. I have never seen a more complete +statement of the average man’s idea of education. Mastery +of the tricks which bring early success; belief that there +is somewhere a secret magic, knowledge of which will immediately +transform one’s personality;—the shortcut. No +appreciation of the fact that it is never information which +transforms a person, but the persistent effort put forth to +acquire it. Education is on the air, in these enlightened +times one can get it anywhere—like bootleg whiskey. It is +proposed now to give adult education by radio. All you +need do to achieve scholarship is to turn it on, close your +eyes, and go to sleep. You can get it without effort, without +knowing that you are getting it, or just who is educating +you.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span></p> +<p>I mentioned earlier that one of the dangers to education +in America is our weakness for propaganda. Few people +know the difference between education and advertising. +The latter is commonly spoken of as education by those engaged +in it. I once knew an advertising manager for a +fruit grower’s organization. He conceived a brilliant idea. +Just as we have Health Week, Clean-Up Week, Fire Prevention +Week, he arranged in various localities an Orange +Eating Week. He told me that he could educate the public +to eat as many oranges as he chose. Press agents are everywhere +busy “educating the public” for all sorts of objects; to +respect the rights of vested capital, to give money to build +cathedrals, to vote a straight party ticket. I once attended +a banquet given by an organization of manufacturers. +There I met a splendid-looking elderly gentleman and was +told that he was the attorney for the organization. As I +had never before seen him, I inquired if he had offices in +New York. My informant said, “Oh, no, he lives in Washington. +His job is to educate Congress.”</p> + +<p>In spite of all this popular interest, or perhaps because +of it, the cause of education is in a bad way. It is dangerous +to encourage people to think they are educated when +they are not, or to believe they are acquiring it when they +are in fact getting something else. Much that passes for +adult education serves only to make people more superficial +and opinionated than they were before. It is very doubtful +if the general level of our intellectual life has been +raised by such knowledge as the public has gained. The +public can read and we have with us the Hearst papers and +the tabloids. Literacy has placed the bulk of the population +daily at the mercy of the propagandist and the press +agent. With libraries and colleges and high schools everywhere, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>and after a century of science, vast sections of the +population can be swept by such movements as the Ku Klux +Klan and Fundamentalism. State after state prohibits the +teaching in its schools of such scientific knowledge as will +lead to a belief in evolution. Crazy reform, fantastic religious +innovation, political foolishness and unbalanced partisanship +may at any time sweep over the country. Intelligence +in this country makes a poor showing in competition +with quackery and complacent ignorance for popular leadership.</p> + +<p>It is common to lay the blame for the present state of +affairs at the door of the schools and colleges. Without +doubt they must accept some measure of responsibility in +the matter. In many instances the only alternative to a +general slump in standards of scholarship has been a narrow +academic pedantry. There has been much yielding to the +pressure of popular prejudice, much display of conventional +morality as a cover for second-rate educational activity. +Faculties are well aware how little a student may know and +get through college. The colleges themselves seem to have +participated in the general cheapening of education by their +generosity in granting honorary degrees. Almost any one +who is successful in business or prominent in politics becomes +a “Doctor.” Erasmus in the fifteenth century, even though +he had already become probably the leading classical scholar +of his times, studied and taught at Paris for nine years before +he was granted his doctor’s degree. When the late +Mr. Bryan threatened to print all his college degrees on +his card, in answer to the repeated statement that he was +an ignoramus, the joke was really on the colleges.</p> + +<p>But too much is demanded of institutions of learning. +Large numbers of students come to them with no background +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>of cultural tradition, and they return to an environment +which is distinctly hostile to intellectual pursuits. +The public clamor that some one educate us in spite of ourselves +is only another way of shouting, “We have piped +unto you and ye have not danced.” The ultimate responsibility +for the condition of education rests upon the average +members of society, and it is reducible to a moral factor. +Carlyle once said that people could only be taken in by +quacks when they had a certain element of quackery in their +own souls. When multitudes regard education merely as +a shortcut to financial success, or as a device for appearing +to be something they are not, or as an instrument for converting +others to their own partisan beliefs, they will of +course get the “education” they desire.</p> + +<p>Once I thought that ignorance was an innocent thing, a +sort of spiritual vacuum passively waiting to be filled with +precious truths. Except in children ignorance is by no +means an innocent thing. It is a very active element in +human life. We must overcome strong resistances before +we may begin to learn some things. We keep ourselves in +ignorance because there are facts and truths whose existence +we prefer not to admit. The man who strives to educate +himself—and no one else can educate him—must win a +certain victory over his own nature. He must learn to +smile at his dear idols, analyze his every prejudice, scrap if +necessary his fondest and most consoling belief, question +his presuppositions, and take his chances with the truth. +The greater the need of education, the stronger the resistance +to it.</p> + +<p>Whether the present increase of interest in education is +to be an empty gesture depends upon whether the thing +demanded is really education. There is no one right way, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>and certainly each age with its special needs and peculiar +industrial and cultural environment should make its own +contribution to educational achievement. But there is +something which belongs to no special time and to all times, +a way of approaching our tasks or valuing experiences. No +one who is merely a creature of his own times is really +educated. There is conceivable a world in which,—great +as are the historical accidents that separate them—a Socrates, +or a Plato, or a Cicero, or an Erasmus, a Voltaire, a +Goethe, a Huxley would be at home. Much as they differ, +there is yet something, which the educated have in common, +a quality of spirit, something that may not be defined, but +that right-minded people recognize. We shall strive from +various avenues of approach to envisage it, for to miss it +is to miss all. It is the meaning of a liberal education.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II +<br> +LIBERAL EDUCATION VS. ANIMAL +TRAINING</h2></div> + + +<p>In a sense no living person is yet educated, for the learning +process is never completed. But there must come a time +when the process results in some differences in behavior. +Often these differences seem to be small and irrelevant, +amounting merely to added social grace or more correct use +of language. Something more than this must differentiate +the educated from the uneducated or so much human energy +would not be expended in the effort to get education.</p> + +<p>When we inquire what the difference is, we find there is +much confusion. In the process of education knowledge is +acquired. Many a person’s education consists of what he +has learned. May one possess much knowledge or information +and remain uneducated? I know a physician who +has great skill and wide professional information, yet he is +essentially vulgar in his tastes and enjoyments and bigoted +in his human relationships, and his judgments concerning +most things are narrow and hasty and are determined largely +by passion and prejudice. You feel that his learning has +never become integrated with his personality. It is a property +annexed to his estate over which he is an absentee +landlord. It has made no changes in his general habits of +thought and behavior.</p> + +<p>There are people whom no one would think educated, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>who yet have an astounding amount of information. They +know all about race horses, or bridge, or baseball scores, or +stocks and bonds. Many have a knowledge of such things +which may be greater both in range and accuracy than that +which some professional scholars have of their special subjects.</p> + +<p>Shall we say then that some kinds of knowledge have +educational value and that others have not? But why +should not all knowledge be equally education? Is there a +psychological reason for the alleged difference or is the +exclusion of some kinds of knowledge the result merely of +a conventional attitude? Our discussion of education resolves +itself into a philosophical problem.</p> + +<p>The issue of practical education versus the so-called cultural +comes up whenever people are interested in the subject. +Partisans of the latter type of learning are inclined +to look down upon the former. They say it is not education +but only skill and efficiency. They hold that education +is scholarship and properly has to do with such subjects as +the classics, the humanities, philosophy, etc., which discipline +the mind and ennoble the spirit. This is the traditional +view.</p> + +<p>Those who take the opposite view ask what earthly purpose +can useless and sequestered learning serve? They are +suspicious of education for “refinement” or the “genteel tradition.” +Is it not the aim of the pursuit of knowledge to +enable one to do something, to attain mastery, to equip the +mind to function well in an environment which demands +activity of us all? Is not anything well learned culture? +An excellent statement of this point of view can be found +in Huxley’s lectures on education.</p> + +<p>There has been much discussion of this question in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>universities and colleges. There are those who deplore the +decline of interest in the classics and philosophy. They +say that institutions of higher learning are becoming mere +“intellectual cafeterias,” that the change from classical education +to an elective system embracing all sorts of vocational +courses is a distinct loss, inasmuch as the knowledge so acquired +lacks coordination and balance, while specialization +crowds out the general and cultural subjects that form the +foundation of education.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, why should not a University teach +anything that people wish to know? There was once resistance +to including the sciences, chemistry and physics and +biology. The liberalizing effect and cultural value of these +subjects is now recognized, and their usefulness is a social +gain. Then why not domestic science, agriculture, mechanics, +business methods? What is wrong with the schools +of business at Harvard and Columbia?</p> + +<p>A similar issue exists in secondary education. It is often +said that high schools pay too much regard to college entrance +requirements, since only a small portion of graduates +expect to continue their education. The students have +gained only a most superficial introduction to the classics and +have learned nothing practical. Schools of trade, commerce, +and of technology are increasing in number and the +movement for such training is guided by principles of education +very different from those of the classical tradition.</p> + +<p>Those of us who are interested in adult education meet +the same problem. Writing of worker’s education Dr. +Horace M. Kallen says,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“... The complexity of the tasks of any union official has grown +so great, their variety so considerable, that it is no longer possible for +an official merely to pass from the worker’s bench to the official’s desk +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>and completely discharge his duties.... Schools would have to be +provided analogous to the schools of business administration maintained +in the colleges.... Out of the instruction there would in +the course of time emerge a communicable permanent record, on +which the necessary accessories of books could be built. Such a +school of officials would be a nucleus from which the educational +process could ultimately radiate into every shop.</p> + +<p>“Labor education would finally thus become conversant with control +rather than escape. In such a conversancy more and more of +the energies now seeking relief in the vapors of the social mechanisms +of escape, would find satisfactory enchannelment in the technique of +control.</p> + +<p>“It is the essential function of labor education to envisage, to forecast +and to enable this transition. The various arts would then develop +no longer as compensations against, but as expressions and +prophetic fulfillments, as criticisms and mitigations of, the processes +of this movement; they too would more largely be coterminous with +industrial life.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Dr. Kallen would probably not go so far as to say that the +sole aim of Labor Education is to equip the members of the +working class with such knowledge as will enable them to +master the industrial environment and change the social +system. But there are those who hold such a view, just as +there are those who hold that the worker should receive +only such education as will make him a more competent +workman. Both views, one held by extreme radicals, the +other by conservative capitalists, have in common the belief +that education for workers is purely practical training. +“Cultural” subjects are sometimes studied, and there is a +lively demand for them, but the tendency is to regard this +interest as an “escape” from reality into a world of fanciful +contemplation and mere verbal exercise. It is an intellectual +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>luxury, a form of entertainment or inspiration to which +a worker is entitled, but it is an interest which is a little +under suspicion of being “bourgeois.”</p> + +<p>Hence in all phases of education, this issue is debated. +The issue is inevitable in a time like the present, with a classical +tradition surviving in an industrial civilization. Have +we any need in the modern world of cultural traditions +which have their origin in antiquity? Should we or could +we dispense with all educational values except those which +are coterminous with the present industrial situation?</p> + +<p>Wherever such an issue arises, I have learned to suspect +both sides. As a rule both are based upon a common presupposition +which is an error. Here the presupposition is +that the important factor in education is the question what +is to be taught, rather than the spirit of learning itself. +Education is conceived of as knowledge acquired. Attention +is fixed not on the learning process through which an +individual becomes reoriented to his world, but upon the end +result, something fixed and done, a certain amount of information +stored up. Is this what we mean by learning? +Is it receiving and memorizing a given something either cultural +or practical? Or is it an adventure in any kind of +truth-seeking which changes the quality of one’s future experience +and enables one to behave not merely efficiently +but wisely, with a broad view and a sympathetic understanding +of the many ways in which men have striven to create +meaning and value out of the possibilities of human life? +If this last is correct, the real question is not what shall be +learned but how and why and to what end. Is learning a +venture in spiritual freedom that is humanism, or is it a +routine process of animal training? Both cultural and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>practical knowledge may be reduced to animal training—and +they generally are. It is there that the issue between +them arises.</p> + +<p>To my mind, an educated person is not merely one who +can do something, whether it is giving a lecture on the +poetry of Horace, running a train, trying a lawsuit, or repairing +the plumbing. He is also one who knows the significance +of what he does, and he is one who cannot and will +not do certain things. He has acquired a set of values. +He has a “yes” and a “no,” and they are his own. He +knows why he behaves as he does. He has learned what to +prefer, for he has lived in the presence of things that are +preferable. I do not mean that he is merely trained in the +conventions of polite society or the conformities of crowd +morality. He will doubtless depart from both in many +things. Whether he conforms or not, he has learned +enough about human life on this planet to see his behavior +in the light of a body of experience and the relation of his +actions to situations as a whole. Such a person is acquiring +a liberal education and it makes little difference whether +he has been trained in philosophy or mechanics. He is +being transformed from an automaton into a thinking being.</p> + +<p>The antithesis of liberal education and practical training +arises in part out of a misunderstanding on both sides of a +principle stated in Aristotle’s “Politics.” In this book there +is set forth the philosopher’s theory of education. He is +seeking for his times just what our practical educators seek +for ours—to train youth to deal masterfully with existing +conditions. Unlike many moderns he sees that such training +applies to the whole personality. This is evident for +example in his discussion of music where he considers the +general psychological effects of various kinds of rhythm.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p> +<p>There were three important facts in the environment of +the Greek youth to which the educator had to assist the student +to adapt himself. The way in which the intelligent +person faced these facts was the meaning of liberal education +in Aristotle’s time. There was first a psychological +fact. Popular myth was ceasing to function as an explanation +of the processes of nature and as a basis for the control +of behavior. Fortunately for the Greeks, no priestly class +had gained control of their spiritual life. Stories of the +doings of the gods were coming to be regarded as mere +poetry, in the modern sense of the term. Philosophers did +not hesitate to subject religious beliefs to the judgment of +reason. The assertion had been made that “Man is the +measure of all things.” A spirit of intellectual freedom +prevailed that was unique in ancient times, I might say in +any time. There was a disposition to investigate, to classify +natural phenomena, to speculate upon their nature and +causes. Men were faced with the necessity of thinking +their experience through to find meanings which elsewhere +were a matter of myth and folkway. Thought must be +clarified and made exact if behavior was to be guided by +reason. Philosophy, which included the beginnings of +science, and education were almost the same thing,—the +search for the good life. I will discuss this point further +in a later lecture.</p> + +<p>The second fact concerning which the Greek youth must +learn to behave intelligently was political in its nature. It +was the existence of an aristocratic democracy in which as a +citizen he must participate with important results for both +himself and the state. The free citizen must have learned +to judge what is good.</p> + +<p>The third fact which challenged the educator was sociological; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>it was the existence of slavery. This institution, +which in the end was one of the causes of the breakdown of +ancient civilization, seemed to be perfectly natural to the +philosopher. Aristotle thinks that some people are slavish +by nature. He has no thought of educating such persons, +though they may be trained to perform their tasks well. +All should be so trained that they may live happily and well +in the stations in life where they are. As most mechanical +labor was performed by slaves, and by hirelings whose +social status was not very different from that of the slave, +the Greeks candidly despised mechanic arts. Knowledge of +them was thought to be a slavish kind of skill. Aristotle +likewise looked down upon trade and commerce as debasing +the mind, just as hard labor was thought to demean the +body. The free man must be so trained that his privileges, +his leisure and authority over others would make for general +human happiness. This education of the free man was +called “Liberal Education.” It was the education of a +leisure class. It was a training for leadership and responsibility: +not a mere initiation into the idealogy of an exploiting +class, together with the passwords current in exclusive +circles. Neither did it mean—at least for the ancient +Greek—the accumulation of dead and inconsequential +knowledge the only purpose of which was a pedantic display +of erudition. In ages that followed, the study of the classics +tended to become something of this sort. But this tendency +marked a decline, a loss of the spirit of liberal education +as it had once existed. Athenian education, in spite +of the institution of slavery, developed men of wisdom and +nobility of spirit and civilization of interest in such numbers +that ancient Greece became the pioneer of western civilization +and has remained the inspiration and guide to men in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>most of their efforts to attain a life of reason and beauty.</p> + +<p>The fact that the liberal tradition had its origin in a society +in which slavery prevailed has left traces in education +which persist even to the present time. It is one of the +things that cause people to believe that there are different +types of education proper to different social strata. Education +becomes a mark of distinction. It is for the privileged +few. It is itself a privilege and a kind of vested +interest. There is a higher knowledge and a lower knowledge. +In part this distinction goes back to primitive times. +In early civilization, everyone learned to do everything +which the people of the tribe could do. There was no +specialization; all alike learned to fish, to hunt, to fight, to +dance. The primitive magic was associated with every human +interest and every form of activity, and for every type +of performance there was a magic formula. In time it became +the special function of the elders and medicine men to +remember the formulae and pass them on to their successors. +Knowledge of the formulae became the special privilege +of the priestly class. Knowledge of labor processes remained +with the mass. The former was higher knowledge +and developed into ancient wisdom. In certain religions it +led to an esoteric intellectualism. The distinction gains emphasis +among peoples like the Hebrews, Moslems and +Christians whose religion is the “Religion of the Book.” +The “Higher Knowledge” is now a divine revelation preserved +in the Sacred Book. With each of the peoples +mentioned religious scholarship becomes the basis of all +learning, and dominates education. Any accretions of +general culture which are acquired and added to theology, +become tinctured by it. A priestly tradition is mingled with +the classic culture as the philosophy of Aristotle becomes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>elaborated first by the Arabs, and then by the Rabbis and +Christian scholars of the Middle Ages. What Aristotle +meant simply as the training of the free man in self-mastery, +in time became a professionalized “higher learning,” a sequestered +scholarship largely unrelated to the existing +environment.</p> + +<p>Mediæval education became scholasticism. It was still +a higher knowledge set apart from other interests: it did +not include proficiency in the arts of industry, but rather in +book learning and in disputation. Liberal it was not, +though it still in a sense had to do with leisure. The good +life had become one of pious contemplation. Aristotle’s +free citizen was displaced by the cenobite and the candidate +for holy orders. The life of Reason became one of skill +in the formal logic with which a given system of life and +thought was elaborated. Scholastic education made possible +a high type of scholarship; it carried very far its training +in the subtleties of argument. But it exhausted itself in +a world of abstractions which it mistook for realities. It +was a discipline, not a voyage of discovery. It was a matter +of routine learning by memorizing. Its aim was to +mold the mind of the student to a fixed type. It placed him +in an environment so manipulated as to determine his habits +of thinking once for all, to give support to required beliefs. +It was education by indoctrination. It developed a type of +mind which could be depended on to do and say the expected +thing on the expected occasion, one which would hold +certain desired convictions and no others. For such an +educational system, learning was accepting and retaining +something provided in advance. In this sense it was passive. +Mentality was the product of environment. Scholastic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>education though it dealt with “things of the spirit” +was from one point of view “animal training.”</p> + +<p>In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the scholars of the +Renaissance turned from theological education to human +letters. A revival of interest in the literature of antiquity +became a sort of passion. Those who sought through the +study of Greek and Latin poets, essayists, and philosophers +to revive the spirit of the lost pagan civilization were +called Humanists. They had a philosophy of education +very different from that of scholasticism which was at that +time on the decline. There was the promise that education +might again become liberal, in the sense I use the term. +Wherever the “New Learning” was carried it had a liberalizing +influence. It roused the hostility of “obscurantists” +and created a jolly row in many institutions of learning. It +awakened pagan ideas throughout Italy, even in high ecclesiastical +circles. It was bringing “refinement” to France. +It was receiving something of a triumph in Northern Europe +under the leadership of Erasmus, when the Reformation +again turned general interest to theology. What the +result of this humanistic movement in education might have +been had it gone on unchecked no one can say. No one now +believes it could have been what its leaders expected. They +tried to produce an imitation in their own times of the manners +and ways of men who had lived centuries earlier in a +wholly different environment. Such an attempt of course +is futile. But it is conceivable that as larger and larger +numbers of people achieved freedom in the modern world a +liberal education might have done in our day what the +Greeks sought to do in theirs—lay the foundations of freedom +in a well-considered basis of philosophy. In that event +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>the whole of modern education might have been vitalized +by a cultural tradition which could take into account the conditions +under which modern men live and work without degenerating +into narrow utilitarianism and mere mechanical +efficiency.</p> + +<p>What chiefly survived from the Renaissance—at least +in Protestant countries—is the traditional education, in +which the ancient classics are taught as tedious drill in language +with the aim of improving the student’s literary style, +also of disciplining his soul by compelling him to do something +disagreeable, and finally so that he may be able to +repeat a few Latin or Greek phrases, remember the names +of a few ancient writers and perhaps if he has been very +diligent, retain a sufficient number of vague memory traces +to enjoy a book like Professor Erskine’s “Private Life of +Helen of Troy.”</p> + +<p>But to call this liberal education requires both humor and +imagination. Little attempt is made to get behind the +language into literary appreciation, or back of the literature +to the ways and values of ancient life and the wisdom of the +ages, or to see the relation of such wisdom to the problems +of living in the modern world. Traditional education has +again become an artificial thing, aloof from reality, a +higher knowledge set apart by itself. That is, if one may +call it knowledge at all. Most college graduates after a +few years do not remember enough Latin to enable them to +translate their own diplomas, so badly are the classics +taught, even as mere language drill.</p> + +<p>Much of the spirit of scholasticism, though little of its +thoroughness and subtlety, persisted in the later Protestantism. +Its influence necessarily tended to make this teaching +of the humanities formal and innocuous. After the Renaissance, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>members of the nobility and gentry, and later an increasing +number of the middle class, sought higher education +for its refining influence, as an adornment rather than as +a way of life. The result is a culture that is for the most +part external to the sphere of our activities and interests, +something borrowed, not won; seldom an expression or +valuation or glorification of modern life. This also is a +routine and a moulding to type. It is again a form of animal +training.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The development of science in the nineteenth century led +to a demand for the education requisite for modern life. +The application of science to industry created a new environment. +New knowledge was required and new mental +habits must be formed if there was to be effective control. +Natural science gave men a new intellectual discipline and +a new world-view. With it came a new hope for the race. +Mankind need only learn the laws of nature and obey them +to become wise and happy and good. The new knowledge +dispelled ignorance and superstition and set the mind free. +There was much criticism of traditional education, and much +faith in the liberalizing effects of scientific training as well +as in its practical results. Today scientific research occupies +a most important place in education. In many colleges +and universities it has almost supplanted the classical +studies. No modern person can be really educated without +some training in scientific methods.</p> + +<p>But science also may become mere animal training. Each +science is a profession, acquired as a technical training like +learning a trade. Of things outside his own trade the scientist +may be quite ignorant and lacking in curiosity. He +is often unable to see the significance of his specialty for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>knowledge as a whole. Within his chosen field of study he +may come to resent new discovery—especially if it fails to +confirm some favorite theory. In some of the sciences, +notably psychology, biology, medicine and the social sciences, +there are intense partisan divisions, often rivalling in dogmatism +and bitterness, those of theology. Each “school” +develops its cult ideas, its jargon credo, and ritual. Herd +opinion holds sway over scientists as over other men. Certain +phrases and mannerisms are adopted, just as among +Rotarians, because they show that one belongs to the crowd. +The psychologist today, for instance, must boast his ignorance +of philosophy and make a noise like a biologist. +The advancement of knowledge is by no means the sole motive +in scientific training; there is also much molding to +type even though this latter objective is in conflict with the +spirit of science itself.</p> + +<p>Much contemporary educational philosophy is openly +and avowedly a technique of animal training; so much so +that it quite properly borrows its pedagogical principles +from animal psychology. It would be difficult to over estimate +the importance of animal experimentation for modern +theories of education. Schools of education are deeply interested +in the psychology of the learning process. Education +is learning, and learning is habit formulation. Habits +are the acquired modes of response of men and animals. +They may be organized in the nervous tissue by any environmental +factors which “condition” certain reflexes; +that is, chain certain responses to given stimuli. It is +possible for an animal experimenter or an educator of +children to organize the environmental situation in such a +manner that definite systems of desired responses may be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>regularly obtained whenever a stimulus of a certain kind is +given. A simple and well-known experiment which will +serve to explain what we mean by the conditioned reflex is +that of Pavlov. A hungry dog when shown meat secretes +saliva. At the time the dog sees the meat a bell is rung. +This is repeated a number of times until the dog will secrete +saliva at the sound of the bell, without the presence of +the meat stimulus. The saliva response, induced by the +bell stimulus, is the conditioned reflex.</p> + +<p>It is said that all learning takes place after this fashion. +An animal, a cat, may be placed in a cage, the door being so +arranged that escape is possible only when the cat strikes a +certain latch. After a period during which the cat makes +all sorts of frantic random movements, the successful movement +finally occurs and the cat escapes. The experiment is +repeated and perhaps the period of futile activity will not +be so long as at first. After a number of trials the cat will +give up the random movements and at once unlock the door. +The gradual shortening of the interval of time required for +the desired response may be plotted. It is then called the +animal’s “learning curve.”</p> + +<p>Such curves may also be made of human learning processes. +It is said that there is no essential difference between +this animal learning and our own learning whether it be to +swim or play tennis, or to memorize a poem, or solve a problem +in algebra, or to master the technique of a profession. +One’s education thus consists wholly of one’s organized systems +of responses, or habit patterns. We speak of education +as the development of personality. But from this +point of view personality is nothing but the sum total of an +individual’s conditioned reflexes:—that is, it is merely the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>manner in which the organism has been taught to work. +One eminent Behaviorist among the psychologists compares +personality to the running of a gas engine.</p> + +<p>I will not enter upon a psychological discussion of this +view of education, except to say that the method of animal +training which is taken for granted is open to serious criticism. +The theory proceeds on the assumption that <i>insight +into the situation</i> is not necessary to learning. The cat in +the cage hits upon the successful gesture as a matter of pure +chance. After a number of experiments, each said to place +the animal in an identical situation, the successful action becomes +“over determined,” and fixed as a habit. It is doubtful +whether such training is learning at all. The animal—and +conceivably the human being—need never take in the +situation. The successful art, the more this learning process +is perfected, degenerates into a mere gesture, related to +the event in a purely external and arbitrary manner. It is +difficult to see how educational methods guided by such a +theory could do much to train the student in habits of independent +judgment.</p> + +<p>Professor Wolfgang Köhler spent four years studying +the intelligence of apes at the anthropoid station in Tenerife. +His experiments with these animals followed a procedure +quite the reverse of that we have been discussing. He arranged +his experiments so that there could be no chance and +no routine, so that the situation as a whole implied a definite +action on the part of the animal, an action which would be +natural to it once it gained insight into the situation. From +simple tasks he moved to more complex ones, always keeping +the moment of insight as the crucial factor in the experiment. +An ape is placed in a cage and fruit is put outside +beyond the animal’s reach. A stick has also been placed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>within reach. After vain attempts to reach the fruit with +its hand, the ape suddenly sits quietly looking the situation +over: it looks from the fruit to the stick, then seizes the +latter and pulls in the fruit. Later the animal is required to +choose between a long stick and a shorter one, then two +sticks are put within reach which must be joined before success +may be attained.</p> + +<p>From such tasks the animal is led on to those which finally +test the limitations of its insight. So far as I know no +use has yet been made of such psychological study of animal +learning by our educators. But if we must resort to +animal psychology in order to understand the processes of +human learning it would seem that Köhler’s methods would +be more suggestive to the educator than those which assume +that the learner is throughout an automaton without +understanding.</p> + +<p>The so-called “new psychology” has filled modern education +with confusion. Fads and fancies of all sorts prevail, +each with its psychological jargon. “Progressive” experimental +schools everywhere give voice to “modern +ideas.” In many such schools there is a minimum of discipline, +pupils are encouraged to take the initiative in all +things, to study what they like, and when they choose. +Everything is made as easy and as interesting as possible, +and there is much talk about permitting the student to express +himself and develop his personality. So long as we +confine our attention merely to the methods of teaching we +have the impression that this “new” education is anything +but standardized. We get a different impression when we +turn to examine the ideals of scholarship, the valuations, and +general outlook on life which the newer philosophy of education +accepts uncritically. In fact very little thought is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>given to these matters. The prevailing interests and trends +of a democratic, industrial age are taken as the ultimate +criteria. It might almost be said that education has come +to be regarded merely as a function of the environment.</p> + +<p>Now it is one thing to train a mind to deal effectively with +its environment and to achieve some value in the modifications +which it makes in that environment. It is a different +thing to hold that mind is the product of the environment. +A well-known psychologist says that the aim of his science +is to predict and control behavior. He offers us the conditioned +reflex as the means to any desired result, and says +that if he could have full control of the environment of a +given number of children, he would permit some one to +select by lot the future life and career of each child, and he +would form the mind of each according to the chosen pattern. +Our modern environmentalists have more in common +with mediæval scholasticism than they think. The aim +of both is to produce an individual who will react under all +circumstances according to a prearranged pattern.</p> + +<p>Scholasticism, as we have seen, consisted chiefly of memory +drill and training in logic and disputation. Law and +theology were sometimes studied, but proficiency in such subjects +does not in itself mean that a man has acquired a +liberal education. He may only have learned to do the conventional +trick when the expected signal is given, much like +a trained dog in a circus. The same must be said of much +modern professional training. The scholastic spirit haunts +the legal mind to this day. Also it is possible—perhaps +usual—for one to study medicine, and never once get an +idea of what medicine means to the scientist. Most people +educated by school teachers and college professors are in +fact trained in this way. Think of what passes for moral +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>and religious training. With respect to the most important +questions in life, people have been so “conditioned” that +they do not try to solve problems as they arise, but to say +and do the expected thing on occasion. I once heard a +professor in a theological seminary instruct his class in the +art of visiting the sick. The students were busy copying in +their note books the speeches which it is correct for a pastor +to make on such occasions. The following is typical of such +instruction. “As you enter the sick-room it is well to say +When God puts a man down on his back, it is so that he may +look up into Heaven.”</p> + +<p>In such habit formation, learning is mere repetition. +There is nothing of independence of judgment, no reflection +on ends, no development of the capacity to deal with new +situations. The better one is trained the more automatic +one’s behavior becomes. And here we see the limitations to +much so-called practical education,—“education for work +and for life.”</p> + +<p>Yes, but do we live simply to do things and to serve, to +perform, however well, the tasks required by our times? +Is all the world a stage, and are men merely actors who +have learned well or poorly the lines written for them by +someone else or dictated by necessity? And is there to be +no understanding of the meaning of the part we play, or of +the drama as a whole? Is no one through his education to +contribute something original to the drama of life?</p> + +<p>It seems to me that the animal training theory rests upon +two presuppositions, both of which are wrong. The first +is that the mind consists of what it has learned, that is, that +it is the product of environment. This is really not a psychological +doctrine, but a metaphysical assumption. It is +the mechanist theory; an idea which works well as scientific +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>method, but which leads to false conclusions when taken as +a description of ultimate reality.</p> + +<p>The second presupposition is a by-product of present-day +industrial democracy. It is that education is a means to +efficient service, with its rewards, getting on, general prosperity, +etc. But is industry the end and aim of our existence? +It is said that man if he is to be happy must be able +to express himself in his work. I would not dispute this +statement, but it is important to consider what it is that +finds expression in one’s work. If work, in addition to +being the means to some material end or bodily good, is also +to be a form of self-expression, then the point of interest is +the kind of selfhood, or quality of experience expressed. +Then work exists for education, not education for work.</p> + +<p>Something is possible to mankind, which transcends work +and by which work itself is valued. As mere craftsmen we +lose the sense of what good workmanship is and become the +blind slaves of necessity or of desire the moment that education +ceases to be the goal of labor. I do not mean merely +that we learn by doing. That is the way animals learn +and it is all they learn. By repeated performance an individual +learns how to do a task, but he does not thereby +learn what to do, nor why it is done. Education has to do +with insight, with valuing, with understanding, with the development +of the power of discrimination, the ability to +make choice amongst the possibilities of experience and to +think and act in ways that distinguish men from animals and +higher men from lower. The ancients thought of education +as the attainment of the virtues, wisdom, courage, temperance, +justice. It is the pursuit of that knowledge which +gives self-mastery. It is an interest which is never exhausted, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>but grows always broader and richer. It consists +not in learning tricks but in developing ourselves. It is a +victory won in some secret chamber of the mind which gradually +transforms the whole personality and reveals itself as +an indefinable quality in every word and act. It is a spiritual +awakening; and if this awakening does not come, a person +is not being educated however much he knows. I think +it is the inability to win this psychological victory, or the +disinclination to make the effort necessary to it, that accounts +for the fact that some people cannot be educated. Though +the change in the quality of the personality is indefinable, it +is a very concrete fact in human life. Its presence is evident +in the work of writers as different otherwise as Sir +Thomas More, Galsworthy, Anatole France, Jonathan Edwards, +Henry Adams, etc. There is a quality of the educated +mind which may best be described as a kind of sincerity, +and conversely the outstanding trait of ignorance is that of +clever insincerity. The pathetic thing about the wrongly +educated,—those who are trained merely to produce an +effect, or get results, is that in the deeper human relationships +they seldom know what sincerity is. Education is the +antithesis of vulgarity.</p> + +<p>Directly and immediately, it is useless. It is a kind of +living which is of value for its own sake, a personal achievement +which possesses intrinsic worth. It is not <i>for</i> anything. +To subject it to an ulterior end—citizenship, efficiency, +the economic emancipation of the working class, increased +income; or to educate people for “character,” or to +perpetuate a religious faith, or any other purpose however +good, is to make education a means to something quite irrelevant. +Such misuse shows that people are not interested +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>in their education but in something else. Education, the development +of people, is not a means, it is itself the true end +of civilization.</p> + +<p>While education is not <i>for</i> anything, indirectly it improves +everything that people do. Make education the aim +and meaning of living, and all becomes different. Experience +has a new center of gravity. Facts fall into new and +more significant perspective. Objects, distinctions, relationships, +qualities, are seen which before passed unnoticed. +And as personality does not exist in a vacuum but in the relationships +established between organism and environment, +no improvement of it can fail to make itself felt in the quality +of one’s work. Animal training may give one the means +to make a living; liberal education gives living a meaning.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III +<br> +LIBERAL EDUCATION VS. PROPAGANDA</h2></div> + + +<p>Whoever is concerned about his education should be on +his guard against propaganda. He who assists in the education +of another should be doubly cautious. The temptation +to convert people to our own particular cause, movement +or belief is almost irresistible. An epidemic itch for +manipulating the public has infected the whole population. +Perhaps never was the business of “selling” ideas and interests +of all sorts so common a practice or so cleverly done. +Press agents, publicity experts, advertisers and propagandists +have become a pest. Much of the news is “treated” +for interests which may or may not be disclosed. Militarists, +pacifists, prohibitionists, birth controlists, social +workers, business interests, anti-vivisectionists, radicals, reactionaries +and all kinds of reformers insinuate themselves +everywhere like crawling insects. Every legislative body is +over-run with lobbyists. Every government, our own included, +fights with propaganda as deadly as poison gas. +Churches have reduced even the spreading of the gospel to +the level of advertising. And to judge by the popularity of +one of the vulgarest books ever written about the founder +of Christianity, a large number of churchmen are happy to +believe that Jesus Christ was the world’s greatest salesman +and business executive!</p> + +<p>It ought not to be necessary to say that propaganda is not +education. But the confusion of the two is common. It is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>often very difficult to enlist the interest of people even in +their own education if the propagandist motive is left out +of it. I find that our students are often at first perplexed. +They ask me, “What party or creed or social movement do +you represent? What are you trying to convert us to?” +I have even been asked why I lecture at all, if it is not my +purpose to tell students what they should think and do. +The idea of a course of study as an adventure in truth-seeking, +an investigation deliberately planned without +made-in-advance conclusions or ulterior aims, is difficult for +many minds. If no partisan motive is apparent, students +often suspect that there must be some dark and secret conspiracy. +People like to have their instructors labeled and +tagged. Otherwise they feel that they are not being given +anything. They prefer to be told what to think.</p> + +<p>And of course everyone wishes to tell his fellows what to +think. The general interest in our neighbor’s “education” +rather than our own is responsible for much of the present +confusion of education with propaganda. This is especially +true in the education of children. Scarcely one person +in ten believes children should be told the truth. Children +are credulous and easily acquire habits which become fixed +for life: hence the tendency to take advantage of their innocence +and while giving them the instruction which it is +now recognized that society owes them, to add something +which certain people wish them to believe when they grow +up. Consequently there has hardly ever been a time when +education was not to some extent diverted into propagandist +channels. Governments and churches and ruling classes +and commercial groups have always sought to get their +hands on the institutions for the education of youth and +utilize them for their own interests. The tendency is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>universal. Radicals denounce the Fundamentalists, the +capitalists and the Catholic Church for doing this sort of +thing, and then do the same thing themselves; as for example, +in the revolutionary propaganda that sometimes +passes as “worker’s education,” the socialist Sunday School, +the system of public education in Soviet Russia.</p> + +<p>The habit of speaking of propaganda as if it were education +has grown with the activities of the advertising profession +and other expert manufacturers of public opinion. +Anyone with anything to sell “educates” the public to buy +his product. The word is so commonly used for advertising +that few question the legitimacy of such use. In fact +the popularity of this use of the word education has a definite +psychological cause. Many people would like to get +their education by the easy method of reading subway advertisements. +It is pleasant moreover to feel that we are +being educated when we glance at the billboards on the way +from New York to Philadelphia or look over the back +pages in the Saturday Evening Post.</p> + +<p>I once heard an editor of a farm journal boast that his +paper had educated the housewives of his state to buy cereal +in packages rather than in bulk. A recent well-written book +on the psychology of advertising by a gentleman who styles +himself a “Public Relations Counsel” explains the technique +of making propaganda. The author refers to such propagandist +efforts as education, and says that the difference between +education and propaganda is this: when your side of +the case is given publicity, that is education; when your opponent +publishes his side, that is propaganda.</p> + +<p>It is doubtful, however, if members of the advertising +profession are the worst sinners in this respect. Nearly +everyone with a cause to promote does the same. We often +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>hear single-taxers, socialists, patriotic societies, or vegetarians, +speak of their propaganda as education. In the report +on the prohibition situation issued by the Federal +Council of Churches of Christ in America, the suggestion is +made that there be a campaign of “education” in the interest +of the enforcement of the Volstead Act.</p> + +<p>Although the educator and the propagandist are both +concerned with the dissemination of information, they have +nothing else in common. They use contrary methods and +they strive for opposite goals. The propagandist is interested +in <i>what</i> people think; the educator in <i>how</i> they +think. The propagandist has a definite aim. He strives +to convert, to sell, to secure assent, to prove a case, to support +one side of an issue. He is striving for an <i>effect</i>. He +wishes people to come to a conclusion; to accept his case and +close their minds and act. The educator strives for the +open mind. He has no case to prove, which may not later +be reversed. He is willing to reconsider, to be experimental, +to hold his conclusions tentatively. The result for +which he strives is a type of student who will not jump at +the propagandist’s hasty conclusions or be taken in by his +catchwords. To the one “learning” is passively accepting +something; criticism of the matter offered is not encouraged. +To the other, learning comes by examining. +The propagandist need have no respect for the personalities +of those he manipulates. The educator must respect his +student, since the development of personality is his aim. In +the end the question is whether people are to be <i>used</i> for +purposes other than their own. This is the sole object of +the propagandist; its successful achievement is the defeat of +the educator.</p> + +<p>Even in the service of a good cause, propaganda makes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>for superficiality in both him who gives and him who receives +it. The convert has seen the light. He is on the +right side. He need have no more doubts or hesitation. +Curiosity and further speculation are no longer necessary. +Reasoning henceforth can become special pleading—mere +rationalization, an array of clever plausibilities designed to +strengthen the faith and protect the devotee against the +danger that he may change his mind. He now becomes a +propagandist himself, a lay preacher as it were, whose mission +in life is to convert and uplift others. He begins to +harp on one string. In his eagerness to convince he resorts +to the obvious, the thing said for effect. He is more concerned +with the force of his arguments than with the accuracy +of his statements. He is so busy with the general good +that he neglects to purify himself. With unwashed hands +he breaks his bread and serves it to his neighbors. I have +seldom seen a person who has spent years making converts, +who has not lost in intellectual integrity. Emerson noted +this trait in the abolitionists of his day. It is a quality +which world menders of all types have in common. Sooner +or later the passion to convert, like any other passion over-indulged, +warps the whole personality. The propagandist +becomes intemperate. He loses something in delicacy and +sense of humor. There is in his manner a mixture of emotion +and coercion and a kind of slyness. Finally from much +repetition of stock phrases the great cause itself becomes +hackneyed and professionalized. Most of the messages +which men would carry to the masses slip through the propagandists’ +fingers and dribble out before they arrive at their +destination.</p> + +<p>I have tried to make clear the differences between propaganda +and education. If I am correct, it follows that whenever +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>the educator becomes a propagandist he gives up his +proper function. I do not mean that a school teacher +should not advocate political change or any other reform he +chooses. He is a citizen as well as a teacher, and has the +right to express his convictions, however unpopular they +may be. But it is not as a teacher that he does so. Ordinarily +the public insists that there are certain views that he +may not express either in or outside his class-room. At the +same time he is required to be the advocate of popular +moral, religious and political prejudices, however erroneous +he knows them to be. Public education suffers much +from this lack of freedom, for it operates to keep independent +minds out of the teaching profession. Unless any subject +may be presented and every relevant fact discussed +without fear or favor, the instruction offered students is a +cheat.</p> + +<p>It is however in the process of teaching itself that the +spirit of the propagandist may supplant that of the educator. +It is much easier to appeal to authority than to experiment, +to command assent than to awaken curiosity, to +tell the student what he must believe than to wait for the +maturing of his judgment. There are five devices commonly +in use among propagandists which may defeat the +effort for a liberal education. They are the fixation of +ideas by repetition, the trick of over-simplification, insinuation +by appeal to prejudice, distortion of fact, and coercion.</p> + +<p>Psychology has taught the advertising profession the selling +power of mere monotonous repetition. At one of the +stations of the Hudson Tube I counted five posters all displaying +the same advertisement of a certain shaving cream. +The advertiser had not leased so much space because of extravagance, +nor was he afraid that people would fail to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>notice his advertisement if he displayed it on only one board. +It was so large and vivid that the passerby could easily see +it. His aim was to deepen the impression by repetition. +For the same reason a flashing intermittent electric sign on +which the same letters are illuminated again and again is +more effective than one with a continuous light. Another +example of this method is the poster containing the name +of a popular cigarette together with the command, “Read +this out loud.”</p> + +<p>Advertisement of this nature makes no attempt to argue +or explain or persuade, or to call attention to the merit of +the article for sale. Many commodities in common use +owe their popularity not to the fact that people are persuaded +that they are superior to a rival but because a trade +word has become fixed in memory through endless repetition.</p> + +<p>A similar method is often used in selling ideas and movements. +Santayana says, “A confused competition of propaganda +is carried on by the most expert psychological methods—for +instance, by always repeating a lie instead of retracting +when it is exposed. A formula of this nature may not +be a conscious lie, it need only be so fixed in the mind by long +repetition that it becomes compulsive. The person who +continues repeating it becomes unable to consider the facts +which would contradict it.”</p> + +<p>Thus the religious propagandist will continue repeating +an obsolete dogma long after its untruth is a matter of +common knowledge. The use which propagandists make +of rumor is another example of this principle. During the +war we saw much of this sort of thing. The wildest fabrications +were accepted uncritically; when everyone was repeating +them it seemed disloyal to question their bases of +fact. In any political campaign the editorials and speeches +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>are made up largely of repetitions. Popular moral ideas +are psychologically similar; we call them platitudes. In +fact public discussion which is mostly propaganda of one +sort or another consists almost wholly of monotonous repetition. +Anyone who has had experience with an open forum +will, I think, agree with me that the discussion from the +floor—and not unfrequently the platform also—shows an +amazing monotony of repetition. I have known men for +years to gain the recognition of the chair and repeat the +same phrases night after night, no matter what was the subject +under discussion. We love routine.</p> + +<p>There is I believe less routine learning, less mere memory +drill, in our schools now than in former years. I doubt if +many students learn geography or history or the multiplication +tables or Latin grammar in the manner I was made to +learn these subjects. However, it is not in these subjects, +which are at best the mere scaffolding of knowledge, that +humdrum does the greatest harm. It is in its failure to +stimulate genuine thinking about the important human interests +that education commonly falls short of its liberalizing +function. There is a dullness about sing-song repetition +of the multiplication table or the recital of the names +of the rivers of China, but it does not equal in monotony the +uniformity with which college graduates will say the same +things about politics, the protective tariff, the labor problem, +the constitution of the United States, or the relation of commerce +to culture. I recently heard a professor, who holds +an important chair in one of our leading universities say that +his institution strove not so much for scholarship as to develop +a certain type of college man. No doubt he had in +mind a desirable type of man, but any attempt to mould a +group to a single form can succeed only at the expense of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>individuality of the student. Moreover, such a goal naturally +causes the authorities to adopt methods of drill and +standardization. Whenever the aim of education is fixed +in advance, it tends to propaganda and illiberalism.</p> + +<p>The habit of repetition develops a credulous and incurious +mind. It produces a type of person who not only accepts +his beliefs second-hand, but also tends to over-simplify +any subject under consideration, and so never get to the bottom +of it as an educated mind should strive to do. It is +very convenient to stop speculation with a half-true generalization +stated as the conclusion of the whole matter. We +love big words; catch phrases are easy to remember and to +repeat. Moral and religious teachers know this, hence their +use of aphorisms. One does not stop to analyze an aphorism; +it is self-evident, final.</p> + +<p>Propagandists and advertisers are also aware of this human +trait, and they delight in making slogans for us. “I’d +walk a mile for a Camel,” “Children cry for it,” “Four out +of five now lose,” are examples of a type of advertising +familiar to all. Recently an effort was made in New York +to check the “crime wave” with a slogan. A poster addressed +to potential robbers was displayed in various parts +of the city containing the words, “You can’t win.” A comparison +of the number of convictions with the number of +crimes of violence would seem to indicate that this slogan +had about the same measure of truthfulness as most others.</p> + +<p>Slogans used in commercial advertising are for the most +part innocent enough. But there are slogans used in types +of propaganda which are not innocent. I will discuss the +distortion of fact later; my point is that the type of phrase-making +we are discussing tends at best to close the mind. +Every movement tends to dry up into a verbal cult with a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>fixed phraseology the repetition of which seems to satisfy +the adherents’ hunger for truth. The thinking of most +men consists of little more than the repetition of the phrases +which characterize the group to which they belong. There +are groups which regularly assemble to listen to their familiar +verbal formulas repeated again and again, deriving much +satisfaction from the time-worn phrases. Any deviation +from regularity or omission of any part is resented in the +same spirit that caused primitive men to hold that any deviation +from the magic ritual was sinful. It was the observation +of this wide-spread trait in many forms that led me to +the conclusion that there is practically only one soap-box +speech on socialism, one address on the principles of the +single tax, one revival sermon, one type of campaign speech +for each party. At least I find that most members of any +movement all say the same thing. If one knows what kind +of an “<i>ist</i>” a man happens to be and is familiar with the ritual +of that “<i>ism</i>,” one can ordinarily predict what the man +will say on any subject. Frequently propagandists do not +recognize their own principles when they hear them stated in +ordinary English.</p> + +<p>And once the cult phrases are thoroughly learned it is +very difficult for an individual to learn anything more. +This is why the teaching of any subject should never be permitted +to take on a set form, for cult ideas reduce an issue +or situation to a statement so simple that it is a mere caricature. +Subjects that require exhaustive analysis and deep +meditation or much more information than anyone possesses +are settled with amazing finality by oracular-minded people. +How many matters of vital importance are met with such +phrases as “One hundred percent American,” “My country +right or wrong,” “Every Bolshevik should be stood up +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>against a wall and shot,” “Plenty of room at the top,” “Reward +of Merit,” “Progressive,” “Reactionary,” “The cure +for democracy is more democracy,” “Let the people rule,” +“Down with capitalist exploitation,” “Labor produces all +wealth,” “The demon rum,” “Godless evolution.”</p> + +<p>The habit which politicians, professional reformers and +other propagandists have of appealing to popular prejudice +in order to gain adherents is a well-known phenomenon +of social psychology. Every political campaign is an orgy +of this sort of thing. Mayor Hylan of New York, when +his incompetence was exposed, diverted attention by denouncing +the “interests.” In the same city a few years ago those +who were opposed to modernizing the public school system +stirred up a large section of the population with the assertion +that the “Gary School” was a Steel Trust school. During +the war men were elected to office not because of their +record but according to how strenuously they professed their +Americanism and denounced alleged pro-Germans and socialists. +A “friend of the people” attacks Wall Street as a +matter of course. Any man who questions the wisdom of +the prohibition laws is immediately said to be in league with +the “liquor interests.” In prohibition propaganda effective +use was made of the fact that many brewers were of German +descent. In the South the Ku Klux Klan is mainly +anti-Negro, in the Middle West it is anti-Catholic. In the +East it takes on an anti-Semitic coloring. It is by such appeals +that multitudes are marshalled and led first in one +direction and then in another, always to the temporary advantage +of a group of leaders. Into all this an ulterior +purpose, a quite personal interest is often insinuated. During +the war I made a collection of advertisements in which +all sorts of articles were urged upon the purchaser with the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>statement that in buying such goods the public was helping +win the war.</p> + +<p>It is obvious that whenever a crowd movement is created +its propaganda has a marked illiberal influence upon institutions +of learning. During the war public education in +this country suffered seriously. A spirit of intolerance +often wholly irrelevant to the winning of the war took possession +of many educators. Eminent scientists lost their +heads and ceased to behave with that good judgment which +people expect of a scholar in a critical situation.</p> + +<p>Such results of propaganda are not limited to times of +warfare. I know a college where the work of every department +was seriously disorganized for a semester by a religious +revival in the town. The pressure of religious prejudices +upon institutions of learning in this country is one of +the most serious forces with which education has to contend. +The hostility in the West and South toward the +teaching of any other account of the origin of man than that +contained in the book of Genesis, is not new. It is merely +the giving of legislative support to religious dogma which +strikes us as new. And that has also happened many times +in history. Popular religion has always watched education +with jealous eyes. However, there is one factor in the +present Fundamentalist attack upon the theory of evolution +which seems to have escaped general notice. There is +revealed an attitude toward education in general which +should give us concern because it seems to be held by many +people who are not rural Fundamentalists. When those +who conceived of teaching as imparting a doctrine—let us +say of special creation or the authority of the Bible—found +that students were being made acquainted with biological +science and its various hypotheses regarding the evolution +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>of species, they could not understand that science could be +taught in any other spirit than that of theology. They +still thought of teaching as imposing upon the uncritical +student mind a system of belief, a rival creed but still something +alleged to be a final truth, which must be accepted on +authority. Persons who speak in this manner of teaching +simply do not know what education is. How could a scientist +go about teaching evolution in this way? Nobody but +a propagandist ever teaches a theory. The scientific laboratory +itself is a witness against such a philosophy of education. +Here the student is exposed to the phenomena to +be studied, and to the sources of information and is aided to +discover the facts for himself and draw his own conclusions. +Science learned by any other process is a mere pretense to +knowledge. I suspect it was not the doctrine of evolution +so much as permitting the student to draw his own conclusions +from the facts that most disturbed the advocates of +popular religious dogma. Yet few people saw the issue in +this light. At the Dayton trial of the instructor who broke +the statute passed by the legislature of Tennessee, chief emphasis +seems to have been laid on the issue whether after all +evolution is contrary to Genesis. Most people seem to have +accepted without comment the Fundamentalist notion of +what teaching is. The whole meaning of education is involved +in this issue. Education is not the substitution of +new creeds for old. Appeals to popular prejudice will continue +to do harm to education so long as it is conceived of as +“teaching” any beliefs whatsoever. As long as students are +to be indoctrinated, naturally every group will wish its own +propaganda taught.</p> + +<p>In this connection I should say a word about adult education. +Those engaged in this branch of instruction are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>loud in their criticism of the propaganda which passes for +education in school and college. Many of them have +turned to adult education in order to spread some propaganda +of their own. Teachers in this field are constantly +tempted to yield to the prejudices of their students in order +to gain popularity and keep up attendance. Each type of +institution or special group has its peculiar prejudices and +will insist that the instruction given in its classes be so presented +as to lend support to its interests and beliefs. +Where churches maintain classes, adult education will tend +to take on a certain color. It will assume another in the +trade union, still another when the appeal is to radicals. +We have already seen that a school of adult education may +be in fact a socialist theological seminary. Many others +merely provide continued employment for people who had +been professional Americanization propagandists in the +hectic years that followed the war.</p> + +<p>A favorite method among propagandists is distortion of +fact. It is difficult for anyone who takes an intensely partisan +view of a situation to be honest with himself or careful +about matters of fact. Respect for the truth is, I think, an +acquired taste. And the propagandist is a special pleader. +There is always the tendency to load the dice, to over-emphasize +anything that lends support and to gloss over and explain +away any fact that might weaken the case. Rumor, +allegation, mere surmise, will, if it happens to be useful, to +put out as fact established beyond the possibility of doubt. +An excellent example of this practice is a statement recently +issued by a committee of one of the large Protestant denominations +attacking both the Governor of the State and +the Mayor of New York. On the occasion of the latter’s +visit to the South I quote a sentence or two.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“The South will be interested to know Mr. Walker’s connection +with New York’s odorous prize-fighting game and with those elements +in New York which are doing their best to murder American +standards of morality.... Let it remember the propaganda which +is systematically organized to incite to crime in the South and West in +order that the prohibition law may be overthrown by these criminal +activities.... Let it remember that Governor Smith and +his friends were the first political group in America to introduce a +religious issue into a convention of a political party, an atrocious +thing to do in a country where all religions stand on the same +basis.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Note how the impression is given that the Mayor’s alleged +sympathy with those who wish to repeal the Volstead +Act is a connection with propaganda systematically organized +to incite to crime and undermine American morals. +The reference to Governor Smith is typical of much propaganda.</p> + +<p>This method of championing causes is so common that it +is almost impossible to get at the truth about any public +question. I have very little interest in what is happening +in Russia. If I had, I should not know what to believe. +Spokesmen for both the Bolshevists and their enemies seem +to be about equally unable to tell the truth.</p> + +<p>The pursuit of knowledge is the pursuit of the truth about +something, and since propaganda is not the pursuit of truth, +its influence upon educational institutions is illustrated by +many of the text books on American History in common +use in the Public Schools. When attempts were made to +write the account of the American Revolution with fairness +to both sides and, in the light of established fact, certain +over-patriotic propagandists became much excited and +thought they had discovered a pro-British conspiracy to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>deliver this republic again into the clutches of the British +monarchy.</p> + +<p>Subject matter which is even remotely associated with +popular dogmas of religion, morals, patriotism, is likely to +be modified so as to appear to be in harmony with such +dogmas when presented to students. Each religious sect +has its own version of Church history. Radicals who wish +to hold the environment—hence the present social system—responsible +for human failure, are always inclined to accept +uncritically the biological doctrine of the inheritance of acquired +characters. Patriotism makes it almost impossible +for students anywhere to gain a correct knowledge of the +history of their own country. The moral interest inevitably +influences the study of literature. We have already discussed +the teaching of the classics. Their educational value +consists chiefly in opening windows upon a way of life very +different from our own. It broadens our sympathy with all +that is human to gain an understanding of men who were inspired +by ideals often the contrary of those held sacred in +our own parish. Yet it is just this educational value which +is commonly lost in the teaching of the classics, especially in +Puritanical communities. The least significant books of +antiquity, writings like Caesar’s Commentaries and Cicero’s +political orations, are often selected as required studies. +It is not an accident that the works most commonly studied +are those least shocking to conventionally minded people, +not those which give the student the best account of ancient +civilization. Likewise in the teaching of modern literature, +there is so much expurgation, censorship, evasion, that most +students get the impression that literature is produced by +Sunday School teachers for the edification of very nice +people. If, as many believe, it is best to protect younger +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>students in this manner, I think they should at least be led +to understand what is happening. Otherwise they are likely +to leave school convinced that their own one-sided and somewhat +infantile view of life and letters is the correct and only +possible view and so influence the public authorities to enact +legislation establishing censorships over literature and art, +designed to impose their own limitations upon everyone.</p> + +<p>Finally when opportunity is favorable or occasion requires +it, most propagandists will resort to coercion. History +has revealed this fact again and again. It has often +been said that the martyrs of today are the persecutors of +tomorrow. With the possibility of the seizure of power in +sight, methods of moral suasion become irksome; they are +too slow. Men must be forced to do what is good for +them. Propaganda is designed to gather a crowd to the +support of an idea. I have shown elsewhere that when the +crowd mind appears any group will practice coercion if it +can. Hardly a generation passed after the Edict of Milan, +setting Christians free from persecution, before the Christians +themselves practiced persecution. The French Revolution +set up a guillotine in the name of liberty, equality +and fraternity. New England pilgrims of religious liberty +persecuted Quakers and other “heretics.” Radicals proclaim +their faith in industrial democracy, free speech, the +brotherhood of man, and the Bolsheviks gain power by a +coup d’etat, and hold it by means of a policy of terror. +Santayana says that the many propagandas which today float +in the blue sky of liberalism are only waiting to show their +true colors and resort to open attack and that whoever is +victorious will make an end of liberalism. When physical +force is not in actual use, it hides just around the corner. +In much moral suasion there is a note of intolerance and of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>invasion. The man who knows he is right puts you always +on the defensive.</p> + +<p>Even commercial advertising frequently reveals this +spirit. Perhaps advertisers got the idea from the posters +used by the government during the war. We all remember +the commanding figure of Uncle Sam, finger pointed at our +faces and beneath the figure the words, “<i>You</i> buy Liberty +Bonds.” Many advertisements now seek to command in +such a manner. We are ordered to buy this and that—not +asked if we want it. Or our privacy is otherwise invaded. +I recently saw on a subway platform an advertisement of +soap which contained these words, “Are you clean or only +nearly clean?”</p> + +<p>When a crowd of world reformers becomes a crusade, +men do not confine themselves to asking impertinent questions. +They are not even deterred by constitutional guaranties +of personal rights. The storm rages until it blows +itself out and leaves behind only the debris of what before +had been good feeling among men. When a crusade is on—and +there are usually several going at the same time in a +democracy like ours—educational institutions are pressed +into its service, and are forced to take sides, or at best +maintain a precarious middle of the road policy. This is +not the task of those interested in education. They are not +“in the middle of the road.” They are not on the trampled +highway at all. Their task, while others are wrangling +over unreal issues that today take their toll of life and tomorrow +are forgotten, is to keep the lights of civilization +burning, to humanize their own behavior with reasonableness +and good taste.</p> + +<p>As Emerson said, history has been mean: all nations have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>been mobs. The populace runs after this passing cause and +that popular hero. To the populace your rejection of popular +standards is a rejection of all standards. But there is a +time in each man’s education when he arrives at the conviction +that envy is ignorance, that imitation is suicide, that he +must take himself for better or for worse. All men preen +themselves on the improvement of society and no man improves. +Society never advances, it recedes as fast on one +side as it gains on the other. Society is a wave; the wave +moves forward, but the water of which it is composed does +not. Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist.</p> + +<p>Such a suggestion as this at once meets serious objection. +It is contrary to the habits of this busybody age. Many will +ask, how can we have done with propaganda? We live in +the age of publicity and organization, of causes and needed +reforms. Great movements challenge our complacency and +invite our support. What, without these interests, could we +live for? How could we accomplish anything for the common +good? Is not the educated person as you depict him +aloof and ineffective, a monastic sort of person who disdains +the common ways and devotes his days to idle contemplation? +And have you not yourself said again and again that +intellect does not exist as a sequestered, inactive thing or end +in itself, but that thinking is a part of doing? How then +can intellect be trained in indifference to the affairs of men?</p> + +<p>But I have not argued that one seclude himself. Is there +nothing to occupy the modern man except to stuff himself +with half-truths and regulate society? Does existence lose +its value at the mere suggestion that man mind his own +business? What I have said is that a person cannot educate +himself by filling his head with propaganda.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p> +<p>I do think people of our age are too much devoted to +causes and not enough to their own education. Perhaps I +should say that people’s devotion to causes is too narrow, +too impatient, too uncritical. Doubtless we should serve +our cause better if we stopped to look before we leap. I +am not sure that ignorance, however devoted and active, +ever accomplishes much good for mankind.</p> + +<p>I might ask in turn, do our propagandas often get the +results expected? Look at pacifist propaganda, or the +slogan about the war to end war, look at socialist propaganda +today after a half century and more of it, consider +prohibition. The intellectuals of our generation have exhausted +themselves running after this and that new sociological +magic. And there is a general feeling of frustration +and futility. Where progress has been made in our times, +it has been in matters that do not lend themselves easily to +propaganda; success had been achieved in the arts and +sciences. Intellect has failed when playing at leadership of +social movements.</p> + +<p>The ends sought by propaganda may be and often are +good. But education is also an end. We are not required +to occupy ourselves with any cause to the extent that +we fail to educate ourselves. The first social obligation of +any man is his own education. I am a mere muddler and +a nuisance if I act on the principle that I have any obligations +to society that go beyond my knowledge of means and ends +and of good and evil. Social service should be a by-product +of education. I do not imagine that Socrates or Erasmus +sought education in order that they could be more useful +to society. Social obligation or no social obligation, you +and I have the right to such education as we have the native +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>intelligence to acquire. We have that right because we are +the kind of animals we are. No cause is more important +than this. Let us serve where and when we can, but let +us not surrender our mental integrity for any man’s sake.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV +<br> +LIBERAL EDUCATION VS. BOOK LEARNING</h2></div> + + +<p>Is education something one can “get” in an institution? +We are seeking to discover what an educated person is like,—as +Plato would say, to “find” the educated man. +Whether the learning process takes place in an institution +or out of it is from this point of view a matter of small interest. +I should like to picture the liberally educated individual +as a mellow amateur, competent and well-informed, +but with all natural and human, wholly at ease with his +knowledge and master of his technique; one whose thinking +is play and whose mind does not squeak as it runs along. +But there frequently appears in educational circles a professionalism +that is rather formidable and terrifying. I do +not mean the specialized knowledge requisite for the so-called +learned professions. One may be highly trained +professionally, and like William James and Mr. Justice +Holmes, retain the spirit of the amateur always. By professionalism +I mean a certain artificiality of manner, bookishness, +over-strictness in regard to petty rules, a disposition +to identify education with the display of just that knowledge +which the educated are conventionally supposed to possess. +Many people think of education as something “high-brow,” +a fastidiousness which belongs to the élite. There are those +who give the impression that education is a thing of books +and schools and formalities; and that there is a recognized +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>fraternity of the finished products of the system. As proof +that one belongs to this fraternity there are degrees and +credits which show that the candidate has passed certain +examinations and has done a required amount of reading. +We have seen that people may seek education because they +hope it will give them a certain prestige. I once heard a +man say, “I’d give ten thousand dollars if I only knew +Greek.” I wondered why Greek had such value in his eyes. +I learned that he had been in the company of two elderly +men, one a clergyman and the other a physician. He was +humiliated because of his ignorance when the two fell to +discussing some Greek text reminiscent of college days. It +never occurred to him that he could secure a few text books +and acquire this coveted knowledge in his spare time whenever +he chose to do so.</p> + +<p>People persist in thinking that education comes to a man +by virtue of his attendance at some place where it may be +“got.” We frequently hear someone say, “I <i>had</i> so many +years of Latin,” or “I <i>took</i> mathematics,” or “I did not <i>get</i> +much history.” Formal education, which is book knowledge +acquired in a school,—this possession which men +measure and grade and standardize,—may or may not be +an aid to general culture. The thing I mean by liberal education +is too elusive for the man with the yard stick.</p> + +<p>With the modern theories of learning there has come +some difference of opinion regarding the educational value +of books. Traditional education consisted almost wholly +of book knowledge. Knowledge of the books written about +a subject was rated as familiarity with the subject itself.</p> + +<p>There is a recent tendency, both within and without institutions +of learning, to skim over as many as possible of +the latest books. This leaves little or no time for the great +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span>books, knowledge of which is essential to a liberal education. +In the library of a very up-to-date writer on sociological and +economic subjects, I did not find a single book, except a few +school texts, written before nineteen hundred. Modern +writers all seem to desire to express the movements of the +day. But it is difficult to see how one’s judgment of the +present can be very sound, if one has no background of the +cultural traditions of the race. Ideas of life gained from +an exclusive study of the present are necessarily second-rate. +Professor John Erskine says, “To live only in the +moment, to imagine only one’s own place was once thought +to be the fate of the stupid. We have made it the ideal of +education.... No college is liberal which trains its students +to identify the excellent or the important exclusively +with the contemporary.” He says that education should +prejudice us in favor of authors who are wise, and that there +have not been many great men nor many great ideas. One +may acquire a liberal education from the reading of relatively +few books. “The Student ... ought to know +Hobbes; he ought to know Pascal, and Plato and Bacon and +Homer, and Spinoza and Galileo, and Leonardo da Vinci.”</p> + +<p>And I would add that anyone pursuing his education ought +to know Erasmus and Montaigne, Butler’s “Hudibras,” and +something of Hume, Voltaire, Anatole France, and the best +of the classic poets. This is not a great deal of reading. +It can moreover be done in a leisurely manner, and this is +important. Our modern habit of cluttering up the mind +with all sorts of second-rate, up-to-date printed matter accounts +in part for the jumpiness and hectic quality of the +modern spirit. No one seems to take time for quiet reflection +any more. Everyone is too busy keeping up-to-date, +gaining a superficial knowledge of the latest thing, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>before we can pause to separate the true from the false in +it, it is already out of date and something still more +“modern” is the fashion.</p> + +<p>There is a tendency among very modern educators to +reduce book learning to a minimum. It is said that book +knowledge is only hear-say, second-hand information. The +student does not make a fact his own so long as he must +take someone’s word for it. What books tell you prevents +your finding out for yourself. You know an emotion only +when you feel it, a fact when you deal with it, a truth when +you discover it. “We learn by doing.” A leading progressive +educator says, “The school of tomorrow is going +to get away from mere reciting what has been got from +books. That is, we are going to give up the notion that +the school is the place where we assign certain set tasks and +the child goes off and prepares those things and then comes +back to convince us that he has done what was required.... +In the school of the future, the child is going to live, +really live. This means what he learns he learns because +he needs it then and there.”</p> + +<p>This rather extreme form of protest against formal book +learning is really an attempt to correct the opposite extreme. +We all know persons, conventionally educated, who substitute +reading for living, and the book for reality. There +are those who never talk about events or ideas, but always +quote what some book says about them, as if they believed +that work, love, joy, pain, became fit subjects of contemplation +only in print. The world of actions and things gives +way to a world of words only. Human existence becomes a +sort of grown-up children’s game of authors. Education +becomes an evasion of the challenge of real situations. +Emotion and fancy are exhausted in doing nothing. It becomes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>preferable to read about things than to experience +them. The individual thinks he has acquired wisdom; he +merely has a taste for reading and a good memory.</p> + +<p>In these days when educators are frantically striving to +find some new method of teaching which will save democracy +from mediocrity, it is the habit to blame the older education +for any and all intellectual futility. I believe, however, that +futile persons would be ineffective no matter what the +method of instruction. The statement quoted above to the +effect that in the schools of the future the children are going +to live and are to stop reciting required lessons and learn +what they need “here and now,” is a little like the platitude +that one can learn more out of life than out of books, a saying +which always flatters the illiterate. It seems to be +thoroughly modern to believe that the best way to get +an education is to stop studying and just <i>live</i>,—whatever +that is.</p> + +<p>I am of the opinion, however, that anyone who can learn +from life can also learn from books without spoiling his +mind. There is a difference between learning from books +and merely learning to repeat passages from them, and I had +thought that in really learning from books one was learning +from life. Whether one can get more information from +books than from things depends somewhat on the books, +also what it is one wishes to learn, as well as one’s capacity +to learn. Manipulation of objects—doing—has no more +educational value than repeating words. Either may become +a mere routine exercise. Education is the organization +of knowledge into human excellence. It is not the mere +possession of knowledge, but the ability to reflect upon it +and grow in wisdom. It would seem that as few people +acquire wisdom from practical experience as from books.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span></p> +<p>The high-school educated multitude, which prefers the +radio to reading, finds the tales of classic literature tedious +except when presented in the “movies,” reads history only +in outline, and natural science only when popularized in a +series of ABC books, is probably correct in its feeling that +books cannot teach it much; and what it is learning from +life is manifest in the sort of life it lives. The habit of reading +good books, ability to know the good ones from the inferior, +capacity to enjoy books for the beauty and wisdom +that may be found in them, are essential parts of a liberal +education. A school that implants good habits of discriminating +reading in its students is a good school. One +that fails to do this is a bad school. The modern educational +system has taught the public to read,—and the public +reads mostly trash.</p> + +<p>That education in a so-called democracy may be official +and professionalized and at the same time superficial and +illiberal is manifest. Thomas Davidson, a pioneer teacher +of adults in this country, expressed great hope in the promise +of public education in America. But there is one fact about +such intellectual life as there is in this country which seems to +have escaped Davidson’s attention, I suppose because his +own case was an exception. It is a fact which I believe may +be one of the causes of the small influence which learning +exerts in the daily life and thought and preferences of our +people. Thousands of people say that their education is of +no use to them in later years. It is an interest which they do +not keep up but leave behind at the school-house door. +They think that education belongs properly in the school, +and except for some practical advantage most people seldom +think of making any cultural achievement of their own outside +the school. Most advance in scholarship in this country +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>is the work of professionals, members of university faculties. +Outside the institutions of learning, there is very little independent +creative thought. Exception must be made of +our literary men, but these too are professionals. There +are almost no men of leisure who carry on the progress of +civilization as educated amateurs. In this respect we are +much like Germany before the war, where advance in +scholarship was almost confined to the universities and the +attempt was made to create knowledge by the machinery +of organized research.</p> + +<p>An example of the situation in our country is to be found +in the fact that almost every member of the American Philosophical +Association is a Ph.D. and a teacher of philosophy +in a degree-granting institution. It might almost be +said that philosophy, beyond the merest introduction to the +subject, is studied in order that students may become teachers +of still other teachers. I suspect that a similar situation +exists in other learned societies. This confinement of +scholarship to the professional student leaves the public +without guidance and at the mercy of quacks. It causes +a break between education and other interests which the +public school strives in vain to bridge over, because in such +a situation the school itself becomes official and sequestered. +Thus education is constantly being done up in little packages +and sent out from the places where it is grown, like the +garden seeds which Congressmen used to send to their constituents +and which nobody planted. Education does not +take root because nobody plants it. People think that +culture is the special function of the professional gardeners, +and there are even educators who would be astonished and +jealous if they saw anything but elementary scholarship +growing at large outside their walls.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p> +<p>In this respect, it seems to me, Great Britain has had the +advantage. Many of her greatest contributions to science +and philosophy came from outside the regular university +faculties. Such men as Hobbes, Milton, Bacon, Locke, +Hume, Spencer, Mill and Darwin may have received conventional +training, but they went out and did something +with it afterwards. They helped create an ideal of the +educated man which we have yet to gain. Hence Great +Britain has had many amateur scholars who were also men +of affairs, men like Mr. Balfour and the Haldanes, whose +influence has helped keep education from being over-professionalized.</p> + +<p>Some of the highest educational attainments in history +have been reached without the setting up of any institution +at all, in our sense of the term. Protagoras, Socrates, and +Abelard simply gathered groups of fellow students about +them who lived for years in their company, first as disciples +then as assistants. Such education to be sure was for the +selected few, but after a man had spent some time with his +teacher, he acquired a philosophy which changed his way of +life. The modern attempt to educate everyone really educates +hardly anyone. The public school imparts a certain +elementary instruction—in eight or ten years about as much +as a normally intelligent youth could master in two years if +he set his mind to it. In matters of taste and standards +of value, public school education makes little difference; or +in developing thirst for knowledge, tolerance, independence +of judgment. The task of giving instruction to the youth +of an entire community is so great that thoroughness is +almost impossible. The task falls to the state, and the +state is a vested interest and the protector of other vested +interests, interests which are not always consistent with the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>desire for knowledge. There are factions in the community +which the public authorities must conciliate. We have seen +what can happen to the teaching of biology and history when +such factions become organized to control the public education +of a state. Public servants are nowhere eager to +have education so free to pursue its proper function that +there is developed an alert and critically minded public to +whom they must justify certain of their practices. What +the state desires of education is soldiers, reliable voters, +law-abiding citizens, contented working men, prosperous +traders. Hence a spirit of docility and credulity, often of +timidity, prevails in the school.</p> + +<p>Where there are large numbers in attendance, the individual +student receives little personal attention. The education +of backward students is sometimes given more consideration +than that of the normally intelligent. The chief +aim is to get the student through and pass him along to the +next grade, and the pace at which the instructor moves is +set by the mediocre. Whether this state of affairs will be +remedied by the use of intelligence tests remains to be seen. +At present mental measurement is a sort of fad. The +system requires that all shall learn the same lesson in the +same manner at the same time.</p> + +<p>Standardization develops a kind of mass mind, which in +mature years renders men very susceptible to crowd appeal. +Learning imposed upon the student by the system is put on +the outside like a mental uniform. Habits become stereotyped +in the elementary, non-reflective aspects of behavior +and knowledge. There is little in this to guide the student +to the spiritual values of a liberal education. Most of those +who pass through the system never know that such values +exist.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span></p> +<p>The public school system is a great bureaucracy with autocracy +at the top and deference to authority all the way +down through the hierarchy of superintendents, principals, +and instructors, to the students. The administrator holds +dominion over the teacher. Little is left to personal initiative. +Any system which requires little responsibility of its +employees but much deference to petty authority in time +comes to be filled with persons to whom such servitude is not +irksome. Serious scholarship is rare. The teacher is not +encouraged to independence of judgment concerning the +subject which for years it is his work to teach. Teaching +becomes a trade and is practised with as little intellectual +interest as most trades. Other than idealizing the existing +situation together with whatever persons or interests control +the school system, little attention is given to the social setting +into which the school sends its students when they leave.</p> + +<p>Dr. Kallen says, “Free public education and private instruction +purchasable at a price are both but the community’s +device to meet present needs by transmitting the past +unchanged. They provide a grammar of assent, not a logic +of inquiry. The mental posture they habituate the youth +in is not the posture of reflection. The mental posture they +habituate the youth in is the posture of conformity. They +require belief, not investigation. They impose reverence +for the past and idealization of the present. They envision +the future as a perpetuation of the past, not as a new creation +of it. They are Main Street’s most powerful instrument +of self-reproduction without variation.... They +enable government both visible and invisible to continue by +consent, for they forestall and inhibit in the citizens of the +land the technique of doubt and dissent which is the necessary +condition of good government and the true inwardness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>of that eternal vigilance so notoriously the price of +liberty.”</p> + +<p>Here and there, in spite of the system, someone gets his +feet on the path which leads to liberal education. But in +general it cannot be said that the public school has realized +the dreams of those who in the early nineteenth century +hoped that free universal education would place democratic +institutions on the solid foundations of enlightened public +opinion and general respect for truth. It was believed that +the curse of ignorance would be removed; that humbug and +insolence would be driven from the control of affairs; that +labor would be ennobled by understanding, and freedom +secured by the attainment of self-mastery. All were now +to have access to scholarship; the precious wisdom of the +great minds of all times, no longer the possession of the +favored few, should be made to live in the daily experience +of the nations.</p> + +<p>We are not so utopian in our hopes for the future of +society as were the Humanitarian idealists of the nineteenth +century. Perhaps people have expected too much of public +education and have required too little. We need not be +astonished that the education of the public is committed to a +system which becomes an end in itself; that is human. Nor +need we be astonished that public education is administered +and carried on by persons most of whom do not know what +education is; that is the democratic way of dealing with +public affairs. If you are to get your education, whoever +you are you must not be content to let it be a public affair. +You must make it your private affair.</p> + +<p>Severe criticism of both the public school and the university +is common. There is much talk about capitalistic influence, +and the denial of academic freedom by prominent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>business men who contribute to endowments and constitute +boards of trustees. In so far as this criticism comes from +professional radical propagandists it need not be taken very +seriously. Such persons merely want their own propaganda +included in the curriculum. University presidents no doubt +often play politics and do other things common to professional +money-raisers. Faculties are often little more than +pedantic trade unions, and if we are to judge the colleges +of the country by the number of first-rate scholars who +graduate from them or by the extent of their influences as a +whole on the cultural standards of the country, we may well +question whether higher education in America succeeds any +better than the public school.</p> + +<p>But I wonder why so much criticism is directed at trustees +and faculties and so little at the students. The habit of +constantly denouncing someone because we are not better +educated is rather ludicrous. If our people really desire +education they can have it. If I am dissatisfied with my +ignorance, I may seek knowledge at any time, and no one +else, in or out of college, can ever gain wisdom for me. +Anyone who has kept up his interest in his education after +graduation knows that what is learned in school and college +is at best a small part of it—merely the beginning of an +education. Anyone who does not continue his studies +through the years of a busy life and thinks that the brief +introduction to the tools of scholarship which he received +in his adolescence is education, should apologize to his +college, not criticize it. Granted that there is much bad +teaching, there is more bad studying,—or I should say, +hardly any studying at all. Professor James Harvey +Robinson used to say, “A college is a place where there is +much teaching and no learning.”</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span></p> +<p>Is it not possible that a large portion of the population +cannot be educated? Such persons are not all necessarily +dull, they may be naturally uninterested in education, and it +is likely that many enter institutions of learning with the +mistaken notion that it is education they desire, when what +they really want is success, a good time, and a little training +in what they think are the manners and ways of speech of +polite society. The finishing school once supplied this need; +now the colleges have to do it.</p> + +<p>The motives which lead people to seek college education +divide the students into three types. First there are the +few who love learning. The spirit which once caused +groups of young men to follow Abelard or Erasmus still +brings an occasional youth to college. Such students may +need guidance, advice and the fellowship of mature scholars. +It is not necessary to force them to study, or offer them +“snap courses,” or cram them for examination. Much of +the procedure and regulation—the regimentation common +in institutions of learning—is unnecessary and sometimes +harmful to them. Most of them would become educated +persons even if they never saw a college class-room.</p> + +<p>A second type of student attends college and university +in large numbers. The motive is preparation for a professional +career. Many of the best students belong to this +type. Whether in addition to their professional training +they ever gain a liberal education—we have seen that the +two are not necessarily the same—will depend largely upon +what they do after they get their degrees. If they then +have an interest in educating themselves, their technical +training ought to be an advantage, for most of them have +learned how to study. But so much purely technical knowledge +must be drilled into a man’s head that the student +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>who is preparing for a degree in engineering, law, medicine +or scientific research has very little time for anything else. +Many of the most successful physicians, engineers and scientists +need adult education quite as much as do ordinary +working men.</p> + +<p>The third type, the majority of undergraduate students, +are for the most part pleasant young men and women of +the upper middle class. Their parents are “putting them +through college” because it is the expected thing to do. A +man wishes to give his children every advantage. While +a bachelor’s degree is not exactly a social necessity, there +are many who would have something like an inferiority +complex without it. I knew one family in New York City +who almost went into mourning when the only son failed +in his Harvard entrance examinations. Students of this +type enjoy four happy years, largely at public expense, with +other young people of their own age in an environment designed +to keep them out of mischief. I have no doubt this +grown-up kindergarten life is good for them; most of them +seem to appreciate it. In later years they remain enthusiastically +loyal to Alma Mater, coming back to football +games and class reunions and contributing to the support +of the college. As alumni their influence is not always on +the side of progress in education, but perhaps they make +up for this failure in other ways.</p> + +<p>I am prepared, moreover, to say that the existence of +hundreds of centers filled with such care-free young people +may be a good thing for the country. They keep alive a +tradition of good cheer and of man’s right to happiness in a +country that is otherwise sordidly commercial. A leisure +class is a social necessity for it serves as an example to other +people showing them how to enjoy their idle hours. The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>English aristocracy with its horse races and other out-door +sports has done much to make life interesting to all classes +in that otherwise factory-ridden country, and its example +has been followed by people in other lands. Now about +the only leisure class we have in America is the undergraduate +student body. A privileged class is always popular +with the rest of the population in a normally constituted +state. And so the whole country enjoys vicariously the +amusements of its undergraduate boys and girls. The +college youth with his automobile, his pipe, and his big fur +coat is a favorite hero in the motion pictures. Moreover, +the fact that the period of loafing is limited to four years +is a blessing, for by taking turns a greater number may enjoy +the privilege than the industry of the country could possibly +support in permanent idleness.</p> + +<p>But while all this may be good for the country, it is not +very good for the colleges. It is bad for the morale of any +institution to sail under false colors, and colleges are popularly +supposed to be educational institutions. The college +faculties themselves must to some extent share this popular +delusion, or else they would not permit the public to go on +believing it. The attempt to live up to this erroneous idea +puts everybody under a strain, students and faculty alike, +and is the one unpleasant thing about college life. Instructors +are forever annoying the students, trying to get some +work out of them. Attendance on classes is required, and +a series of examinations is arranged which nobody enjoys +and which do no good anyway. They only make it necessary +to send an occasional student home, and then there are +tears, other students are frightened and sometimes lose +sleep cramming for the next examination, and the instructor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>loses popularity, especially if his course is an elective +one.</p> + +<p>It is among this type of undergraduates that “campus +opinion” has its origin. Campus opinion is distinctly hostile +to learning, and it holds sway over students with the same +tenacity as other crowd ideas among the uneducated elements +of the population. The student who takes his education +seriously loses caste and is regarded as a joke. Few young +people are sufficiently non-gregarious to stand out against +the scornful laughter of their fellows.</p> + +<p>What the average student gets from college, then, is an +opportunity to complete his adolescence in an interesting and +healthy environment, the experience of being away from +home and on his own, and fraternity and club life—pleasant +in itself—in which friendships are formed that last +through life and are often useful business connections in +after years. There is also athletics, through which the student +may develop his muscles, gain the desirable moral +quality of good sportsmanship, and satisfy any ambition he +may have to become a college hero. One always becomes +famous in college outside the class-room, never in it. Incidentally, +if a student is naturally clever at picking up bits +of information with a minimum of reading, he gains a bowing +acquaintance with about as much knowledge as should +be the possession of one with a fair secondary education. +Finally, he forms certain habits and acquires certain manners +and tastes which mould him to the type of the average +college graduate, and goes out in the world to take his place +in the social and business circles of his home town, where, if +he should ever mention Aristotle, people would think he +was crazy.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span></p> +<p>The college graduate can play a good game of tennis, +wear his clothes well, talk about the latest novel, walk +across a room with grace and dignity, and share the club +opinions of his set, and there is nothing offensive in his table +manners. I do not mean to underrate these accomplishments. +The person who does not have them, however +great his achievement in scholarship, is a boor, too lacking +in sensitiveness to assimilate the knowledge he has stored in +his head. But these are accomplishments that should be +learned at home, as a matter of course; colleges ought not +to be necessary for training of this sort.</p> + +<p>Wherein the education of the average college graduate +fails of its true ends is seen in what might be called the +deeper things of the spirit. No profound intellectual passion +has been awakened, no habit of independent judgment +formed. The college man shares the usual popular prejudices +of his community. He runs with the crowd after the +hero of the hour, and shows the same lack of discrimination +as do the uneducated. He votes the same party ticket, is intolerant +along with his neighbors, and puts the same value +on material success as do the illiterate. His education has +made very little difference in his religious beliefs, his social +philosophy, his ethical values, or his general outlook on the +world. Like all opinionated and half-educated people, he +jumps to hasty conclusions, believes what others believe, +does things because others do them, worships the past, +idealizes the present.</p> + +<p>In contrast with this, let me quote a passage from John +Stuart Mill. The author meant it to be a description of the +scientist. It stands as a suggestion of what a liberally educated +mind should be.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span></p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“To question all things;—never to turn away from any difficulty; +to accept no doctrine either from ourselves or from other people without +a rigid scrutiny by negative criticism; letting no fallacy, or incoherence, +or confusion of thought, step by unperceived; above all, to +insist upon having the meaning of a word clearly understood before +using it, and the meaning of a proposition before assenting to it;—these +are the lessons we learn ‘from workers in Science.’ With all +this vigorous management of the negative element, they inspire no +scepticism about the reality of truth or indifference to its pursuit. +The noblest enthusiasm, both for the search after truth and for applying +it to its highest uses, pervades those writers.”</p> +</div> + +<p>When all is said, the ignorance and folly of men are +things that institutions cannot cure. Each must discover +the path of wisdom for himself. One does not “get” an +education anywhere. One becomes an educated person by +virtue of patient study, quiet meditation, intellectual courage, +and a life devoted to the discovery and service of truth.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V +<br> +THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF DOUBT</h2></div> + + +<p>The seventh book of Plato’s Republic begins with the Parable +of the Cave. To show “how far our nature is enlightened +or unenlightened” the philosopher draws a picture +of human beings living in an underground den, all of them +from childhood chained with their backs to the light so that +all they can see is moving shadows cast upon the opposite +wall. This world of shadows is the system of popular beliefs. +To these people “the truth would be literally nothing +but the shadow of images.” Plato tells us to imagine what +would happen if the prisoners were released and disabused +of their error. If any one of them is suddenly compelled +to turn and face the light, the glare blinds him and he suffers +a sharp pain. If he is reluctantly dragged up into the outside +world of sunlight he is at first dazzled. After he is +accustomed to the new vision, all reality will appear different. +He will see the difference between shadow and substance. +He will know that popular belief is error. If +now he should return, what a difference there would be between +his new wisdom and that which in the den passed for +wisdom! “And if they were in the habit of conferring +honors among themselves on those who were quickest to observe +the passing shadows, and to remark which of them +went before and which followed after, and which were together, +and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions +as to the future, do you think he would care for such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>honors and glories?—And if there were a contest and he had +to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who +had never moved out of the den and while his eyes were yet +weak,” we are told that he would fumble and be ridiculous, +and men would say, “Up he went and down he came without +his eyes,” and they would pass a law that no one should even +think of ascending any more or try to release another and +lead him up.</p> + +<p>I will not discuss the metaphysical implications of this +parable about which there is dispute. Plato says we shall +not misapprehend him if we interpret this upward journey +as education. Whoever would face the light must turn his +back on the crowd and its shadows. He must climb into +another world of values. The educated man thinks differently. +His beliefs are different from those of the herd. +He is being set free from its delusions, even from what it +holds to be important. This is not because he wishes to be +aloof or superior, but because he is gaining a different conception +of what believing itself is. He has a new approach +to things in general, new habits of judging. He is beginning +to form his own judgments, and to judge is to weigh, +to consider, to question, to seek evidence, to doubt.</p> + +<p>Common men cherish their naïve faiths and ask no questions. +They imagine that education is simply greater information +of the same sort which they also possess in some +measure, and that it is the part of wisdom to establish the +reality of their shadows. They resent a wisdom which is +different from their own and unsettles belief. He who acquires +information without the will to doubt is a common +man and his kind understand him. Hence men tend to display +their information and conceal their education. However +much a man may know, so long as he does not become +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span><i>re-oriented</i>, the crowd does not suspect him, but admires his +learning. He is like a former Mayor of New York in his +high hat at the head of the Policeman’s Parade. The multitude +used to stand with their mouths open gazing at him. +Each in imagination saw in the exalted figure himself risen +to a place of honor and success. So it is with the “brainy +man.” The “lightening calculator” or the man who can +recite from memory the population statistics of the cities of +the United States is a museum wonder. But when it was +announced in a New York theater that only twelve men +could understand Einstein’s theory of relativity, I am told +that the crowd hissed.</p> + +<p>Information is a kind of skill. Everyone can possess +this skill to the extent he chooses, and people do not resent +an exhibition of unusual skill of such a nature. In America +most men and boys have some measure of skill at the game +of baseball, so this game is the popular national form of +sport. The skillful professional ball-player is simply one +of the common boyhood ideals realized. He differs from +the spectators of the game in degree, but not in kind. He +plays the same game they all played, and is the same sort of +person they all were as boys—only more so. So with most +kinds of information, the amount one may acquire makes +only a quantitative difference, not a difference in kind. But +as a man becomes educated he discovers that he is playing +a new game; he is becoming a different kind of person, with +different likes and dislikes, different interests, different ideals +and faiths, and such beliefs as he has he holds differently.</p> + +<p>What the multitude most fears in education is the danger +that the crowd faith will be lost in the process. This fear +is often justified. Old beliefs will be lost and they should +be. The fear appears in consciousness as solicitude for the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>spiritual welfare of the person being educated. It is really +anxiety over the menace of education to herd living and +thinking. It is the function of education to lure the individual +out of the pack and give him opportunity to know +his own mind, a thing he can never do so long as he runs and +barks and bites along with all the rest. To return to +Plato’s figure, every person who climbs out of the cave not +only loses his own faith in the reality of shadows but +weakens the faith of those who remain behind. Cave men +make strenuous efforts to resist education. Their common +practice is to maintain their own systems of pseudo education +in which no one is permitted to turn his eyes away from +the wall.</p> + +<p>Again, education has been likened to leaven. When it +is honest it is very much like yeast. Before the culture is +introduced the solution of ideas is in equilibrium. The +mind has simply accepted what was poured into it by parents, +teachers, priests, and politicians. In the solution there is +reflected a compact, “still,” neatly ordered little system of +knowledge. “God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the +world.” Duty is clear, all is conventionally arranged, +truth is eternal and logic can prove it. Human rights are +decreed by the founders of the republic. The course of +destiny is disclosed to reason and faith and the promise +sealed in divine revelation. At this stage, most minds are +carefully sealed up or a prophylactic is stirred in, for if +those sugary solutions are exposed to a live spiritual culture +they begin to “work.” Then they are spoiled for certain +purposes. With the fermentation there is sometimes foam +and gas; but a chemical change is taking place, brewing a +mind with a “kick” in it. It is interesting that bread and +wine and education are all made by a similar process; hence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>an educational Volsteadism has often been enforced so that +many of the best minds have had to be “home brewed.”</p> + +<p>Professor Dewey somewhere speaks of education as freeing +the mind of “bunk.” It is a large task. No one +wholly succeeds. I never saw a completely “debunked” individual. +Strive as we may to eradicate it, there is always +in our thinking an amount of error, of wish-fancy accepted +as objective fact, of exaggeration, special pleading, self-justification. +Many of our beliefs are not founded in reason +at all, but are demanded by some unconscious and repressed +impulse in our nature. Men make a virtue of their +faith when in fact they are <i>victims</i> of it; they can no more +help believing certain things than a neurotic can stop a compulsive +habit.</p> + +<p>It is said that it is easy to doubt and that to believe is an +accomplishment. It is not so. It is easier to believe than +to doubt. The things we must train ourselves to doubt are +as a rule just the things we wish to believe. It is children +and savages and the illiterate who have the most implicit +faith. It is said that unbelief is sin. This is not so; it is +nobler to doubt than to believe, for to doubt is often to take +sides with fact against oneself. Nietzsche said that this +trait is characteristic of “higher men.” It was Huxley, as +I remember it, who considered that man could in nothing +fall so low as when he deliberately took refuge in the absurd. +Even with a rationalist like Huxley doubt is not merely a +function of the intellect. Under certain circumstances it is +a moral necessity.</p> + +<p>The pursuit of knowledge is not the same, however, as +scrupulous avoidance of error. He who strives to do his +own thinking must accept responsibility for himself. He +must expect that he will make mistakes. He may end in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>total failure. He must take his chances and be willing to +pay the cost of his adventure. I know professional scholars +who are so afraid they may write or say something which +their colleagues will show to be wrong that they never express +an opinion of their own or commit themselves to any +downright statement. Such equivocation and qualifying—playing +safe—is not what I mean by doubt. I do not mean +merely that one should be always on guard against the possibility +of error, but that one should learn to hold all one’s +beliefs with a half-amused light-heartedness. Most minds +are loaded down with the seriousness of their convictions. +Solemnity in the presence of our eternal verities is awkwardness, +and makes us always a little ridiculous, giving us the +appearance of one about to shake hands with the President. +Why not enjoy the humor of the situation? Our great +truths may all the while be “spoofing” us. It will do no +harm to give them a sly wink now and then.</p> + +<p>Crowd men have no sense of humor. It is very difficult +to educate solemn and opinionated people. Like Omar, +they always come out by that same door wherein they went. +I have known students to complete a course of study having +learned nothing, because of their disinclination to consider +any fact which might cause them to surrender some belief +about religion or economic theory with which they entered. +Whoever leaves an institution of learning with the same +general outlook on life that he had when he first came might +better have employed his time otherwise. He is not a student; +he is a church-member.</p> + +<p>A well-known reformer says in his autobiography that his +education, to the present time, has been a long process of +“un-learning.” The progressive disillusionment began in +college when he was forced to abandon the religious dogmas +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>of his childhood. It continued through a series of +hard experiences and misdirected efforts to improve the +world from each of which he reaped a harvest of doubt, +leaving behind the exposure of one economic or sociological +fallacy after another, until in the end he had left only his +faith in Woodrow Wilson and in the proletariat. Then he +lost Wilson.</p> + +<p>Perhaps one who still has the proletariat is not utterly +disillusioned. If the education continues that too may go +the way of earlier beliefs. It is one thing to despair of a +society only one section of which can stand the test of our +idealism. It is quite another matter if one is led to re-examine +one’s idealism. It is this latter kind of doubt which +has the greater importance. The significant thing is not +the particular belief which a man gives up or retains but the +manner in which he believes what he does believe. Change +the latter and you change a basic habit pattern; you change +the man.</p> + +<p>Not all scepticism has educational value. There is a +kind of doubting which is merely the negative response of +the unteachable, the suspiciousness of the wilfully ignorant, +the refusal of the incurious to examine disturbing and challenging +evidence. There are, as an eighteenth century philosopher +said, minds that are moulded to the form of one +idea. Many people, after they have accepted one idea, +tame it and keep it as a sort of watchdog to frighten +all other ideas away. This refusal to be convinced may appear +to be scepticism; it is only stubbornness. The late Mr. +Bryan and his followers were very sceptical of evolution. +But this hostile attitude is very different from the scepticism +of those scientists who hold that the theory is a mere working +hypothesis which is yet to be confirmed. The scepticism +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>of ignorance is motivated by the desire to save an old +faith. Savages have been known to exhibit this incredulity +toward certain aspects of our more advanced knowledge. +If you were to tell the natives of Borneo that there is no +dragon in the sky which eats up the moon during an eclipse, +that there are no spirits and no magic, I imagine they would +laugh in your face and think you a fool. Many a discovery +and invention has been greeted by a grinning and incredulous +public even in civilized society. The scepticism which +has value is that which leads one on to further study +and investigation. And it is characterized by intellectual +modesty.</p> + +<p>Philosophic doubt is not the pitiable condition of the soul +that timid spirits imagine. It is not pessimism or cynicism, +but a healthy and cheerful habit. It gives peace of mind. +Men who stop pretending can sleep o’ nights. There is a +certain scepticism which is in no sense the spirit that denies. +It is a frank recognition of things as they come. It is +almost a test of a man’s honesty, among those who have +stopped to think about the nature and limitations of our +knowledge. Certainly cultivated people do not exhibit the +same degree of cock-sureness as do the ignorant. People +think the old saying about “doubting the intelligence that +doubts” is funny. Popular audiences will always laugh at +it. But why not? It is a platitude that the more a man +learns the more he realizes how little he knows. Existence +is filled with inscrutable mystery. To none of the profound +questions that we ask of it is there any final answer. We +must be satisfied ultimately with surmise, with symbol and +poetic fancy. Speculations about the soul, God, the ultimate +nature of reality and the course of destiny, and as to +whether existence has any meaning or purpose beyond our +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>own, or whether our life itself is worthwhile—all these +speculations and many others of similar nature lead to no +conclusions in fact, and we return always to the point from +which we started. The very terms in which we put such +questions are often meaningless when closely examined by +the intellect, and the answer to them is determined by our +own moods.</p> + +<p>There is a general belief that science can answer the +riddle. But science is only one possible view of things, the +one best adapted to the needs of creatures like ourselves. +It cannot deal with questions of value. It can tell us how +things operate, their relative mass and positions in space +and time, but it cannot tell us what they are in themselves, +nor why they exist nor anything about their goodness or +beauty. The more exact scientific knowledge becomes, the +more closely it approaches mathematics. Pure mathematics +deals only with abstractions and logical relations and can +dismiss the whole world of objects. Science presupposes +the data of experience and the validity of its own logical +principles. It substitutes its mechanized order of things +for things as we experience them.</p> + +<p>Human reasoning is partial in all its processes. We +think successfully about things when we ignore all the aspects +or qualities of them except those which are relevant +to the purpose at hand. The H₂O-ness of water is no more +the ultimate nature of water than is its wetness, or its thirst +quenching quality. That it is H₂O is only one of the things +that may be said about water. Now if we add together +bits of one-sided and partial scientific knowledge, we do not +thereby gain a sum total which is the equivalent of reality as +a whole. We have a useful instrument for dealing with our +environment, because in thought we have greatly simplified +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>it by ignoring in each instance all that is irrelevant. But +what we now have is a universe of discourse, a human construction +which is what it is because we are always more interested +in some aspects of things than in others.</p> + +<p>All our ideas are views—they have been likened to snapshots. +The world of which we are part is in flux. It +comes to us as process, and our intellect does not grasp the +movement any more than we can restore the movement of a +man running by adding together a series of photographs. +The movement always takes place between the pictures. +Intellect is an instrument, not a mirror. Our world is not +reducible to a form of thought, and when men speak of +truth, reality, cause, substance, they are really only saying +what they mean by certain words. The world, as James +said, has its meanings for us because we are interested spectators, +and so far as we can see none of these meanings are +final. Whitehead and others have shown that some of the +basic concepts of physical science which have held sway since +the seventeenth century are now subject to revision. Santayana +says that knowledge is faith—animal faith. It would +be strange if it were otherwise, if hairy little creatures such +we are, whose ancestors lived in trees and made queer guttural +noises, should so organize human discourse as to be +able to say the last word about reality as a whole. It is well +that we should marvel at our achievements of knowledge, +for they are man’s noblest work; but let us remember that +human reason, itself a phase and part of the process of nature, +can only view the whole process from its own partial +standpoint, and that is enough unless we aspire to +infallibility.</p> + +<p>Man is a disputatious animal who loves to speak like Sir +Oracle. Uneducated people, ashamed of their ignorance, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>commit themselves hastily and cling to their commitments, +for to change one’s mind is an admission that one was mistaken. +We wish to be vindicated as having all along been +in the right. Hence it is more natural to contend for a +principle than to test a hypothesis. The ego becomes identified +with certain convictions. We feel ourselves personally +injured if our convictions are subjected to criticism. We +are not ordinarily grateful to the person who points out our +errors and sets us right. But if our education is to proceed, +we must get over our delusion of infallibility.</p> + +<p>This fiction of infallibility is very common, and those who +have not learned to doubt this fiction, who are sure that they +have the truth and are on the side of the right are as a rule +the more ignorant and provincial elements of the population. +It is no accident that Fundamentalism, prohibition, +and other forms of moral regulation exist in inverse ratio +to urbanity and have their strongholds in rural communities. +People to whom it never occurs to ask how they know so +clearly they are right when better informed people have +doubts on the subject, are the ones who naturally strive to +coerce their neighbors. To many minds there are no social +or moral problems. The answer is always known by the +crusader. It is very simple. To him there can be no two +opinions. The standards which prevail in his own parish, +the self-expression of his own type, are the will of God. +Principles of right and wrong are known immediately without +reflection or regard to the situations where they are to +be applied; they are revealed to conscience. “Right is +right and wrong is wrong everywhere and forever the +same!”</p> + +<p>Men who hold such a view learn little from experience, +and this is why crowds never change their minds. They +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span>have first to be disintegrated and a new crowd formed about +new standards, because each crowd represents its will as a +divine command, a matter of eternal principle.</p> + +<p>To learn anything from experience it is necessary to take +into account the results of our behavior. But when you do +a thing merely because it is demanded by a universal principle +which must be vindicated at all costs, or because it is +a divine command to be carried out with unquestioning +obedience, you need not consider the results. Hence you +cannot be shown that you were mistaken. In this sense +men’s gods and their <i>a priori</i> ideas have the function of preserving +their fiction of infallibility. There always appears +what Professor Overstreet calls the proclamation of “the +One Right Way.” Differences of opinion are held to be +not mere differences of point of view, but the difference between +Right and Wrong, Good and Evil. Those who think +differently are the wicked, the ungodly, the <i>enemy</i>. They +must be convinced by being vanquished, silenced. Every +knee must bow and every tongue confess. There is no +longer a meeting of minds in the search for truth. The +triumph of the Right is in the belief of the average man a +knockout. There must be no compromise; any attitude +other than intense partisanship is disloyalty. One in a discussion +must line up for or against a proposition, take sides, +have a ready answer for anything that the other side says, +and be sure that nothing will cause one to modify one’s +views. Is any one ever convinced by public debate? Or +does one emerge from a church quarrel, a political campaign, +a session of the legislature, a convention of a trade union +with a broader outlook or better understanding?</p> + +<p>The egotism of the ignorant keeps them in ignorance. +There is an amusing notion that the masses are kept in ignorance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span>by clever conspirators against freedom and progress. +The average man’s reasoning consists chiefly of the +repetition of cant phrases in support of preconceived ideas. +He wishes to hear only what he can applaud, and he applauds +what saves his face and puts his enemies to shame. +Theological disputation has always been carried on in this +spirit, and so have most popular discussions of morals, +politics and economic problems.</p> + +<p>Professor Overstreet says that this “One Right Way” +attitude is essentially adolescent. This does not mean that +it is essentially youthful. Adolescence is the period when +there is normally an exaggerated emotional interest in the +ego. A delayed adolescent type of mentality is common. +Psychologists speak of it as narcissism,—a fixation of interest +upon the idea of self. Among psychopathic individuals +and also among crowds this <i>narcissism</i> is very dominant +and leads to exaggerated notions of self-importance and to +other fixed ideas. Inability to entertain any doubt of self +becomes inability to question any idea which one would like +to believe true. Hence the delusion of infallibility. I +think that vast numbers of otherwise normal people are +made susceptible to crowd thinking because they simply do +not know that there are ways of life and thought different +from their own which good people may and do honestly +hold. Crowd appeal at once entrenches prejudice and flatters +the ego, compensating it perhaps for any half-conscious +feeling of inferiority it may have because for instance a +man over-rates school education and “did not get it.”</p> + +<p>It is interesting to note how this delusion of infallibility +may often lead men to believe and assert the most incredible +fabrications. I quote from a recent New York newspaper +an exaggerated example which will illustrate what I mean.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span></p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“The League of Nations has been asked to do a lot of strange +things by people all over the world, but it remained for a New York +business man to request action on the most unusual topic of all. Announcement +is made by the league secretariat that it has received a +letter from the New Yorker declaring his opinion that ‘brain enslavement,’ +otherwise known as spirit writing or receiving messages from +the dead, is the cause of many evils. He said he wanted the league +to stop this system all over the world, making the specific charge that +the American courts of ‘so-called justice’ are controlled by the spirit +movement.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Note the last sentence; the “specific charge” is very typical. +There is not the least notion that so sweeping an indictment +should be supported by evidence. It <i>must be</i> so, +for how can the alleged tolerant attitude of the courts be +explained otherwise? An explanatory idea is asserted as +an established fact. Here we have a mind incapable of entertaining +doubt. As usual in unhealthy reasoning, the +thinking in this case is a syllogism. Spiritualism is a form +of brain enslavement which is the cause of wide-spread evil. +All who do not sufficiently oppose it are controlled by it. +The courts do not sufficiently resist it. Therefore the +courts are controlled by the spirit movement. If the premises +are true the conclusion of course follows logically. The +trouble with diseased thinking is not its logic, but its inability +to examine its premises in the light of fact. A +healthy mind would doubt these premises before reaching +such a ridiculous conclusion. Doubt makes for sanity.</p> + +<p>I do not wish the force of this example to be lost. Most +people will see it so long as we are talking about spirits, for +there is much wholesome doubt about the doings of spirits. +But let us substitute for spirits something else concerning +which surmise commonly passes as established fact, and we +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>have something very familiar. “The American courts are +controlled by Wall Street,” or by the Catholic Church, or by +British propagandists, or the attempt is being made by labor +unions or by Communists. So it is with popular thinking +on most subjects. Acquaintance with facts does not seem to +be necessary for the formation of opinion. I can easily +assert alleged facts on my own authority; it hurts my pride +when I am asked for evidence. I once heard a fundamentalist +preacher say that everyone who doubted the infallibility +of the Bible merely sought an excuse for living a life of +sin. Such statements must be true; they are so logical, +moreover they justify a man in his fixed beliefs and put +doubters always in the wrong. Many people even in their +reading do little more than seek confirmation for notions +founded on such thinking. The censorship of books is +hardly necessary to keep people’s minds in the beaten path. +Many people cannot read a book with which they do not +agree. We disguise our infallibility under the infallibility +of our favorite author. He becomes an authority. We +read our own meanings into his text when necessary. We +pick out the passages which support us and quote them on +all occasions. For instance, a mind saturated with the +teachings of Karl Marx will take in nothing else and will +view every other author from the standpoint of his agreement +with Marx. It is always so with the sectarian mind, +whether in religion or in politics.</p> + +<p>The sort of logic which we have just been considering +leads men to assume extreme positions of all sorts. Opinionated +and undisciplined minds always tend to carry an +idea to extremes, to jump to a conclusion, to let enthusiasm +carry belief beyond the limits of good judgment. This all +or none attitude is supposed to be zeal in the service of principle. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>It is merely intemperance. Education strives for +the virtue of temperance, and temperance—which among +the uneducated becomes merely abstinence from the use of +alcoholic beverages—is the avoidance of rash assertion, and +of ill-considered and hasty inference. The temperate man +stops to think. Careful thought seldom leads one wild. +An educated mind is not so likely to “go off half-cocked.” +It has fewer enthusiasms and so accumulates a reserve; a +sense of the ridiculous helps it keep its balance.</p> + +<p>Most men feel uncomfortable when they must hold their +minds open and judgment in abeyance. Judgment suspended +gives a feeling of unstable equilibrium, of tension; it +is irksome like resistance to temptation. In addition to +this discomfort in being unsettled, there is a disturbing feeling +of insecurity in the thought that we live in a world in +which certitude is rare and difficult. In many situations it +is necessary to act before all the evidence is at hand. We +must act on faith and take our chances. All men cherish +their faiths, but few have the courage to act on faith. We +naturally wish to feel ourselves more secure than we really +are in a world where much is left to chance. A formula +generally believed gives such a delusion of security. The +greater the number of those who believe, the more convinced +is the average man of the truth of the formula and +the more safe he feels.</p> + +<p>I think this wish to feel at home in the universe has inspired +much of religion. It is also one of the reasons why, +as older religions wane, each man must have his “cause,” +his social gospel, his movement. These things afford a +sense of comradeship in which there is safety. They give +one “something to tie to,” something enduring to believe in. +And as each cause or movement claims the future and looks +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>forward to sure vindication and triumph, the future becomes +predictable and congenial.</p> + +<p>This search for an ideal security has had its influence on +philosophy. Many philosophers, from the time of the ancient +Greeks till now, have sought to construct systems of +ideas, verbal forms in which in contemplation they could +find refuge from the universal change in which all things +come and pass away. Inasmuch as it is possible to think of +an object or class and to mean the same even when the objects +themselves are no longer present, a system of abstract +and unusual universal ideas is set up and thought of as existing +in itself, outside the process of time and change. The +system of thought so conceived is held to be more enduring +than the world of changing objects. The ideal world is +then the real world. In it alone is knowledge of the Truth +which abides forever. Such systems appear to me to be +elaborate attempts to sustain a fictitious security by taking +refuge from reality in a logical arrangement of man’s own +empty forms of thought. From the point of view of education +it should be said that such philosophies require much +learning before one can understand them, but they tend to +dogmatism and the closed mind.</p> + +<p>A modern method of supporting the fiction of security—less +austere and sophisticated than some of those of official +philosophy—prevails among those who speak the language +of science. It is known as mechanism. As scientific +<i>method</i>, mechanism is indispensable. It is found by exact +measurement and careful scrutiny that given two identical +material situations, the same result will follow. There is a +certain orderliness about the processes of nature, which if +we ignore all else but the movement and masses and temporal +and spatial relationships of particles of matter, lends +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>itself to statement in mathematical terms. In this manner +events are predictable with great accuracy. And now because +it becomes possible for human reason to interpret +facts of nature when they are thought of only with respect +to mass, movement, position, it is held that nature itself is +really nothing but mass, motion, position, etc. The laws +and methods of interpretation are thought to constitute the +nature of that which is interpreted. A method deliberately +adopted in order to give a mathematically rational account +of certain selected aspects of nature is now taken for a correct +picture of ultimate reality. The reason which measures +masses and distances believes it has discovered itself +as the true nature of the thing measured. The universe is +held to be at once like a machine, and at the same time essentially +rational. Security is again grounded in forms of +thought.</p> + +<p>It is said that all futures are predictable by the new logic +of science if we only knew enough about complex phenomena +to be able to strip them down to that which can be expressed +in mathematical terms. Of course no one professes +to be able to calculate the curve of the whole, or to have +worked out a quantitative statement of many of the phenomena +of life. But it is a scientific faith that it might conceivably +be done. This seems to me to be merely saying +that we could reduce the universe to reason if we only could +do it, which is tautology. I am not sure that a universe so +reduced would be anything more than a bare system of +thought about only one aspect of the universe. But scepticism +here is as distasteful to many scientists as the scientists’ +own scepticism is distasteful to theologians.</p> + +<p>I am not asserting dogmatically that we cannot know +truth or the nature of reality. I am not suggesting that we +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>cannot be educated without ending in universal scepticism +or agnostic negation. It seems to me that we have, or can +have, such knowledge as will make our intellects fairly adequate +instruments in the performance of their proper functions. +But I do not see what such functioning has to do +with ascribing finality to our beliefs or trying to legislate for +all possible worlds. I am not suggesting an attitude of despair +in the pursuit of truth, but am trying to state the very +reason for any learning at all, for what is the use of it if we +know it all before we start?</p> + +<p>Education may not end in doubt, but it ends when a man +stops doubting. But why speak of the end of a process +that should continue through life? As I see it, the process +is more often discontinued at the point of some fictitious +certainty than in any moment of doubt. Doubt, the willingness +to admit that conjecture is subject to revision, is a spur +to learning. The recognition that our truths are not copies +of eternal realities but are human creations designed to meet +human needs, puts one in a teachable frame of mind. And +the discovery that thinking may be creative makes intellectual +activity interesting. Much has been written by indoctrinators +about the wretchedness of the dogmatic sceptic. +I wonder how these writers, themselves so innocent of doubt, +know so much about him. I have never found such a man. +I do not believe he ever existed. There are writers who +question things that most men do not even know exist, compared +with whom professional “freethinkers” are often +naïve. But such writers are often gentle and cheerful +spirits whose minds are not at all paralyzed by doubt, but +are active, subtle, stimulating.</p> + +<p>Humanity during the course of civilization has fixed certain +habits, made certain discoveries, constructed certain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>systems of ordered knowledge by emphasizing the relevant +and significant. There is little likelihood that the whole +structure will come tumbling about our heads because somebody +examines into its nature. In fact the highest achievement +of civilization would appear to be a mind capable of +understanding our human ways of thinking for what they +are. But if our learning should cause us to abandon all our +consoling beliefs and ideals and pet theories; if it should reveal +human folly in our every great cause, and futility in our +every scheme of social reconstruction, even then we cannot +for such reasons shirk the task of educating ourselves. +There would remain for each of us the ideal of what an educated +mind might become; no knowledge could take from us +the ideals of courage, of preserving our integrity, of standing +undaunted before the challenge to our spirit.</p> + +<p>Again a question arises similar to that we discussed at +the close of the chapter on propaganda. Does not education, +then, cause doubt and indifference so that the educated +remain aloof and fail to take their share of social responsibility +or participate in the activities of their times? Is it +not the mass of “common people” therefore, and not the +scholars, which accomplishes the overthrow of tyrannies +and achieves progress? In a day when everybody is a professional +or amateur reformer and people are led to believe +that they can make their lives count only as they participate +in some mass movement, it is natural that this +question should present itself as we consider what education +means.</p> + +<p>History should aid us to an answer here. The author +of “Our Times,” Mark Sullivan, after giving an account +of the partisan strife and popular movements of the last +quarter of the nineteenth century, suggests that perhaps all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>this expenditure of energy and intensity of enthusiasm was +but part of the passing show and came to nothing, while the +so-called leaders who seemed to be creating history were but +the puppets of deeper and silent forces. He suggests that +the enduring changes are those of science and the arts. I +believe we have here one of the important lessons of history. +Progress in civilization has been the work almost +wholly of scientists, philosophers, artists, engineers, and +unique individuals. The rest has been froth and foam, a +struggle to liberate mankind from the clutches of its most +recent liberators, crowd devouring crowd, mass movements +marching to Utopia down blind alleys. Unfortunately +there is some truth in the statement that the intelligence of +the race has little influence upon mass movements. This is +not because scholarship is aloof, however, so much as because +the multitude in its enthusiasms does not heed the +counsels of wisdom. When I become a zealot for a movement +I lose my critical faculties. In exalting my cause I +would persuade myself that my existence is of more importance +to the world than it really is. No one so devoted and +earnest could possibly be in the wrong, and in the righteousness +of my cause, I have infallibility. What need have I of +the wisdom that comes by taking thought when I have the +truth by intuition and intensity of feeling?</p> + +<p>If it is true that men can only be made to act under the +lash of blind faith and enthusiasm, then the estate of man is +a sorry one indeed. For most of the things done will end +in tragic failure. It is only the conceit of ignorance to believe +that the world can be straightened once for all by +people who do not know what they are doing. Moreover, +to say that ignorance is necessary to the accomplishment of +good is to say, that ignorance is desirable and better for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>man than knowledge. There have been those who held +such a view. Obscurantists always hold it. It is the philosophy +of pessimism, and it is interesting to note that it is +the believer and the devotee, the man of action and not the +gentle doubter who finally ends in pessimism.</p> + +<p>For want of intelligence the devotees of causes have been +the mischief makers in all times. We cannot always know +who does the most good in the world, but the evil that men +do lives after them and it is sometimes possible to estimate +the amount of harm done. Who has done the most harm +in human history, the sceptics or the believers, the devotees +of causes or the devotees of culture and urbanity? St. +Bernard with his crusade, or Abelard with his doubts? +The men who conducted the Inquisition, or the men who +doubted the doctrine of the Trinity? Calvin and the obscurantists +on both sides of the Reformation, or Erasmus +and the Humanists? Cromwell and his Puritans or Voltaire +and the Deists? Robespierre or Goethe?</p> + +<p>The devotees to causes have kept human life in turmoil. +If the immorality they would cure has slain its thousands, +their “morality” has slain its tens of thousands. In most +cases the strife has been useless and for causes that might +have been won in other ways, really won. The devotee of +a cause requires little provocation to practice persecution, +and only the opportunity to play the tyrant.</p> + +<p>Doubt not only has educational value: it preserves social +sanity. I would suggest as part of everyone’s education the +reading of such authors as Lucian, Epicurus, Abelard, +Hobbes, Montaigne, Rabelais, Erasmus, Lessing, Voltaire, +Hume and Anatole France. There is no blood on these +men’s hands. They have quietly smiled in the face of +bigotry and superstition. In their words there is laughter +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span>and there is light. Perhaps no one of them ever intended to +be a liberator of mankind. They merely thought and spoke +as free spirits, and their very presence puts sham and cant +and unction and coercion and mistaken zeal to shame. +They have done more for freedom and truth than all the +armies of crusading devotees.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI +<br> +A MAN IS KNOWN BY THE DILEMMAS +HE KEEPS</h2></div> + + +<p>William James said that wherever there is selection +among alternatives there is mental life. Man is a choosing +animal, and his choices determine both the ends sought and +the means to be employed. We will not discuss the question +whether our choices are spontaneous or are determined +wholly or in part by environmental and hereditary factors. +Whatever determines them, our habits of choosing,—the +general character of the things we prefer,—reveal the kind +of people we are. And as learning is not merely the acquiring +of more and more information but is accompanied +by a gradual transformation of habit systems, its progress is +manifest not merely by what a man knows at any stage in +his education, but also by the kind of issue that is real to +him, the questions which he permits life to put to him, the +sort of temptations he has to struggle to avoid, the kind of +goods that are vital to him. When I was a boy my parents +used to tell me, “A man is known by the company he keeps.” +The saying, while designed to protect youth from the dangerous +influence of evil companionship, is not wholly true. +Many persons, from ambition or other motives, seek the +society of persons unlike themselves. Those who are more +gregarious than selective may exercise little choice among +their associates. But ordinarily people like to be with +their own kind. Criminals keep company with other criminals, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>golfers with other golfers, stamp collectors with +others who have the same interest. We wish our friends +to be interested in the things that interest us. Groups long +associated tend to become homogeneous. When marked +differences of taste and opinion develop, companions drift +apart. Hence it is obvious that the company one keeps is +determined in part by the dilemmas he keeps.</p> + +<p>We do not normally keep the same set of dilemmas +through life. Each stage of development presents new +challenges, problems, alternatives; as we mature our habits +of judgment change. We see things in a different light. +What was once a matter of vital concern becomes a dead +issue. Our interest is caught and our choice determined by +aspects of situations to which we did not react at all at an +earlier stage. We do not solve all the problems of any +stage, but we outgrow them,—get over them.</p> + +<p>Psychopathology today has much to say about the nature +and sequence of the dilemmas which at any period haunt the +mind of an individual. The matter is so important that I +wonder more has not been made of it by those interested in +education. The public, it seems, would have the educator +fill the student’s head with useful information but expects +the student to keep the same beliefs and general outlook on +life that he had before. We speak of rising to a higher +mental plane; this is little else than learning to wrestle with +more and more significant problems. A little girl in her +third summer says, “I’m a nice girl; I don’t bite sister now.” +To bite or not to bite, to keep one’s self clean, to refrain +from crying, are normally the dilemmas of early childhood. +If they are not dead issues to a person twenty years old, they +may be regarded as psychopathic symptoms. When a mature +individual is found wrestling with impulses which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span>should have been reduced to habit and dismissed from consciousness +in earlier years, we have a phenomenon which +psychologists call “regression,” or “fixation” of emotional +interest in mental habits that are normally outgrown. Toward +the tasks and situations of adult life, the individual +strives to maintain an infantile attitude and hence fails to +adjust himself. Sometimes the regression shows a preoccupation +with infantile wishes, and sometimes with those +of early adolescence; in any case there is struggle to maintain +the inhibitions or the defenses which veil the inadequately +repressed impulses.</p> + +<p>The manner in which lessons learned from experience +normally transform an impulse from its expression in very +simple and crude dilemmas to its later and more subtle +manifestations may be seen in the forms with which people +exhibit and disguise their egoism during successive stages +of development. When a very young child is beginning to +discover himself and his little world, he finds his own body +and its functions tremendously interesting. Soon he discovers +that certain of his performances command attention. +He learns to make use of such performances in order to get +what he wants. He will exercise his power over parent or +nurse by throwing his toys on the floor again and again and +howling until some one picks them up. Long before he +condescends to talk, he notices when people admire him and +say complimentary things about him. A very young child +will do little stunts by way of showing off, and will exhibit +irritation if ignored or left alone. He cries out at any restraint +upon his movements or resistance to his wishes.</p> + +<p>The egoism of everyone retains something of the infantile +quality. But family discipline, social experience, and +the awakening of powers of observation and thought result +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span>in new forms of expression. This ego interest becomes associated +with an ideal of self and its importance which the +individual guards as his honor, his reputation. Every man +is intent upon keeping up his feeling of self-importance; +each feels that one so important deserves special consideration. +Egoism in normal people becomes to some extent +liberated from its infantile interests and is sublimated, that +is, attached to ends that are socially permissible. The +original impulse remains, but it wrestles with new problems. +The wish to be admired is a factor in all ambition, also in +romantic love. A love affair is even more a mutual admiration +society than a phenomenon of sex interest. The impulse +to command which in the nursery led the child to throw +toys on the floor for others to pick up, later becomes a desire +for leadership, a struggle for political power, a passion for +manipulating or reforming others.</p> + +<p>We also find the infantile egoism transferred to religion, +where it plays an important part in adult life. Many of the +very images and emotional attitudes of infancy may thus be +kept alive. The believer may still feel that he is loved as +the infant is loved by the parent,—loved now by the Heavenly +Father. He may again feel that he can have what he +desires by asking the father in prayer. Self-importance survives +as belief in the immortality of the soul and as assurance +of salvation. Thus with development and experience, +the same ego interest becomes transformed in the tasks it +progressively sets itself, and in widening the range of the +ends for which it strives. Each stage of development presents +its peculiar problems, its peculiar goods and evils, its +possible alternative attitudes toward the values of experience. +Therefore it ought to be quite as possible to determine +a person’s mental age by noting the kind of things +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>which satisfy his ego interest, as by any other device of mental +measurement. In common practice this is the way in +which we judge people.</p> + +<p>A man stands revealed both by the things he strives to +gain and by those he seeks to avoid. The thing that most +easily shocks him is usually that which he himself is struggling +to overcome. It represents something to which in his +secret heart he can say neither yes nor no. His dilemma +troubles him. He seeks to avoid the inner gnawing by +carrying the fight into the open. He turns his personal conflict +into the appearance of a public issue, and you then have +the moral reformer. People who repeat scandal, demand +laws for the censorship of books and plays, and search +through literature intent upon deleting passages they think +are obscene, are too much preoccupied with vice and obscenity. +They are like those compulsion neurotics who +spend their time writing alibis to prove their innocence of +the crime they are constantly tempted to commit.</p> + +<p>The thing a man must make an effort to conceal always +betrays him. We all know the type of person who strives +in all things to appear refined, who makes painful efforts +for correct speech and proper manners. There are those +who are seriously concerned about being in what they call +society, and those who read books of etiquette and are disturbed +by such important questions as whether when escorting +a lady you should take her arm or let her take yours. +And there is the man who signs his name with ornate flourish +and tries to impress waiters and hotel servants with his +importance, and there are the people who are much exercised +over the forgiveness of their sins. All in one way or +another place themselves on their own level.</p> + +<p>The correlation between people’s material desires and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>their general intellectual interests is so universal that it is +used as a guide in placing advertisements. There are +“class” papers, each designed to appeal to readers who occupy +a certain cultural stratum. The advertising appeals +which such papers carry vary with the reading matter. The +older, more literary magazines present a sharp contrast both +in reading matter and in advertising to the newer fiction magazines. +In the first group the essay predominates, with +poetry and literary criticism, and only an occasional work of +fiction. In the second group there is hardly anything but +fiction, with possibly a brief hortatory editorial. Both +types are evidently published to interest readers of average +wealth. The number of advertisements of automobiles, +real estate, and securities and other investments is in about +the same proportion in both. But the former group, which +is obviously designed to appeal to more thoughtful and intelligent +readers, contains a larger number of pages given +over to advertisements of books, schools, colleges, places of +travel, works of art.</p> + +<p>We need not discuss the cheaper fiction magazines. +They are obviously prepared for a still different reading +public. The public to which the better ones appeal is indicated +by the dominant character of the advertising, which +consists largely of aids to beauty and correspondence courses +in self-improvement. The stories in such periodicals are +as typical as the advertisements. Thus it is that in their +daily preferences, as truly as in the greater issues of their +lives, people select themselves and are segregated into +classes, or spiritual types—types which may live in daily +contact with one another, yet worlds apart.</p> + +<p>Democracy strives to ignore the cultural differences +among people. Education intensifies them. The attempt +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>to place everyone on the same mediocre plane, even though +it be a level considerably above the lowest, is not education; +it is a kind of social work. Education means finding one’s +own level. Like all progress it is qualitative and differentiating. +Just as organic evolution is a process which can be +measured only in the extent of the differences it has made between +higher and more complex organisms and lower ones, +so with education. It brings out distinctions of human +worth, places people on the rounds of a ladder, the gradations +of which are discernible in the kind of interests they +have, in the quality of their choices, the perplexities they +wrestle with and overcome, the tasks and issues they set +themselves.</p> + +<p>The general advance of civilization is in some respects like +that of the individual. We may learn much about the general +cultural attainment of any age by noting the issues that +divided people at that time and the problems that troubled +them. There are all sorts of “cultural lags” in the +course of progress, but it helps us to estimate the general +intellectual level Europe had attained at the close of the +middle ages to learn that whole communities could be terribly +disturbed over the question, “What is the evil omen +of a comet which suddenly appears in the zenith?”—so disturbed +indeed that on one occasion it is said popular pressure +forced the Pope to go out and pronounce an official curse +upon a comet and command it to leave the sky, which it did +much to everybody’s peace of mind. Again, we can form +something of an opinion of the mentality of an age in which +there is general interest in such a question as “Shall a person +accused of witchcraft be put to torture to compel him +to testify against himself?” or, “How far may one walk +on the Sabbath day without committing sin?” or “Does the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>doctrine of the rights of man apply to negro slaves?” or +“Who amongst us has committed the unpardonable sin,” or +“Will a child that dies without baptism go to Hell,” or, by +way of illustrating something of the spirit of contemporary +America, “Who’s your bootlegger?”</p> + +<p>I have said that many of our dilemmas are not resolved, +but are outgrown. This leads us to a further observation +of their educational significance. Many of the issues which +stir a community are insoluble because they rest upon presuppositions +which are unsound and so long as the assumption +remains unchallenged the issue will haunt men’s minds. +When one goes back of the issue and sees the premises to +be false, the whole wrangle becomes meaningless. The +question about torturing people accused of witchcraft presupposes +the superstition that it is possible for an individual +to enter into a contract with the devil. Get rid of belief +in devils and witch trials themselves cease. So the nightmare +about the “damnation of babes” ceases to be a live +issue for a mind that has become sufficiently civilized to have +passed beyond the primitive man’s terror of Hell. And so +I think it is with most popular beliefs and public issues and +partisan conflicts, as well as with many of our private dilemmas. +As stated they presuppose a disguised error, or +are the fruit of factors that remain unconscious. So long as +we accept the fatal assumption the issue is real to us. We +are caught and held in the dilemma and our educational +progress stops.</p> + +<p>Progress in thinking, without which learning is mere repeating, +comes by examining foundations. The educated +mind differs from the uneducated in the insight which enables +it to file a demurrer, dismiss the case, or restate it in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span>terms that lead somewhere. It is in getting us over our +dilemmas that education frees our minds.</p> + +<p>It is often said that the aim of education is to equip the +student with a set of principles and beliefs which will serve +him through life. Yes, but principles are <i>leading ideas</i>. +Their function is to lead us to correct conclusion and right +action. They are instruments, not ends in themselves, and +they must occasionally be re-tested. They are not final +statements of the issues of living. Much misunderstanding +and mental suffering—most of our false dilemmas—grow +out of popular confusion about principles. Men feel that +if they change their beliefs or arrive at unexpected conclusions +or resolve their dilemmas away they are losing or compromising +their principles. There is no sacrifice of principle +in re-stating an issue as a result of better knowledge +and insight. There is no defense of principle in a controversial +spirit which cares more for partisan victory than for +truthfulness. The level on which a controversy is waged is +often a matter of greater importance than the victory of +either side. If the victory of either means the triumph of +the same irrational type of man, it makes little difference +who wins. In most partisan and sectarian struggles the +principle at stake—if any—is lost sight of in a mass of confusion. +It frequently happens that both sides contend for +the same “ideal” and base their contentions upon the same +mistaken premises. In most cases men’s principles are little +more than phrases which justify in their own minds their +contentiousness and will to power.</p> + +<p>An examination of its presuppositions may transform an +issue into a very different sort of problem. There is, for +instance, the controversy now raging in parts of America +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span>between religion and science. Many educated persons say +there is no conflict between religion and science. In their +own thought there may be none, because they do not mean +by either of these terms what the man on the street means +by them. To him religion is a system of dogma based upon +divine revelation. He cannot conceive of religion without +belief in the stories related in the Bible or belief in the +teachings of his church. By belief he means the firm conviction +that alleged historical events and miracles happened +just as related. He conceives of science also as a body of +doctrine according to which the specific teachings of religion +are held to be untrue. Stated in these terms conflict is +inevitable, a person who has scientific knowledge cannot be +religious, and the issue must be fought to the end.</p> + +<p>For the thinking mind the problem becomes a quite different +one. Science is a method, not primarily a system of +doctrine. It is a way of discovering truth which must be +followed wherever it leads, and it presents us with the problem +of how we are to value and interpret its discoveries. +The problem presents itself differently from an ascending +series of points of view.</p> + +<p>A student who has grown up under traditional religious +influences and has probably given the matter little thought, +begins the study of natural science, biology or geology, let +us say, and learns something of the evidence for the theory +of evolution. He begins to speculate upon its implications. +He may, as many do, strive in some manner to reconcile evolution +with the account of creation set forth in the Bible. +After further thought and study this simple device for +reconciling science and religion may not satisfy him. He +sees that something more than the reinterpretation of a +text is necessary. He finds himself striving to reconcile two +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>entirely different world-views. As a rational explanation +of the world and its origin, religion is wholly incompatible +with science. The student, considering that this is the function +of religion, and finding that as a method of giving an +account of natural processes religion fails, may discard it, +and become an apostle of science, and an opponent of religion, +save as a system of ethics. Persons who hold this +rationalistic view of religion commonly try in turn to make +a gospel of science. Religion is darkness; science is light. +Religion enslaves; science liberates. Religion holds progress +in check; science is the Religion of Humanity, and the +triumph of Reason is the promise of the salvation of the +world. This view was widely prevalent in the nineteenth +century. It is the stage at which the average person with +some knowledge of science breaks off and considers the problem +settled. It is an honestly taken position, which often +requires no small courage. I hope no one will think me an +apologist for religion if I suggest that this is a rather innocent +and unsophisticated attempt to solve the problem. It +assumes that it is the proper function of religion to explain +nature and improve the life of humanity. What a simple +and straightforward affair the human spirit appears to be +from this point of view. No subtle twistings and turnings, +no hidden pitfalls, no twilight regions, no dark secrets.</p> + +<p>Suppose now one were to cease expecting religion to do +the explanatory task of science, and were also to cease trying +to make a new religion of science, is it not likely that the +conflict, or contrast, between the two might appear in altered +perspective? It is possible to regard both scientific +and religious concepts as symbols—figures of speech, each +expressive of its exclusive values. In another study, I +likened the difference between science and religion to that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span>which exists between the two recognized symbols of the +United States of America—the map and the flag. The +former is the scientific symbol; it has to do with position, +movement, measurement of distance. Maps exist for the +intellectual and practical interest. The flag stands for the +emotional interest; it has to do with certain historical associations, +but is itself no guarantee of the accuracy of any +historical tradition. It is poetry.</p> + +<p>Once we grant that religion is poetry, a new set of +problems emerges. Is the poetry good or bad? What +valuations of the possibilities—or impossibilities—of experience +are here expressed in these symbols? Which of +my ideas about the world are maps and which are flags? +Much of the popular conflict of religion and science arises +out of general confusion on this point. A super-patriot +might conceivably be such a worshipper of the flag that he +would resent the disclosure of certain geographical or historical +facts which would lead to revaluation of some of his +emotional attitudes. Doubtless many Americans have an +exaggerated and emotionally determined idea of the history +if not of the geography of their country, yet it is unthinkable +that they should confuse the flag with the map. But +existence as a whole is not so easily surveyed, and such maps +as we have of it often extend beyond the comprehension of +the average man. In all lower approaches to the problem +of religion, the flags which symbolize certain emotional +appreciations of the universe are confused with maps of it. +In his religion the average man is still an idolator, psychologically +similiar to the poor heathen who cannot distinguish +between his god and his wooden image. On the +popular level, the conflict of religion and science is an elaborately +rationalized struggle for supremacy by a type of mind +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>which has not yet grasped the true inwardness of its emotional +attitudes. While the consideration of the problem +remains on this level, nothing is gained for education. +There is mental grasp of the situation when the problem +is re-stated in terms of the inwardness of religion and the +objectivity of science. And it then becomes possible to +form hypotheses which inspire further pursuit of knowledge. +New knowledge leads to the better organization of knowledge +previously acquired.</p> + +<p>We have another familiar example of the educational +value of displacing lower dilemmas by higher ones by examination +of the presuppositions. For a generation and +more many minds have been preoccupied with some aspect +or other of the controversy between conservatism and +radicalism. There have been so many varieties of opinion +on both sides that it is impossible to make a clear-cut statement +of the issue or to find any particular group or theory +which is representative of either side. From the standpoint +of the majority of the United States Senate, the followers +of Mr. La Follette were dangerous radicals. From the +standpoint of the communists these same La Follette men +were conservatives, counter-revolutionaries. In general the +conflict has been between those who are interested in preserving +the present order of things intact together with its +traditions, established institutions, privileges and inequalities, +and those who favor some basic changes which they +believe will remedy the situation. We will not discuss the +merits of either side to this conflict. In some form or other +it comes up repeatedly. It is a real issue, but the discussion +of it may proceed on various levels of thought, and this fact +has something to do with education. Intellectuals believe +that their radicalism is the result of enlightenment, while +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span>their opponents believe that on the whole education makes +for conservatism and that radicals are ignorant foreigners +who have been misled by professional trouble makers. The +present controversy is not conducive to education in any of +its forms, or on either side. It tends to divert education +from its true aims into partisan service, and to produce in +both parties a fixed and unteachable type of mind. As the +case is ordinarily presented, a stupid and panicky conservatism +is faced by a superficial and equally intemperate radicalism.</p> + +<p>The problem cannot be discussed intelligently, nor can +the consideration of it lead to increase of knowledge, until +its presuppositions are critically examined, and the whole +matter is re-stated in more intelligible terms. It is these +presuppositions to which I wish to call attention, for without +them the controversy could not have arisen in its present +forms. Although there is a great variety of these forms, +the same presuppositions are common to all and are usually +accepted without question by both sides. The disposition +to go back and question the presuppositions is evidence that +education is going on. We have some such evidence in +recent years for many have modified their positions in regard +to various aspects of the social problem.</p> + +<p>More attention has been given to the changes of view +among radicals than to those which have taken place among +conservatives. Since events of recent years have greatly +encouraged self-expression on the part of misinformed noisy +extremists who appoint themselves spokesmen of the latter +group, we sometimes get the impression that conservatives +learn nothing. But I incline to the opinion that there has +been perhaps an equal proportion of learning by the more +thoughtful minority on both sides of the controversy.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span></p> +<p>Among radicals modification of views has occurred +sufficiently to arouse general interest in the questions “What +has become of the pre-war liberals?” “What has happened +to radicalism?” A former member of the radical group +some years ago wrote a book entitled “Tired Radicals,” in +which he adopted the usual view that the change of outlook +among radicals was the result of the loss of energy and +enthusiasm which comes with middle age. But if radicalism +were merely a form of youthful enthusiasm, I believe the +movement would be more wide-spread than it has ever been +in America. The suggestion is worth considering that in +some cases the change of views might indicate that the individual +has learned something. By learning I mean the +better grasp of the subject which comes when one examines +the presuppositions of both sides. Conversely, those who +have not examined their presuppositions during the last +twenty years have learned nothing. They continue talking, +but they are addressing a generation that is past and gone. +Anachronisms of this sort are common occurrences among +conservatives. They occur with equal frequency among +radicals. And when a man whose education has stopped +leaves the radical movement and joins the opposition, he +frequently shows himself to be not an aging prophet who +has lost his enthusiasms, but the same intensely opinionated +and militant person he was before.</p> + +<p>When, therefore, I suggest that a change of attitude toward +the social question may be indicative of learning, I do +not mean to imply that it is the function of education to turn +radicals into conservatives. Rather its function is to give +the men on each side a different mental outlook. Back of +the controversy as it has existed in our times there is a +certain presupposed philosophy which is passing away as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span>education increases, and its passing modifies the thinking of +persons on both sides. Humanism in education is supplanting +the older Humanitarianism. Interest in cultural values +is supplanting the earlier naturalism. Rousseau and Bentham +and Comte and D. F. Strauss and William Morris are +making way for the coming social psychologists. Social +philosophy becomes analytical. The sweeping generalizations +of Marx and the day dreams of Bellamy begin to have +interest chiefly for the historical student. Democratic +dogma, little questioned in the nineteenth century, is now +subjected to criticism. A different intellectual spirit is +abroad which necessarily modifies the general outlook of +those who share in it.</p> + +<p>Let us note more specifically some of the presuppositions +behind the Radical-Conservative dilemma. There is the +Humanitarian doctrine that man is naturally good and daily +growing better. All that is needed for his perfection is +freedom or opportunity. This assumption is common to +both parties, one holding that such opportunity is under the +present system granted to all who wish to take advantage +of it, the other that under the present system opportunity +is granted only to the privileged few and denied to the toiling +masses, who are kept down in wage slavery. All the +evils of human life are attributed to the present system. +Remove the evil system and everybody will be good and +happy. There is much talk about “the emancipation of +labor.” Both sides assume that social justice is possible, +each maintaining that its own triumph is the triumph of +justice. And both sides are disposed to estimate the values +of civilization and the meaning of personal success in terms +of material possession. The good life is the life of the man +with plenty of money. We hear much of the materialism +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>and the dominance of business interests today. Everyone +is urged to get ahead. A man measures his worth by the +amount of his income. Conservatives can see no ground for +dissatisfaction with a system which makes for unusual +prosperity. Radicals deny that prosperity is universal, +say that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting +poorer, interpret all history in terms of the struggle for +wealth, and spread before the masses the promise of abundance +with a minimum of toil. On both sides we find that +easy optimism which is said to be characteristic of half-educated +minds. It is assumed that the evils of the world +are only superficial, that they are contingent upon purely +environmental factors, and can be removed by legislation or +by mass action. Progress is assured. No one doubts that +a prosperous and happy life is possible to all if only wealth +were properly distributed. As the control of affairs passes +more and more completely into plebeian hands and as the +tastes and dilemmas of mediocrity come to set standards +of value, the world is supposed to be getting better.</p> + +<p>This questionable assumption leads to distortion of fact +by both parties, and must continue to do so as long as the +controversy is kept on this level. I wonder what would +happen if instead of merely drawing hasty inferences from +these naïve assumptions, it should become the practice to +examine them. Perhaps the issue might be re-stated in +more significant terms. But what concerns us at present +is not the social problem as such, but the fact that the attempt +to clear up the intellectual muddle about it means that +education is going on.</p> + +<p>A glance at the nature of the presuppositions we have +been discussing will help us to understand why it is that +they are so seldom examined. They flatter. Apart from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span>their radical or conservative implications, such ideas are +congenial to the average man. They pat him on the back. +It is no small satisfaction to believe that the environment +is responsible for all human ills, that evil may easily be removed +by mass action; that given material abundance, the +good life follows automatically; that distinctions among men +are reducible to economic factors; that the supremacy of +our own type is the goal of progress. I believe that the +level at which one’s education stops, the particular set of +dilemmas in which one’s mind becomes fixed is usually +determined by some self-satisfying assumption. If my ego +can remain elated over the possession of an automobile, or +the right to vote, or the belief that I and my kind are or +ought to be socially superior, or because I can play the +saxophone, or am able to resist the temptation to pick +pockets, the problems which have live interest for me will be +the problems which lie on these levels. I recently talked +with a man who was quite pleased with himself because for +some years he had not been in jail. He frequently compared +the advantages and disadvantages of life “on the +inside” and “on the outside.” To his mind all days and all +people were thought of as “inside” or “outside,” a point of +view which I imagine few people linger over or find personally +gratifying. But the virtues men pride themselves on +are as a rule those which compensate them for the particular +vices to which they are tempted.</p> + +<p>The house I live in had for a number of years been rented +to an elderly Scotch woman who kept it as a “rooming +house.” When she moved out she said to me, “I hear you +are going to do this house over and make it your own home. +Some day you may be sitting here and thinking, ‘What use +to go on in this house of mine?’ It’ll be a satisfaction to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span>you to know that you are in a respectable place. Never +once in all the years that I rented out furnished rooms did +the patrol wagon have to back up to this door at midnight.”</p> + +<p>The things which people find consoling both reveal and +determine the plane on which their thinking takes place. I +have heard a young man say with a note of defiance, “Yes, +sir, I’m a single-taxer and I’m proud of it.” So involved +is the ego in our dilemmas that we often require the assistance +of a specialist in getting over them. Psychoanalysts +whose task is chiefly that of helping people face certain +facts about themselves, speak of their work as re-education. +In a sense all education is re-education, the untying of the +knots in which our self esteem in its defense has entangled +itself. Perhaps nothing is so effective a bar to education +as intellectual immodesty. A man’s education stops at the +point where he becomes incapable of self-criticism. And +because egotism is always a bit ridiculous, the conceited mind +protects itself from criticism by making its interests sublime. +In the presence of the sublime, laughter is taboo. The +subject concerning which man has lost his sense of humor +is just the subject concerning which criticism leads to self-criticism. +There are persons who cannot take a joke about +“The Grand Old Party,” or the Government at Washington, +or the teachings of Karl Marx. Recently a group of church +men publicly denounced the New York newspapers because +of their humorous remarks about prohibition. Once when +I was asked for a definition of a radical I seriously offended +a prominent socialist with the innocent remark that a radical +is a man who loves Labor and hates work.</p> + +<p>Lack of humor is always evidence of unteachableness. +Ignorance is pompous. The holy tone with which people +proclaim their convictions is uncivilized. When the American +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span>people are better educated, there will be less solemn +pantomime in the land. We could not with straight faces +indulge ourselves in the hysterical reforms, the bitter partisanships, +religious fanaticism and race prejudice which at +present show how seriously we take ourselves. Education +should help people make an art of living, and the art of +living, like all arts, is play. Learn to play with your ideals, +even with your sublimities, and you will break the hold upon +you of many a crude and hampering dilemma.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII +<br> +THE FREE SPIRIT</h2></div> + + +<p>Freedom is not as precious to the members of this postwar +generation as it was to some of their ancestors. The +nation which once followed the leadership of Mazzini and +Garibaldi now suffers a dictatorship with apparently little +protest. In England, the stronghold of liberalism, a conservative +government places a censorship upon the words of +the man who is probably that country’s best-known writer. +Socialism has its beginnings in that passion for freedom and +humanity which inspired the youth of the early nineteenth +century and ends at Moscow with a constitution from which +even a Bill of Rights is omitted. In America we now see +that democracy does not guarantee liberty. The government +shows decreasing respect for the immunities of the individual. +Crowd movements spread intolerance and are +ever demanding more strict regulation in matters of personal +conduct and private judgment. One frequently hears +the remark, “The talk about personal liberty is disgusting +nonsense.”</p> + +<p>There are various reasons for this change of spirit. The +individual rather willingly permits himself to be transformed +from a private person to a numerical unit in his +group or mass because as part of a public he gains power +through the force of numbers. Individualism in a society in +which every one is chiefly interested in industrial competition +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span>tends to become little more than the stock argument of those +who wish to defend economic privilege. Other privileges +are lost sight of in a standardized world. Moreover, as +people begin to see that freedom is not something with +which all men are equally endowed by their creator, but is +achieved in varying degree, there is a tendency to minimize +its importance. We are naturally somewhat suspicious of +the freedom of others. Those who themselves have little +capacity for it would impose their own limitations upon all +others. From childhood onward we wish to be able to do +what we see others doing. When this is impossible, there +is a tendency to restrain them from doing what we cannot +do. Masterful spirits grant themselves privileges which +may appear wicked to the crowd. The free mind allows +too much. When on the other hand a person who has not +attained some degree of mastery declares his independence, +we do not speak of him as free, we say that he “takes liberties.”</p> + +<p>Thus where the ideals of the educated mind prevail there +is a general gain in freedom through increase in mastery. +Where the ideals of the ignorant and wrongly educated predominate, +there is a decline in freedom and an increase in +the disposition to take liberties. It is the custom today to +rule out of the consideration of values any reference to the +things of the mind, and to try to ground all values, freedom +included, on a strictly economic and legal foundation, as if +they were produced by and existed only for a brainless and +impersonal equilibrium of social forces. We are beginning +to see that for a people which loses sight of the inwardness +of the sources of freedom, constitutional guarantees do not +long guarantee, and each power-seeking group begins to take +liberties with the organized life of the community. The so-called +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span>liberalism of those modern writers who make apology +for this sort of thing has in it little of the spirit of liberal +education. It is rather the plebeianization of scholarship. +I as a liberal am not obliged to throw my hat in the air over +each degradation of value that marks the triumphant progress +of democracy.</p> + +<p>It is the ideal of the educated man, not the demands of the +crowd which is the best guarantee of freedom. I believe +we are chiefly indebted to this ideal for such freedom as we +enjoy. Education when it is genuine must for its own sake +move in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom. It must +wander where truth leads the way. It must attain independence +of judgment and a certain decent privacy for contemplation. +It is in itself freedom from servitude and from +routine. It broadens one’s interests and hence one’s sympathetic +understanding of others. Nothing human is +alien to it. The educated mind, having business of its +own, minds its own business. Hence it grows in tolerance. +Freedom is always freedom for something,—freedom of +speech, freedom of thought, freedom from meddlesome interference, +freedom from the crushing weight of authority +and tradition, freedom in matters of religious belief. +Every such freedom is largely the result of the influence of +education, and each exists in any community in inverse ratio +to its ignorance and provincialism.</p> + +<p>The classical tradition has its origin, as we saw, in the +efforts of Greek philosophers to teach free men the essentials +of the good life. It has by no means remained true to +its ideal, but each rediscovery of its meaning has had a +liberalizing effect. The modern sense of the worth of the +individual—which is only recently on the decline—and the +humanist philosophy of education alike show the influence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>of the Renaissance. The eighteenth century, stilted and +formal as it was, could with some justification call itself the +age of the Enlightenment. It was the age of Voltaire, the +age of great educational advance. It was also the age from +which we derive most of our pronouncements about liberty +and the rights of man. I would almost go so far as to say +that when education is not liberalizing, it is not really education +but is a highly systematized species of propaganda. +This liberalizing quality is so essential to education, and is +so clearly a way of the spiritual life, that its presence determines +the genuineness of any movement or philosophy +that may bear the name Liberalism.</p> + +<p>The term “free spirit” has been so frequently abused, +that I hesitate to use it. It suggests Rousseau’s Emile, +educated to obey only the benign laws of nature and his own +impulses. “He follows no formula, yields neither to authority +nor to example, and neither acts nor speaks save +as it seems best to him.” One thinks of such phrases as +Max Stirner’s “Ego and His Own,” or Whitman’s “Spontaneous +Me,” or “The Beautiful Soul” of nineteenth century +Romanticism. One is reminded of the young woman +from Nebraska who came to live in Greenwich Village, New +York City, and said her soul felt as if it had taken off its +shoes and stockings. The cult of spiritual freedom had +quite a vogue in New York a few years ago. I believe it +originated in the Latin Quarter of Paris. The devotee +of it displayed his free spirit by wearing a flowing tie and +corduroy trousers, by his obvious disdain of barbershops +and laundries, by his talk which was mostly about sex, socialism +and the new art, and by his general air of lassitude +and disillusionment.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span></p> +<p>I believe that this pose, together with much of the sentimental +liberalism which passes for “emancipation” among +intellectuals, may be traced back to Jean Jacques Rousseau. +Nearly all the basic ideas of contemporary liberalism as well +as those of the “newer education” frequently associated with +the liberal movement, may be found in the writings of Rousseau. +It is amusing to hear liberals proclaim these old +ideas as if they were the most advanced theories of life and +education. And you have but to compare Rousseau with +Erasmus or Voltaire or Huxley to see how far away he is +from the spirit of liberal education. The latter is tender-hearted +and hard-headed. Rousseau is soft-headed and +hard-hearted. An emotional egoism feeds on dreams of +social revolt and of an idyllic return to nature. Rousseau +hates civilization, with its duties and responsibilities. He +becomes romantic and sentimental about Nature. His ideal +of the free man is Robinson Crusoe. “We are born sensible.” +“The natural man is complete in himself; he is the +numerical unit, the absolute whole, who is related only to +himself or to his fellow-man. Civilized man is but a fractional +unit.” “Civilized man is born, lives and dies in a +state of slavery. At his birth he is stitched in swaddling +clothes; at his death he is nailed in a coffin, and as long as +he preserves the human form he is fettered by our institutions.” +Hence if you would educate, “Observe nature and +follow the route which she traces for you.” “All wickedness +comes from weakness. A child is bad only because he +is weak; make him strong and he will be good.” “Keep the +child dependent on things alone, and you will have followed +the order of nature in his education.” “Do not let him +know what obedience is when he acts, nor what control is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span>when others act for him. Equally in his actions and in +yours let him feel his liberty.”</p> + +<p>“O men, be humane; it is your foremost duty.... Why +would you take from those little innocents the enjoyment of +a time so short and of a good so precious which they cannot +abuse? Why would you fill with bitterness and sorrow +those early years so rapidly passing, which will no more return +to them than to you? Fathers, do you know the moment +when death awaits your children? Do not prepare +for yourselves regrets by taking from them the few moments +which nature has given them.”</p> + +<p>“The only habit which a child should be allowed to form +is to contract no habit whatsoever.”</p> + +<p>“It is absolutely certain that the learned societies of Europe +are but so many public schools of falsehood; and very +surely there are more errors in the Academy of Sciences +than in the whole tribe of Hurons.”</p> + +<p>“Happy the people among whom one can be good without +effort and just without virtue.”</p> + +<p>I trust that these passages selected almost at random from +Rousseau’s treatise on education, “Emile,” do not give a +wholly unfair impression of this author’s philosophy of life. +Man in the state of nature is wise and good. Civilization +has corrupted him by enslaving him. If he does evil it is +not because he is bad, but because he is weak. We should +not hang the criminal but blame the society which made him +what he is.</p> + +<p>The proper function of education is to enable the individual—the +little innocent—to grow up naturally without discipline, +without forming any habits, never sacrificing present +enjoyment to future knowledge, inspired always by the ideal +of that happy state in which one may be good without effort. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span>The ideal education therefore is the life of the North American +aborigine or what Rousseau imagined such a life to be. +Freedom here is the return to nature.</p> + +<p>From the times of Hobbes and of Montaigne onward +there seems to have been a growing interest in “Man in the +state of nature.” But whereas with most writers this interest +was largely a matter of theory and speculation, with +Rousseau man in the state of nature becomes an ideal, a +norm.</p> + +<p>It would appear that in this dream of the return to nature, +there is symbolized an infantile wish to escape from the +tasks and responsibilities and restraints of adult life. Psychologists +speak of such an “infantile return” as <i>regression</i>. +This regressive ideal of freedom is a very different thing +from the liberalizing influence of education as I understand +it. I have characterized education as a victory won over +one’s wish-fancies and childish egoism, as the lifting of the +problems of life to higher and more significant dilemmas, +as the attainment of mastery. A humanistic liberalism +seeks freedom as broadmindedness; it strives for a highly +civilized, urbane and sophisticated state of mind in which insight +is deepened and interest is widened. Rousseauian +liberalism seeks freedom in relaxation of effort, in denial +of the claims of civilization, in the idealization of nature and +of primitive man.</p> + +<p>Many persons who today style themselves liberals are of +the Rousseauian type. There are those who proudly call +themselves rebels. A certain naturalism is carried to the +point of hostility to form as such and to orderliness of any +sort. There is frequently a disdain of “respectability,” and +a tendency to play the intellectual vagabond. I think this is +one reason why certain liberals are much taken with modern +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>imitations of the primitive in art. The element of regression +which characterizes the paintings and sculpture of certain +“rebels” is patent to the psychologist. Many of these +works of art closely resemble the typical drawings of dementia +praecox patients. In dementia, regression, or infantile +return, is complete and final. The patient is free +from a disturbing world, having returned to precisely the +“sensibility,” as Rousseau terms it, with which he was born.</p> + +<p>Utopian schemes of social reconstruction, and the notion +that merely changing the present system would put an end +once for all to human misery, are in many cases disguised +forms of the wish to return to childhood and thus escape the +vicissitudes of adult life in civilized society. The burden +of our industrial civilization is so great that it is no wonder +many should take this path of escape. However, the utopian +fantasy is by no means confined to those who have the +hardest struggle. And there can be no objection to it when +it inspires well-considered efforts for social improvement. +There is a type of “liberal” however, who regards the attempt +to solve any concrete problem of civilization as a +compromise of his idealism.</p> + +<p>Another aspect of the philosophy of Rousseau has influenced +contemporary liberalism with somewhat paradoxical +results. The basis of that happy state in which one +may be just without virtue is elaborated in “The Social Contract.” +Rousseau was not the first to hold the contract +theory of organized society. Both Hobbes and Locke +made use of this idea. But with Rousseau it becomes a doctrine +with distinctly illiberal implications. The argument +is somewhat as follows:</p> + +<p>Man finds it impossible to continue in the blissful state +of nature. In order to preserve their freedom, men voluntarily +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span>enter into a mutual agreement, according to which each +gives over his individual sovereignty and receives back an +equal portion of the common will, leaving him as free as he +was before. Thus there comes into being a collective sovereign +power. All others are of course usurpations and are +destructive of freedom. This new sovereign can do no +wrong, there is no need to protect the individual against it +because it is made up precisely of the wills of all individuals, +and the people will not do injury to themselves since each +seeks happiness. Such sovereignty, which is really the absolute +dominion of the mass over its members, can neither +be delegated nor divided, and its exercise is <i>liberty</i>.</p> + +<p>But is it? This tree is known by the fruit it bears. Notice +that for purposes of this theory, all aspects of the individual +will are now denied except those which may be +pooled into a sort of group will and drawn out again in equal +and identical portions for all men. That is, society is transformed +from a plurality of individuals to the unity of a +mass. Man acting as a mass unit takes precedence in all +things over man acting as a private person. Privacy is +gone. Liberty is not personal independence, but the freedom +of the group to do what it wills unchecked. Mass +action can do no wrong. According to the logic of this view +no proper bounds may be set to the rule of “the people,” +except such as the sovereign will itself chooses to set. Accordingly, +liberty becomes the rule of all over each in any +matter whatsoever concerning which neighbors choose to +restrain or meddle with one another. This means that myself +as person must in all things take orders from that attenuated +public-meeting self of me and of other men which +we have each received in equal portion from the mass will. +Everything unique in me is whittled away from this mass-self +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span>and I count only by virtue of my membership as a +numerical unit of the group. And now since any check or +hindrance to the sovereignty of the mass is seen as an unjustifiable +restriction upon its liberty, there is a tendency to +extend the tyranny of the mass to every possible human +concern. The demand for liberty is no longer the assertion +of the right of private judgment for those capable of +exercising it; it is “Let the people rule.” No wonder men +come to distinguish between personal liberty and the rights +of The People. The idolatry of the mass turns freedom +inside out.</p> + +<p>So much for theory. In common practice each majority +tends to regard itself as the sovereign will and play the +tyrant, all in the name of liberty. Each militant minority +and struggle group in society seeks by hook or crook to capture +the machinery of law and force its will upon the public, +and in the effort to make its own group will the sovereign +will, the members of each group persuade themselves that in +thus resisting restraint upon their particular mass movement +they are fighting for liberty. A spirit of factiousness +spreads through the community, restriction and regulation +increase and multiply, all in the exercise of crowd-liberty. +If your crowd is now in possession of social power, you are +called a conservative. If it is still struggling to make its +will supreme, you may call yourself a liberal. It is an ironical +turn of history that brings it about that many restrictions +upon the freedom of the individual are advocated in the +name of liberalism. Liberalism shades off into a form of +radicalism which would set up a dictatorship to accomplish +its ends. Many people use the terms interchangeably. +Radicals in recent years, as the illiberal aims of the movement +unmask themselves, tend to repudiate the name liberal, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span>and to denounce the liberal as one who having started out +along a certain road, hesitates or turns back at the last +minute. Such liberalism finds itself in the difficult position +of having proposed measures which it hesitated to carry +out. It is embarrassed by its own radical offspring.</p> + +<p>Such liberalism has little in common with that which is +the aim of liberal education. As it appears in contemporary +America, it is a sort of abortive mass movement caused by +the mingling of two social philosophies which for want of +better terms I will call the Lockean and the Rousseauian +traditions.</p> + +<p>John Locke wrote his essay on Government at the close +of the seventeenth century. This book together with his +“Essay on the Human Understanding,” did much to shape +the thinking of the eighteenth century, and made a strong +impression upon Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, Jefferson +and other leaders of the American Revolution. The “self-evident +truths” set forth in our Declaration of Independence +clearly reveal this influence. I do not wish to imply that +Locke was the author of American liberalism. He merely +has his place in a tradition which goes back to Magna Charta +and is essentially British. The quarrel between the colonies +and the ministers of King George was a phase of the greater +struggle between Parliament and the crown. For centuries +the Englishman has stood up for his individual rights, has +stubbornly resisted any attempt of the sovereign to invade +his privacy or to seize his property without his consent. +The Englishman is naturally jealous of his government. +He looks upon it with suspicion and seeks to limit its exercise +of power. He gives it no peace until it guarantees him +security from interference with his personal freedom. +Jefferson’s remark that that government is best which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span>governs least is typical of the spirit of British liberalism. +It was this spirit which inspired the revolt of the Puritans +against both the King and the Church. The same sentiment +is expressed in the petition of Rights which was presented +to the throne about the time that Locke wrote the essay on +government. And it was in this same spirit that the founders +of the Republic framed the Constitution of the United +States. They rather grudgingly granted the government +certain specific powers, and sought by means of various +checks and balances to limit the exercise of them. Even +then the public was so alive to the dangers of the new +sovereignty that it refused to adopt the constitution until +it was amended by the addition of the Bill of Rights.</p> + +<p>There were added to this assertion of the inalienable +rights of the individual in opposition to the sovereign power +the deeper sense of the importance of the individual gained +in the Reformation, and the insistence upon the right and +duty of exercising private judgment which came with the +rationalism of the eighteenth century. The eighteenth +century, with its “appeal to reason” in opposition to the +authority of priest and Bible, was in fact an intellectual +declaration of independence which became for educated +minds an essential part of the liberal tradition. Liberalism +owes much to the Deists and men like Hume. It is not a +mere coincidence that a large number of the leaders of the +American Revolution were “freethinkers.” Thus liberalism +became something more than a political movement. It +became a philosophy of personal liberty, of independence +of authority, of tolerance. The rights which the liberal +claimed for himself he was—at least in theory—willing to +grant to others. He took the side of the “under dog.” +The tradition is best represented in England by such men +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span>as Priestley, Martineau, Kingsley, Cobden, Bright, Morley, +J. S. Mill, Huxley, and in America by Paine, Jefferson, +Channing, Emerson, Theodore Parker, Lincoln, and Ingersoll.</p> + +<p>The decline of liberalism to the level of Bryanism, the +betrayal by “One Hundred Percent Americanism” of the +spirit in which the Republic was founded, the spread of +bigotry among the masses, the prevailing partisan spirit and +the illiberalism of professed “liberals,” the changing of our +constitution from a guarantee of personal liberty to the +authorization of Federal interference with the daily habits +and customs of the individual—these are not matters for +which we may hold recent immigrants responsible. They +are, I regret to say, symptomatic of tendencies which are +most commonly manifest among Americans of British descent. +They show how far the spirit of a nation may drift +in one hundred and fifty years when it renounces its intellectual +leadership.</p> + +<p>Liberalism as a political movement was early divorced +from liberalism as an intellectual movement. The former +became Andrew Jacksonism, “shirt-sleeve democracy,” free-soil-ism, +abolitionism, populism, the Single Tax movement, +opposition to big business, Progressiveism. Ever since the +time of the settlement of New England the pioneer and +frontiersman, the “debtor class,” the town laborer and the +farmer, have had to carry on a struggle against the “money +powers” of the large industrial centers. The conflict of +“the poor against the rich”—generally characterized by a +demand for governmental regulation of industry and cheap +money—reached its culmination in the “Free Silver” issue +of 1896. Of this “battle for humanity,” the author of +“Our Times” quotes William Allen White.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span></p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“It was a fanaticism like the Crusades. Indeed, the delusion that +was working on the people took the form of religious frenzy. Sacred +hymns were torn from their pious tunes to give place to words which +deified the cause and made gold—and all its symbols, capital, wealth, +plutocracy—diabolical. At night, from ten thousand little white +schoolhouse windows, lights twinkled back vain hope to the stars. +For the thousands who assembled under the schoolhouse lamps believed +that when their legislature met and their governor was elected, +the millennium would come by proclamation. They sang their barbaric +songs in unrhythmic jargon, with something of the same mad +faith that inspired the martyrs going to the stake. Far into the night +the voices rose—women’s voices, children’s voices, the voices of old +men, of youths and of maidens, rose on the ebbing prairie breezes, as +the crusaders of the revolution rode home, praising the people’s will +as though it were God’s will, and cursing wealth for its iniquity. +It was a season of shibboleths and fetiches and slogans. Reason +slept; and the passions—jealousy, covetousness, hatred—ran amuck; +and whoever would check them was crucified in public contumely.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The demand for governmental regulation has been on +the increase since 1896 and has almost worked a revolution +in our form of government. I will not discuss the degree +to which such an extension of the powers of the central +government is desirable. I am aware of the fact that the +motive is largely that of protecting the economic independence +of the average individual. The point I wish to make +is that the methods advocated reveal the change that has +come over liberalism. Notwithstanding Jefferson’s statement +about the government which governed least, the extensions +of the powers of government have not ever been +limited to matters industrial, and we find men calling themselves +liberals accepting all sorts of restrictions upon their +liberty without complaint. Liberalism has taken on a +partisan spirit with all the intolerance, hysteria, and coerciveness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>that usually characterizes crowd movements. The +same elements that voted “liberal” with Mr. Bryan thirty +years ago, later supported Bryan the fundamentalist, and +today are staunch prohibitionists. I cannot help feeling +that something of the fundamentalist was lurking under the +skin of the American liberal all along. The tradition of +personal independence derived from our British ancestors +had about reached this stage of decline, when efforts were +made to supplant it with a very different type of liberalism +from continental Europe.</p> + +<p>The “old liberalism” was in theory individualistic; the +“new liberalism” was socialistic. It brought with it such +ideas as “the class struggle,” “mass action,” the “cooperative +commonwealth.” Freedom was to be gained for all +in the form of the “emancipation” of the working class. +Youthful intellectuals idealized the proletariat, organized +socialist locals, talked about the “materialist interpretation +of history,” denounced “the capitalists,” addressed one +another as “comrade,” closed their letters to one another +with the words, “Yours for the Revolution,” and a few took +the trouble to study the writings of Karl Marx. The old +liberalism was seen as mere “bourgeois idealogy,” mental +slavery, a system of ideas fabricated by the master class +in order to keep the working class in perpetual wage slavery. +The new liberal felt himself intellectually emancipated. If +he was very, very liberal, he styled himself a radical. The +movement reached its maximum strength about the year +1910, and then began to decline. It appealed to some who +had been liberals of the older American type, but the response +of labor was negligible. Radicalism professed to be +a spontaneous revolt of oppressed working people. In fact +it was a cult, with its dogmas about labor, which existed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span>chiefly among middle-class intellectuals. Its leaders—and +it consisted mostly of leaders with very little rank and file—were +seldom working men.</p> + +<p>Although its economic creed is the product of the nineteenth +century, a study of the history of this movement +would show it to be in direct line of descent from Rousseau. +Many of the basic ideas are distinctly Rousseauian. Civilization, +which Rousseau hated, is now the wicked capitalist +system. There is the same emphasis on the collective will, +on mass action, on the idea of revolution, the same belief +that The People is the only rightful sovereign, that society +exists by virtue of a sort of covenant among men which +can be altered at will, and that universal happiness may be +attained by changing the system which is responsible for all +misery and misbehavior.</p> + +<p>Radicalism, carried to its logical conclusion, is Communism, +in which there is no pretense of liberalism, no place +for freedom. It has greatest appeal for a type of mind +which is by nature doctrinaire and inelastic, and its propaganda +tends to fixed opinion and to illiberalism. A generation +ago Nietzsche said of it,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“In every country of Europe, and the same in America, there is +at present something which makes an abuse of this name: a very +narrow, prepossessed, enchained class of spirits, who desire almost +the opposite of what our intentions and instincts prompt.... +Briefly and regrettably, they belong to the <i>levellers</i>, these wrongly +named free spirits—as glib-tongued and scribe-fingered slaves of +the democratic taste and its modern ideas: all of them men without +solitude, without personal solitude, blunt honest fellows to whom +neither courage nor honorable conduct ought to be denied; only, +they are not free, and are ludicrously superficial, especially in their +innate partiality for seeing the cause of almost <i>all</i> human misery and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span>failure in the old forms in which society has hitherto existed—a notion +which happily inverts the truth entirely! What they would +fain attain with all their strength, is the universal, green-meadow +happiness of the herd, together with security, safety, comfort, and +alleviation of life for everyone.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The word liberal is commonly associated with that extension +of democracy which the crowd thinks is progress. +If you favor this progress, you are said to be a liberal. If +you doubt that it is progress you are thought to oppose +progress as such and so are a conservative. If the progress +of democracy were accompanied by a corresponding advance +of culture and gain in wisdom and broadmindedness, this use +of the term liberal would be appropriate.</p> + +<p>Men become free only as they achieve self-government. +I take it that a man governs himself to the degree that he +acts upon his own judgment. Freedom thus presupposes +first that people are capable of judging things for themselves, +and second, that they are permitted to do so. If the +progress of democracy resulted in fewer laws and wiser +laws, we should in time have self-government. But the +reverse is the case: the extension of democracy brings about +an extension of the powers of government and the multiplication +of foolish laws. It does not follow that people’s judgment +is improved because they can vote about more and +more things. Nor is there any assurance that they will not +begin voting about things that are none of their business and +thus destroy the right of private judgment, which is the +exercise of freedom. You do not decide things for yourself +when everything is submitted to a referendum or regulated +by the legislature. If the people or their representatives +should vote to establish a censorship of books, or to +prohibit smoking tobacco, or to compel church attendance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>on Sunday, that would be democracy; but it would not be a +gain for freedom. Self-government is impossible when +every private matter is turned into a public question. Men +with third-rate minds—and there are enough of them once +they get together to constitute a solid majority—shrink +from the responsibility of exercising private judgment, but +are prepared and eager to decide any matter whatsoever +once it becomes a public issue. They are, moreover, disinclined +to allow a large measure of personal freedom to one +another or to any one. Self-government in a democracy +therefore means not private judgment but national independence, +universal franchise, and no constitutional restraints +upon the will of the majority. In common practice, +“liberty” is the legally recognized right of the crowd to tell +the individual what he may not do in matters which concern +only himself. Any man has <i>liberty</i> when he has a voice +in the government of the land. He has <i>freedom</i> when he +governs himself. His freedom may be prevented either +by lack of judgment or by outside interference. The effect +of education in the community is to improve judgment and +lessen outside interference with the exercise of it. Properly +defined, a liberal is a person who strives for precisely these +results. Liberalism, in this sense, and education are the +same.</p> + +<p>I said that a man is free when he acts according to his +own judgment. This does not mean that the free man is +able to choose anything he wishes. Necessity constrains +him just as it does the unfree. It means, however, that his +assent or dissent in any matter follows from his personal +insight into the implications of the situation. He does the +required thing even when he does not like it, because he +has the intelligence to see that it is required under the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span>circumstances. He is not compelled to take some other +person’s word as to what is required. He is free not only +because he is independent of the will of another in reaching +his decision, but primarily because he knows what he is doing +and why he does it.</p> + +<p>There is a very old, extra-canonical legend according to +which the Lord Jesus, passing by, saw a man digging in the +field on the Sabbath day, and he said to the man, “If thou +knowest what thou doest, blesséd art thou; if thou knowest +not, curséd art thou.”</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII +<br> +THE APPRECIATION OF HUMAN WORTH</h2></div> + + +<p>I have a number of neighbors whose sons and daughters +are at present suffering the agony of preparation for college. +What a nightmare it is possible to make of education! +Three or four years of attendance at expensive private +schools where the sole aim seems to be to get the student +through his college entrance examinations with a passing +grade. Students terrified, parents anxiously awaiting reports +of work done or not done, teachers tired out, one +student fails in his Latin, another in algebra, a third is sent +home because of loss of interest in study, and there are tears, +family conferences, special tutors, reviews and memory +drills in vacation time, until finally the student “gets +through” and drops the subject, his interest in it dead.</p> + +<p>I am not one of those who believe that education may be +achieved without effort. But study is not work only, it is +also a form a enjoyment. There are many things which +it is a delight to know, not because such knowledge is useful +or is required for a passing grade, but because it is an aid +to the appreciation of value. It is fun.</p> + +<p>There are people who attend concerts from a sense of +duty, striving thereby to improve their souls, but it is possible +to listen to music with no other motive than the wish +to enjoy it. It is the person who enjoys music who in the +end becomes the discriminating listener. The same is true +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>of the reading of books. William James once said the +classics are necessary to education because knowledge of +them makes us “connoisseurs of human excellence.” Literature +has a charm which is often lost when it is made “required +reading.”</p> + +<p>An intelligent boy of seventeen who was having difficulty +with his school work recently said to me, “I think it is because +I really am not interested, and the things I wish to +know they do not teach in our school because the colleges +will not give credit for them.” When I asked him what +study would interest him, he replied that he thought he +would like to try philosophy and requested me to suggest +a good book for a beginner, declaring that he intended to +take up this study in addition to his school work.</p> + +<p>I have no doubt that had he made this request of one of +his instructors he would have been told that he had better +spend his time preparing his lessons. But I took a chance +that his interest might be genuine, and told him that I +thought he would find Plato’s “Republic” a good introduction +to Philosophy, and suggested that he read the first four +books. During the previous semester he had been permitted +to drop one of his courses because reading was “too +great a strain upon his eyes.” When I next saw the boy +I inquired how he had got on with the “Republic.” He +said, “Why, I found it so exciting that I did not stop at the +end of the first four books, but read all ten.” When I asked +him what he found interesting in the dialogues, he said, “I +do not understand many of the conclusions they reached, +but I enjoyed listening in on those conversations. They are +so logical, and I liked the way Socrates leads the others +along, springs surprises on them, and makes them see what +they mean by what they say. I begin to see what the difference +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span>is between thinking and just talking—and many +passages were beautiful also.” For the first time in his life, +he had realized that the pursuit of knowledge could be an +interesting adventure. Moreover, his parents told me that +he had shown improvement in his regular studies.</p> + +<p>When the ancients said that knowledge is knowledge of +the good, they meant in part that with the increase of knowledge +comes better discrimination. If education is <i>for</i> anything +it is that we learn to choose the good. By the “good” +I do not mean good in general, or good as an abstraction of +philosophical discourse, nor the conventionally good. I +mean any excellence whatsoever. In order to see and appreciate +excellence, you must yourself have struggled for it. +He who has never striven to surpass himself, surrounds +himself with the shoddy, the second-rate, the cheap. In +matters of taste, of sentiment, of good workmanship, he cannot +distinguish between that which is genuine and that which +is imitation. In matters of taste there is much that is +purely arbitrary and conventional, so that what is good taste +in one age may be bad taste in another. Nevertheless, +there is a psychological soundness in our use of the word +taste to designate certain judgments of worth. It implies +some degree of self-restraint, a sensitiveness to subtle stimuli +which comes with the habit of giving attention to minute +differences of quality. In contrast, animals which gulp +down their food hastily and in great quantities do not pause +to taste it. Similarly, the mind which has not disciplined +itself “swallows things whole,” as we say. It is not disturbed +by the incongruous or the hideous. It is sensitive +only to coarser stimuli: it prefers the hackneyed, the raucous, +the loud and flashy.</p> + +<p>I once knew a church in a small town which worshipped in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>a plain rectangular old building with colonial windows. +When a rival denomination erected a monstrous building +with a huge circular stained-glass window facing the street, +the group which worshipped in the old structure became dissatisfied. +After much difficulty in securing the money, a +committee was sent to a near-by city and purchased a quantity +of gaudily-colored translucent paper similar to that one +used occasionally to see on the front door of a saloon. +This paper the congregation proudly pasted on its colonial +window panes.</p> + +<p>The architecture of the average church in this country +and the hymns the people sing are much better indications +of the level of their spiritual life than are the creeds they +profess. The general cultural level of the population is +revealed by the style of houses men build, the kind of furniture +with which they surround themselves, the type of +motion picture which becomes popular, the magazines on +the news stands, the character of the journals which have +the largest circulation, the “song hits” of the day, the programs +which are broadcast for the radio. These things all +have spiritual significance, they indicate a prevailing type of +reaction toward all the values of experience.</p> + +<p>The public is curiously indifferent to the lack of genuineness +of sentiment; “hocum” and bathos; deliberate and obvious +counterfeits of emotional reactions characterize practically +every appeal to the general public. Think of the +popularity of a play like “Abie’s Irish Rose,” or of that, a +generation ago, of a song like “After the Ball,” or of a +book like “The Man Nobody Knows.” Think of the typical +Chautauqua lecture or political address. Think of the +notorious insincerity of the motion pictures. People ask, +“What is the matter with the movies?” The answer is, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span>audience. Half-educated people do not seem to be sensitive +to the difference either between good and bad workmanship +or between artistic sincerity and insincerity. +Standards of value, in all the older forms of art, have been +set by the knowing ones. The artist was obliged to submit +his creation to the criticism of persons who had some +background of tradition and general knowledge. With the +quantity production methods of the motion pictures, it becomes +possible for the first time to make the man on the +street the critic, on whose judgment depends survival, and +as the New Testament says, “By what judgment ye judge, +ye shall be judged.” In selecting our preferences we pass +judgment on ourselves.</p> + +<p>The multitude dupes itself with its desire to get something +for nothing; hence its love of the miraculous. All appeals +to it are thus over-capitalized, and made to appear +grand and glorious. Shirking the effort necessary for real +achievement leads to the preference of quackery. There +is a story that a physician who had yielded to the temptation +to make easy money by advertising himself as the discoverer +of a magic remedy for disease, received a call from a former +friend and colleague who disapproved of the practice. +When the visitor sought to persuade him that such methods +would not pay, the other stepped to the window and said, +“Come now, look with me at the faces of the people passing +along the street; how many of them do you think would become +your patients and how many mine?” I am told by a +professor of biology who gives a pre-medical course in a +Western university that less than a third of the cases of +sickness in the country are treated by reputable members of +the medical profession.</p> + +<p>I have been somewhat interested in the popularization of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span>psychology. On the occasion of a visit to a great public +library, I was assured by the librarian that there was a tremendous +popular demand for books which deal with the subject +of psychology. I was shown a section in which these +books were kept so that they would be easily accessible. +The greater number were written by persons who had no +knowledge of the subject. They were utterly misleading. +Psychology was commonly presented as a wonderful, easily +practiced device for performing miracles, a system of secret +formulae for curing disease, for getting into harmony with +the divine source of all being, for manipulating the “subconscious” +in ways that assured peace, prosperity, self-mastery, +and power over others. I think it is a conservative +statement to say that nine-tenths of the stuff that bears +the name “Psychology” in popular magazines devoted to +the subject, in widely advertised books, in lectures and correspondence +courses in self-improvement, is pure charlatanism +and sleight-of-hand arranged for those who wish to +indulge themselves in systematic self-deception. It is not +mere lack of information which causes people to prefer the +cheap. With respect to the things of the mind, people +have various standards of living.</p> + +<p>A teacher of economics says that by a person’s standard +of living we mean to designate those things which he insists +upon having even if it is necessary to give up marriage and +parenthood to possess them. However much people may +desire and strive for comfort and abundance, from the standpoint +of economics, those who marry and beget children in +poverty have a low standard of living. Hence the standard +is not directly a function of the amount of per capita wealth, +but is psychologically determined. And the standard often +applies to other things besides material possession. Persons +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span>who have a high standard are often poor. They might +easily turn their efforts to the acquiring of wealth, but they +will deprive themselves and postpone marriage for the sake +of some cultural interest, education, a scholarly or literary +career. They will go without a motor car in order to have +money to buy books. It would be interesting to make a +comparative study of the families of college professors and +certain groups of artisans, who have about the same income +as that of the average professor, in order to see which type +had the greater number of children, and which sent the +greater number of their young people to college, also which +possessed the greater number of automobiles or radios. +Thus the standard of living applies not to what one wishes +to possess, but to what one is willing to pay for a certain +kind of living. It has to do with quality, not mere quantity. +This principle applies to intellectual standards of +value. People are content with the second-rate because it +is easier.</p> + +<p>With learning there comes a new reverence. Perhaps +I might speak of it as the educated man’s faith. Respect +for the excellent is possible only to a mind which has learned +to recognize distinctions of worth. An undiscriminating +multitude clings to its idols or substitutes new idolatries for +old precisely because it is blind to those differences of value +which constitute the meaning of existence for mankind. +People seek something “given” to believe in, some universal +formula of salvation, because they are unable to distinguish +the relative worth of concrete experiences actual or possible. +Those who shrink from the responsibility of their own yes +or no take refuge in an imaginary <i>cosmic</i> yes and no. But +ground your faith in the difference between the better and +the worse, and you have a faith which grows stronger with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span>the increase of knowledge. All other “faiths” grow weaker +because they are substitutes and evasions, futile attempts to +possess value without the exercise of discrimination.</p> + +<p>If existence as a whole has a purpose or a universal meaning, +I do not see how our minds could know it, or what use +it could ever be to the mind that grasped it. I have tried to +show that our thoughts and beliefs are <i>human ways</i>, that our +thinking is partial. As James said, all meanings depend +upon the fact that we are “interested spectators” and prefer +some things to others. Aside from our human interests +and preferences, everything being so far as we can see +equally inevitable, has the same degree of existence, or right +to be, and all is equally important. Nothing then has any +special importance. And if nothing is important, nothing +has any meaning. It might be said that each thing has +meaning for the whole. But since the whole lies beyond +our ken, such a statement does not help us much. The +world of meanings and of truths therefore does not have +an independent existence but is related to our preferences +and is a human creation. I am not, however, at present +concerned with the problem of the meaning of truth. Truth +is itself a value. I am trying to state a simple creed by +which a man may best order his life and discover that which +an intelligent mind may reverence. It is, “I believe in the +distinction of worth.”</p> + +<p>The loss of belief in distinction turns both society and the +world of values upside down. It is symptomatic of the +dominance of mediocrity. With the degradation of power +there is a corresponding degradation of value. The power +which rules the modern world is the power of numbers. +Many will say it is the power of money. This too is a +numerical force, having nothing to do with quality or the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span>discrimination of value: the possession of money does +not as such lift the possessor out of the mass. There is +much talk about the conflict of the masses with the capitalists, +but since on both sides the struggle is one for economic +advantage rather than for spiritual value, it may be regarded +merely as the conflict between successful and unsuccessful +mass units over a common interest. Money power and the +power of numbers are not really a confrontation of contrasting +valuations of the possibilities of experience. On +both sides the conflict is waged on about the same level and +for identical ends. Capitalism is not really the foe of +democracy, it is democracy’s first-born child. The self-made +successful business man is the “success” in democratic +society, its ideal. He is what the mass as a whole strives +to become. Some people think this is individualism. Infrequently +it is, usually it is not. Dollars still are numbered, +and money power is the power of numbers. Its power is +the same as concentrated mass power, since it is of this same +order. We speak of “amassing” money. The mass idea +and the ideals of the mass prevail all round. Capitalism +holds sway by virtue of its mass appeal, and by virtue of the +fact that the capitalist is the realization of the average +man’s ambition. The mass because it is powerful and can +grant or withold favors, lords it over the realm of values. +Emphasis is laid upon that which produces an identical type +of reaction in a maximum number of people. The commonplace +is rated high because it is the average.</p> + +<p>The rare, the unique, the excellent, cannot be syndicated +and drops out of consideration. The standards which prevail +are those of undifferentiated men. Mass appeal asserts +the equal importance of all individuals, as if a man’s worth +consisted in his mere “number-oneness.” This is the democratic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span>dogma of equality. Critics of the dogma frequently +say that it represents the foolish attempt to declare all men +equal in all respects. I doubt this. It seems to me that +this dogma is perfectly correct so far as it goes. It declares +all men to be equal <i>before the law</i>. And law is no respecter +of persons, hence all men are equal before that which does +not respect their personalities. Which is to say that all +men are equal in one respect—that each is a numerical unit +when he is considered as a member of the mass. It is not +denied that men may be unequal in other respects. The +point is that these “other respects” do not get a hearing. +But the only recognition of the individual that amounts to +anything is that which recognizes the differences of one from +another.</p> + +<p>When we emphasize excellence, good workmanship, +sincerity, ability, virtue, wisdom, we have in mind matters +concerning which the differences among men are the differences +between superiority and inferiority. Hence discrimination +of value is recognition of distinctions of worth +among men. Lose sight of distinctions of worth—of the +very desirability of distinction as a social good—and all +values decline to the level of mediocrity.</p> + +<p>In the supremacy of man as mass the mediocre man, he +who in all things corresponds to type, and is most reducible +to average, is King. For him books and journals are published; +clergymen and editors speak for him and say what +they think he believes; laws are made in his interest. Programs +for the radio and motion pictures are made to please +him. His dilemmas are held up as the dilemmas of every +one. His goods become the standards to which all are +expected to conform. He has purchasing power and he +has votes. He can make and unmake heroes. He determines +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span>the direction of the course of events in his day and +generation. Society moves in the direction of the type of +man about whom there is most general concern, the man +whose preferences set the pace.</p> + +<p>The goal set by “modern ideas” would seem to be not +the attainment of a higher level of values, not greater personal +worth among men, but the more complete supremacy +of man as mass. Recognition of personal worth is discouraged, +for it necessitates the admission that some persons +are by nature, or as a result of effort, superior to others. +Such an admission is contrary to the idealization of the mass, +which is the worship of the power of numbers. Personal +distinction is frowned upon and discounted. Differences +of superiority or inferiority are, if grudgingly admitted, said +to be the result not of difference in native endowment or of +individual achievement, but mere products of environment. +Hence human excellence is an accident.</p> + +<p>There is a wide-spread tendency to minimize and deny +the significance of personality. An advanced school of +psychology holds that belief in the existence of personality +is a superstition. Personality is simply the way the nervous +organization works and is similar to the running of a gas +engine. Any hereditary differences of capacity or of teachableness +are negligible. All individual traits are reducible +to conditioned reflexes which are what they are because of +the coincidence of certain stimuli. I am what I am because +somebody co-operating with the environment conditioned +me in this way. I have absolutely nothing to do with the +matter. Consciousness, interest, attention, will, have no +place in this psychology. The same may be said of all attempts +to explain the phenomena of life in mechanistic +terms. Historic movements are explained as if individuals +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span>had nothing to do with them. Social change is said to be +the product of impersonal economic forces, and progress +the result of mass action. Thus the Great Man at best +only represents the mass tendencies of his times. Even for +discoveries in science and creative achievement in the arts, +the mass is given credit although it may have resisted these +things when they were new.</p> + +<p>I believe that such attempts to <i>depersonalize</i> humanity +are consciously or unconsciously motivated by the wish to +avoid the recognition of the possibility of superiority in an +age when the values of civilization are largely committed +to the tender custody of man acting as mass in the struggle +for power. Whether distinctions of worth are recognized +or not, deny that they may exist, deny that men may have +greater or less worth in themselves, and human achievement +becomes merely the attainment of bodily comfort, or social +power, or satisfaction of egoistic desires. There are many +who would hold that such is the case. But our existence is +not measured by what we can get or what we can do, but by +what with our getting and doing we may <i>become</i>. Mankind +differs from other animals not merely in getting and doing, +man is himself different, and is more than they. It is in this +that his evolution is seen. The same is true of the individuals +in the mass; some are more in themselves than others. +So obvious a truth would never require statement except +in a standardized, crowd-manipulating age in which there is +much that encourages the inferior to abound.</p> + +<p>I am not suggesting that we devise some plan for picking +out all the superior individuals for preferment and honor, +or that we weed out the inferior ones by some process of +elimination, or that the educated man should or could pose +as a superior person. He who must make an effort to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span>exhibit any excellence has attained little of it. If the world +is spiritually right side up, people will be selected by the +standards of value that prevail. When you buy a newspaper, +vote a party ticket, go to a theatre, listen to a lecture, +read a book, express a moral sentiment or show any preference +whatever, you are doing more than just that thing. +Our daily choices determine what we ourselves become, +and they do something else also; the total of them has +survival value for some particular type of man. We are +thus daily deciding whose dilemmas shall determine the +quality of living, and what kind of human life is to be lived +on this planet, and who shall thrive and who shall perish.</p> + +<p>Human progress is not something we achieve directly by +joining a movement and forcing our convictions upon others. +It is something we help determine every day in the choices +we make. The elements of it come like the variations which +appear in the structure of plants and animals. And as +Darwin said it is the function of the environment, in causing +modifications of species, to select certain variants for survival +and to eliminate others; so also in the progress of +civilization do our daily preferences operate. Natural +selection and primitive custom operate blindly and automatically +and without reason. It is because education improves +judgment and the appreciation of value that Thomas +Davidson spoke of it as “conscious evolution.”</p> + +<p>The education of a people at any time is its answer to the +riddle of life. This answer is more than giving an account +of the processes of nature; it is the opening and closing of +doors upon the possibilities of experience—and upon various +human types. Thus education is selective. It is the sifting +out of the relative worth of men. It finds the significance +of living to be the struggle for excellence. Its goal +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span>is a higher type of living man and woman. Its great task +therefore, in the modern world, is the reassertion of the +<i>inequalities</i> which mass appeal ignores, the rediscovery for +the modern spirit of the distinction between superiority +and inferiority. It is impossible to lift any mind from a +lower to a higher plane when that which distinguishes one +plane from another is obliterated by placing all on a level. +Appreciation of distinctions of worth is an essential of a +liberal education, as it is of the whole spiritual life of man.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX +<br> +EDUCATION AND WORK</h2></div> + + +<p>In the closing sentence of the preceding chapter, I used +the words “spiritual life.” Perhaps it is unnecessary to say +that I did not have in mind anything vaguely metaphysical, +supernatural or mystical. I meant the phrase to designate +a hierarchy of values which is possible to an organism +capable of exercising choice among its experiences. It is +in the sense that it deals with qualities and their relative +importance that education may be said to be spiritual, +spiritual in a purely naturalistic sense. It is the ordering +of interests and habit patterns so that behavior is characterized +by a tone and a significance that it would not otherwise +possess.</p> + +<p>There are those who write and speak of education as if +the mind and its ideas existed in a world apart from the +world of things. It is possible for a man to pursue his +studies in complete isolation from the world about him. +But as mental life is possible only in response to some environment, +such pursuit of learning merely substitutes an +artificial and sequestered environment for the actual one. +If the meanings and values disclosed in this artificial environment +remain permanently different from those which +might be realized in the world of our daily tasks and relationships, +such education is merely an elaborate escape +from reality. The educated mind responds to our common +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span>world. It differs from the uneducated mind not in that +it responds to a different set of situations, but in that it +responds with a different system of values. Education is +not so much a special interest separated from other interests +as it is a method of transforming all our interests.</p> + +<p>It ought to have something of importance to do with +work, since most people are engaged in some form of work +most of their time. And when in an industrial age like the +present, the whole life of society revolves about the system +of production of wealth, it is impossible to precede with +education and ignore the challenge to it of our industrialism. +It may not be the task of education to provide a solution +of the labor problem. But education certainly fails of its +function when men are unable to retain its values while +struggling with such problems.</p> + +<p>People rarely behave like educated human beings when +they are confronted by an economic issue. Liberality of +outlook, tolerance, temperance of judgment, self-control, +ability to see when one is making oneself ridiculous, respect +for the truth, are not often found on either side of an +industrial conflict. Fantastic notions of the relation of +education to work abound because there is much confusion +about the meaning and value of work for human personality. +Labor is at the same time idealized and despised.</p> + +<p>Ruskin, Carlyle, and many humanitarians have held labor +to be most praiseworthy. Work is a blessing, in it are +peace of mind and self-respect. Work is noble, and it +ennobles him who does it. A contemporary writer on the +subject of education warns us that the hand may not be +“dishonored with impunity.” By dishonored he means that +hand work may be considered inferior to brain work to the +extent that there is great disparity between the rewards. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span>Distinction has been made between work of hand and work +of brain. The former is real work. Once in a parade of +working men in Pittsburgh, I saw on a banner carried at +the head of a column of metal workers, these words in very +large capitals, <i>We Work</i>. The implication was that some +others, slightly to their discredit, did not really work. +From the idealization of work to the idealization of the +worker is a logical step. The working class, a class which +in earlier centuries was looked upon as the despised “proletariat,” +attained a new status in nineteenth century thought. +Men began to look to labor as the one class capable of righting +the age-long wrongs of humanity, and to believe the control +of society by organized labor to be the only means to the +establishment of peace and justice. Most of the writers +who praised labor were themselves members of the so-called +leisure class. A few like Tolstoi vainly tried to support +themselves by manual toil. Many who wrote convincingly +of the blessings of labor did not personally avail themselves +of its ennobling advantages. In the earlier humanitarian +sentiment of the nobility of labor, the worker was envisaged +as a free and independent person in whose wholesome activity +there was healthfulness. Good workmanship commanded +general respect and revealed the dignity of labor. +There were simplicity and grandeur in the primitive act of a +man eating his bread in the sweat of his brow. He who +lived close to earth gained something of the silent, calm +majesty of nature. Able to cope with natural forces and +giving mankind as good as he received, he need ask favor of +no man.</p> + +<p>Rousseau says, “Outside of society, an isolated man, +owing nothing to any one, has a right to live as he pleases; +but in society, where he necessarily lives at the expense of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span>others, he owes them in labor the price of his support; to +this there is no exception. To work, then, is a duty indispensable +to social man. Rich or poor, powerful or weak, +every idle citizen is a knave.</p> + +<p>“Now of all the occupations which can furnish subsistence +to man, that which approaches nearest to the state of +Nature is manual labor; of all the conditions the most independent +of fortune and of men, is that of the artisan. +The artisan depends only on his labor. He is free—as free +as the husbandman is a slave; for the latter is dependent on +his field, whose harvest is at the discretion of others. The +enemy, the prince, a powerful neighbor, may take away from +him this field; on account of it he may be harassed in a +thousand ways; but wherever there is a purpose to harass +the artisan, his baggage is soon ready; he folds his arms and +walks off. Still, agriculture is the first employment of man; +it is the most honorable, the most useful, and consequently +the most noble that he can practice. I do not tell Emile +to learn agriculture, for he knows it. All rustic employments +are familiar to him; it is with them that he began, +and to them he will ever be returning. I say to him, then, +Cultivate the heritage of your fathers. But if you lose this +heritage, or if you have none, what are you to do? Learn +a trade.... I wish to give him a rank which he cannot +lose, a rank which will honor him as long as he lives. I +wish to raise him to the state of manhood; and whatever +you may say of it, he will have fewer equals by this title +than by all those which he will derive from you.... It is +important to learn a trade, less for the sake of knowing the +trade than for overcoming the prejudices which despise it. +You say you will never be compelled to work for a living. +Ah, so much the worse—so much the worse for you! But +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span>never mind; do not work from necessity, but work for +glory....</p> + +<p>“You enter the first shop whose trade you have learned: +‘Foreman, I am in need of employment.’ ‘Fellow-workman, +stand there and go to work.’ Before noon comes you have +earned your dinner, and if you are diligent and frugal, before +the week has passed you will have the wherewithal to live +for another week; you will have lived a free, healthy, true, +industrious and just man. It is not to lose one’s time to +gain it in this way.”</p> + +<p>Here as always Rousseau is romantic. This is all very +beautiful—until you try it. I am inclined to think that most +men who entertain this view have never worked for a living. +The happy few amongst the toilers of earth may here and +there have enjoyed this independence. It is certainly not +the experience of the rank and file in our present industrial +system. With the development of the system, and the consequent +organization of labor, the idealization of work is +supplanted by the idealization of the labor movement and +its aims. In the writings of Marx, labor as work is represented +merely as so much homogeneous effort-filled time +which is measured and reckoned in strictly numerical terms, +as if its qualitative or personal elements could be ignored +or were non-existent. Skill and artistic genius are represented +as the mere telescoping or contraction of a number +of labor-time units into a given period—a speeding up, as it +were, not something inherently superior in kind. This point +of view might satisfy one who was concerned only with the +number of hours of employment and indifferent to what he +did or how he did it. But it takes little account of that +pride in achievement without which those who assert the +dignity of labor are making a virtue of necessity.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span></p> +<p>Marxians assert with much truth that pride in achievement +is crushed by the methods of machine production and +by the exploitation of labor under a system of “wage +slavery.” But this is to abandon the older idealization of +work and of workmanship. Labor is now viewed <i>realistically</i> +as an irksome servitude. Marxians argue that labor +creates all wealth and is therefore justly entitled to it all. It +is beside our point to enter into a discussion of this proposition. +I am merely seeking to show that in this philosophy, +emphasis is shifted from the idealization of work to the +idealization of the labor movement itself. A Marxian could +agree with Aristotle that mechanical toil is debasing, only +he would add “under the present system.” Emancipate +labor, give it its rights, reward it justly and force all to do +their share of it, and then work will be ennobling. Which +is to say, work will be ennobling only in an ideal society. +This position is an attempt to restore with one hand what +is taken away with the other. Work is robbed of its dignity +when excellence in it is not thought worthy of consideration, +when superiority of workmanship is represented merely as a +greater quantity of abstract labor-time. Advocates of the +cause of labor do not say much about the distinction between +superior and inferior workmanship. And here we have an +example of the mass-psychology of which I spoke earlier. +In the degree that you consider men as mass, you ignore +individual worth.</p> + +<p>There has been a slight tendency to regard labor as an +instinct. The impulse to work is of course a universal +human trait. Work is normal, natural, right, and those +who have no desire for it are going contrary to the demands +of human nature. Some such position as this is taken by +Mr. Veblin in his delightful satire, “The Instinct of Workmanship.” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span>The author of this book holds with McDougall +that man has an instinct to work, but that unfortunately +the instinct has been corrupted. This corruption began in +primitive times with elders, medicine men and warriors. +And throughout historic time, with each succeeding privileged +class, human nature has become steadily more perverted +and abject, until this instinct reaches its final stage of +corruption in the present capitalist system. Thus a last +count is added to the indictment of capitalism. It has +corrupted labor’s instinct of workmanship.</p> + +<p>I have never known whether Mr. Veblin meant his humor +to be taken seriously, or intended his book to be a subtle +thrust at the theologians. His argument may be regarded +as a clever parody of the doctrine of the fall of man in +Adam’s sin, with the consequent curse upon all the descendants +of our first parent. In any case, his contention adds +somewhat to the confusion as to the true significance of +labor. I have not found evidence to prove that man has +an instinct of workmanship. Hence the relation of education +to work is not that of the rational control of instinct, +for if the knowledge of simple labor processes were innate, +men would not even need “practical” education in them.</p> + +<p>Not all men have held a high opinion of labor. +Nietzsche says work is a disgrace. There are doubtless +many people who secretly agree with him. I have known +working men who suffered from an “inferiority complex.” +It is possible that the protest of labor is not wholly against +injustice, but is in part a protest against the feeling of inferiority. +It is not uncommon to find young people who +are ashamed to work. It is not only among the rich and +privileged that we find those who look down on labor. The +same attitude exists in all classes, for much the same reason +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>that the majority of people despise the poor and emulate +the rich. Work has in the past been the lot of the slave. +Most men are at present driven to labor by necessity, and +many entertain the hope of escaping from the necessity as +soon as possible.</p> + +<p>We have even Biblical authority for this attitude. The +punishment of Adam for his act of disobedience is a life of +labor. Henceforth he must earn his living, tilling the +ground and eating his bread in the sweat of his brow—in +other words, labor is a curse. And so it is regarded by the +law of the land. When a man is convicted of a crime the +court sentences him to prison and to “hard labor”—until +such time as he is pardoned and may return to his career of +crime and life of leisure.</p> + +<p>It is interesting to note the place assigned to work by the +Hebrew and Christian religions which, having their origin +in the folkways and the daydreams of the masses, are very +sympathetic to the poor toilers of earth. Yet we are told +that to keep the Sabbath holy, the day must not be defiled +with labor. There is no mention of the blessedness of labor +in the Beatitudes; the command to consider the birds of the +air and the lilies of the field which toil not neither do they +spin and yet are clothed and fed, reveals a spirit very remote +from that of industry. Heaven is thought of as a place of +eternal rest.</p> + +<p>A similar popular valuation of labor is revealed in the +myths of antiquity. The gods do not work. Vulcan, the +exception to this rule, is always made to appear ridiculous +among the gods; they are said to laugh at his awkwardness. +The “labors” of Hercules are not really toil but exhibitions +of miraculous strength. For the most part in the legends +which have expressed the wish-fancies of mankind, the hero +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span>does everything but work; he fights, makes love, kills +dragons, goes on strange voyages, wins a kingdom, in fact, +his adventures may be interpreted as symbolic expressions +of the wish of mankind to escape the common burden of toil.</p> + +<p>I think, moreover, men belittle their work when they +accept the broad distinction between the “brain” worker +and the “hand” worker. Psychologists say that thinking is +as truly bodily activity as is any other form of labor, and +there is very little so-called work that does not require +thought. There is every conceivable gradation from that +labor which is almost wholly routine, to that which consists +of nothing but solving problems. No one knows the point +where labor ceases to be brain work and becomes manual. +The world’s work requires of men many kinds of activity, +some of great importance, some of little. There is no use +either of idealizing it or in despising it. Men do their work +because they have to and are neither noble nor ignoble +because of it.</p> + +<p>The problem is how can I in my situation make my position +a place where a man has really lived and toiled and thought +and realized values through his effort, and has not permitted +himself to become an automaton or a fool. The labor +problem however tends to become one primarily not of the +significance of work at all, but of improving the material +conditions of those who toil. This latter problem is wholly +justifiable. But because of the prevailing mental confusion +about labor itself, it is generally assumed that if a man works +he should receive a different sort of “education” from that +of other educated people, and that his training should be +the means to ends that have little to do with interest in +education as such.</p> + +<p>There are those who always view the education of workers +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span>strictly from the standpoint of its value for social security. +Just as a well-known statistician not long ago advised the +American investor to support the Church, whether or not +he agreed with its doctrines, because the influence of the +Church upon the masses, he said, was on the side of invested +capital, so there are those who believe that giving educational +opportunity to working men is a sort of premium paid +upon a general policy of social insurance.</p> + +<p>The fear of the menace of labor often inspires efforts +for the education of workers in the hope that with better +knowledge labor will become safe and sane. There is a +wide-spread belief that education like religion is a conservative +influence. If working men were only better informed +they would have a more sympathetic understanding of the +intentions of their employers; they would show some appreciation +of their economic opportunities under our free institutions; +they would know better than to go on strike, or +listen to their union leaders, or dally with socialistic ideas. +Perhaps so, but I have yet to see an educational effort which +was consciously directed to these ends that was either sincere +or intellectually respectable.</p> + +<p>From a wholly different point of view, the relation of +education to work would seem to present no problem at all. +Work itself is said to be the only genuine method of education. +A popular writer who holds advanced ideas on this +subject, says that the four years at college are wasted, that +“as early as fifteen or sixteen a youth should be brought into +contact with realities and kept in contact with realities from +that age on. That does not mean that he will make an end +of learning then, but only that he will henceforth go on +learning—and continue learning for the rest of his life—in +relation not to the ‘subjects’ of a curriculum, but to the realities +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span>he is attacking.” In this passage one detects the odor +of Rousseau. We discussed this theory when we were considering +liberal education as animal training. At best it is +but half true. If learning necessarily came from contact +with realities, every one would be educated. But there is +no assurance that people will see the significance of the realities +they “attack.” The importance of experimental study +is not a new discovery. Science has long employed the laboratory +method. And even laboratory work, work done in +an environment which is carefully arranged to stimulate discovery, +does not always develop habits of independent judgment.</p> + +<p>The notion that experience is necessarily the best teacher +is popular. The newspapers encourage it. If a man +makes a success in business, interviewers seek his opinion on +every conceivable subject. In worker’s classes there is occasionally +a student who has no doubt that his experience +in the shop is a better education than that which people get +from books. Such students do not as a rule gain much +from study, for no matter what subject is under discussion, +they always know more about it than the instructor.</p> + +<p>Experience as such teaches just what is experienced and +nothing more. Few minds are able to reflect judiciously +upon experience or to draw correct conclusions from it. +Labor is something that can be known only by one who has +experienced it, and this experience is important for anyone +who desires a broad knowledge of human life. But it is +with work as it is with travel: each is an aid to education +only as it quickens insight. The man on the Bowery who +boasts that he has traveled over America from coast to +coast may really never have left the Bowery; in each place +he has visited, he finds himself in the same sort of lodging +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>house, in the same environment, among the same sort of +companions, all with the same interests.</p> + +<p>So with many kinds of work. Much of it is mere routine. +He who from day to day does the same thing, until +he is able to perform the movements with a minimum of +effort and attention, is certainly acquiring a habit, but we +have seen that not all habit formation is education. Those +who work with certain kinds of machinery frequently complain +of the monotony of their work. I think that one of the +serious objections to such work is that it has so little educational +value. Perhaps this objection may be offset by the +fact that machine production makes possible a shortening +of the working day and hence gives the worker more leisure +time. Some think that adult education is important because +it gives people something to do in their unemployed hours. +But people do not always improve their minds during the +time when they are free from labor, and many whose work +is routine, possess by nature or develop routine habits of +mind which interfere with their education. They become +victims of fixed ideas, of slogans and catchwords.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the nearest approach to a real integration of +education and work is vocational training. This is the “education” +which most people seek. Universities offer an increasing +number of courses in practical subjects such as +engineering, mining, business methods. Various trades are +taught in public schools. By far the greater number of +courses offered to adult students are sold with the promise +that they will increase the purchaser’s efficiency and “put +more pay in his envelope.” I have already discussed this +useful knowledge. Both the individual and society profit +by it. And in addition to its practical advantages, there is +a sincerity and lack of pretense about such education which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span>distinguish it from much of the traditional education. It +must be thorough or it cannot meet the test of practical +experience. If men learned mechanics with no more +thoroughness than that which characterizes the study of the +classics, the country would go into bankruptcy.</p> + +<p>But as I have tried to show, this training for practical +efficiency is too narrow. It does not necessarily widen the +student’s interests or deepen his insight or improve his +judgment concerning matters that lie outside the range of +his technical information. Advocates of this type of education +often become partisan and declare that it alone is +education.</p> + +<p>It is doubtless too soon to speculate upon the effects of +our new policy of reducing immigration to the point where +it is almost negligible. Whether the effect is to intensify +competition among working people, or to lessen it because +of a labor shortage, in either case the result is obvious. +Somebody must do the actual work of the country. We +shall soon have a working class in America that is more than +one generation old. That is, we are now for the first time +in our history tending toward a relatively fixed and permanent +working class. The various national strains in it will +be held together long enough to become acquainted with one +another, long enough to find more in common than a common +opposition to capital, long enough to develop a working +class tradition which is American. Workers will not +only strive individually to become middle class; they will be +obliged to improve their condition as a class. To the economic +struggle there will be added efforts for culture. +Many workers are already beginning to seek education as an +aid to a more satisfactory and less sordid existence while +working at their tasks. Sooner or later education must +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span>cease to be the distinguishing mark of a privileged class, or a +device which aids a man to the goal of his ambition; it must +become a universal practice of learning how to live like a +civilized being in any occupation.</p> + +<p>I have said that people’s ideas of the relation of education +to work are for the most part confused and fantastic, and +that among the causes of this confusion was a misconception +of the meaning of labor. We saw that the older romantic +idealization of labor gives way to the idealization of Labor +not as work but as an organized movement. There are +“friends of Labor” who think of workers’ education as class +education. And by class education they do not mean the +extension of the opportunity for liberal education to people +who toil for their daily bread. They are not interested in +liberal education, any more than they are interested in work. +They wish working men to be given such instruction as will +be useful in the “class struggle.” Labor is to have its own +kind of education.</p> + +<p>It is said that educators are but the retainers, the “high-brow” +policemen of the vested interests and must always +teach what the masters require. The educators’ task is to +train the masses to be more productive and willing servants +of the masters, to train the sons of the owners in the idealogy +so that they may work it to advantage, to mould them +to the type of the most successful and provide them with the +insignia and passwords of culture which will show that they +belong to the fraternity of the privileged. Traditional +education, being nothing but a weapon of the ruling class, +is not for the workers. The workers are now passing +through a period of discipline which is preparing them to +be the future masters of the world. As the old education +was for the old master class, the new must likewise be the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span>ideology of the future master class, the organized proletariat. +The workers must educate themselves, for any education +that capitalists provide for them will be the capitalist +education which enslaves the worker. The new education +in proletarian ideals must be wholly different from the past. +Its aim is not to provide useless and ornamental knowledge, +or escapes and consolations, but to equip labor to emancipate +itself from the rule of capital and to conquer and control +industrial society. Thus labor education is sometimes +little more than old fashioned radical propaganda. Where +this is not the case, workers may still be urged to the pursuit +of knowledge by militant appeal. The following is quoted +from a bulletin issued by a state director of labor education +in the West:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“He (the worker) lives in a society committed to the practice +of buying his labor cheap and selling its product dear, to the theory +that property is sacred and life of little value. In support of this +position toward labor, the press, the pulpit, and too often the school +lend their aid....</p> + +<p>“All this passion for justice will accomplish nothing, believe me, +unless you get knowledge. You may be strong and clamorous, you +may win a victory, you may effect a revolution, but you will be trodden +down again under the feet of knowledge unless you get it for +yourselves. Even if you should win that victory, you will be trodden +down again under the feet of knowledge if you leave knowledge +in the hands of privilege, because knowledge will always win over +ignorance.”</p> +</div> + +<p>If as an individual a man is interested in his education +only in so far as it may be to his economic advantage, we +regard him as a rather stupid materialist. It is no less +stupidly materialistic to urge a class to seek knowledge +merely for the sake of a common economic advantage. As +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span>a rule, ignorant men place a strictly material valuation upon +education. If education is nothing but the training of certain +groups of animals in the best methods for taking material +advantage of one another, it makes little difference +which group wins in the class struggle. This theory means +that the belief that education can make a difference in the +kind of living is a delusion, and that the only significant +differences in human life are the results of economic forces.</p> + +<p>Have we, in the notion of a special type of education for +the working class, a correct view of the relation between +education and work? Let us admit for the sake of argument, +that traditional education is class education, elaborated +in the interest of the dominant elements in society. +Even then it might have a function other than that of an aid +to systematic exploitation. It might serve as a guide to the +use of leisure time. It might aid men in discriminating between +ends which were worthy of effort and those which +were not. It might be necessary for the development of +personality, and to enable people to discover that which +would give some intelligible meaning to their existence. +Hitherto the privilege of the fortunate few, it might conceivably +be a good which may now be the possession of the +many.</p> + +<p>I cannot see that the interests I have just mentioned are +necessarily those of any particular class. And it would +seem that insofar as traditional education has failed, the +failure has been the result of subordinating these very universal +human interests to the special economic advantages of +a particular class. Along with the class spirit, irrelevant +factors enter into education. Education becomes illiberal +and propagandist, a drill in herd opinion. Prejudice is not +removed; it is intensified. A spirit of intolerance is bred +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span>concerning anything which might effect class interest.</p> + +<p>And now it is argued that since liberal education has been +spoiled by one class in making it the servant of its class interests, +the working class is justified in again spoiling it for +its own special interests. If men prefer a substitute to the +real thing, it is their own affair. But a person is either being +educated or he is not, and whether he is or not is a +matter quite independent of his particular occupation. Of +course a man’s education will make a difference in the spirit +in which he works and in the quality of his workmanship, +for it changes the man. If traditional education is unfit for +the working man, it is not fit for anyone. I can see no +reason why economic differences should be made the basis of +cultural differences. The knowledge that has value should +be accessible to all regardless of their economic interests, +or the profession they practice. If a bad education should +not be given to a worker, it is not because he is a working +man but because he is a man. Anything that it is good for +one class to know is good for another. A banker may appreciate +Shakespeare’s sonnets, so may a tailor; but there +is not one Shakespeare for the first and another Shakespeare +for the second. If biology is worth knowing, its +value is not changed because a machinist studies it. If a +philosophy is true, it is true for the man who can understand +it, whether he be a railroad president or a coal miner. +There is no proletarian arithmetic or capitalist algebra or +Marxian astronomy.</p> + +<p>To be sure, a worker’s education should take account of +the economic situations in his environment. So should the +education of all men. It is sometimes said that within the +ranks of labor there is a new civilization in the making. +Working men are said to have ideals and standards, an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span>ethic and culture of their own which are now manifest as +working class “idealogy.” I have not noticed it. From the +time I was a small boy, I have had somewhat unusual opportunities +to know the labor movement, and during the last +twenty years have sought to make a psychological study of +it. The “labor point of view” is commonly that which +propagandists wish the worker to have. In America the +“revolutionary class-conscious proletariat” exists only on +paper. If we consider the ideals, habits and ambitions of +working people, it is difficult to conclude that they form a +culture group apart. The working man votes for Al Smith +and Calvin Coolidge, dresses like the grocer and the bank +clerk, drives a motor car if he can afford it, reads the popular +journals, has about the same ideas of patriotism, morals, +government, and success in life as his employer, and tends in +every way to become more and more “middle class.”</p> + +<p>Suppose the change contemplated by many radicals should +occur and that there should be a “social revolution.” What +of the education of workers then? The worker would still +spend his days at the machine or bench. Is it not conceivable +that men might then in their pursuit of knowledge have +some interests other than the economic? Under no system +should people permit their entire personalities to be drawn +into and used up by industry. Industry is a means, not an +end. It is in its proper place when it makes possible the +achievement of culture. As a man becomes educated, he +should learn so far as circumstances permit, to put his work +in its proper place. The relation of education to work is +no different from its relation to all the interests and activities +and demands which life makes of us. A community +may be said to have a culture only when all men—each in his +own way,—cooperate in the realization of certain values, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span>which give to all their actions and strivings a perspective, an +order, a meaning. It is in this sense that Europe in the thirteenth +century may be said to have had a culture. In discussing +the cultural values of any period of history, there is +danger of over-simplification. The picture which I have of +that century may not be historically correct, but it will serve +to illustrate my point. Catholic Christianity at the close of +the Middle Ages possessed a set of values which entered into +everything that people did or thought and gave it meaning. +The secular did not really exist for the men of that age. +All work was religious work. Everywhere there was ceremony, +the shrine, sacredness. The fields were blessed before +plowing; harvest was a gay religious festival. Every +labor process and every station in society was brought to the +service of the common ideal, and from it gained added significance. +For it the peasant tilled the ground, its themes +were the inspiration of the sculptor, the painter, the musician, +the builder. In the service of this valuation of the experiences +of life the King ruled, the soldier fought, the monk +said his prayers, the philosopher meditated.</p> + +<p>The cultural ideal of an age is revealed in the type of man +for whom the people have greatest reverence. Such a man +is the meaning of living for the men of that age. Inquire +of the thirteenth century in whom is its ideal realized, and +the answer is clear. It is realized in the saints. I do not +mean to suggest that everybody in those days was saintly. +But there was common agreement that human life existed +for the achievement of sainthood. People achieved it in +varying degrees and by methods which appear strange to us +of the twentieth century. But all men hoped to achieve it +in the next world if not in this. The existence of the saints +in Heaven was a storehouse of merit upon which all could +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span>draw. And one living saint was held to be enough to justify +the existence of an entire age.</p> + +<p>I trust it is not necessary for me to add that the saint is +not my ideal of the meaning of life. Ideals of asceticism +and other-worldliness have no interest for me. But I +wonder what would happen if people should “go in” for +education with the unanimity of agreement as to its value +that they once showed with regard to religion. I hesitate +to make the suggestion lest I appear to suggest something +solemn, sanctimonious, pious and official. We have enough +of that sort of thing now among professional educators.</p> + +<p>If instead of the attainment of sainthood the attainment +of wisdom could be made the commonly accepted goal and +meaning of the activities of modern men, we should again +have a culture in which industry would take its proper place. +We have for it now no other goal than the making of +money, and hence industry runs amuck while the spirit of +commercialism crushes out all our values. We keep the +wheels going round, but the quality of living and the meaning +of our work decline. Cooperation in the service of the +ideal gives way to a competitive struggle for material possession +and power and our lives are used up in making a +living. Only the peoples that have achieved a culture have +a goal for which to labor.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X +<br> +EDUCATION AND MORALS</h2></div> + + +<p>The source of much of our interest in public education is +concern for our neighbors’ morals. This is doubtless why +in America we commonly think of adult education as something +which should exist for other people rather than for +ourselves. We are a nation of moral reformers. Education +is often proposed as an alternative to moral legislation. +There is an increasing demand for more effective +moral education in the public schools.</p> + +<p>When the educator becomes an “uplifter” the moral interest +is always a little forced and education suffers. Moral +enthusiasm, when it is enthusiasm for the good of others, +tends to make of education a species of organized charity. +Seek education for yourself and it is the search for the good +life. From ancient times men have sought knowledge that +they might become better judges of good and evil. To one +who is seeking to know what is good, all popular moral conventions, +taboos, and alleged divine commandments become +proper subjects of study, criticism and possible revaluation. +Moral education is not mere drill in the ways of the +herd. The good man’s first duty, as Professor Erskine +says, is to be intelligent. Good intentions alone do not +enable a man to judge wisely or behave well. The prevailing +idea that one can be at the same time good and stupid +has strongly influenced our education. Moral education +becomes moralizing. The phrase “ethical culture” is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span>either tautological or it is a contradiction in terms.</p> + +<p>If we were each more genuinely interested in our education +there would be much less talk about morality and less +occasion for such talk. The moralist is as a rule the person +with a lower middle-class mind, who insists upon calling +general attention to his own dilemmas. Mediocrity makes +parade of virtue a claim to superiority, presenting a picture +of itself as the likeness of the good man. Goodness is +defined in negative terms. The good man is he who observes +the “thou shalt not,” not he who can do the rare and +difficult thing. It is in the localities where there is least +artistic appreciation or intellectual curiosity or cosmopolitan +spirit, the places where people have nothing with which to +occupy their minds, that we find the strongholds of “morality.” +Where education prevails, people learn to behave +themselves as a matter of wisdom and good taste. Those +who are sufficiently practiced in the art of living to be able +to observe the common decencies without always “watching +their step,” may sometimes look up from the ground and +take a broader view.</p> + +<p>Much of the ethical instruction which is given in school is +both bad education and bad morals. Those colleges in +which there is most talk about “education for character” are +as a rule those which most patently fail as educational institutions. +The instructor tends to “protest too much.” +The attitude of authority discourages the spirit of search +and criticism. Popular prejudice is intrenched. Non-essentials +are over-emphasized. Crowd-mindedness, rather +than independence of judgment, prevails. Every crowd +persuades itself that it is vindicating the right and justifies +its behavior with fine moral sentiments. The student in +school is made susceptible to catchwords and is prepared to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span>become the typical crowd man of the future. To this end +he is given “ideals,” that is, he is taught to worship certain +words such as “justice,” “purity,” “brotherly love.” Instead +of learning to enquire what such words mean when applied +to concrete situations, he is led to believe that he possesses +the realities for which they stand when he has an +attitude of adoration for the words. Henceforth, he can, +without using his brains, be always right even in matters +where he knows nothing, by the trick of seeing in each practical +problem a moral issue. It is in this manner that the +majority is always right in a democracy. If you question +its wisdom, you are put in the position of one who attacks +its moral ideals. From the first day in school on, the child +is drilled in cant and in deference to prevailing public opinion. +He is brought up in an atmosphere of sex morality by +a stupid and shame-faced policy of expurgation and censorship, +the assumption being that apparent ignorance is “purity.” +A student in a woman’s college preparing to become +a teacher of English literature, elected a course in the +eighteenth century novel, and after listening to the lectures, +she felt it her duty to look over some of the books. Unable +to find the works of Fielding in the library, she inquired of +the instructor where she could secure a copy of “Tom +Jones.” The instructor replied, “Heavens, child, you are +not going to <i>read</i> it!” This is perhaps an extreme case, +but it illustrates much of the influence of morals upon the +education of the young.</p> + +<p>Is the student to acquire the virtue of patriotism? Then +he is not to be shown the full force of the example of those +who have resisted tyranny, but must have his head filled with +a glorified version of his country’s history. Is he to learn +respect for law? He is not equipped with principles which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span>enable him to discriminate between wise and foolish legislation. +His teachers and preachers tell him that law is +divine and must be obeyed because it is the law. After +three generations and more of such education, we have a +population in which moral independence is decidedly on the +wane. The statute book, not private judgment, becomes +the guide to conduct, and the Federal courts the safeguard +to morals. Open protest against official invasion of individual +rights gives way to furtiveness and evasion. Moral +training which does not encourage critical examination of +popular ideas of what is right and good, does not tend to +make men better, but only of one mind.</p> + +<p>Popular suspicion of intelligence and the belief that one +may be good and do right without it, is carried over into the +field of education. Moral education becomes a special kind +of education. It is thought that there is a “moral knowledge” +which is different from other knowledge. The attempt +is made to train character as if character did not include +intelligence. Education, then, intent upon character, +distrusts intelligence. The moral interest results in routine +drill in current precepts and values, not in the awakening of +moral responsibility. Professor Dewey says,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Morals are often thought to be an affair with which ordinary +knowledge has nothing to do. Moral knowledge is thought to be a +thing apart, and conscience is thought of as something radically different +from consciousness. This separation, if valid, is of special significance +for education. Moral education in school is practically hopeless +when we set up the development of character as a supreme end, +and at the same time treat the acquiring of knowledge and the development +of understanding, which of necessity occupy the chief part of +school time, as having nothing to do with character. On such a +basis, moral education is inevitably reduced to some kind of catechetical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span>instruction, or lessons about morals. Lessons ‘about morals’ +signify as a matter of course lessons in what other people think about +virtues and duties. It amounts to something only in the degree in +which pupils happen to be already animated by a sympathetic and +dignified regard for the sentiments of others. Without such a regard, +it has no more influence on character than information about +the mountains of Asia: with a servile regard, it increases dependence +upon others, and throws upon those in authority the responsibility for +conduct. As a matter of fact, direct instruction in morals has been +effective only in social groups where it was a part of the authoritative +control of the many by the few. Not the teaching as such but the +reënforcement of it by the whole régime of which it was an incident +made it effective. To attempt to get similar results from lessons +about morals in a democratic society is to rely upon sentimental +magic.”</p> +</div> + +<p>I do not see how it is possible to isolate moral education +as a special discipline and have either a liberal education or +a sound sense of moral values.</p> + +<p>In institutions of higher learning, “Moral Philosophy” or +the “Science of Ethics” is sometimes thought to be training +in morals. It is so only to the extent that such study is +itself good education. I find that many students have the +same experience that I had with my college course in Ethics. +I took up the study believing that at last I should learn what +is right and how to do it. I soon discovered that I had entered +upon the driest and least practical course of study +offered in the college. Insofar as I could see there was +nothing in Ethics that I could turn to for advice about any +of the problems of my own conduct. I understand that in +some institutions the students’ demand for advice has resulted +in courses of ethics which consist of case studies. No +doubt the opinions of the students and the instructor concerning +certain hypothetical dilemmas of conduct are very +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span>interesting. But as Plato would say, such study is made up +of “opinion,” not “knowledge.” It is doubtful if such discourse +ever results in modifying behavior.</p> + +<p>“Pure” ethics consists of <i>a priori</i> arguments about the +teachings of philosophy concerning such abstract concepts +as the moral judgment, the nature of the Good, the idea of +Duty in general, not of my particular duties. Such study +may be good training in logic, but it has no more to do with +conduct than has formal logic, and not as much as mathematics, +for one may apply the principles of mathematics to +concrete problems. Perhaps the greatest gain for the student +from such study is the discovery that philosophers do +not agree upon any one system of morals, and that in strict +logic we do not know what we mean by our moral generalizations. +The more universal an ethical concept is, the more +it exists wholly within and for reason, the less is it a deduction +from experience and the less use is it as a guide to behavior. +Ethics, as moral philosophy, is not a descriptive +study of the customs and practices of people, or of what +things men in diverse times and places have held to be good +or evil, right or wrong; this is anthropology. It is not the +study of the mental processes of judging or of forming +habits or of that quality of actual experience which men call +good; this is psychology. Ethics, moreover, is not a scientific +study of the means of accomplishing any good whatsoever; +for this at once leads out of pure ethics into economics, +mechanics, medicine, etc. Pure ethics is pure logic applied +to ultimate concepts <i>about</i> morality in general. It is the +“formulation of the Good as it would hold for all possible +worlds,” a kind of speculation or contemplation. Its good +does not exist in experience anywhere; it is metaphysical and +exists only for philosophizing. Hence ethic, strictly speaking, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span>is concerned with ends not with means, and the ends are +not experienced, they are only thought about. As an example +of such an approach to morals, there is Kant’s Categorical +Imperative, from the consideration of which everything +concrete, empirical, personal is removed.</p> + +<p>I quote some typical passages from the discussion of the +teaching of ethics in a contemporary Journal of Philosophy,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“The task of moral philosophy is, by analysis of the moral judgments +men actually make, to arrive at clear notions about obligation, +rights, good, punishment and the like. And the point of honor, the +chastity of the philosopher’s mind, should be never to suffer his genuine +moral judgments to be warped in deference to his theory. For +that is to poison the wells of truth. All that is valuable in ethics +is formal....</p> + +<p>“Finally, it may be asked, has then moral philosophy no practical +value? I think its prime value is purely speculative,—the supreme +interest of the topic for thoughtful minds and its importance for +metaphysics. But, like everything else, it has its effects. I think +it is, when studied in its purity, an unrivalled mental training. I +believe that the more (apart from casuistry) we reflect on the nature +of the moral law the more we are likely to reverence it. And lastly +I think that nearly every human being does and must to some extent +philosophize. We are all apt to form crude principles, as that +morality consists in keeping the law, or obeying the ten commandments, +or realizing our selves, or seeking the common good. And +then we are apt pendantically and priggishly to distort our genuine +moral judgments in accordance with these inadequate generalizations. +Moral philosophy criticizes such formulas and shows that they are +either untrue or circular. Either self-realization means realizing the +<i>right</i> part of the self or it is not always right. Promoting the +“common good” either means bringing about those satisfactions which +moral reason judges <i>ought</i> to be brought about (e. g., those which +are <i>just</i> or of a <i>higher</i> value) or it is not always right. And so a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span>truer moral philosophy releases us from the false dogmatisms which +may, though usually they do not, corrupt our practise....</p> + +<p>“On the other hand, members of my class actually approached me, +as if I were a father-confessor, for the solution of special problems +in conduct!”</p> +</div> + +<p>In the following quotation from the same Journal, a different +view is expressed. The author believes that ethics +is sometimes concerned with the practical problems of conduct, +but admits that this inclusion of practical interests results +in some ambiguity and confusion.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Conceding that there is a science of ethics that does not teach +us either to be good or that we ought to be good any more than +logic teaches us how to think or that we ought to think, or esthetics +teaches us how to appreciate beauty and that we ought to love it, +there yet remains the question, is there a legitimate place in philosophical +education for a science of ethics which frankly does not +disclaim a “practical” interest? Is there a science of ethics that +is “practical” in something more than the Protagorean sense of supplying +instruction in “how to manage our homes in the best way, and +to be able to speak and act the best in public life?” (Such instruction +might well encourage sophistry and the casuistry of which +Professor Carritt speaks.) Is there, in other words, a science of +ethics which is “practical,” not in the sense of telling the pupil what +moral decisions to make, but in cultivating the ἔρως φιλοσοφίας which +would render possible well-considered choices? If there is not a +place for such a science, it seems hardly forthright or consistent to +perpetuate the ambiguity. If there is a legitimate place for it, it +is the duty of moral philosophers to terminate the present ambiguity +by explaining it. We can scarcely afford to laugh at or +deny it.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The relation of morals to education is to be found neither +in special discipline and habit formation in the effort for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span>character apart from intelligence, nor in drill in the logic of +an <i>a priori</i> science. When moral training is made a special +interest set off from other aims of education, it defeats +itself. There is no such thing as a moral good separate +from other goods. A moral good is simply the best choice +among the conflicting goods of experience, actual or possible. +As James said, the good is that which satisfies a desire. +<i>A priori</i>, every desire should be satisfied, since considered +in itself it is a demand for a satisfaction. But since +desires are in conflict, choice is necessary. The good deed +is the right thing to do, or the right way of doing it. All +education if it is really education is moral education. It is +because people do not grasp this fact that futile efforts at +special moral training are made in which the connections +with education are artificial and extraneous. Thus the pursuit +of knowledge is shorn of its significance for conduct, +and morals is divorced from intelligence. As Professor +Dewey says,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“A narrow and moralistic view of morals is responsible for the +failure to recognize that all the aims and values which are desirable +in education are themselves moral. Discipline, natural development, +culture, social efficiency, are moral traits—marks of a person who is +a worthy member of that society which it is the business of education +to further. There is an old saying to the effect that it is not +enough for a man to be good; he must be good for something. The +something for which a man must be good is capacity to live as a +social member so that what he gets from living with others balances +with what he contributes. What he gets and gives as a human being, +a being with desires, emotions, and ideas, is not external possessions, +but a widening and deepening of conscious life—a more intense, +disciplined, and expanding realization of meanings. What he +<i>materially</i> receives and gives is at most opportunities and means for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span>the evolution of conscious life. Otherwise, it is neither giving nor +taking, but a shifting about of the position of things in space, like +the stirring of water and sand with a stick. Discipline, culture, social +efficiency, personal refinement, improvement of character are but +phases of the growth of capacity nobly to share in such a balanced +experience. And education is not a mere means to such a life. +Education is such a life. To maintain capacity for such education +is the essence of morals.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Moral behavior is not only social. It is also <i>intelligent</i> +behavior. An act has moral significance when the performance +shows <i>insight</i> into the situation. An action done +under compulsion or without understanding has no moral +value. A machine may behave very correctly but it is not +a moral being. An act has moral meaning to just the extent +that its author grasps the implications of the situation +in which he must act and is guided by consideration of the +results. An act is judged, not as moralists would have it, +merely by the intention, but by its results. It is the aim of +education to develop the insight and foresight and breadth +of vision which make it possible for an individual to take responsibility +for the results of his behavior. The greater +the intelligence, the more nearly does the consideration of an +act approach the estimate of the total result. Thus <i>the +aims of education and morals are the same</i>;—the good life +in so far as it may be attained by intelligent choice and +behavior.</p> + +<p>Men have long sought to reconcile the true and the good. +But what they have sought to reconcile were as a rule mere +<i>ideas</i> about the true and the good. It is not as logical abstractions +that the true and the good are one, but in the +recognition that the really wise act is the good deed. It is +in this sense that wisdom is virtue—in the sense that virtue +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span>is wisdom. But the objection will be made that educated +men are sometimes clever rascals who are only the more +evil for all their knowledge. I do not think I beg the question +when I say that such men are not wise but merely clever. +Nor do I mean that good conduct is merely a matter of +reasoning and calculating. No one denies that desire and +instinct and purpose are involved. But if I am not mistaken +it is generally recognized that education and morals +alike have something to do with training and controlling +these aspects of human nature. Intelligence is not mere intellect. +It is the whole man wisely directing himself with +respect to his environment and its alternatives.</p> + +<p>From one age or locality to another fashions in behavior +patterns change. These fashions seem to be important at +the time they hold sway. People confuse them with morals. +Efforts are sometimes made by reformers to introduce innovations +similar to those which designers of clothing each +season create in haberdashery. A liberal journal in New +York recently published a series of articles dealing with +“The New Morality.” But morality is neither new nor old. +Rules of conduct which can be made mere matters of style +are applicable chiefly to actions the results of which are unimportant. +Such rules have really very little moral value. +They constitute, however, the customs or folkways which +prevail at a given time. Conformity in such matters is required +by the herd. Often this requirement is the only +reason for observing certain rules; the opposite course would +be just as good. It is with respect to such matters that education +has the effect of liberating the individual and improving +morals. It breaks the hold of the taboo, makes it +possible to discriminate between the important and the unimportant +and leads to the formation of principles based +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span>upon consideration of the results of behavior. The differences +in conduct that count are those between stupid +deeds and well-considered deeds. Intelligence takes into +account the fact that no action of man can be isolated and +judged apart from its place in the social environment, and +its effects both for the author and for his human relationships. +Long ago Aristotle showed that each of our virtues +unless intelligently exercised tends to extreme and to become +a vice. A virtue is what it does, not what it feels like +to its possessor. Much is said today about the necessity of +loyalty. There can be no social stability without it; but +there is probably no more serious social menace than unintelligent +loyalty.</p> + +<p>Men persist in ascribing to their moral principles a sanctity, +a sublimity, which makes them appear to have an independent +and eternal existence and to be ends in themselves. +I believe this to be a superstition. In what respect is a +moral principle more to be reverenced than a principle of +mechanics? To worship Duty in general is simply to make +a god out of a human generalization. The “rightness” +about which men grow eloquent exists simply as the implications +of the concrete situation in which an act is performed. +As the ability to grasp such implications improves, principles +of conduct are employed which are relevant to the situation. +I spoke of insight into the situation toward which action is +taken as being alike essential to education and to the moral +judgment. He whose conduct is regulated by his own insight +and by principles which are relevant to the situation +at hand is a morally responsible being, and to the degree that +a man assumes responsibility for his conduct, he reveals the +quality of his education. Those who seek to avoid responsibility +substitute for their own insight rules of behavior +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span>which have as their basis something that lies outside the demands +of the situation where the behavior takes place. +Judge your conduct by this other, outside something and ignore +the lessons written in the results of your deed, and you +cease to learn anything from your behavior; your education +in this direction has come to a stop.</p> + +<p>Education frequently comes to such a halt when moral +teaching is carried on as part of religious instruction. +There is a common belief that religion is the real basis of +morals. I think this belief has its source in the fact that +religious institutions in the past, being by nature conservative, +have sought to perpetuate the folkways. The church +is a form of social organization and has its own interest in +maintaining among its members certain standards of behavior. +Often it has been the only existing agency for the +instruction of the young. Most religious systems carry +with them certain commandments and precepts the keeping +of which they secure by means of promises of future reward +or threats of punishment. Since both the precepts and the +religious beliefs and ceremonies have evolved together out +of primitive man’s ideas of divine authorship and authority, +men do not see that the basis of morals lies in social necessity—the +need for mutual adjustment among men. The +church’s preëmption of the field of morals is allowed to +stand long after its squatter rights in other fields—art industry, +science, etc.—have been challenged. We forget that +religion was once thought to be the basis of all the interests +of civilization, so that naturally the moral interest came +under its sway.</p> + +<p>It is obvious that every society, whatever be its religion, +must develop its moral codes as men learn to live together. +In the community everyone is part of the environment of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span>everyone else, and each must adjust himself to such a human +environment. Adjustment is impossible if there is no order +in the environment. Hence from the beginning certain +habits and customs have existed which make it possible for +men to predict to some extent what their neighbors will do. +These habits and customs are the primitive morals which it +is the task of wisdom to inquire into and revalue and gradually +improve or discard, and substitute intelligently considered +means and ends.</p> + +<p>When moral precepts are presented in the form of divine +commandments, morality is merely obedience; it consists in +keeping the commandments, not in acting according to the +demands of the situation. The problems of the control of +behavior are solved in advance, and the solutions learned by +repetition and memory drill. If I act in strict obedience to +a divine command, the results of my deed are not my affair. +The responsibility for the result is upon the deity. I can +ignore, in fact, should ignore, the lessons of experience and +of conduct. The commandment does not require of me any +insight into the situations in which I act. I have no moral +responsibility. People whose conduct is guided by such +morality have committed many outrageous deeds and have +with good conscience closed their eyes to the terrible consequences +of their behavior. From the standpoint of their +education, they are children; they have never yet attained +the age of moral responsibility. It is in matters of moral +education that the infantile attitude of mind which religion +preserves in the adult life of the race becomes a serious obstacle +to a liberal education.</p> + +<p>Again there is a tendency to disregard the consequences +of my acts if I seek, as many moderns do, to make a religion +of morality itself. It is often said, religion is a life, the religious +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span>man is the good man. “My religion is the Golden +Rule,” or some other rule. It all depends on what you +mean. If you mean that in a vague sort of way you try to +be good and that a certain moral earnestness is religion +enough for you, very well, but you have not said much. +Thomas Paine said, “To do good is my religion.” But I +am not sure he added much to his good will by styling it a +religion. He might as well have said, “I desire very much +to do good.” So do all right-minded people, the difficulty +comes when we try to find out what specifically we mean by +doing good.</p> + +<p>Again it is said there is “salvation by character,” but one +does not possess a character. One either is or is not a character. +One does not become a character as a result of +routine moralizing or of mere conformity to conventional +standards. President Wilson is quoted as saying, “There +is no more priggish business in the world than the development +of one’s character.” Run away from the man who +would be good to you in order to develop his character. Do +the thing that in your best judgment is the thing to do under +the existing circumstances, do it as well as you can, watch +what happens and learn your lesson from it, and if you <i>are</i> +a character you will not go far wrong.</p> + +<p>In all behavior, he who takes responsibility takes chances. +There are those who demand moral certainty. They imagine +an absolute good, a universal principle of right and +duty, to be the elemental law of the universe. Duty is sublime, +the Moral Law is God. People persuade themselves +that their adoration of this impersonal god develops in them +the “moral will,” when in fact its function is to provide +them with a fictitious sense of security. I think the ethical +philosophy of Kant is motivated by this wish for security, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span>rather than by an interest in morals as such. He seeks a +good which is to be possessed merely by thinking it, a maxim +which is universally valid. But if I have such a maxim, +assuming that it can be made applicable to any concrete +problem of conduct, then all I need consider is whether I +have acted according to the rule. Here again I need not +be concerned about the results of my behavior. It is not the +consequences of my act that show it to be right or wrong. +My deed is right if it is the act of the moral will.</p> + +<p>Another method of escaping moral responsibility is to +run with the crowd. The crowd never considers consequences; +it is bent upon vindicating its principles at any cost. +It is anonymous; in it the individual may not be held to account. +The crowd is not the same as the multitude; it is a +distinct phenomena of social psychology. We all have in +our natures certain anti-social impulses. The crowd is a +sort of pseudo-social environment in which these impulses +are not inhibited but are indulged with mutual moral approval. +All crowds profess to be devoted to some moral +ideal. Their moral idealism is mere self-justification and +pretext for letting oneself go. It is a weapon useful in +partisan strife; it puts the opposition in the wrong and justifies +hostility. Hence public questions tend to become moral +issues, and the attempt to understand the situation gives +way to righteous indignation toward anyone who witholds +approval of the crowd’s aims and methods.</p> + +<p>And the crowd strives to hold its members in line. Conformity +to its ways and standards is required of all, and becomes +an end in itself. One does things because others do +them. The crowd man is shocked by the unconventional +because it is unusual. His ideas of right and wrong, which +he thinks he has by <i>a priori</i> intuition or moral sense, are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span>merely those which prevail in his set or parish. The average +man’s conscience, which seems to him to be an infallible +moral guide and which he holds to be sacred and personal, +is little more than a reflection of herd opinion. And as men +become marshalled in the mass movements of present-day +society, they tend more and more to submit the control of +conduct to the “public conscience” and to leave less and less +to private judgment. <i>There is no judgment but private +judgment.</i> The public conscience is a creature of emotional +instability. It is characterized by periodic obsessions similar +to those of mania. It will remain utterly indifferent to +glaring evil and every appeal to it is unheeded; then all of a +sudden perhaps over a trifle, or an unconfirmed rumor, it is +stirred to the highest pitch of excitement. It has a “cause” +and for a time is occupied with nothing else. All realities +are thrown out of perspective. The cause is vindicated regardless +of consequences; it is carried triumphant at the head +of a procession of human wreckage, bitterness and folly. +As soon as the mischief is complete, the cause is abandoned. +Men begin to “come to,” and public conscience sleeps until +the next episodic attack.</p> + +<p>It is precisely in regard to matters which most deeply stir +the public conscience that the educated man will be on his +guard. He will not be easily bullied into surrendering his +private judgment to public opinion. He will not permit the +big words of herd morality to scare him away from the consideration +of cold facts. Before a man can think for himself, +he must have learned to think at all. There is only +one sound method of moral education. It is in teaching +people to think.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI +<br> +THE CLASSICAL TRADITION—PLATO AND +ARISTOTLE</h2></div> + + +<p>The classical tradition in education is one of the ironies +of history. That pedants should have succeeded in making +this tradition into a mere convention is almost incredible. +In the poetry, drama and philosophy which we have inherited +from ancient Athens there is a spirit of youth, of +freedom, of inquiry, of adventure. In the estimation of +Egypt or of India, the culture of Greece was <i>parvenu</i>. The +striking thing about the Greek spirit is its humanism, its +lack of priestly tradition, its independence of religious +authority. The men of the fifth century before Christianity +were creators, not imitators. They were following many +lines of inquiry for the first time, unhampered by the prestige +of orthodoxy. A noisy populace could condemn the philosopher +but could not secure his deference to its beliefs. No +idea, no institution was so venerable or sacred as to escape +critical examination. The practice of examining all things +was the method of education; its aim was the life of Reason. +There was no official instruction, no established truth, no +traditionally recognized knowledge. Student and teacher +together pursued wisdom not as scribes and custodians of +ancient and hallowed doctrine, but rather in the spirit of +those who enter upon a voyage of new discovery. Such +is the spirit of the classical tradition and no education is +liberal which loses that spirit.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span></p> +<p>If we wish to know the meaning of a liberal education, +we should turn to those in whose lives and thoughts it was +a living reality. I do not believe that the student who +grasps the significance of Plato’s Apology, or the Phædo, or +the Republic, can ever after be quite the same. I once +overheard a group of sophomores discussing the relative +greatness of various historical characters. Each had his +favorite hero, a conqueror, a statesman, an orator. One +of the boys, who I afterwards learned had discovered +Plato’s dialogues for himself, said, “You fellows are just +repeating what you have heard people say or have read in +your history books. You’ll never know what a great man +is till you know Socrates. I think he was the greatest man +who ever lived.” I saw in his face a look of quiet earnestness +which I have never forgotten. Something was happening +in that boy’s thinking. He was living through an educational +experience.</p> + +<p>To the question what is an educated person like, one +answer is, he is like Socrates, or like Plato. Whitman +said, “I and my kind do not convince by argument; we +convince by our presence.” In the Dialogues there is a +presence. Here the personality of a great genius stands +revealed. You really come to know Socrates. In his company +you cannot fail to delight in his humor, his brilliant +flashes of insight, the subtlety and tenacity and wide sweep +of his thought, his daring, his unfailing reasonableness, his +candor and freedom of spirit. Whether this personality +is the Socrates of history or a creation of Plato’s genius +or a mixture of both is a matter that need not concern us at +present. Our aim is to “find” the educated man. Here +by common agreement is the supreme type.</p> + +<p>Outside the Dialogues and a few such sources of information +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span>as the writing of Xenophon, we know little that is +authentic about Socrates. Before Socrates there had been +much speculation about natural phenomena and the laws +which govern the universe. Philosophers had begun to seek +naturalistic rather than mythological explanations of the +world of objects. This scientific interest was genuine, but +the Greeks lacked a logic of scientific method. Before man +may think correctly, understand his world or live wisely +he must develop habits of exact thinking; he must know what +he means by what he says. He must examine his own +sentiments and beliefs, and presuppositions.</p> + +<p>As an educator Socrates was positively revolutionary, +subversive, disconcerting. He stands out in sharp contrast +to the other great teachers of antiquity, and to most of those +who have lived after him. He gives mankind an entirely +different idea of what education is. He pursues knowledge; +the others proclaim it. Unlike the philosophers of India +and Egypt or the prophets of Judea, <i>Socrates has no gospel</i>, +no creed, no made-in-advance message, no “thus saith the +Lord,” no system of “truth.” Others indoctrinate; Socrates +proclaims his ignorance. He is not a sceptic, for he believes +that knowledge is not only possible, but that men possess +it, though they seldom make use of that which they possess. +Although not a sceptic, Socrates is decidedly an agnostic. +He shows popular ideas to be ignorance, mere opinion. +Living at a time when even the intelligent few had hardly +begun to question traditional illusions, he did not seek to +lure his students back to acquiescence to authority, but to +develop a technique for testing all things. To use a modern +colloquialism, Socrates simply strove to “debunk” the minds +of his students. He tried to aid Athenian youths to understand +themselves, to think their way to some degree of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span>freedom and mastery, to ground their ideas of virtue, justice, +government, in well-considered reason, to gain temperance +of judgment, to re-examine what they thought they knew +and see if it were knowledge or only opinion. And his +was no mere idle curiosity, but a serious and courageous +facing of the elemental problems of human living. He set +the precedent for all subsequent liberal education.</p> + +<p>The herd loves nothing so little as the Socratic dealing +with its opinions. Such questioning is a challenge to popular +faiths; it demands that men reorient their minds to the +values of experience. It arouses in the opinionated the unwelcome +suspicion that possibly they may be deceiving themselves. +It carries with it the suggestion that those who +uncritically accept dogma and custom are possibly intellectually +less alert than the critically minded few. It gives the +hint that conformity and moral earnestness are not enough +for the good life and that those who lay claim to ideas they +have not thought out are a little ridiculous. Every man +who rises out of crowd-mindedness into independent thinking +weakens to that extent the faith of the crowd in itself, and +puts it on the defensive. Aristophanes gained popularity +in Athenian democracy by holding up the figure of Socrates +to ridicule. And when Socrates’ challenge could no longer +be met with laughter, the Fundamentalists of his day condemned +the old philosopher to death on the charge that he +was corrupting the youth. As Woodrow Wilson once said, +“The human race has inexhaustible resources for resisting +the introduction of knowledge.”</p> + +<p>How the influence of Socrates survives in the work of +his pupil Plato every school boy knows. It is also a matter +of common knowledge that in the beautiful dialogues which +Plato wrote many years after his master’s death, the figure +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span>of Socrates becomes little more at times than a vehicle of +the author’s own thought. But not every one thinks of the +dialogues as primarily a record of a great work of adult +education. The Socratic method of education is retained +by Plato, but he modifies the objectives. Plato has something +to “teach.” Knowledge is still found by the method +of clarifying men’s thinking. But if men are to live the +life of reason, their knowledge must give them a definite +outlook on life. Plato seeks something to tie to. He is +occupied with the search for reality, “pure being.” His +interest in mathematics leads him to attempt to construe the +world according to principles of abstract thought. The +world of <i>ideas</i> is seen to be the ultimate reality, the world +of objects is but a manifestation,—as James put it, but a +“stereotyped copy of the deluxe edition” which exists in +the eternal. Hence knowledge is not only clear thinking; +to know is to possess reality. The real world consists of +form, of idea, of universal and abstract principle. Education +becomes philosophic contemplation of the ideas of +the good, the true, the beautiful. A Francis Bacon or an +Isaac Newton in Plato’s situation would doubtless have +developed a logic of science. Plato elaborates a metaphysic. +But it would be an error to suppose that Plato is occupied +merely with meditation upon the transcendental. All +knowledge is one. The truth, of which the mind bears witness +to itself, must ultimately prevail in the affairs of men. +The idea of the good must take the place of the old mythology. +Wisdom is virtue. The people are enemies of the +truth and hate philosophy largely because they have never +known “a human being who in word and work is perfectly +moulded as far as he can be into the likeness of virtue—such +a man ruling a city which bears the same image.” Of existing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span>states, “not one of them is worthy of the philosophic +nature.”</p> + +<p>“But no one is satisfied with the appearance of good,—the +reality is what they seek; in the case of good, appearance +is despised by everyone.”</p> + +<p>“Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes +the end of all his actions, having a presentiment that there +is such an end and yet hesitating because neither knowing +the nature nor having the same assurance of this as of +other things, and therefore losing whatever good there is +in other things—of a principle such and so great as this +ought the best men in our State, to whom everything is entrusted, +to be in the darkness of ignorance?”</p> + +<p>Thus Plato’s greatest dialogue, “The Republic,” interweaves +the speculative with the practical; it is at once a +treatise on reality and appearance, an inquiry into the nature +of the good, an elaboration of the abstract principle of +justice into the constitution of an ideal aristocratic republic, +and a philosophy of education.</p> + +<p>Jowett, in his introduction to the third edition to the +English translation of this dialogue, says,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, +of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and +Goethe are the legitimate descendants. Like Dante or Bunyan, he +has a revelation of another life; like Bacon, he is profoundly impressed +with the unity of knowledge; in the early Church he exercised +a real influence on theology, and at the Revival of Literature on +politics. Even the fragments of his words when ‘repeated at secondhand’ +(Symp. 215 D) have in all ages ravished the hearts of men, +who have seen reflected in them their own higher nature. He is the +father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many +of the latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span>the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of the +sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by him.”</p> +</div> + +<p>“The Republic” begins with a discussion of justice. It is +agreed that justice is virtue and wisdom, and injustice is +vice and ignorance. Justice is the virtue both of an individual +and of a state. In order to discover the nature of this +virtue, the author proceeds to “create in idea a State.” The +state must be protected from evil, it must have guardians. +The guardians need to have both natural gifts and the +qualities of a philosopher. The good watchdog must be +able to distinguish between the face of the friend and that +of the foe. “And must not an animal be a lover of learning +who distinguishes what he likes and dislikes by the test of +knowledge and ignorance?”</p> + +<p>“When we have found the desired natures, and now that +we have found them, how are they to be educated? Is not +this an inquiry which may be expected to throw light on the +greater inquiry which is our final end—How do justice and +injustice grow up in States?”</p> + +<p>Justice, he says, is each man doing his own business and +not being a busybody. One should practice the thing to +which his nature is best adapted. Justice is harmony, and +harmony in the State is like harmony in the nature of the +individual. Intelligence must direct and control the emotions, +and the movements of the body. Hence in the just +State, men are to be divided into classes according to their +degree of native superiority.</p> + +<p>This is not an easy task, for men will not easily be +persuaded to accept such distinctions of worth among themselves.</p> + +<p>“How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods +... just one royal lie which may deceive the rulers +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span>if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city?”</p> + +<p>“Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how +to look you in the face, or in what words to utter the +audacious fiction, which I propose to communicate gradually, +first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the +people. They are to be told that their youth was a dream, +and the education and training which they received from us, +an appearance only; in reality during all that time they were +being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they +themselves and their arms and appurtenances were manufactured; +when they were completed, the earth, their mother, +sent them up; and so, their country being their mother and +also their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and +to defend her against attacks, and her citizens they are to regard +as children of the earth and their own brothers....</p> + +<p>“‘Citizens,’ we shall say to them in our tale, ‘you are +brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of +you have the power of command, and in the composition of +these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the +greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries; +others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen +he has composed of brass and iron; and the species will generally +be preserved in the children. But as all are of the +same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a +silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims +as a first principle to the rulers, and above all else, +that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, +or of which they are to be such good guardians, as of the +purity of the race. They should observe what elements +mingle in their offspring; for if the son of a golden or silver +parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature +orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span>must not be pitiful towards the child because he has to descend +in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just +as there may be sons of artisans who having an admixture of +gold or silver in them are raised to honour, and become +guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a +man of brass or iron guards the State, it will be destroyed.’”</p> + +<p>Plato’s ideal state is thus an aristocracy of intelligence +and of virtue. There must be selection of those who are +to rule. A series of tests is proposed. Those selected must +have shown greatest eagerness to do what is good for their +country. The youth are to be subjected to various trials, +toils, pains, conflicts, to determine whether they can be +forced to change their opinions by suffering pain, or by the +influence of enchantments, or the lure of pleasure, or as a +result of fear. Only those who come out of the trials +victorious are to be made rulers.</p> + +<p>Their education is to be a rigid discipline, and it is to +continue as long as they live. Along with the tests which +they must endure, the young are to grow up in a healthy +environment, and in an atmosphere of simplicity. First a +censorship is established to guard them against evil influences. +Only authorized tales are to be told them. +Erroneous representation of the gods is forbidden. As the +young cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal, +the state is to determine the general forms in which the +poets may cast their tales. Mothers may not frighten +children with myths. The Gods must never be represented +as the authors of evil. Nor may one be allowed to say that +wicked men are often happy and the good miserable. Elsewhere +Plato says that no one shall be permitted to travel +abroad until he reaches the age of forty. When he comes +home he must tell the youth that the institutions of other +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span>states are inferior to their own. If any man blasphemes, +he is to be put in the reformatory for five years. If in the +end he remains unrepentant he is to be put to death.</p> + +<p>Plato requires that the young receive training in gymnastics +and music before entering upon the study of philosophy. +Certain kinds of music they may not be allowed to hear. +Flute players are not to be admitted to Plato’s state. Those +who are clever at pantomime are to be exiled. The theater +is frowned upon, for the guardians must not be trained to +be imitators. Certainly they may not learn to imitate any +kind of illiberalism or baseness. In their acting they may +not imitate slaves, nor bad men, nor madmen, nor the neighing +of horses, the bellowing of bulls, nor the roll of thunder; +nor may they represent smiths, boatswains, or other artificers. +And they may not play the part of a woman old or +young quarreling with her husband, or in conceit of her +happiness or when she is in affliction or sorrow or weeping—“and +certainly not one who is in sickness, love, or labor.”</p> + +<p>There must be temperance and order and not too much +laughter. There must be no sensuality and coarseness. +There will be no need of lawyers and physicians. “There +can be no more disgraceful state of education than this; that +not only artisans and the meaner sort of people need the +skill of first-rate physicians and judges, but also those who +profess to have had a liberal education.”</p> + +<p>Thus would Plato direct the early education of the guardians +of the state. He has much more to say about protecting +them from what he regards as dangerous influences +than about the subject matter in which they are to be trained. +His guardians are to become noble men; they are not to be +imitators or trained animals or exploiters or traders. It is +often said by those who believe in the materialist conception +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span>of history that education is an instrument for exploitation +by the ruling class. In Plato’s state education is a mark +of privilege, but his ideal nobleman is a communist. He +must not touch silver or gold; he must live like a Spartan. +He may call nothing his own, neither house nor wife nor +child. The rulers are to be philosophers, and philosophers, +kings.</p> + +<p>Hence the education of later life is the pursuit of philosophy. +It is knowledge of the idea of the good. True +knowledge is drawn from within, it is the turning of the eyes +toward the light shed by the world of the Idea, the spiritual +world. It is the awakening of memories of ideas seen by +the soul of an earlier existence. Our world of concrete objects +and of sense experience cannot give this knowledge. +Education deals almost wholly with abstractions and with +universals, and its method is dialectic.</p> + +<p>I think that much of the illiberalism of Plato grows out +of his theory of knowledge. To him as to Socrates, knowledge +is of universals. Mere awareness of concrete objects +we will agree is not knowledge. If we only knew unrelated +things—just one thing and then another, as we have them +in sense experience, we could have knowledge <i>of</i> them but +not <i>about</i> them. It is the knowledge about things that gives +the world its meanings. Much of the significance of things +depends upon how we conceive their relations. Every concept +is an abstraction; it signifies not some concrete fact, +but a class or a common quality which inheres in a number +of objects. So the Greeks sought to find concepts which +would not be self-contradictory and would hold for all of +the class to which they were applied, and for nothing else. +The Greeks did not seek accurate information concerning +facts. They believed they had exact knowledge when they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span>had discovered just what they meant by any concept. They +had almost no experimental science. They had begun to +be deeply interested in the phenomena of nature but their +interest was largely speculative as yet. If they had possessed +the modern scientific laboratory their knowledge +could still have been abstract but it would have remained +knowledge about nature. Knowledge would have increased +as men carefully observed objects, classified them, studied +their relations and made note of the changes which take +place under fixed conditions. By the method of forming +hypotheses and then trying to verify them by fact, knowledge +could have been at once both of the universal and of +the concrete. It would have been recognized all along that +universals are merely descriptive terms signifying common +properties and that they do not stand for realities which +are independent of or outside the several individual objects +in which these properties are found. With Socrates, I +believe, knowledge is about universals, but he is primarily +concerned with attaining clear and workable abstractions, +that is, he is interested chiefly in sharpening the <i>instruments</i> +of thinking.</p> + +<p>With Plato the interest in ideas is very different. He is +a mathematician. He is fascinated with ideas of number +and of geometrical form. Mathematics to many minds +seems to consist of a world of pure reason which is more +permanent than the world of things. Philosophers before +Plato had wrestled with the problem of change. Existence +was seen to be a stream in which everything is carried along +toward its inevitable destruction. Every object at any +moment is but the cross-section of the process of its becoming +something different. Our bodies grow and perish, +so also does all pass away. The rivers run to the sea, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span>plants die, the temples of the gods crumble. Even the +mountains are but waves on the surface of a sea of time into +which all things sink and are lost forever. How can the +temporary objects which whirl past in the course of their +transformation be said really to exist? Existence surely +must be endurance.</p> + +<p>I think that Plato, like many thinkers since, saw the terrifying +significance of the flow of things and sought security +and “reality” in something permanent outside the process +of change. What was more natural than that he should +turn to the realm of abstract thought? The objects we +perceive change, but a concept always means the same. The +world may pass away, things may each turn into other things, +as water into vapor and fire to smoke and the body to dust, +but two and two are still four, and the sum of the angles of +a triangle remains constant. Hence above and behind the +world of objects there is a world of ideas into which the +teeth of time cannot gnaw.</p> + +<p>You have only to believe that ideas have an existence +independent of the minds which think them and all is transformed. +Instantly you step out of Time into Eternity; +form without content; number without things to be counted; +common properties of objects stripped of the objects in +which such properties inhere; the forms of logical discourse, +minus the things talked about and the talkers as well; +goodness, without anything in particular to be good; beauty +in general, independent of any concrete beautiful thing, +truth universal and absolute and outside experience. All +this is now the <i>real</i> world, and the world of troublesome, +fleeting objects becomes a shadow and a delusion. Knowledge +is knowledge of the “real.” In other words, knowledge +is about itself. The more abstract and universal an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span>idea is the more reality it has. The mind persuades itself +that it possesses Being, Motion, the Good and the Beautiful +merely by the magic of thinking about them in abstract +terms. The universe is transformed into an ordered system +of postulates and verbal exercises. Education now is something +more than the clarification of concepts; it is initiation +into the superworld of eternal verities.</p> + +<p>It is not my purpose to attempt a discussion of Platonic +Idealism. It has fascinated many of the most subtle minds +of the race down to our own times. It is the foundation +of much Christian theology. Its re-affirmation at the time +of the Renaissance has brought with it the restatement of +many problems which must be considered in the course of +one’s education. My point is that Plato with all his genius +contributed to the tradition of liberal education a system of +values very different from the humanism and agnosticism of +Socrates. His influence has often tended to make the aim +of education mere intellectuality, rather than intelligent +grappling with the problems of living, and to transform the +search for the good life into a flight from the realities +of experience.</p> + +<p>Go one step further and you land in ascetic mysticism. +The Soul, the Knower, is no more at home in the world of +objects than is the philosopher in the market place. It +belongs to the spiritual world, the higher realms of Being, +in which ideas are forever pure and free of distortion by +matter. In the Phædo, Plato says that if we are to have +pure knowledge, the soul must be quit of the body which ever +thwarts it. Body and soul belong to different worlds. +Plato thus prepares the way for St. Paul and his doctrine +that the spirit lusteth against the flesh and the flesh against +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span>the spirit, and that to be present in the body is to be absent +from the Lord.</p> + +<p>If matter is corruption and mankind is during life chained +to the material body, human nature ceases to be trustworthy. +Plato’s distrust of human nature bears fruit some centuries +later in the statement that the natural man is sin and death, +and in the doctrine of regeneration. And unregenerate +man is prone to error. Knowledge of the truth comes by +divine revelation and is to be sustained by infallible authority. +Dissent is heresy; assent may be required in the interest +of salvation. We have not yet reached the position of +Tertullian, “I believe that which is absurd,” but Platonism +is headed in that direction. Knowledge which feeds on +itself in the end eats itself up.</p> + +<p>But there is in Plato something of far greater educational +importance than any metaphysic or theory of knowledge. +When James said that in the study of the classics one learns +to recognize human excellence, I wonder if he had Plato +in mind. I have no doubt that Nietzsche was thinking of +him when he turned to philosophy for an answer to his +question, “what is noble?” One who deliberately strives +to imitate the manners and acquire the virtues of noble +spirits, is a prig and a clown. But unless education ennobles +the mind, one becomes only a well-informed cad. Nietzsche’s +catalogue of noble traits is a little absurd. We learn +what is noble only when we see it. And efforts at education +“for character” are little more than cheap conventional substitutes +for such excellence. But there is a loftiness and +sweep in Plato’s thought which are more than genius; a graciousness +which is more than skill; a sincerity which is more +than moral earnestness. He has wrestled with the most +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span>searching problems that existence presents to the mind of +man, problems which each must face and to which he must +give his answer if ever he is to become a master spirit. +Would you know what nobility of mind is? Study Plato.</p> + +<p>The tradition of liberal education is a golden thread +woven into the fabric of civilization. Viewed in the perspective +of history, the thread is often broken. It is worked +into various patterns according to the divergent interests +of successive ages, each pattern expressive of the values and +meanings which men once held important. The patterns, +whether lovely or grotesque, whether they are woven in or +are merely <i>appliqué</i>, are the creations of the time. The +thread belongs to all times, and whether for this tradition +we are more indebted to Plato than to Aristotle is a question +we leave to those who are interested in the history of education. +We are seeking to know what the tradition is.</p> + +<p>I recently heard a teacher of philosophy say, “Aristotle +is dead.” His influence has died many times since the early +death of his pupil, the Macedonian conqueror, left the +philosopher to the tender mercies of a suspicious Athens. +It would seem that the interest in Aristotle dies, only to +reappear subsequently in new configurations. He has something +that we always come back to when sanity returns after +an epoch of exaggeration and over-emphasis. If Socrates +is critical intelligence, and Plato nobility of spirit, Aristotle +is sanity. All three are essentials of liberal education.</p> + +<p>One can hardly over-rate the extent of Aristotle’s influence +upon the education of western Europe. For many +centuries men spoke of him as “The Philosopher,” drilled +their minds in his logic, added little to his metaphysics, his +natural philosophy, his principles of ethics and politics. +Three periods of intellectual awakening may be attributed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span>largely to the revival of interest in his writings—that of +Rome at the time of Cicero, whose education and philosophy +was essentially Aristotelian; that of the brilliant Arabic +culture which preceded the Crusades; and that of the +scholastic education of western Europe, at the close of the +Middle Ages. In the last, Aristotle’s teaching was very +much distorted as a result of theological interest and of ignorance +of the Greek language; and his hold upon education +had with much difficulty to be broken before men could turn +their attention to the study of nature or develop a logic of +science. Aristotle could not have anticipated that his authority +would one day become an obstacle to the study of +nature. He himself was the great naturalist of his age. +His extensive work of research and classification of natural +phenomena remained unequalled until modern times. Had +the Greeks not despised mechanics, Aristotle might have +possessed the necessary instruments for scientific experiment, +and our knowledge of nature might have been centuries +ahead of where it is today.</p> + +<p>Unlike Plato, his former master, Aristotle did not displace +the world of objects by a world of abstract thought. +He seems to have held that universals are real, but only as +an account of the order which prevails in the world. His +logic is primarily instrumental. His whole philosophy is an +attempt at well-ordered common sense.</p> + +<p>The “Politics” and “Ethics” contain Aristotle’s philosophy +of education. It is the task of the legislator to consider +how his citizens may be good men. This is also the +task of the educator. Goodness is not represented as +obedience to divine commands. Neither is its aim that of +securing reward in a future life. The aim of goodness is +the good life, and the good life is the happy life, the life +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span>that is lived well. Such a life requires certain material +goods, also friendships, health, good looks, leisure and +<i>aretè</i>. There is no word in English which is the exact +equivalent of <i>aretè</i>. It is often translated virtue, or excellence. +But Aristotle has in mind a definite quality of +excellence, which includes distinction, good breeding, self-command, +wisdom, balance and poise, and equanimity in all +things. <i>Aretè</i> is the art of living.</p> + +<p>Nothing could be farther from Aristotle’s thought than +that education should become a separate interest or pursuit +of a knowledge that has nothing to do with the kind of life +a man leads. To his mind the central question for education +is, what sort of man is it most desirable that one should +become. Moderns may justly criticise him because he +omits any reference to work, other than to say that it is +debasing. His philosophy of education is that of a leisure +class. And since work makes up the greater portion of +most men’s experience in life, it may be said that Aristotle +would train men to possess the subjective qualities of virtue +only, and without reference to their tasks and duties. It +cannot be denied that his theory of education has often been +so employed. I have already discussed at some length the +relation of education to work. While Aristotle, like others +of his time, looks down upon labor, it does not follow that +a man is necessarily shut off from the good life as Aristotle +depicts it merely because he earns his own bread. Let us +say that Aristotle is in error when he says that work is +debasing. We may still hold that if his “good life” is good +at all, it is good for the man who works for his living. My +point is that this philosophy of education is not unrelated +to the ordinary affairs of life, but that it points out those +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span>habits which best enable one to turn such affairs to value +and to happy use.</p> + +<p>Aristotle has set forth his idea of the good man in no +uncertain terms. The good is not Plato’s absolute or ideal +good—good in general; it is <i>happiness</i>. It is to be attained +not merely by philosophical speculation, but by “an energy +of the soul according to reason,” by well-considered habits +of choosing. Happiness is the aim of all knowledge and of +every act. But the educated do not agree with the vulgar +as to what it is. The latter believe it to be the accident +of good fortune. The former hold that it is the result of +virtue. Virtues are praiseworthy habits. “Virtue” therefore +is a habit accompanied with deliberate preference, in +the relative mean defined by reason, and as the prudent man +would define it, “It is the mean state between two vices, one +in excess, the other in defect. Temperance and courage are +destroyed both by the excess and the defect, but are preserved +by the mean. Virtues are neither passions nor +capacities.” They are not mere moral enthusiasms nor any +subjective state of mind. Wisdom and deliberation are +required for virtue. <i>The good man is the educated +man.</i></p> + +<p>Education is not merely the teaching of morals, or the +laying down rules for behavior. The virtuous habits are +not acquired by rote nor exercised automatically. The +habit of virtue is that of <i>appropriate response</i> to the situation, +the response which is right because “nothing may be” +taken away from it nor added to it without causing it to +tend toward vicious excess or defect. There must be discrimination +or one will go to extreme. Courage is not mere +bravery; it is that well-considered “mean state” between +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span>fear and over-confidence. Aristotle quotes Socrates to the +effect that courage is a “kind of science.”</p> + +<p>The temperate man does not feel desire “except in +moderation, nor more than he ought, nor in any case improperly.” +He does not desire things which are dishonorable +or beyond his means. He is in the mean in all things, +his desires are “according to the suggestions of right +reason.” Liberality is the mean between prodigality and +stinginess. It is not virtuous to give unless one gives wisely. +“The liberal man therefore will give for the sake of the +honorable, and he will give properly for he will give to +proper objects, in proper quantities, at proper times, and +his giving will have all the other qualities of right giving, +and he will do this pleasantly and without pain; for that +which is done according to virtue is pleasant.”... “But +if it should happen to a liberal man to spend in a manner +inconsistent with propriety and what is honorable, he will +feel pain, but only moderately and as he ought, for it is +characteristic of virtue to feel pleasure and pain at proper +objects, and in a proper manner.”</p> + +<p>Magnanimity is a virtue if accompanied by intelligence. +The magnanimous are concerned with honor. He who +being really worthy, estimates his own worth highly, is +magnanimous. He whose worth is low and who estimates +it lowly is not magnanimous, but modest. He who estimates +his worth lightly when he is really unworthy is vain. +He who estimates it less highly than it deserves is “little-minded.” +In good or bad fortune, the magnanimous will +behave with moderation, he will not be too much delighted +with success nor too much grieved at failure. He must take +more care for truth than for the good opinion of men. He +will not be servile, for all flatterers are mercenary and low-minded. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span>He will not be given to the habit of too much +admiring the great, nor will he be fond of talking about +himself or about other people; he will not recollect injuries, +nor be over-anxious, nor disposed to praise or blame. “The +step of the magnanimous man is slow, his voice deep and +his language steady: for he who only feels anxiety about a +few things is not apt to be in a hurry: and he who thinks +highly of nothing is not vehement and shrillness and quickness +of speaking arise from these things.... But vain men +are foolish and ignorant of themselves ... little-mindedness +is more opposed to magnanimity than vanity, for it is +oftener found and is worse.” Hence a just appreciation of +one’s worth—knowledge of self, as Socrates would have +said—is essential to Aristotle’s ideal man.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, meekness is a virtue only when it is a sign +of intelligence. “He who feels anger on proper occasions, +at proper persons, and besides in a proper manner, at proper +times, and for a proper length of time is an object of praise.” +The meek man is not carried away by passion. He who is +excessively sensitive to anger is irascible. He who is unsensitive +is a fool.</p> + +<p>Even the virtue of truthfulness must be exercised in +moderation and with good judgment. The excess of it is +arrogance, the defect is cunning or false modesty. Wit is +also a virtue; the excess, Aristotle says, is buffoonery or sarcasm, +the defect is clownishness.</p> + +<p>Justice is discussed in a manner quite different from that +of Plato. The problem of universal justice is dismissed, +and justice is considered in relation to various transactions +between man and man. Hence the necessity of defining +“right reason.” Aristotle turns to a discussion of Prudence, +Intelligence, Deliberation, Wisdom. He says, “It is not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span>sufficient to know the theory of virtue,”—the end is in +“practical matters.” Aristotle holds the relation of morals +to education is much the same as that which we found it to +be in the preceding chapter. Mere precept and example +are not enough; there must be general culture, and education +should extend throughout a lifetime.</p> + +<p>“But reasoning and teaching, it is to be feared, will not +avail in every case, but the mind of the hearer must be previously +cultivated by habits to feel pleasure and aversion +properly just as the soil must be which nourishes the seed. +For he who lives in obedience to passion would not listen to +reasoning which turns him away from it: nay more, he would +not understand it. And how is it possible to change the +convictions of such a man as this? On the whole, it appears +that passion does not submit to reasoning, but to +force....</p> + +<p>“Perhaps it is not sufficient that we should meet with good +education when young: but since when we arrive at manhood +we ought also study and practice what we have learnt +we should require laws also for this purpose.”</p> + +<p>Aristotle discusses the desirability of public education. +He thinks that first men must become fitted for the duties of +the legislator. And since, he says, all previous writers have +discussed the subject of politics without scientific examination +of the subject, he proposes to undertake such an examination +for himself.</p> + +<p>Let us note that neither Plato nor Aristotle when considering +the good life, thinks that the individual may attain +it in isolation. It is not merely a quality of the soul, but has +to do with all of one’s human relationships. Aristotle says +that it is very difficult for the young to receive a good education +under a bad government. He would seem to make +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span>the state and the laws a means to education. And it is the +aim of both the state and education to enable the citizen to +live happily. Education is training in wisdom and virtue, +and the exercise of these is freedom. Those who are incapable +of education are slaves by nature; those who obey +only passion and abstain from vicious things not because +they are disgraceful but for fear of punishment, cannot be +reasoned with; they must be restrained by force. Education +is liberal in that it enables a man to govern himself.</p> + +<p>In comparison with Plato, Aristotle appears prosaic, +worldly, and lacking in charm and humor. Much that he +says appears to us platitudinous, for the same reason that +the woman found Shakespeare’s dramas full of familiar quotations. +We forget how subversive of convention and dogma +it is to found the good life in the life of reason. Aristotle +has passed by mythology and tradition and the +sanctions of religion and has achieved a purely secular guide +to conduct. He has made freedom and happiness the goal +of virtue and education, and has done this without descending +to utilitarianism. He has made right reason the standard +of life and has at the same time given to the standard +an æsthetic valuation. He has linked education with conduct, +and suggested a moral training which gives human +nature credit for some degree of intelligence. Aristotle +is no longer “the Philosopher.” Education in the modern +world is necessarily set to tasks very different from those of +ancient Greece. But the good life is still the goal, and +Aristotle’s good man has remained one of the ideals of +liberal education.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII +<br> +HUMANISM: ERASMUS AND MONTAIGNE</h2></div> + + +<p>Each man’s education is a unique achievement. There +are as many kinds of education as there are kinds of men. +In every educated mind there is a mixture of temperament +and learning, a selection and emphasis, an elusive quality +like that which haunts a work of art. We may recognize +this elusive something but we cannot define it or describe it. +Such words as wisdom, virtue, independence of judgment, +freedom, cannot give us the meaning of education. We +must know the educated man. If you read and understand +Erasmus of Rotterdam, you will see what education is better +than if you read all the books written about theories of education. +A liberally educated person is like Erasmus.</p> + +<p>I do not mean that Erasmus is the only type of educated +mind, or that the educated man is like him in all respects. +Certainly I would not suggest that one living in the twentieth +century should strive to imitate a scholar who lived in +the fifteenth. Change of environment calls for a different +response. But there are certain constant factors. New +modes of response may be necessary in order to recreate the +values which men of other times discovered, values the loss +of which in our times would cheapen our whole existence. +If this were not so there would be no point in trying to learn +anything from men of other times. There are those who +have such faith in the infallibility of contemporary opinion +that they are convinced the past has nothing to teach us. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span>The ways of the present are “progress,” and progress is +its own criterion of the good and needs no other guide than +the interests of the hour. Such persons are usually to be +found cheering for “the latest thing.” As a rule they are +people without background or reserve. We live in the +present, to be sure. But if we are really to live in it and +are not content merely to act a part in the passing show, we +must consider the values which are at issue in the responses +we make. To that end there is enlightenment in knowing +the values for which other men of other times struggled. +The kind of living we are to achieve with our environment +is not determined by the environment itself, but by the kind +of men and women we are—by what we bring to our environment +from the widest possible knowledge of what is +worth doing. Men like Erasmus and Montaigne lived +better lives than most of their contemporaries because of the +wisdom of the ages that was in them. It may be said that +other men in their times also shared this ancient knowledge, +for was not The Revival of Learning at its height? Many +did and were better men for it. Many were fascinated by +the Renaissance who merely shared its externalities but did +not thereby become wiser men; they remained creatures of +their own times. It became “the latest thing” to ape the +ancients without understanding them. Among obscurantists, +and fanatics and corruptionists, Erasmus and Montaigne +lived like educated men.</p> + +<p>At the close of the fifteenth century, it was said, “Whatever +is artistic, finished, learned and wise is called Erasmian.” +It is difficult to speak of Erasmus except in terms +of the superlative. The most broadly educated man of his +times, he was not only the representative scholar of his +generation; he remains an example to us all of the truly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span>civilized man. His polished wit, his humanity, his gentle +irony, his unfailing reasonableness, his ability to see through +cant and superstition, his philosophic calm in the midst of +intense partisan strife, his good taste and sense of proportion: +these qualities of mind belong to no one age, they are +the constants of which I spoke a moment ago; they are the +essentials of a civilized attitude toward life in any age. +Without them man is a barbarian.</p> + +<p>The Great Humanist saw as no one else did the spiritual +significance of the revival of learning, and he came to represent +all that was best in it. Scholarship to him was more +than erudition and pedantry and literary style. He found +in classic literature a window opening upon a new vision of +the meaning and possibilities of living. He became the +champion of a new way of life and thought. Past and +present met and mingled in his thought and became a new +life of reason. “He quietly stepped out of medievalism,” +the first modern man, the forerunner of Descartes and +Voltaire.</p> + +<p>In a time when all human interests were submerged in religion, +Erasmus sought to humanize the Church, and leave +it an international fellowship of culture, free of dogma and +superstition. He turns from knowledge of divine things to +human letters as the guide to living, and from blind faith +to reason. The Gospel becomes for him the “philosophy +of Christ.” With equal impartiality he could translate the +mocking dialogues of Lucian and provide the coming Reformation +with its first standard Greek text of the New +Testament. His boldness in omitting passages from this +latter work, which he found not to be authentic, and his +occasional unconventional commentary on the text brought +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span>him under the suspicion of being at heart a sceptic and a +heretic.</p> + +<p>With bigotry and persecution almost universal all around +him, Erasmus taught tolerance, moderation, respect for +truth. In a splendid biographical study, Professor Preserved +Smith says that Erasmus’s “Colloquies” did more +for the spread of liberal ideas than any book of the sixteenth +century. Another historian says, “Almost all the +liberating ideas on which the international culture of the +present rests, are present in germ in his thought.”</p> + +<p>The continent of Europe in the year fifteen hundred was +culturally far inferior to Asia. Compared to the civilization +of Greece and Rome, all Christendom was barbarian. +The wave of interest in education which in the thirteenth +century had caused the universities to become crowded, while +it had not passed, had subsided into a dull scholastic dialectic. +Education had little effect upon the life of the masses +or their rulers. In Italy art and letters were breaking away +from religious tradition, but the new spirit which prevailed +at Florence, Padua, and Rome had little sway north of the +Alps. Mediæval Christianity had reached its culmination +and was in a period of moral and intellectual decline. +Thoughtful men everywhere were dissatisfied. The time +was soon to come when this dissatisfaction could no longer +be held in restraint, when throughout a century of bloodshed, +civil war, and violence and hatred such as Europe had never +known, the Church would be torn asunder and anarchy and +terror reign until modern nationalism and industrialism +could painfully emerge from the smouldering ruins.</p> + +<p>It is said that when Leo X ascended the Papal throne, +there was placed above his head in Latin the inscription, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span>“<i>Nunc tempora Pallas habet</i>,”—Now Athene reigns. Not +many years were to pass before the sacred walls, which had +under the Pontificate of his predecessor been decorated by +Michelangelo and Raphael, were to echo the sound of +church bells ringing out the tidings of the Massacre of St. +Bartholomew’s Day. Soon all over Europe the floodgates +would be open and Christendom would be inundated by torrents +of fury. Soon in defense of the sacred Gospel, Christians +would tear at Christians’ throats. With instruments +of iron, tongues would be wrenched from the mouths of men +and women, eyes gouged from their sockets, limbs broken on +the rack. The bed of torture and the heap of burning faggots +would become commonplace spectacles for the public +to gaze upon. For a hundred years and more Europe was +to be ablaze with war on every hand, until it should sink exhausted +by the mutual destruction of Christian armies into +almost unimaginable misery and poverty. And this +struggle which was destined to breed hatreds and sectarian +divisions lasting even till today, might have been avoided, +probably could have been averted, could the spirit of Erasmus +have prevailed. Protestants hold the Catholics responsible +for the horrors of the sixteenth and early seventeenth +century. Catholics hold the Protestants responsible. +Both were equally guilty, for they were equally ignorant and +barbarous and deluded with superstition. This is the kind +of thing that happens and always will happen when ignorance +breaks loose in the world. Then in the general madness +even learned men like Melanchthon and Œcolampadius +and the Medicis lose their poise and become partisans.</p> + +<p>Erasmus during the most trying time kept his sanity. +And both sides denounced him bitterly. He was accused of +taking a cowardly middle of the road position. What +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span>neither group of militant partisans could see was that Erasmus, +far from being in the middle of the road, was not on +their wretched highway at all. He remained true to the +issue for which he had struggled from the first. Erasmus +saw that what was wrong with Europe, indeed what really +gave rise to the abuses of mediæval society, was barbarism +sanctioned by religious superstition. He knew that vice and +folly and brutality and hypocrisy were not to be removed by +religious warfare, but rather deepened. He saw the same +spirit of doctrinaire scholasticism, the same intolerance and +cruelty and pious ignorance on both sides of the coming controversy. +He knew that conditions could be improved only +when the leading minds of contemporary Europe could acquire +the decencies which characterize the liberally educated +of all times. Whether history has vindicated Erasmus in +this conviction of his is a matter concerning which opinions +differ. I think it has. Such liberty and cultural progress +as the modern world enjoys it would seem to have derived +from the Erasmian tradition, not that of Luther, Calvin or +Wesley. Protestantism without the humanism of Erasmus +is Fundamentalism. And conversely, Paris and Vienna and +Munich are nominally Catholic, but they have known the influence +of Erasmus and Voltaire to a degree that many Protestant +communities have not known such influence, and so +far as the advance of civilization is concerned, I think that +life in such localities will compare rather favorably with +that of certain strictly Protestant communities. I believe +that those movements of the present day which have greatest +spiritual significance and value—modernism in religion, +liberalism in education, the dawning recognition of the +necessity of intelligence and of individual responsibility in +matters of belief and conduct, efforts for the humanization +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span>of industry and the state—are but the belated resumption of +the humanizing work begun in northern Europe by Erasmus +and others and broken off by the Reformation. From this +point of view the Reformation is not the continuation of the +Renaissance, but would appear to have been something of a +bourgeois reaction against it.</p> + +<p>Long before the storm broke, Erasmus was carrying on a +brave work against ignorance and obscurantism. In our +times, we have seen something of the conflict of science with +theology. This issue is tame in comparison with the conflict +of theology with Humanism which occupied scholars at +the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is difficult for us +now to imagine that there could be bitter opposition to the +teaching of the Latin and Greek literatures. The issue is +blurred for us. Theologians are less acrimonious than they +once were, and Scholasticism has long been on the decline. +The classics moreover, are taught in such a manner that few +students see the deep spiritual chasm which separates the +Christian approach to life from that of the Latin and Greek +poets and philosophers. It was pretty well recognized on +both sides of the dispute that the ancients were pagans, rank +heathen. Those who opposed these unchristian writers did +so for much the same reason that early Christians in the +second century had assailed “the present evil world” and +all its works.</p> + +<p>In Italy the Renaissance tended for a time to take on a +definitely pagan aspect. Imitation of the ancients became +a rather ridiculous gesture, and the fad was often carried to +extremes which were little less than childish. Cardinals +assumed the speech and manners of ancient Roman senators. +Sermons were preached in sonorous Ciceronian style. In +certain quarters Christ was identified with Apollo, and God +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span>the Father with Jupiter. Nuns were spoken of as “vestal +virgins,” and painters and sculptors created figures of Mars +and Venus and mingled these and other heathen idols with +the images of the saints.</p> + +<p>The apparent sympathy of high ecclesiastical personages +with such goings on was one of the causes of the hostility to +the Papacy which later swept over northern Europe.</p> + +<p>The sanity of Erasmus saved him and helped save the revival +of learning from such superficiality. He found in +Humanism a balanced and serious wisdom which he strove +to combine with the Christian philosophy of life. The +synthesis he achieved was not a new system of theology; it +was the gradual merging of an older outlook upon life into +a new outlook, a transformation of intellectual interests. +Professor Smith quotes a passage which indicates something +of Erasmus’s position regarding the classics. That +this literature was pagan he well knew, but its paganism did +not to his mind exclude it from the spiritual life of mankind. +He says of an essay of Cicero’s, “A heathen wrote +this to heathen and yet his moral principles have justice, sincerity, +truth, fidelity to nature; nothing false or careless is +in them.” “When I read certain passages of these great +men, ... I can hardly refrain from saying, ‘St. Socrates, +pray for me.’”</p> + +<p>Erasmus found himself the leader of Humanism as an +educational movement. He stated the issue in precisely the +terms that gave sincere and intelligent men a new vision of +the spiritual life. And he did it with such a wealth of +learning, such reasonableness, such unanswerable irony and +wit that his name became the symbol of the new scholarship. +His books had a larger circulation than those of any other +writer of his generation. And as for many years he travelled +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span>about Europe, moving from one center of learning to +another, his coming was hailed with triumph. Scholars +everywhere attended him, sat at his feet, took up the cause +he championed. The Humanists were winning victory +after victory and could look forward to the triumph +of their movement in the education of western Europe. +How rapidly the spread and advance of culture might +have proceeded or what directions it might have taken +if men’s thoughts had not been turned again to theological +controversy and to bitter warfare, no one can say. +Perhaps the masses were not prepared to accept or tolerate +so sudden a change as that for which Erasmus +strove, for Humanism was a much more radical departure +from the mental habits and standards of value of the +Middle Ages than was Protestantism. The leaders of the +Renaissance did not accept the Reformation because they regarded +it as a backward step. Perhaps they had themselves +gone too far ahead. Perhaps the representation of the +good man as the intelligent man, an ancient Greek idea +which the Humanists revived, will always be offensive to +the masses. Erasmus seemed—he still seems to many—to +have lacked moral earnestness. He generated light and +what mankind wants is heat. At any rate, the masses in +the nations where the new scholarship was being carried, +showed that they did not want the pagan wisdom. Instead +they suddenly became possessed with a longing for the +primitive faith of the first Christian century, or what they +thought was that faith. They followed the leader who +gave them not insight, but a moral issue.</p> + +<p>Both Luther and Erasmus had visited Rome. Each was +impressed by the “sight of antique monuments.” Each saw +evidence of the corruption and veniality which along with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span>luxury surrounded the gay Papal court. Luther later spoke +of Rome as the “sink of every abomination,” a conviction +which doubtless had much to do with determining the course +of events which led to his break with Papal authority.</p> + +<p>Of the effect of all this on the mind of Erasmus, we have +the record in a book, one of the great classics of literature, +“In Praise of Folly.” In the letter of dedication to his +friend Sir Thomas More, Erasmus says that in his late travels +from Italy, that he might not trifle away his time in the +rehearsal of old wives’ fables, he began reflecting upon his +past studies, and thought it good to divert himself by drawing +up a “panegyrick upon Folly.” He suggests that this +trifling may be a whet to more serious thought and that +“comical matters may be so treated of, as that a reader of +ordinary sense may possibly thence reap more advantage +than from some more big and stately argument.” He hints +that he does not wish to be so carping that he will fail to instruct, +and says that he who points indifferently at all, can +hardly be accused of being angry with any one man or one +vice. And he wonders at the “tender humor” of an age in +which some are so “preposterously devout that they would +sooner wink at the greatest affront against our Saviour, than +be content that a prince or a pope should be nettled with the +least joke or gird, especially in what relates to their ordinary +customs.”</p> + +<p>Here we have the characteristic reactions of two contrasting +types of men who probably can never understand each +other. To Luther the vices of Rome are sin; to Erasmus +they are folly. The one is filled with moral indignation at +the iniquity of the world, and rushes into the fray to stamp +it out, puts it on the defensive, attacks it in its stronghold. +The other makes iniquity ridiculous, renders it defenseless +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span>by laughing away its pretexts at justification, showing it to +itself as folly and reminding all men that their foolishness +may be removed only by wisdom. No doubt without more +moral indignation in the world than Erasmus seems to have +shown there would be too easy tolerance of abuse. On the +other hand, without his insight and scepticism and irony, +indignation turns to malice, men lose their perspective, and +their power of self-criticism; they become so intent upon +the struggle for righteousness that they forget what they +are struggling for, and when the great cause finally triumphs, +it carries to victory the same old iniquities in new +dress.</p> + +<p>It is evident from a reading of “In Praise of Folly” that +Erasmus’ thought made deeper inroads into the very spirit +of Mediæval thought and religion than did Luther’s moral +indignation. It undermined many things that the Reformer +left standing. “In Praise of Folly” was written +eight years before Luther’s break with the Pope, and it reveals +a mind emancipated from much more than the Papacy. +The man who could write this satire must have regarded +the Reformation as a quarrel which dealt with only +the surface of the problem. I do not wonder that later +both Catholics and Protestants considered him a sceptic. +It is my belief that he was too sceptical to become greatly +excited about the Reformation. He is impressed with the +whole stupid comedy of the life about him.</p> + +<p>Knowledge of this book should be part of every man’s +education. It has much more than a historical interest for +the modern student. In form it is an oration which Folly +delivers in praise of herself. She makes a good case; perhaps +too good a case. Folly says that however slightly she +is esteemed in the common vogue of the world—being often +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span>decried even by those who are themselves the greatest fools—yet +she is <i>the deity who really rules the world</i> and is the +source of most men’s happiness. “At first sight of me you +all unmask and appear in more lively colors.”</p> + +<p>Without Folly society would go to pieces. Indeed no +one would ever be born, for would women ever have children +or marry except for Folly? And except for Folly +marriages would be few and divorces many. How could +the government exist without Folly? Have not wise legislators +in all times recognized the necessity of fooling the +people? After showing how Folly reigns in the arts and the +professions, and how each nation has its pet folly and self-conceit, +the speaker sums up, “I am so communicative and +bountiful as to let no particular person pass without some +token of my favor, whereas other deities bestow gifts sparingly +and to their elects only.”</p> + +<p>Let us note this reference to Folly as “deity.” Does +Erasmus mean to imply that Folly is the deity that mankind +really worships and has been worshipping all the while? +He makes Folly say,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Well, but there are none (say you) build any altars, or dedicate +any temple to Folly. I admire (as I have before intimated) +that the world should be so wretchedly ungrateful. But I am so +good natured as to pass by and pardon this seeming affront, though +indeed the charge thereof, as unnecessary, may well be saved; for to +what purpose should I demand the sacrifice of frankincense, cakes, +goats, and swine, since all persons everywhere pay me that more acceptable +service, which all divines agree to be more effectual and +meritorious, namely, an imitation of my communicable attributes?... +Farther, why should I desire a temple, since the whole world +is but one ample continued choir, entirely dedicated to my use and +service? Nor do I want worshippers at any place where the earth +wants not inhabitants. And as to the manner of my worship, I am +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span>not yet so irrecoverably foolish, as to be prayed to by proxy, and to +have my honour intermediately bestowed upon images and pictures, +which quite subvert the true end of religion....”</p> +</div> + +<p>But Folly has not time to recount all the foolishness of +the ignorant, neither is it necessary. She confines herself to +the follies of those who make pretense of wisdom. Of +these the theologians doubtless “least like to be reminded of +their dependence upon Folly,” but in evidence of this fact,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“They will cut asunder the toughest argument with as much ease +as Alexander did the Gordian knot; they will thunder out so many +rattling terms as shall fright an adversary into conviction. They +are exquisitely dexterous in unfolding the most intricate mysteries; +they will tell you to a tittle all the successive proceedings of omnipotence +in the creation of the universe; they will explain the precise +manner of original sin being derived from our first parents; they +will satisfy you in what manner, by what degrees, and in how long +a time our Saviour was conceived in the Virgin’s womb, and demonstrate +in the consecrated wafer how accidents may subsist without +a subject. Nay, these are accounted trivial, easy questions; they have +yet far greater difficulties behind, which nothwithstanding they solve +with as much expedition as the former; ... whether Christ, as a +son, bears a double specifically distinct relation to God the Father, +and his virgin mother? whether this proposition is possible to be true, +the first person of the Trinity hated the second? whether God, who +took our nature upon him in the form of a man, could as well have +become a woman, a devil, a beast, an herb, or a stone? and were it +so possible that the Godhead had appeared in any shape of an +inanimate substance, how he should then have preached his gospel? or +how have been nailed to the cross? whether if St. Peter had celebrated +the eucharist at the same time our Saviour was hanging on +the cross, the consecrated bread would have been transsubstantiated +into the same body that remained on the tree?”</p> + +<p>“Further, does any one appear a candidate for any ecclesiastical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span>dignity, why an ass or a plough jobber shall sooner gain it than a +wise man.”...</p> + +<p>“All their preaching is mere stage-playing, and their delivery the +very transports of ridicule and drollery. Good Lord! how mimical +are these gestures? What heights and falls in their voice? What +toning, what bawling, what singing, what squeaking, what grimaces, +making of mouths, and apes’ faces, and distorting of their countenance; +and this art of oratory as a choice mystery, they convey down +by tradition to one another. The manner of it I may adventure thus +farther to enlarge upon. First, in a kind of mockery they implore +the divine assistance, which they borrowed from the solemn custom of +the poets....</p> + +<p>“Now as to the popes of Rome, who pretend themselves Christ’s +vicars, if they would but imitate his exemplary life, in the being +employed in an unintermitted course of preaching; in the being +attended with poverty, nakedness, hunger, and a contempt of this +world; if they did but consider the import of the word pope, which +signifies a father; or if they did but practice their surname of most +holy, what order or degrees of men would be in a worse condition? +There would be then no such vigorous making of parties, and buying +of votes, in the conclave upon a vacancy of that see: and those who +by bribery, or other indirect courses, should get themselves elected, +would never secure their sitting firm in the chair by pistol, poison, +force of violence. How much of their pleasure would be abated +if they were but endowed with one dram of wisdom? Wisdom, +did I say? Nay, with one grain of that salt which our Saviour bid +them not lose the savour of. All their riches, all their honour, their +jurisdictions, their Peter’s patrimony, their offices, their dispensations, +their licences, their indulgences, their long train and attendants, +(see in how short a compass I have abbreviated all their marketing of +religion;) in a word, all their perquisities would be forfeited and +lost.”...</p> +</div> + +<p>Finally, after quoting many passages in praise of Folly +and of foolish actions and foolish persons which occur in his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span>precious classic literature, Erasmus does a surprising thing. +At the time this book was written those who later were to +become the Reformers were already disposed to appeal to +the Bible as an infallible authority equal to, if not above, +that of the Church. That Erasmus placed the Holy Scriptures +in the same category as other ancient literature is indicated +by his free and easy treatment of it. He humorously +quotes many passages to prove that the Bible actually +enjoins men to practice folly and eschew wisdom. Were +not our first parents expelled from Eden in punishment for +the sin of eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge? +He does not even spare the New Testament.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Now therefore I return to St. Paul, who uses these expressions +‘Ye suffer fools gladly,’ applying it to himself; and again, ‘As a fool +receive me,’ and ‘That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, +but as it were foolishly’; and in another place, ‘We are fools for +Christ’s sake.’ See how these commendations of Folly are equal +to the author of them, both great and sacred. The same holy +person does yet enjoin and command the being a fool, as a virtue of +all others most requisite and necessary: for, says he, ‘If any man seem +to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be +wise.’...</p> + +<p>“Nor may this seem strange in comparison to what is yet farther +delivered by St. Paul, who adventures to attribute something of Folly +even to the all-wise God himself, ‘The foolishness of God (says he) +is wiser than men’ ... wherein is to be understood that other +passage of St. Paul, ‘The preaching of the cross to them that perish, +is foolishness.’ But why do I put myself to the trouble of citing +so many proofs, since this one may suffice for all, namely, that in +those mystical psalms wherein David represents the type of Christ, +it is there acknowledged by our Saviour, in way of confession, that +even he himself was guilty of Folly; ‘thou (says he) O God knowest +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span>my foolishness?’ Nor is it without some reason that fools for their +plainness and sincerity of heart have always been most acceptable +to God Almighty.... So our Saviour in like manner dislikes and +condemns the wise and crafty, as St. Paul does expressly declare in +these words, ‘God hath chosen the foolish things of the world’; and +again, ‘it pleased God by foolishness to save the world’; implying +that by wisdom it could never have been saved. Nay, God himself +testifies as much when he speaks by the mouth of his prophet, ‘I will +destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nought the understanding +of the learned.’ Again, our Saviour does solemnly return +his Father thanks for that he had ‘hidden the mysteries of salvation +from the wise, and revealed them to babes,’ i. e. to fools.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The book ends with these words, “I hate a pot-companion +with a good memory: so indeed I hate a hearer that will +carry anything away with him. Wherefore in short, farewell: +be jolly, live long, drink deep, ye most illustrious +votaries of Folly.”</p> + +<p>It is said that Luther was repelled by this book. I do +not wonder. Erasmus would seem to be as far removed +from the spirit of Protestantism as from that of mediæval +Catholicism. Has Erasmus, perhaps without wholly realizing +the fact himself, stepped quite outside the traditional +Christian system of beliefs and values into a world-view +which is partly that of the ancient philosophies and partly +that of the eighteenth century Rationalist? I do not know. +He is certainly a liberal in matters of religion, but unlike our +contemporary liberals, he shows little interest in natural +science.</p> + +<p>He was severely criticised for refusing to participate in +the Reformation on the side of the Reformers. The following +bits of correspondence which I quote from Professor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span>Smith’s biography indicate the esteem in which he and +Luther finally held each other. Luther wrote about the +year 1524:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Since we see that the Lord has not given you courage and +sense to assail those monsters openly and confidently with us, we are +not the men to expect what is beyond your power and measure.... +We only fear that you may be induced by our enemies to fall upon +our doctrine with some publication, in which case we should be +obliged to resist you to your face.... Hitherto I have controlled my +pen as often as you prick me, and have written in letters to friends, +which you have seen, that I would control it until you publish +something openly. For although you will not side with us, and +although you injure and make skeptical many pious men by your +impiety and hypocrisy, yet I cannot and do not accuse you of willful +obstinancy.... We have fought long enough; we must take care not +to eat each other up. This would be a terrible catastrophe, as +neither of us wishes to harm religion, and without judging each other +both may do good.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Erasmus wrote to his friend, Everard,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“With what odium Luther burdens the cause of learning and that +of Christianity! As far as he can he involves all men in his business. +Everyone confessed that the Church suffered under the tyranny of +certain men, and many were taking counsel to remedy this state of +affairs. Now this man has arisen to treat the matter in such a way +that he fastens the yoke on us more firmly, and that no one dares to +defend even what he has said well. Six months ago I warned him to +beware of hatred. ‘The Babylonian Captivity’ (a bitter treatise +which Luther wrote) has alienated many from him, and he +daily puts forth more atrocious things.”</p> +</div> + +<p>And again to Luther, in reply to a very unkind letter,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Your letter was delivered to me late and had it come on time it +would not have moved me.... The whole world knows your +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span>nature, according to which you have guided your pen against no one +more bitterly and, what is more detestable, more maliciously than +against me.... The same admirable ferocity which you formerly +used against Cochlaeus and against Fisher, who provoked you to it by +reviling, you now use against my book in spite of its courtesy. How +do your scurrilous charges that I am an atheist, an Epicurean, and a +skeptic help the argument?... It terribly pains me, as it must all +good men, that your arrogant, insolent, rebellious nature has set the +world in arms.... You treat the Evangelic cause so as to confound +together all things sacred and profane as if it were your chief aim to +prevent the tempest from ever becoming calm, while it is my greatest +desire that it should die down.... I should wish you a better disposition +were you not so marvelously satisfied with the one you +have. Wish me any curse you will except your temper, unless the +Lord change it for you.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Much has been made of the following “damning” admission:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Would that some ‘deus ex machina’ might make a happy ending +for this drama so inauspiciously begun by Luther! He himself +gives his enemies the dart by which they transfix him, and acts as if +he did not wish to be saved, though frequently warned by me and by +his friends to tone down the sharpness of his style.... I cannot +sufficiently wonder at the spirit in which he has written. Certainly +he has loaded the cultivators of literature with heavy odium. Many +of his teachings and admonitions were splendid, but would that he +had not vitiated these good things by mixing intolerable evils! If +he had written all things piously, yet I should not have courage to risk +my life for the truth. All men have not strength for martyrdom. +I fear least, if any tumult should arise, I should imitate Peter (in +denying the Lord).”</p> +</div> + +<p>It is doubtful if Erasmus meant this confession of weakness +to be taken literally. Cowards are not often so honest +with themselves, nor do they make such candid revelations +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span>of their fears, but rather affect a show of bravery so long +as it is possible to disguise their weakness of character. +Had Erasmus been less strong, he would have yielded to +pressure, joined the reformers and sought refuge among +them. Instead, he stood against the crowd, knowing well +that although he might decline to join the ranks of Luther, +there was no refuge for him amongst the churchmen whom +he had been attacking for many years. He did not betray +his own cause, the Renaissance, but remained true to it in +opposition to bigotry and ignorance on both sides of the +controversy. In support of the revival of learning he was +courageous enough. Surrounded as he was by madness, he +conceived it to be the task of the wise man to keep his balance +and work for peace and sanity.</p> + +<p>I believe this to be the first social task of the educated. +Could a Socrates, or a Seneca, or Cicero have returned to +life in the year 1525, it is difficult to imagine that he would +have pursued a course very different from that Erasmus +pursued. A man’s intellectual integrity does not require +that he take sides when he believes that neither side has the +truth. I believe Erasmus took the longer view, for today +we find Humanism gradually supplanting orthodoxy among +educated Protestants, and I have no doubt that something +similar is taking place in Catholic centers of culture. The +liberal Catholic and the liberal Protestant are more nearly +of one mind than is either of them with the Fundamentalist +in his own sect. And they are each nearer to Erasmus. +Erasmus did not suffer martyrdom, neither did he make +martyrs of those who opposed him. Persecution and martyrdom +are the first things that the uneducated think of in +any social crisis. The masses are prepared to make any +conflict the occasion of both, and with only the vaguest idea +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span>of what the killing is all about. If there were more men +like Erasmus there would be less occasion for such practices. +His is the cause which will never triumph by force.</p> + +<p>Humanism, which in the Italian Renaissance was something +of a <i>parvenu</i> effort at culture, comes to its maturity +with Montaigne. It is an educational experience lived +through, a wisdom grown into, as Montaigne says, with +everything in its season. Montaigne’s mind is stored with +the fruits of the wisdom of all historic times. He quotes +the ancients as only Erasmus could, yet he is never an imitator +or copier. His is one of the most original minds in +literature, and his originality increases as he grows older +and has time to think. It is very different from the rebelliousness +of certain contemporary radicals, whose liberalism +might be characterized as retarded adolescence.</p> + +<p>A contemporary critic says of him, “Montaigne ... +was one of the most civilized men of whom we have any +record: his intellectual curiosity was matched by his magnanimity. +He hated cruelty, prejudice, violence and stupidity: +his love of life was so great that it illumined every +object in the world of sense and in the world of thought. +His style was so original that his remarks on little things +have outlived thousands of works dealing soberly with +portentous ideas. He could write on trivial themes without +becoming trivial.”</p> + +<p>Like Erasmus, he has a delicious sense of humor in which +there is no bitterness. He is so accustomed to ideas that +he can play with them. He can smile at his own weaknesses, +and discuss every question with open mind and with that +“kindly irony which is perhaps the ripest of all moods in +which poor humanity can look at itself.” But Erasmus +was the professional scholar, and we think of him always +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span>moving in circles where learning is of special interest. One +does not think of educational institutions when one reads +Montaigne’s essays, but of the educated man himself. He +is the learned layman, the <i>amateur</i> whose learning is assimilated +with all the interests of the daily routine of living. +He is not “taken in” by his culture so as to make it an end in +itself. He says,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“I labor not to be beloved more and esteemed better being dead +than alive.... If I were one of those to whom the world may be +indebted for praise, I would quit it for one moytie, on condition +it would pay me before hand.... I make no account of goods which +I could not employ to the use of my life. Such as I am, so I would +not be elsewhere than on paper. Mine art and industry have been +employed to make myself of some worth; my study and endeavor +to doe, and not to write. I have applied all my skill and devoire +to frame my life. Lo—heere mine occupation and my work. I am +a less maker of books than of anything else.... Whosoever hath +any worth in him, let him shew it in his behaviour, manners and +ordinary discourses; be it to treat of love or of quarrels; of sport and +play or bed-matters, at board or elsewhere; or be it in the conduct +of his own affairs or private household matters.... Demand a +Spartan whether he would rather be a cunning Rhethorician, then an +excellent souldier; nay, were I asked, I wuld say a good Cooke, +had I not some one to serve me. Good Lord—how I would hate +such a commendation, to be a sufficient man in writing and a foolish, +shallow-headed braine or coxcombe in all things else.”</p> +</div> + +<p>He ridicules those who strive to make a show of learning +and “alledge Plato and Saint Thomas for things which the +first man they meete would decide as well.... Such learning +as could not enter into their middle hath staid on their +tongues.”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Being young I studied for ostentation; then a little to enoble +myselfe and become wiser; now for delight and recreation, never for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span>gaine. A vaine conceit and lavish humour I had after this kinde of +stuffe; not only to provide for my need, but some what further to +adorne and embellish my selfe withall; I have since partlie left it.”</p> +</div> + +<p>He loves Letters but does not worship them. He remains +a little surprised and amused at his own bits of wisdom +and does not quite know how he came into the company +of the philosophers.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Nothing may be spoken so absurdly but that it is spoken by some +of the philosophers. And therefore do I suffer my humors or caprices +more freely to pass in publike. For as much as though they are +borne with, and of me, and without any patterne; well I wot, they +will be found to have relation to some ancient humour, and some +shall be found, that will both know and tell whence, and of whom +I have borrowed them. My customes are naturall; when I contrived +them, I called not for the help of any discipline: And weake +and faint as they were, when I have had a desire to expresse them, +and to make them appeare to the world a little more comely and +decent, I have somewhat endevoured to aide them with discourse, +and assist them with examples. I have wondred at my selfe, that +by mere chance I have met with them, agreeing and sutable to so +many ancient examples and Philosophicall discourses. What regiment +my life was of, I never knew nor learned but after it was much +worne and spent. A new figure: An unpremeditated Philosopher +and a casuall.”</p> +</div> + +<p>It is this unostentatious, unpremeditated, casual and chatty +quality of Montaigne’s writing that reveals the genuineness +of his education. A present-day critic would lead us to +believe that he kept a note book and patiently copied out +of his classics the passages which he might use as illustrations. +In a characteristic bit of humor at his own expense, +Montaigne seems to justify this idea that he was a mere compiler +of other men’s thoughts.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span></p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“We labor and toyle and plod to fill the memorie and leave both +understanding and conscience empty. Even as birds flutter and skip +from field to field to peck up corn or any grain and without tasting +the same carrie it in their bills therewith to feed their little ones: +so doe our pedants glean and pick learning from books and never +lodge it further than their lips only to disgorge and cast it to the +wind. It is strange how filthy sottishness takes hold of mine example. +Is not that which I do in the greatest part of this composition all one +and self same thing? I am forever here and there picking and +culling from this and that book the sentences that please me, not to +keepe them (for I have no store house to reserve them in) but to +transport them into this: where to say truth, they are no more +mine than in their first place.”</p> +</div> + +<p>But it is obvious that these essays were not the product +of a mind which worked in such a sophomoric manner as +this. Montaigne’s mind is saturated with “ancient humor.” +There is no pretense or conscious effort to appear erudite. +While many other Renaissance scholars were writing in +Latin and affecting a Ciceronian style, Montaigne wrote in +French. He is, I believe, the creator of the essay as a form +of literary expression, a style which is more free and informal +than the conventional forms of his day.</p> + +<p>A man who spent his days in seclusion in his library in +the tower of his castle, he writes not of books but of every +conceivable human interest and commonplace reality. His +wisdom turns to such considerations as, “By diverse means +men come to a like end.” “How the soul dischargeth +her passions upon false objects.” “Whether the captaine +of a place besieged ought to sally forth to parley.” He +writes of “Idleness,” of “Liars,” or “Virtue,” of “Drunkenness,” +of “Exercise or Practice,” of “Profit and Honesty,” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span>of “Repenting,” of “Coaches,” of “The Verses of Virgil,” +of “Vanity,” of “The affection of fathers to their Children,” +of “Seneca” and “Plutarch” and “Julius Caesar.” Always +his interest is in human experience. Shrewd personal observations +are mingled with stories from antiquity and quaint +philosophic maxims in a mind which is at once mature and +inquisitive, loquacious and sceptical, candidly self-revealing, +without pretention, equally at home among books and things. +Let those who object to the teaching of the classics on the +ground that they tend to a “separation of education from +life” go back and re-read Montaigne.</p> + +<p>Although the two were by temperament very different, +Montaigne would have pleased Erasmus. His education +and philosophy of life were very much the type that Erasmus +strove to encourage. When Montaigne was born, in +1533, the influence of the Renaissance had already made +itself felt in France. He was three years old when Erasmus +died. But his casual mention of “The Adages” and +“Colloquies” of Erasmus would indicate that sometime in +his youth these books formed part of his education. His +knowledge of Greek and Latin began at a very early period +in his life. It is said that when he was a mere infant his +father placed him in the home of a neighboring scholar +so that he would grow up with the same familiarity with +these languages as with his mother tongue. He entered +what was called a “college” at the age of six. It was, I +suppose, a preparatory school. It must have come under +the influence of the revival of learning for it had on its +faculty some of the ablest scholars in France at that time. +At the age of thirteen he entered a university to study Law, +took his degree at twenty, and at twenty-one was appointed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span>councilor for the Parliament of Bordeaux. He seems to +have had some military experience also, and to have spent +some gay years at court.</p> + +<p>When he was thirty-nine years old he inherited the estate +and castle of Montaigne near Bordeaux. He married, +and except for the few years, when against his inclination +he served as Mayor of Bordeaux, he spent the remainder +of his days in private life, looking after his estate and enjoying +hours of unbroken meditation in his tower library, +reading his Horace and Plutarch and the ancient poets and +philosophers generally. He says he was not a great reader, +but that he liked to have his books about him. He especially +enjoyed the privacy of his library, from which, he +gives us to understand, his wife and the rest of the household +were excluded.</p> + +<p>Montaigne began writing brief essays when he was forty-five +years old, not at first for publication but rather so that +he might present a true picture of himself to his family and +friends. The writing evidently amused him for as the +years passed the essays grew longer and their content more +serious.</p> + +<p>If we are to see the full significance of the essays as the +revelation of an achievement in education—and that is our +present interest in them—we must remember what was happening +in the world at the time they were written. The +struggle of the Reformation was in full swing. Montaigne’s +lifetime coincides with what was doubtless the most bitter +and acrimonious period of that religious conflict. Everywhere +there was persecution, riot, intrigue, retaliation; men +seemed to have lost utterly the liberal spirit of the Renaissance +and to have forgotten that there was such a virtue +as tolerance.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span></p> +<p>Montaigne was an exception. It is said that during the +years of bloodshed in France, his castle was never fortified, +nor closed, and that both Catholics and Protestants were +welcome there. The battle does not disturb Montaigne’s +equanimity, nor warp his judgment; it remains to him a +little more than a fight in the street. I should like to call +attention to this indifference to the great mass movement +of the times, for there are those who contend that philosophy, +art and letters are but the by-products of such +movements. At a time when nearly every one is eaten up +with partisan zeal, Montaigne hardly mentions the Reformation. +He says, “I perswade you, in your opinions and +discourses, as much as in your custom, and in every other +thing, to use moderation and temperance, and avoid all +newfangled inventions and strangenesses. All extravagant +wais displease me.”</p> + +<p>While others are resorting to torture and massacre for +the sake of a faith which they do not question, Montaigne +quietly retires and has time to see when he is making himself +ridiculous.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“It is not long since I retired my selfe unto mine owne house, +with full purpose, as much as lay in me, not to trouble myselfe with +any businesse, but solitarily and quietly to weare out the remainder +of my wellnigh spent life: when me thought I could doe my spirit +no greater favor than to give him the full scope of idlenesse, and +entertaine him as best he pleased, and withall to settle himselfe as +best he liked: which I hoped he might, now being by time become +more settled and ripe, accomplish very easily: but I finde</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"> +<div class="stanza"><div class="verse indent0">‘... evermore idlenesse</div> +<div class="verse indent0">Doth wavering mindes addresse.’</div></div> +</div></div> + +<p>That contrariwise, playing the skittish and loose broken jade, he takes +a hundred times more cariere and libertie unto himselfe than he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span>did for others: and begets in me so many extravagant chimeraes and +fantastical monsters, so orderless, and without any reason, one +huddled upon the other, that at leisure to view the foolishnesse and +monstrous strangeness of them, I have begun to keep a register of +them, hoping, if I live, one day to make him ashamed and blush at +himselfe.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Toward the multitude and its judgments of value he is +indifferent,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Our soule must play her part, but inwardly, within our selves, +where no eyes shine but ours: ... not for any advantage but for +the gracefulness of honestie itselfe. This benefit is much greater, +and more worthie to be wished and hoped, then honor and glory, +which is naught but a favorable judgment that is made of us.... +Is it reason to make the life of a wise man depend on the judgment of +fooles? Nothing is so incomprehensible to be just waied as the +mindes of the multitude....</p> + +<p>“... In this breathie confusion of brutes and frothy chaos of reports +and of vulgar opinions which still push us on, no good can be +established. Let us not propose so fleeting and so wavering an end +unto ourselves. Let us constantly follow reason: And let the vulgar +approbation follow us that way, if it please. Of the many thousands +of worthie, valiant men which fifteen hundred years since [the +day of Juvenal] have died in France with their weapons in +their hands, not one in a hundred have come to our knowledge.... +It shall be much, if a hundred years hence the civil +warres which lately we have had in France be but remembered in +grosse.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Yes, the multitude may follow if it pleases; Montaigne +will not urge it. He may remind it that in a few years +its cause may be forgotten. But how free he is from the +righteous indignation and vindictiveness and factiousness +which everywhere storm about him. He has that urbanity +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span>of which I spoke, and the serenity of one who has learned +to laugh at his own prejudices.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Surely, man is a wonderful, vaine, divers and wavering subject: +it is very hard to ground any directly constant and uniforme judgment +upon him.”</p> +</div> + +<p>His wisdom leads him to see not only the folly of mankind, +but also his own folly and weakness, which he does +not strive to conceal, but relates with amusing candor.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“I have, a kind of raving, fanciful behavior that retireth well +into myselfe: and on the other side a grosse and childish ignorance +of many ordinary things: by means of which two qualities I have +in my daies committed five or six as sottish trickes as any one +whatsoever: which to my derogration may be reported....</p> + +<p>“For my part, I may in generall wish to be other than I am: +I may condenme and mislike my universall forme: I may beseech God +to grant me an undefiled reformation and excuse my natural weaknesse: +but me seemeth I ought to tearme this repentance, no more +than the displeasure of being neither an Angell nor Cato....</p> + +<p>“When I consult with my age of my youthe’s proceedings, I +finde that commonly (according to my opinion) I managed them +in order. This is all my resistance is able to perform. I flatter not +myselfe: in like circumstances I should be ever the same. It is not +a spot, but a whole dye that staynes mee. I acknowledge no repentence +(that) is superficiall, meane, and ceremonious.</p> + +<p>“Crosses and afflictions (works of penance) make me doe nothing +but curse them. They are for people that cannot be arroused but +by the whip.... The happy life (in my opinion, not as said +Antisthenes, the happy death,) is it that makes man’s happinesse in +this world.</p> + +<p>“I have not preposterously busied myselfe to tie the taile of +a Philosopher unto the head and bodie of a varlet: nor that this +paultrie end, should disavow and belie the fairest soundest and longest +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span>part of my life. I will present myselfe and make a generall muster +of my whole, everywhere uniformally. Were I to live againe, it +should be as I have already lived. I neither deplore the past, nor +dread what is to come.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The man who can speak so of himself is not likely to +hold up any universal standard of faith or practice. He +is not the man with the message for humanity, as were the +Reformers and their enemies in the church. He is not a +partisan because he has gone beyond such dilemmas. His +knowledge of many books and of many and diverse explantations +of the riddle of life and many kinds of goods +and evils has made him see that there is no “one right way.” +Reason has often been opposed to faith. Montaigne sees +that reason too is faith, and faith all too human. There +can be no finality.</p> + +<p>I suspect that his tolerance and aloofness during the +Reformation in France were the result of a point of view +somewhat similar to that of Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise,” +and his story of the three rings. No one possessed the +original, which was supposed to entitle the owner to the +ancestral blessing and inheritance. All, like all religions, +were counterfeits of the lost article.</p> + +<p>Montaigne gives his ideas of religion and philosophy in +the longest of his essays, “An Apologie of Raymond Sebond.” +He says that his father once requested him to +translate a book on natural Theology by an unknown Spanish +writer of this name. His remarks reveal the extent to +which his mind is freed from both rationalism and religious +dogmatism.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“We should accompany our faith with all the reason we possess: +yet always with this proviso, that we think it does not depend on us, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span>and that all our strength and arguments can never attain to so +supernaturall and divine a knowledge.”</p> +</div> + +<p>His remarkable detachment is seen in the following. He +says that the best test of Verity is the practice of virtue.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“And therefore was our good Saint Lewis in the right, when that +Tartan King who was to become a Christian intended to come to +Lions to kisse the Pope’s feet, and there to view the sanctitie he +hoped to find in our lives and manners, instantly to divert him from +it fearing lest our dissolute manners and licentious kind of life might +scandalize him and so alter his opinion foreconceived of so sacred a religion. +How be it the contrary happened to another who for the +same effect being come to Rome, and there viewing the dissoluteness +of the prelates and people of those days, was so much more confirmed +in our religion, considering with himselfe what force and divinity it +must of consequence have since it was able, amidst so many corruptions +and so viciously poluted hands to maintain her dignitie and +splendor....</p> + +<p>“Our zeale worketh wonders when ever it secondeth our inclination +toward hatred, cruelitie, ambition, avarice, detraction or rebellion.... +Among other discommodities of our nature this is one, +there is darkness in our minds, and in us not only necessity of erring +but love of errors.... Presumption is our naturall and originall +infirmitie. Of all creatures, man is the most miserable and fraile, +and therewithall the proudest and disdainfullest ... he ascribeth +divine conditions unto himselfe that he selecteth and separateth himselfe +from out the ranke of other creatures.... By what comparison +from them to us doth he conclude the brutishness he ascribeth +unto them? When I am playing with my cat who knows whether +she have more sport in dallying with me than I in gaming with her? +We entertain one another with mutuall apish tricks.”</p> + +<p>“We understand them (the beasts) no more than they us. By +the same reason may they as well esteem us Beasts, as we them. +It is no great marvell if we understand them not: no more doe we +understand the Cornish, the Welch, or Irish.”</p> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span></p> +<p>He is persuaded he says, that if anyone who has pursued +knowledge will “speak in conscience, he will confess that all +the benefit he hath gotten by so tedious a pursuit, hath been +that he hath learned to know his own weaknesse.”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“My profession is not to know the truth nor to attaine it. I +rather open than discover things. The wisest that ever was, being +demanded what he knew, answered that he knew nothing.”</p> +</div> + +<p>He speaks with approval of the doubters, the Phyrronians +who “but desire to be contradicted, thereby to engender +doubt and suspense of judgment which is their end and drift.” +Thus these men have attained the condition of a quiet and +contented life, exempted from the agitations which beset ourselves +because we imagine we have a certainty and a knowledge +that we do not possess.</p> + +<p>After all “that ignorance which knoweth and condemneth +itselfe,” is not absolute ignorance. Montaigne seems to +hold that it is the best we may attain and that in knowing +and condemning our ignorance we may avoid much of the +misery and mischief we inflict upon ourselves and one another. +The fears and revenge and jealousies and partisan +strife and rebellion and envy and immoderate desires which +everywhere he finds about him all proceed, he thinks, from +presumptuous ignorance which does not know itself to be +ignorance. In the midst of theological disputation he smilingly +reminds his neighbors that as,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Xenophanes said pleasantly that if beastes frame any gods unto +themselves (as likely it is they doe) they surely frame them like unto +themselves and glorifie themselves as we do. For what may not +a Goose say this? All parts of the world behold me, the earth +serveth me to tread upon, the sunne to give me light, the starres +to inspire me with influence: this commodity I have of the winds, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span>and this benefit of the waters: there is nothing that this world’s +vault doth so favorably looke upon as me selfe: I am the favorite of +nature. Is it not man that careth for me, that keepeth me, and +serveth me? For me it is he soweth and reapeth and grindeth. +If he eat me, so doth man feede on his fellow, and so doe I on +the wormes that consume and eat him.”</p> + +<p>“I commend the Milesian wench who seeing Thales the Philosoper +continually amusing hemselfe in the contemplation of heaven’s wide +bounding vault and ever holding his eyes aloft, laid something in his +way to make him stumble, thereby to warne and put him in minde +that he should not amuse his thoughts about matters above the clouds +before he had provided for and well considered those at his feet. +Verily she advised him well, and it better became him rather to +looke to himselfe than to gaze on heaven.”</p> +</div> + +<p>“<i>The wisest judging of heaven is not to judge of it at all.</i>” +His own modest answer to the riddle of existence in contrast +to those who would “turne and winde God Almighty +according to their own measure,” is “Que scay-je?”—What +do I know?</p> + +<p>Montaigne is not a hard and soulless sceptic. He is a +well poised, modest thinker and an honest man. He is not +a denier, but one whose mind is free from cant, humbug, +pretentiousness. Historically he is one of the links between +the best in modern education and the questioning Socrates +whom he knew and loved. I trust that in presenting the +Humanist tradition in this concrete manner, I have been +able to suggest something of its spirit. It has a necessary +place in liberal education because it helps liberate the mind +from the clutches of opinionated ignorance, from the follies +which prevail as truth in our own age, and from conceit +and vanity to which our human nature is ever prone.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII +<br> +SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION—HUXLEY</h2></div> + + +<p>When the ancient Humanist, Protagoras, said, “Man is +the measure of all things,” he probably did not mean that +all things may be measured by man, for in his following +sentence he is sceptical of our knowledge of many things. +He meant rather that all our measurements are human. +This independence of supernaturalism was not always characteristic +of educated minds of antiquity, but it is one of the +distinguishing features of the educational tradition which +we have derived from Greece and Rome. Thus Aristotle +would establish ethics in the life of reason. This same +naturalistic bias also inspires those early attempts at science +which were broken off under the influence of Christianity.</p> + +<p>The Renaissance was accompanied by a re-awakened interest +in nature, and in human nature as part of nature as +a whole. The trend toward naturalism is seen in art, in +the resumption of scientific research and experimentation, +and in the effort to supplant scholastic theology by the +study of human letters. To Da Vinci, for instance, science, +art, and letters were but the varied aspects of the same +cultural awakening. But for the greater number of those +who felt the influence of the Renaissance, science and letters +became quite separate interests. The new learning +of the Humanists was almost exclusively a literary scholarship. +Erasmus and his followers had very little interest +in natural science. They found in classic literature a body +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span>of mature wisdom ready to hand. Science on the contrary, +was obliged to begin <i>de novo</i>, and slowly construct its instruments +of thought, building, gradually a new system of +knowledge. The brunt of the conflict with scholastic education +fell upon the humanists. The real renaissance of +science did not take place until the seventeenth century.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the Reformation had caused a revival of +religious interest, and in Protestant countries like England, +and later America, the influence of religion upon higher +learning remained powerful. It permitted the classical +tradition to survive in letter rather than in spirit. The +naturalistic implications of the classics were ignored; commentators +whenever possible read into the texts the conventional +beliefs and sentiments of Protestantism. Humanism +became “traditional education,” a new scholasticism, formal +and innocuous, a mark of intellectual respectability, a +“refining” influence, an embroidery of familiar quotation +in the speech of parsons and country squires.</p> + +<p>Successive generations of grown-up schoolboys in Gothic +halls, laboriously translated, over and over again, hackneyed +passages from a literature that in the fifteenth century had +been carried about like the fire of Prometheus, kindling defiance +to Heaven all over Europe. Often men could think +of no better reason for the study of the ancient classics +than that in the tedium and monotony of language drill there +was a “discipline” which was good for the soul. The +student’s attention was centered upon the niceties of construction +and upon the task of memorizing rules of grammar +and a vocabulary, all stuffed into his head in the most artificial +manner conceivable. He was not likely to be puzzled +over the discovery that there might be something spiritually +irreconcilable between Lucretius and the Thirty Nine Articles, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span>or between the dialectic of Socrates and the Westminster +confession of faith.</p> + +<p>There is a world of difference between this <i>denatured</i> +Humanism and that of Erasmus or Montaigne. That this +traditional education made for polish and good breeding +cannot be denied. Neither, I think, can it be denied that +there was something sterile and illiberal in Protestant-classical +education. It is significant that both the Enlightenment +of the eighteenth century and the progress of science +in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries took place chiefly +outside the established universities and sometimes in spite +of their opposition.</p> + +<p>I do not see how the situation could well have been otherwise. +In the first place the older Humanists themselves +dealt the naturalism of the ancients and such of it as was +again coming to life a severe blow when they championed +letters and remained indifferent to science. In the second +place, the Reformation quite side-tracked the revival of +learning, superseded it, and took over into its own service +only so much of it as it found congenial to its religious interests. +It was a mass movement, an attempt at a restatement +of Christianity in terms of the philosophy of the +common man, a philosophy to which the questioning, enlightened +common sense and worldly wisdom of a Montaigne, +a Voltaire or a Hume is never very congenial. +Santayana says, “The philosophy of the common man is +an old wife that gives him no pleasure, yet he cannot do +without her, and resents any aspersions that strangers may +cast on her character.</p> + +<p>“Of this homely philosophy the tender cuticle is religious +belief; really the least vital and most arbitrary part of +human opinion, the outer ring, as it were, of the fortifications +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span>of prejudice, but for that very reason the most jealously +defended; since it is on being attacked there, at the least +defensible point, that rage and alarm at being attacked +at all are first aroused in the citadel. People are not naturally +sceptics, wondering if a single one of their intellectual +habits can be reasonably preserved; they are dogmatists +angrily confident of maintaining them all. Integral minds, +pupils of a single coherent tradition, regard their religion, +whatever it may be, as certain, as sublime, and as the only +rational basis of morality and policy. Yet in fact religious +belief is terribly precarious, partly because it is arbitrary, +so that in the next tribe or in the next century it will wear +quite a different form; and partly because, when genuine, +it is spontaneous and continually remodelled, like poetry, +in the heart that gives it birth. A man of the world soon +learns to discredit established religions on account of their +variety and absurdity, although he may good-naturedly continue +to conform to his own; and a mystic before long begins +fervently to condemn current dogmas, on account of his own +different inspiration. Without philosophical criticism, +therefore, mere experience and good sense suggest that all +positive religions are false, or at least (which is enough for +my present purpose) that they are all fantastic and insecure.”</p> + +<p>Speaking of the Reformation and its relation to science, +Whitehead says, “We cannot look upon it as introducing +a new principle into human life.” Perhaps he is inclined +to over-emphasize the assertions of the Reformers that they +were only restoring what had been forgotten. But he says, +“It is quite otherwise with the rise of modern science. In +every way it contrasts with the contemporary religious movement. +The Reformation was a popular uprising and for +a century and a half drenched Europe in blood. The beginnings +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span>of the scientific movement were confined to a +minority among the intellectual élite.”</p> + +<p>It is doubtless because the Humanists remained relatively +indifferent to science, that its early struggles with theology +were comparatively mild. It was permitted to make remarkable +progress in the seventeenth century without raising +an issue too great for its strength. It is interesting to note +that when in the nineteenth century the conflict of natural +science with theology became acute, science was at the same +time engaged in a struggle for recognition by the official +educational system in which the classical tradition held +sway.</p> + +<p>The outstanding public champion of science in this conflict +was Thomas H. Huxley. He could say of university +education in England in the year 1868, that the colleges +no longer promoted research in science, and were hardly +more than “boarding schools for bigger boys.” Once they +had been homes for the life study of the most abstruse and +important branches of knowledge.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“I believe there can be no doubt that the foreigner who should +wish to become acquainted with the scientific, or the literary, activity +of modern England, would simply lose his time and his pains if he +visited our universities with that object.</p> + +<p>“The countrymen of Grote and of Mill, of Faraday, of Robert +Brown, of Lyell, and Darwin, to go no further back than the contemporaries +of men of middle age, can afford to smile at such a +suggestion. England can show now, and she has been able to show +in every generation since civilization spread over the West, individual +men who hold their own against the world, and keep alive the old +tradition of her intellectual eminence.</p> + +<p>“But in the majority of cases, these men are what they are in +virtue of their native intellectual force, and of a strength of character +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>which will not recognise impediments. They are not trained +in the courts of the Temple of Science, but storm the walls of that +edifice in all sorts of irregular ways, and with much loss of time and +power, in order to obtain their legitimate positions.</p> + +<p>“Our universities not only do not encourage such men; do not +offer them positions, in which it should be their highest duty to do, +thoroughly, that which they are most capable of doing; but, as far +as possible, university training shuts out of the minds of those among +them, who are subjected to it, the prospect that there is anything in +the world for which they are specially fitted.—Imagine the success +of the attempt to still the intellectual hunger of any of the men +I have mentioned, by putting before him, as the object of existence, +the successful mimicry of the measure of a Greek song, or the roll +of Ciceronian prose!”</p> +</div> + +<p>Twelve years later Huxley was still waging his contest +for the admission of science to the curricula of school and +college against an opposition the obstinacy of which is a little +difficult for us today to understand.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“For I hold very strongly by two convictions—The first is, that +neither the discipline nor the subject-matter of classical education +is of such direct value to the student of physical science as to justify +the expenditure of valuable time upon either; and the second is, +that for the purpose of attaining real culture, an exclusively scientific +education is at least as effectual as an exclusively literary education.</p> + +<p>“I need hardly point out to you that these opinions, especially the +latter, are diametrically opposed to those of the great majority of +educated Englishmen, influenced as they are by school and university +traditions. In their belief, culture is obtainable only by a +liberal education; and a liberal education is synonymous, not merely +with education and instruction in literature, but in one particular +form of literature, namely, that of Greek and Roman antiquity. +They hold that the man who has learned Latin and Greek, however +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span>little, is educated; while he who is versed in other branches of +knowledge, however deeply, is a more or less respectable specialist, +not admissable into the cultured caste. The stamp of the educated +man, the University degree, is not for him.”</p> + +<p>“The representatives of the Humanists, in the nineteenth century, +take their stand upon classical education as the sole avenue to culture, +as firmly as if we were still in the age of Renascence. Yet, surely, +the present intellectual relations of the modern and the ancient +worlds are profoundly different from those which obtained three +centuries ago. Leaving aside the existence of a great and characteristic +modern literature, of modern painting, and, especially of +modern music, there is one feature of the present state of the civilized +world which separates it more widely from the Renascence, than the +Renascence was separated from the middle ages.</p> + +<p>“This distinctive character of our own times lies in the vast and +constantly increasing part which is played by natural knowledge. +Not only is our daily life shaped by it, not only does the prosperity of +millions of men depend upon it, but our whole theory of life has long +been influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by the general conceptions +of the universe, which have been forced upon us by physical +science.”</p> + +<p>“The scientist, no longer disposed to remain on the defensive with +the usual apology for science, carries the battle into the opposing +camp and indicts the opposition, with some justice I think, for its +failure even when judged by its own traditional standards of education.</p> + +<p>“There is no great force in the <i>tu quoque</i> argument, or else the +advocates of scientific education might fairly enough retort upon +the modern Humanists that they may be learned specialists, but that +they possess no such sound foundation for a criticism of life as deserves +the name of culture. And, indeed, if we were disposed to +be cruel, we might urge that the Humanists have brought this reproach +upon themselves, not because they are too full of the spirit +of the ancient Greek, but because they lack it.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span></p> +<p>“The period of the Renascence is commonly called that of the +“Revival of Letters,” as if the influences then brought to bear upon +the mind of Western Europe had been wholly exhausted in the field +of literature. I think it is very commonly forgotten that the revival +of science, effected by the same agency, although less conspicuous, +was not less momentous....</p> + +<p>“We cannot know all the best thoughts and sayings of the Greeks +unless we know what they thought about natural phenomena. We +cannot fully apprehend their criticism of life unless we understand +the extent to which that criticism was affected by scientific conceptions. +We falsely pretend to be the inheritors of their culture, +unless we are penetrated, as the best minds among them were, with +an unhesitating faith that the free employment of reason, in accordance +with scientific method, is the sole method of reaching truth.</p> + +<p>“Thus I venture to think that the pretensions of our modern Humanists +to the possession of the monopoly of culture and to the +exclusive inheritance of the spirit of antiquity must be abated, if not +abandoned.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Huxley was one of the few educators of his time who +ought to have seen clearly that in the education of the ancients +there was no conflict of interest between science and +letters; the two were one in the naturalistic minds of the +Greeks. He is aware of the fact that both science and +letters were revived by the Renaissance, but it would seem +that he permits his zeal in the cause of scientific training +to force him at times into a rather one-sided and partisan +position.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“But for those who mean to make science their serious occupation; +or who intend to follow the profession of medicine; or who have to +enter early upon the business of life; for all these, in my opinion, +classical education is a mistake; and it is for this reason that I am +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span>glad to see ‘mere literary education and instruction’ shut out from the +curriculum of Sir Josiah Mason’s College, seeing that its inclusion +would probably lead to the introduction of the ordinary smattering +of Latin and Greek....”</p> + +<p>“The great peculiarity of scientific training, that in virtue of +which it cannot be replaced by any other discipline whatsoever, is +this bringing of the mind directly into contact with fact, and practising +the intellect in the completest form of induction; that is to +say, in drawing conclusions from particular facts made known by +immediate observation of nature.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The struggle for recognition of the liberalizing educational +value of science was carried to successful issue in the +nineteenth century. In backward communities, Fundamentalism +still sets its face against certain of the anti-supernaturalist +implications of science, and it is always +possible that if at any time the populace now dazzled by +the “wonders” of science, should suspect the full meaning +of the world-view which science would substitute for the +older anthropomorphic ideas about the universe, there may +be a wide-spread popular reaction against it in the name of +religion. But at present in educational institutions generally, +scientific courses tend to predominate over the classical. +Most of the struggles for “academic freedom” and most of +the live problems in education revolve about the teaching +of the sciences. A vastly greater number of minds are today +set free from dogma and superstition and childish +deference to authority by methods of scientific research +than by the study of the classics. The latter is on the decline +and I suppose must continue to be so until Humanism +again possesses that vitality and naturalism, and independence +of judgment which men had when the Greeks set +out to discover the Good Life.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span></p> +<p>Dewey says that without initiation into the scientific spirit +one is not in possession of the best tools which humanity +has so far devised for effectively directed reflection. In it +may be realized that desire for exact knowledge as different +from mere opinion which the ancients sought. It tests +all things in the light of experiment and by appeal to cold +objective fact. It is often said that science is Reason in +contrast with Faith. Certainly the scientist cannot in his +research permit himself to be swayed by religious belief +and remain scientific. He must accept no conclusion on +authority or because he wishes to believe it. But the scientific +mind is not, as a matter of fact, as strictly rationalistic +as was the scholastic mind. The logic of the latter is a formal +vindication of The Truth conceived in advance of knowledge +of fact. The reasoning of the former proceeds by a +succession of shrewd guesses which are held to be mere +hypothesis until verified by the facts. This necessity of +holding judgment in abeyance, and of being willing to discard +any belief or postulate that may not be confirmed by +objective reality, has the greatest educational value. In +spite of the everlasting deceitfulness and conceit of human +nature and notwithstanding the fact that pompous ignorance +and fraud are often palmed off upon the public as scientific +knowledge, I should say, precisely because of these things, +training in scientific methods is the best device available to +the educator for instilling into the human mind some measure +of respect for truth.</p> + +<p>To this end Huxley would introduce scientific experimentation +into the elementary school and would establish +“scientific Sunday schools,”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Would there really be anything wrong in using part of Sunday +for the purpose of instructing those who have no other leisure, in a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span>knowledge of the phenomena of Nature, and of man’s relation to +Nature?</p> + +<p>“I should like to see a scientific Sunday-school in every parish, +not for the purpose of superseding any existing means of teaching +the people the things that are for their good, but side by side with +them. I cannot but think that there is room for all of us to work +in helping to bridge over the great abyss of ignorance which lies at +our feet.</p> + +<p>“And if any of the ecclesiastical persons to whom I have referred +object that they find it derogatory to the honour of the God whom +they worship, to awaken the minds of the young to the infinite wonder +and majesty of the works which they proclaim His, and to teach +them those laws which must needs be His laws, and therefore of all +things needful for man to know—I can only recommend them to be +let blood and put on low diet. There must be something very wrong +going on in the instrument of logic if it turns out such conclusions +from such premises.”</p> +</div> + +<p>There is an intellectual cleanness, something downright +and honest about the scientific pursuit of knowledge, and +this uncompromising mental integrity characterizes everything +that Huxley said and did. There is nothing shifty in +a mind trained as his was. His is like a cool north breeze +on one of those clear summer days that sometimes follow a +period of sultriness, fog and rain. If things are a little +too sharply outlined, they are at least recognized for what +they are. No evasive mistiness obscures the landscape. +To Huxley the foundation of morality is to give up pretending +to believe that for which there is no evidence. He +held that the lowest depths to which the human race could +fall—after knowing what science now reveals of nature—would +be to go back and deceive itself with comforting fictions. +You will remember his correspondence with Kingsley +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span>when death had entered his home. The grief-stricken +Huxley refused the consolations of a faith in which he could +not whole-heartedly believe. Like Socrates and Montaigne +and many educated men today, Huxley was candidly agnostic +with respect to matters which lie beyond the radius of +human knowledge.</p> + +<p>Huxley was a determinist, but it is doubtful if he was a +materialist. At least he held to a materialism which in one +sense might be reconciled with a form of idealism. In the +address in honor of Joseph Priestley he said,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Without containing much that will be new to the readers or +Hobbs, Spinoza, Collins, Hume, and Hartley, and indeed, while +making no pretensions to originality, Priestley’s ‘Disquisitions relating +to Matter and Spirit,’ and his ‘Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity +Illustrated,’ are among the most powerful, clear, and unflinching +expositions of materialism and necessarianism which exist in the +English language, and are still well worth reading.</p> + +<p>“Priestley denied the freedom of the will in the sense of its self-determination; +he denied the existence of a soul distinct from the +body; and as a natural consequence, he denied the natural immortality +of man.</p> + +<p>“In relation to these matters English opinion a century ago was +very much what it is now.</p> + +<p>“A man may be a necessarian without incurring graver reproach +than that implied in being called a gloomy fanatic, necessarianism, +though very shocking, having a note of Calvinistic orthodoxy; but, if +a man is a materialist; or, if good authorities say he is and must be +so, in spite of his assertion to the contrary; or, if he acknowledge +himself unable to see good reasons for believing in the natural immortality +of man, respectable folks look upon him as an unsafe +neighbour of a cashbox, as an actual or potential sensualist, the more +virtuous in outward seeming, the more certainly loaded with secret +‘grave personal sins.’</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span></p> +<p>“... I must confess that what interests me most about Priestley’s +materialism, is the evidence that he saw dimly the seed of destruction +which such materialism carries within its own bosom. In the course +of his reading for his ‘History of Discoveries relating to Vision, +Light, and Colours,’ he had come upon the speculations of Boscovich +and Michell, and had been led to admit the sufficiently obvious truth +that our knowledge of matter is a knowledge of its properties; and +that of its substance—if it have a substance—we know nothing. +And this led to the further admission that, so far as we can know, +there may be no difference between the substance of matter and the +substance of spirit (‘Disquisitions, p. 16’). A step farther would +have shown Priestley that his materialism was, essentially, very little +different from the Idealism of his contemporary, the Bishop of +Cloyne.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Perhaps William James may have had Huxley or his type +in mind when he wrote his famous passage about learning +“to stand this universe.” Yet I suspect that Huxley’s universe +was more simple and benevolent, more naïvely conceived +than was that of James. Huxley was to the end a +rationalist, and lived and worked in a period when Nature +was thought to be essentially reasonable. Man need only +learn the laws of nature and obey them to become wise and +happy and good. The aim of education was to acquaint the +student with the laws of nature.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this +mighty game. In other words, education is the instruction of the +intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not +merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the +fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving +desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me, education +means neither more nor less than this....</p> + +<p>“Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span>one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing +a game of chess. Don’t you think that we should all consider it to +be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the +pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means +of giving and getting out of check?</p> + +<p>“Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the +fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of +those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something +of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated +than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every +man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his +or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena +of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the +laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. +We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But we also +know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the +smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the +highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with +which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill +is checkmated—without haste, but without remorse.</p> + +<p>“My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in +which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his +soul. Substitute for the mocking friend in that picture a calm, +strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose +than win—and I should accept it as an image of human life....</p> + +<p>“That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been +so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, +and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, +it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all +its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like +a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the +gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is +stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of +Nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted +ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span>to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who +has learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate +all vileness, and to respect others as himself.</p> + +<p>“Such an one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education; +for he is, as completely as a man can be, in harmony with Nature. +He will make the best of her, and she of him. They will get on +together rarely; she as his ever beneficent mother; he as her mouthpiece, +her conscious self, her minister and interpreter.”</p> +</div> + +<p>But surely liberal education is more than becoming the +mouthpiece of a benevolent nature. It seems to me that +Huxley omits one of the essentials. Just as the nineteenth +century Humanists, because of their neglect of science, possessed +only a distorted and one-sided view of Humanist +education, so it would seem to me that nineteenth century +science in its opposition to traditional education, failed to +see that science is itself a part of Humanism. It is not +merely the discovery of given “Laws” which exist independently +in a benevolent and rational universe. It is the +observation of certain relationships and recurrences and the +statement of these things in general terms that will give +them significance for <i>human beings</i>. What nature is aside +from the fact that we are interested spectators does not +concern us. Science grows out of the fact that we are +more interested in some things than in others. It is a +human achievement; it is one of the answers that mankind +gives to the riddle of existence. It is not existence which +gives that answer, it is man. And education must not only +seek knowledge of the facts of nature, but having obtained +such knowledge, <i>must try to understand what to do about +it</i>. Now that we understand our natural environment, +what kind of life can we best achieve with it? What valuations +have men put upon deeds and things? What values +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span>is it possible to achieve? Our education is not done when +we have learned Nature’s <i>yes</i> and <i>no</i>; we have our own <i>yes</i> +and <i>no</i> to give.</p> + +<p>Scientists quietly observing certain aspects of reality—those +which lend themselves to knowing as a specialized +undertaking—are happy to find that their abstract +conceptions mutually imply and support one another +in an ordered system of knowledge. Their own reason +which they are thus able to impose upon nature, they +believe they have discovered in nature itself. Hence nature +appears to be more ordered than it really is, and to be essentially +reasonable and beneficent. Compare Huxley’s picture +of nature as a beneficent mother of whom the educated +mind “makes the best, and she of him,” he “her conscious +self, her minister and interpreter,” with William James’ +statement about “this partially hospitable and ‘stepmotherly’ +world of ours.” The latter is surely the more +profound and correct view. Water is not only H₂O, it +may drown you or quench your thirst. Fire is not merely a +process of oxidation, it is hot. It may be your willing +servant, or your relentless enemy. The modification of +species which nineteenth century scientists held to be the +outcome of natural selection is not what natural selection +means to the organisms which experienced it. To them it is +a relentless struggle for a precarious and fleeting existence +in which satisfactions and victories are mingled with terror +and starvation and agony. And man placed in the midst of +such a world seeks education not only that he may interpret +its happenings to an intelligence which is part of the natural +process, but that he may select wisely among the alternatives +which Nature presents to him, lift himself above chaos and +the slime, and achieve an existence that, at least while it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span>lasts, has some significance and quality of decency and +worth.</p> + +<p>It is to this end that science is education; a true Humanism +is impossible without it. Such a Humanism is as anti-supernaturalistic +as determinism. But it is naturalism with +mankind, however, not merely pictured as a passive resultant +of natural forces, but actively selecting and creating +value. As Huxley himself says, its aim is to provide criteria +for a “criticism of life.”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Moreover this scientific ‘criticism of life’ presents itself to us +with different credentials from any other. It appeals not to authority, +nor to what anybody may have thought or said, but to nature. +It admits that all our interpretations of natural fact are more or less +imperfect and symbolic, and bids the learner seek for the truth not +among words but among things. It warns us that the assertion +which outstrips evidence is not only a blunder but a crime.”</p> +</div> + +<p>He saw a new culture in process of development, one +which would enlist the whole spiritual life of mankind,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“The scenes are shifting the great theatre of the world. The act +which commenced with the Protestant Reformation is nearly played +out, and a wider and deeper change than that effected three centuries +ago—a reformation, or rather a revolution of thought, the extremes +of which are represented by the intellectual heirs of John of Leyden +and of Ignatius Loyola, rather than by those of Luther and of Leo—is +waiting to come on, nay, visible behind the scenes to those who +have good eyes. Men are beginning, once more, to awake to the +fact that matters of belief and of speculation are of absolutely infinite +practical importance; and are drawing off from that sunny country +‘where it is always afternoon’—the sleepy hollow of broad indifferentism—to +range themselves under their natural banners. Change +is in the air. It is whirling feather-heads into all sorts of eccentric +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span>orbits, and filling the steadiest with a sense of insecurity. It insists +on reopening all questions and asking all institutions, however venerable, +by what right they exist, and whether they are, or are not, in +harmony with the real or supposed wants of mankind.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Huxley’s services to education were more than his +struggle for the recognition of the educational value of +science. His own contributions to the science of biology +and his able championing of the case which Darwin had +made in favor of the hypotheses of evolution did much to +place the biological sciences in their present position of +preëminence and to aid in placing both education and modern +thought upon the basis of a philosophy of evolution.</p> + +<p>After receiving his degree in medicine, Huxley was appointed +to the position of assistant surgeon in the British +navy. As he cruised about on the war-ship ‘Rattlesnake,’ +he began his studies of marine animals. Darwin, you will +remember, had also spent long months on southern seas +as government naturalist assigned to the Beagle. During +the years that followed each had risen to a high position as +a British scientist, conducting research, publishing papers, +making new discoveries, all of which contributed to make +the nineteenth century, as John Fiske said, “the century of +science.”</p> + +<p>During the years when Darwin was patiently elaborating +the theory of “descent with modification” which was destined +within his own lifetime to bring about a revolutionary +transformation in the philosophy of nature, Huxley did +much to organize the science of Biology as a definite branch +of natural history. His great energy and industry, his passion +for exact knowledge and his genius for clear and comprehensive +statement made him one of the outstanding +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span>scientists of England. As professor of Natural History at +the Royal School of Mines, and later in the Royal College +of Surgeons, and as publicist and member of numerous commissions +on science and education, he was in a position to +throw a tremendous weight of influence to the support of +his convictions, should he be drawn into a scientific controversy.</p> + +<p>When in 1859 Darwin published the “Origin of Species,” +Huxley was one of the small group of eminent scientists +whose favorable judgment Darwin felt would be necessary +if the theory of natural selection were to command the +attention of the scientific world. Darwin did not invent +the doctrine of evolution. This idea had from time to time +suggested itself to men’s minds whenever a naturalistic account +of creation was attempted. The increase of knowledge +of comparative anatomy, of geology and of zoölogy, +and the discovery of certain structural likenesses and differences +among both living organisms and the fossil remains +which were found in the several layers of the earth’s +surface, could not fail to suggest to many minds the thought +that perhaps all forms of life might be related in one comprehensive +evolutionary process. Although the evidence +against the dogma of special creation was rapidly accumulating, +no valid explanation had been found. Lamarcks’ theory +that the structural modifications which characterize the +various species of organisms were the result of effort and +use and of special energizing and development of various +organs, was under discussion. The theory did not, however, +interest Huxley, because it implied that modifications +which occurred as a result of effort and use could be inherited, +a belief for which there was not sufficient evidence.</p> + +<p>Darwin’s book put the whole problem in a new light, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span>stated the hypotheses of organic evolution as an alternative +to “special creation” in terms which were comprehensible +to a mind trained in natural science. Heretofore +a mysterious principle of development had been substituted +for a miracle of creation. Darwin did not invoke any such +principle but with good scientific logic sought his explanation +of the origin of species in the casual connections among +observable facts.</p> + +<p>It is not my purpose now to enter upon a discussion of +Darwinism, or its present status in biology, a general understanding +of which I think should be part of the education +of a modern man. I suspect that many moderns who +“believe in evolution” merely cherish a popular faith in +some mystical law of unusual progress, such as is expressed +in the verse, “Some call it evolution and some God.”</p> + +<p>Huxley was uncompromisingly opposed to all such romantic +theologizing in science. He was moreover, aware, +as Darwin himself was, of the difficulties of Darwin’s +theory. But he grasped the significance of what Darwin +had done and saw the ground upon which he had placed the +discussion of the problem, and he held that in the main Darwin +was correct. Gracefully and courageously he took his +stand at Darwin’s side. In various addresses, essays, +books, he drew upon his extensive knowledge for evidence +in support of the theory. In “Man’s Place in Nature” he +uncompromisingly placed the origin and development of the +human race within the process of the evolution of animal +organisms. He did not remain indifferent to the storm of +ecclesiastical indignation and popular abuse and ridicule +with which a grateful humanity greeted the most important +scientific discovery of the century. He accepted the challenge, +and during the decades that followed 1860 he was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span>probably the outstanding champion in England, not only +of evolution, but of science itself. In 1925, upon the +centennial of his birth, his grandson, Julian Huxley wrote,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Of the general truth of the evolutionary hypothesis, its enormous +value to biology, and the necessary reorientation which it would +give to the general current of thought, he had no doubts; nor did he +spare himself in the cause. It is sometimes as well, in these easier-going +and theologically more tolerant days, when we are reaping +what he and others like him sowed, and may sometimes be tempted +to think of his criticism as essentially destructive, to remember what +power of inertia, what violence of the odium theologicum there was +in the opposition. ‘Professor Huxley’ became a sort of bogy in +orthodox lower middle-class families, almost as ‘Boney’ had done +for the nation in earlier days. He was attacked as irreligious, immoral, +unscrupulous, on the platform, in the press, by letter. That +sort of opposition cannot be persuaded; it must die out or be +destroyed.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The scholar confronted by the fury and stupidity of the +mob, and counted a fool for his pains when he strives to +induce it to listen to reason, has often turned aside in disgust. +Henceforth he will write and speak for the learned +few. Let the masses, who think that a scientific demonstration +may be satisfactorily refuted with derision and slander, +consume themselves in their own ignorance. They have +made it clear that learning is not for such as they. In the +Theatetus Plato tells us of the discomfiture of the philosopher +in the marketplace. As “the rabble” is in all times +heedless or hostile to reason, there has often developed the +idea that any belief that is popular is thereby shown to be +untrue and vulgar. Cato at once became suspicious of himself +when any utterance of his met with applause. Among +would-be educated minds this suspicion becomes a cult. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span>Anything is “refined” and true to the extent that it is unpopular—and +for the reason that it is not shared by the +many. Today this attitude—which is really intellectual +snobbishness—gains plausibility from the fact that much of +the popularization of science is base caricature and misrepresentation.</p> + +<p>It is obvious that the wider the circulation of pseudo-science, +the greater is the need of genuine instruction in +the elements of science and of general culture. I can see +no other way by which modern learning or modern civilization +may be sustained. The man on the street has power to +determine which values shall survive in our common life, +and which shall perish, to a degree that he never had before. +He exercises this influence upon our culture in many +ways both direct and indirect, and his sway is not likely +to be diminished in an industrial society which increasingly +tends to give social power to the various groups which compose +it in direct proportion to their numerical strength.</p> + +<p>Moreover, it is not likely that a strictly esoteric intellectualism +can survive at all, much less attain that leadership +which is the proper function of intelligence in human affairs +in a world organized as ours is. As I have said before, +our intellectual hold upon reality, even for the best trained +minds, is more precarious than we think. A slight general +shifting of emotional interest or of perspective—the spread, +let us suppose, of Fundamentalism through lower middle +class minds generally,—a sudden spasm of popular disillusionment +regarding the “wonders” of science or of hostility +toward scientific methods which are ever upsetting the consolations +of faith,—might conceivably occur at any time, +and bring the beginning of the end of all that scholars have +struggled for since the Renaissance. If as Huxley said, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span>epoch which began with the Reformation is about played +out, it is not by any means a foregone conclusion what the +sequel is to be. If science and letters are to join forces in +the achievement of a truly Humanist culture, this culture +must be rooted in the life and thought of the community. +It will not likely be again a fifteenth century Italian mimicry +of the age of Cicero; neither can it support itself like a +bridge over an illiterate and enslaved populace, after the +fashion of ancient Athenian Humanism. This modern public +can read, it is very vociferous, it has votes and purchasing +power and it pays to flatter it. But there is in the +modern public a small and growing minority, scattered +throughout all classes in the community, who honestly desire +knowledge of science and the humanities.</p> + +<p>Professional scholarship has in the example of Huxley a +splendid precedent for any attempts it may care to make to +ally itself with this teachable minority. I once invited a +neighboring biologist to participate with other research +scholars, in a course of lectures at Cooper Union on scientific +methods. He declined, because he believed that a scientist +who lectured to popular audiences cheapened his reputation. +I wondered if he had forgotten the great service to science +rendered by Huxley, who did not think it beneath the dignity +of one who was perhaps the leading biologist of England +to wage the struggle for scientific advance in the presence +of a public which was much less trained in the principles +of natural science than the people who regularly attend the +lectures at Cooper Union.</p> + +<p>Huxley seemed to believe that the outcome of the struggle +of evolution against popular ignorance and superstition +was inseparable from the fate of science itself. He set +himself to make knowledge of the principles of science universal. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span>He did a work of adult education that has not been +surpassed in modern times. If today there is greater freedom +for scientific research and teaching, and in general a +more liberal and tolerant attitude on the part of official and +popular religion toward scientific discovery, our generation +is in no small measure indebted to Huxley.</p> + +<p>In reply to the commonly expressed fear that liberal education +may give us a type of mind which is sceptical and ineffective, +I offer Huxley. The educated man may not +perhaps take sides on the ever recurrent question who is to +profit at another’s expense, nor easily give his devotion to +the particular Utopian scheme of social reorganization +which happens to be the fashion of the reformers of his day. +But if he is like Huxley, he will be alert enough when he +finds that intellectual integrity and cultural progress are at +stake. Like Erasmus, Huxley survives in the philosophy of +modern education as a symbol of enlightenment in its struggle +against obscurantism. Both insist upon the recognition +of the value of one aspect of a developing educational tradition +which has its origin in ancient Greece, and is in sharp +contrast both with popular opinion and with mediæval scholasticism. +As I have indicated, it was unfortunate that these +two educational interests did not develop out of the Renaissance, +as one, for a well-rounded Humanism is an integration +of both. Erasmus champions the cause of “human +letters” and in the end classical education degenerates into a +species of Protestant scholasticism. Huxley champions +science, but is unable to liberate science itself from a mechanistic +philosophy which became associated with it two +centuries earlier. The struggle of science with theology +was but a continuation of the spirit of the Renaissance. +The struggle of science against an entrenched classical tradition +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span>meant that <i>the Renaissance had become divided against +itself</i>. This dualism is reflected in science down to the +present time. It is revealed in Huxley’s type of agnosticism, +which is really naïve in comparison with the sophisticated, +mellow scepticism of Montaigne or Hume, or in our +own day with that of Mr. Santayana, who sees that all +knowledge is faith.</p> + +<p>It was not so with Huxley; about the finality of the +knowledge that can be brought within the scope of scientific +method he had no doubt whatever. Of other knowledge +he is sceptical because of want of evidence. This is +courageous and honest, and, from the standpoint of the +struggle in which science was then engaged with theological +rationalism, the issue cannot be compromised without the +surrender of science to superstition. Although Huxley is +an evolutionist and clearly sees that human intelligence is +part of the behavior of an organism which is itself a cross-section +as it were of a process of nature, he seems to hold +that morality and truth are absolute and eternal principles +which exist outside the process and constitute the very basis +of existence. Reason which knows these eternal principles +and in which they inhere, must then also exist outside the +process. But we have seen that reason is a function of the +behavior of an animal. Huxley is thus a Rationalist; as +much so as any Scholastic. The body of scientific knowledge +which we possess is the revelation of the true nature of +the facts which we experienced. It is the intellectual equivalent +of reality.</p> + +<p>But is scientific knowledge knowledge of facts taken in +their wholeness, or is it in each instance knowledge of some +special <i>aspect</i> of the facts—fact reduced to abstract quality, +to number and point in space and to a multiple of smaller +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span>and “more real” units all conceived in logical relationship +rather than as experienced? Suppose we should say that +scientific ideas do not exist independent of the minds that +think them, are not equivalents of independent truths which +reason discovers, but are the devices which an unusually intelligent +animal constructs out of the many kinds of relationships +it is able to notice amongst the objects which +interest it.</p> + +<p>From this point of view, the one most consistent, I believe, +with a biology and a psychology which must take evolution +into account, scientific ideas are seen to be humanly created +symbols, not cerebral photographs of the ultimate nature of +things. Why should the ultimate nature of a lobster be the +fact that a morphologist discovers it to be an “articulate,” +anymore than that I discover that it turns red when put in +boiling water? Scientific ideas are instruments. Abstraction +and classification are in a sense labor-saving devices, according +to which we may hold that what is true for one object +or event is true for all of its kind.</p> + +<p>But the success of our thinking depends upon which of +these many aspects and relationships we observe and hence +how we classify them. All aspects and relationships are +equally true, as James said, if true at all. Correct thinking +is the thinking which seizes upon those which are relevant +to our interest and purpose. And the interest and purpose +are human, not inherent in the world of things. Hence the +order science finds in nature is not <i>given</i>; it is the order of +human thought itself. Thus science also is “human letters.”</p> + +<p>The humanist, or organic, view of the world of science +differentiates the twentieth century philosophy of nature +from the mechanistic philosophy of earlier science. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span>Mechanism, which is faith that the universe is reducible to +Reason is, I hold, a survival from the old religious dualism, +according to which matter and spirit were separate entities +each belonging to its own world of phenomenon. The +existence of Reason as an entity in itself could be taken for +granted, because Reason belonged to the realm of spirit +or mind, which though it existed outside the material order +of being, had yet established this order in conformity to +Reason.</p> + +<p>Huxley’s agnosticism properly denies that man can have +knowledge of this world of spirit, yet retains from that +realm the principle of reason which it re-discovers in the +world of material phenomena. Hence Huxley was more +religious than he knew. It is not the agnostic who is the +non-religious man, but the naïve realist who sees every fact +and situation uncolored by fancy or theory or illusion. For +such a mind, spiritual values do not exist. This kind of +materialism is a different thing from philosophical materialism, +which is very theoretical and fanciful. There are persons +who approach this naïve realism, but I doubt if anyone +is wholly lacking in poetry and fancy. Certainly Huxley +was not.</p> + +<p>Ordinarily we see our environment in a perspective of +wish-fancy and traditional myth and magic. To more logical +minds the world of objects is colored by the “sentiment +of Rationality.” The universe appears to them to be governed, +not by an indulgent or harsh imaginary Father, but +by a principle of Reason. In each case, the fiction of security +gives the feeling of salvation. In a wholly rational +universe salvation is explanation. Everything is reasonable, +hence right, if only we could explain it and show its +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span>place in the whole. Nineteenth century science could conceive +of the world order as a mechanism and believe that it +had passed from faith to knowledge in its agnosticism of the +things of the spirit, but as Whitehead says, “the faith in +the possibility of science generated antecedently to the development +of modern scientific theory is an unconscious +derivative from medieval theology.”</p> + +<p>The conflict in the nineteenth century on behalf of science +has effected education in various ways. It has not emptied +the churches, but it has had a marked liberalizing influence, +causing various groups of believers to seek to modify the +public expressions of their faith in the light of modern +knowledge. It has given the average educated person of +today a very different conception of his world from that +commonly held a century ago. It has to some extent revived +the Socratic insistence upon clear and accurate thinking +as the first requirement of an educated mind. It has +brought a greater degree of objectivity and wholesomeness +of outlook to bear upon the formation of the mental habits +of students. It is by its insistence upon the biological point +of view, causing marked changes in men’s ideas of human +nature and society, gradually turning their thought away +from the political dogma of the eighteenth century to a less +doctrinaire social philosophy.</p> + +<p>On the other side, it may be said to be in part responsible +for the over-specialization common in our educational institutions. +It has left on the mind of the public the impression +that science is a new kind of magic, sometimes actually +augmenting the general credulity and gullibility. Almost +any sort of nonsense may now find space in the columns +of the Sunday papers and pass current with the assertion +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span>that it is “scientific.” Minds stuffed with a smattering +of science may be just as opinionated as minds stuffed with a +smattering of theology.</p> + +<p>A result which could perhaps not have been foreseen in +1875—and which I believe twentieth century science is destined +to remedy—grew out of the one-sidedness of the +Humanism of Huxley and others of his day which I have +discussed. The scientific interest tended to have a mechanizing +influence upon all life and culture, to ignore and sometimes +deny all values which resisted laboratory methods. +And having reduced all possible phenomena of life to a +statement of the movements of particles of matter which +were said to underlie and cause all else, this purposeless +correlation of matter, space and movement expressed in +mathematical formulae was frequently given out as the true +picture of the nature of all existence—human life included.</p> + +<p>Biologists and psychologists often have resorted to rather +amusing gestures and have deliberately ignored possible +lines of inquiry in order to imitate as closely as possible the +physicists and the astronomers. Just as matter was +thought to consist of combinations of atoms, so living organisms +consisted of cells, and complex acts of behavior +were seen to consist of combinations of simple reflexes. The +cell and the reflex, being the irreducible minimum of physiology +and of psychology, were said to be the realities which +constituted the nature of the organism and its acts. All +phenomena of life were but combinations of these elemental +realities. Find the smallest particles in the combination, +show how by a mechanical principle they are inevitably +placed in certain temporal and spacial and other quantitative +relationships, and behold, science has led you to <i>Reality</i>. +All this seemed to be very certain in the nineteenth century; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span>it alone was <i>knowledge</i>, all else was mere opinion and error.</p> + +<p>Professor Whitehead says, “But the progress of biology +and psychology has probably been checked by the uncritical +assumption of half-truths. If science is not to degenerate +into a medley of <i>ad hoc</i> hypotheses, it must become philosophical +and must enter upon a thorough criticism of its own +foundations....</p> + +<p>“There persists, however, throughout the whole period +the fixed scientific cosmology which presupposes the ultimate +fact of an irreducible brute matter, or material, spread +throughout space in a flux of configurations. In itself such +a material is senseless, valueless, purposeless. It just does +what it does do, following a fixed routine imposed by external +relations which do not spring from the nature of +its being. It is this assumption that I call ‘scientific +materialism.’”</p> + +<p>“The progress of science has now reached a turning point. +The stable foundations of physics have broken up: also for +the first time physiology is asserting itself as an effective +body of knowledge, as distinct from a scrap-heap. The old +foundations of scientific thought are becoming unintelligible. +Time, space, matter, material, ether, electricity, mechanism, +organism, configuration, structure, pattern, function, all require +reinterpretation. What is the sense of talking about +a mechanical explanation when you do not know what you +mean by mechanics?”</p> + +<p>It is this disposition to find the real nature of the facts +in the smallest homogeneous particles, in other words, +“atomism,” which science in the twentieth century modifies. +The parts themselves, considered without regard to their +position in the whole event, are nothing. The reality is the +organism, the situation as a whole. The unity of a tree is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span>very different from that of a machine, and even physicists +are beginning to suspect that they also deal with the former +kind of unity. The effect of this change of view upon education +is difficult to predict. I believe there are indications +of a better synthesis of science with general culture than +that which obtained in Huxley’s time. And as science modifies +its mechanistic presuppositions, there will doubtless be +an increase of the importance of philosophy in education, +less pretense at finality, greater intellectual modesty and +more general appreciation of human worth than is possible +when educational philosophy is under the sway of a scientific +dogma which dehumanizes the individual, reduces him to +atoms, and regards him as a machine.</p> + +<p>The recognition of the probability that much even of our +established scientific knowledge is a human convention, +should have a liberalizing effect upon the education of the +present generation. Compare the assurance of Huxley +with the following passages which I quote from the writings +of Bertrand Russell, the first from his book on “Relativity,” +and the second from the closing words of “The ABC of +Atoms.”</p> + +<p>“What we know about the physical world, I repeat, is +much more abstract than was formerly supposed. Between +bodies there are occurrences, such as light waves; of the <i>laws</i> +of these occurrences, we know something—just as much as +can be expressed in mathematical formulae—but of their +<i>nature</i> we know nothing. Of the bodies themselves, as +we saw in the preceding chapter, we know so little that we +cannot even be sure that they are anything: they <i>may</i> be +merely groups of events in other places, those events which +we should naturally regard as their effects.... Perhaps +an illustration may make the matter clear. Between a piece +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span>of orchestral music as played, and the same piece of music +as printed in the score, there is a certain resemblance, which +may be described as a resemblance in structure. The resemblance +is of such a sort that, when you know the rules, +you can infer the music from the score or the score from the +music. But suppose you had been stone deaf from birth, +but had lived among musical people. You could understand, +if you had learned to speak and to do lip-reading, that +the musical scores represented something quite different +from themselves in intrinsic quality, though similar in structure. +The value of music would be completely unimaginable +to you, but you could infer all its mathematical characteristics, +since they are the same as those of the score. +Now our knowledge of nature is something like this. We +can read the scores, and infer just so much as our stone-deaf +person could have inferred about music. But we have not +the advantages which he derived from association with musical +people. We cannot know whether the music represented +by the scores is beautiful or hideous; perhaps, in the +last analysis, we cannot be quite sure that the scores represent +anything but themselves.”</p> + +<p>“The theory of relativity has shown that most of traditional +dynamics, which was supposed to contain scientific +laws, really consisted of conventions as to measurement, and +was strictly analogous to the ‘great law’ that there are always +three feet to a yard. In particular, this applies to the +conservation of energy. This makes it plausible to suppose +that every apparent law of nature which strikes us as reasonable +is not really a law of nature, but a concealed convention, +plastered on to nature by our love of what we, in our +arrogance, choose to consider rational. Eddington hints +that a real law of nature is likely to stand out by the fact +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span>that it appears to us irrational, since in that case it is less +likely that we have invented it to satisfy our intellectual +taste. And from this point of view he inclines to the belief +that the quantum-principle is the first real law of nature +that has been discovered in physics.</p> + +<p>“This raises a somewhat important question: Is the world +‘rational,’ i. e., such as to conform to our intellectual habits? +Or is it ‘irrational,’ i. e., not such as we should have made +it if we had been in the position of the Creator? I do not +propose to suggest an answer to this question.”</p> + +<p>No, we do not know whether the world is such as we +would have made it if we had been in the position of the +Creator. But it is possible for us to gain some intelligent +idea of what we can and should make of our world so far +as lies within our human power and understanding. +Throughout all historic times men have striven to attain +that insight, discrimination and foreknowledge which would +enable them to become “legislators of values”—to give their +existence quality and their experiences an order of preference +that would lend beauty and harmony and some +permanence to the half-chaotic stream of events and objects +which swept through their lives. This is the aim of the +pursuit of knowledge. It is to give to existence an “order +of rank.” What if the order be a human one? General +coöperation in its development is what we mean by culture. +And education is not mere perpetuation of the order of the +past. The hierarchy of values must be constantly recreated +if it is to survive. Knowledge of the past is the +inspiration to such creative effort and knowledge of nature +is a guide to it. A generation ago William James, whose +philosophy of science was thoroughly Humanistic, suggested +that the fascination of the pursuit of knowledge was that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span>we might thus be in at the places where truth is actually in +the making, and that we should never know what sort of +world this would be “till the last man’s vote is in and +counted.” What we are to make of this unfinished world +depends largely upon the power and wisdom and appreciation +of value which we may attain through our education.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV +<br> +THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE</h2></div> + + +<p>Finally, with what appraisement may the seeker for +knowledge view education itself? In the course of our +study we have cast aside numerous idols and comforting +fictions. We have seen that in the process of a liberal education +old dilemmas are outgrown; that the habit is formed +of questioning all things; that the educated mind becomes +capable of amused self-criticism, attains urbanity of spirit +and tolerant scepticism of the crowd and its partisan controversies, +and with civilized resignation learns that it may +not possess finality in matters of truth and right, but that a +man must order his life according to the wisest discrimination +of value of which he is capable.</p> + +<p>Now, I believe, the wise man will pursue his education +always viewing it with a certain light-heartedness and detachment. +Wisdom itself will not be taken too seriously +by one who sees that in the best of it there is an entertaining +amount of human folly. Like Falstaff’s confession, “I +am not much better than one of the wicked,” Socrates, the +wisest, knows he is not much better than one of the foolish. +People who solemnly try to improve their minds, with +groanings of the spirit that cannot be uttered, determined +to reach some cultural “Pike’s peak or bust,” do not often +become educated; they become intellectual bores.</p> + +<p>Education is a way of living, but it is never a substitute +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span>for life. Rational living does not mean that interest, feeling, +love, respect, practical achievement, do not count, or +that in the end education should make of life a mere <i>knowledge +affair</i>. One does not pursue scholarship merely for +the sake of philosophical contemplation, or as an intellectual +trick. And there is no magic about education, but plain +common sense. I think we may safely say that a life guided +by reason and good taste is better than one enslaved to +tradition, tabu, narrow utilitarianism, conventionalism and +passion. But surely education is not a hair shirt to be worn +in order to discipline the spirit and achieve the modern idea +of salvation. Neither is it something to be attained by +practicing before the mirror. It is nothing ostentatious. +Nor is it to be made a cult of. It does not work miracles, +nor can it create out of airy nothingness an intelligence that +does not exist.</p> + +<p>I think much of the criticism of education that one frequently +hears these days grows out of an exaggerated notion +of the transformation which some people expect a few years +of education to work. I know a number of college graduates +who are very bitter in their criticism of college education, +protesting that they did not learn anything that did +them any good. Perhaps they expected too much for the +amount of effort put forth and tried to do too great a +business on a small intellectual capital. Or perhaps such +criticism is in part a pose; in certain circles it is now “the +thing.”</p> + +<p>An article which recently appeared in a student’s journal +is typical of this attitude toward College education. The +writer asks, “Are the American colleges worth their keep?” +They have not, he says, given to the nation the trained +leadership which we had the right to expect of them. Enter +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span>any University Club and you will find yourself far removed +from that intellectual atmosphere which should be characteristic +of education in a great democracy. Few college +men may be found fighting on the side of social justice. +Few have the courage to deviate in any way from the totums +and tabus of a plutocratic, materialistic society. Few have +any very different ideas from those of their chauffeurs of +what constitutes success in life. Men’s colleges are no different +from girl’s finishing schools; they are not educational +institutions, but exist merely to impart information of the +ways and manners of upper-class society. Instructors are +devitalized, for none but a devitalized person could endure +the system. Trustees have the habit of judging colleges +by the same standards they apply to business, yet judged +even by such standards, the author thinks higher education +is a failure. If Mr. Henry Ford turned out motor cars as +bad as the products the colleges turn out, he would soon be +bankrupt!</p> + +<p>In so far as such sweeping indictments are inspired by a +feeling of antipathy toward the so-called upper classes, it is +not necessary for us to discuss them. But I think that +criticisms of this sort also reveal a tendency to expect too +much of education. We become more charitable when we +pause to consider how small a part, even at best, intelligence +plays in the control of human behavior. We have seen +what Erasmus thought about this subject. Most of those +who call attention to the general lack of intelligence, draw +a distinction between the amount of it in existence and the +amount in common use. This is a democratic view of the +matter. It flatters the average man if you tell him that he +possesses more intelligence than he is using. A more correct +view is perhaps that of Freud, who says that most of us +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span>in modern civilization are living “psychologically beyond +our means.”</p> + +<p>A good example of this democratic view may be found +in a discussion of “Intelligence in Our Time,” by a very able +professor in one of the Eastern colleges. “The general +state of intelligence in our time is of the strangest. It is +richly and splendidly equipped and it is tragically unsuccessful,—unsuccessful, +that is, in the conduct of life, both personal +and social.” You may test it, broadly speaking, by +the troubles of the world. “One of the foremost failures +of human intelligence is not to remember its own importance.” +In other words, I suppose we haven’t enough intelligence +to use our intelligence. We live in “a sea of +loose and floating ideas, more of them produced daily, and +no clearly recognized way of deciding, to the coercion of all +trained minds, which is right.... When people go wrong +in reasoning they usually do so in obvious ways, by violating +obvious rules.” Intelligence has its standards, but does +not enforce them; it “lacks confidence in itself.... On +most important subjects opinions differ. In each case something +else appears as more important than intelligence, +something else has the right of way.”</p> + +<p>In other words, we know better than to believe and behave +as we do most of the time. But I doubt if this unfortunate +state of man is a peculiarity of our times. I +suspect that there has long been more knowledge than intelligence +in the world. The difficulty is that we frequently +do not know how to use the knowledge we possess, for to +use knowledge well requires wisdom, and no one can give +us wisdom. I can see no gain in condemning the human +race for not using its intelligence. I suspect that the beliefs +we entertain and the deeds we perform or leave undone +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span>are the best measure of the intelligence we possess. Let us +each own up to a certain native stupidity and deceitfulness +of heart which no amount of education can wholly cure or +even successfully disguise. The admission will to some extent +save us from that childish pride of intellect which is a +common affliction of those who “go in” for education.</p> + +<p>Sometimes pride of intellect disguises itself with a holy +tone and reverential mien, as if education were a very solemn +affair. When I was a school boy, there was in our town +a woman librarian who presided over our little public library +with deadly seriousness. She filled the place with a +crushing and awesome silence, as with reverential whispers +she quietly moved on tiptoe among the books like one ministering +in the house of the dead. I have known people to +behave in this spirit toward literature. I have seen school +teachers and professors take such an attitude toward education. +It characterizes the average baccalaureate address +and is discernible in much that is said and written about +education. I know several “prophets” of adult education +who succeed in giving a similar impression. Their very +souls creak under the weight of the world-mending “spiritual +values” of adult education. If people will take their education +as hard as the Kantians take morality, they are welcome +to their “sublimities.” There are minds which seem to +have been formed only for the service of the sublime and +do not work well except when closeted in its presence. But +I would rather dwell in the tents of the wicked than be a +door-keeper in such a house of serious thinkers. Extravagant +claims for education lead to pretense, to painful efforts +at keeping up appearances, to exposure and ultimate disillusionment.</p> + +<p>Several times in history there has occurred a wide-spread +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span>reaction against education, followed by a long period of decline +of interest in it. Usually such reactions have taken the +form of a revival of religion and have followed upon a +period of general intellectual awakening. The Augustan +age is followed by primitive Christianity, the Renaissance +by the Reformation, the eighteenth century, the age of “the +Enlightenment,” by those distinctly anti-intellectualist movements, +the Revival, the Revolution and Romanticism. May +not one of the causes of such reactions be the fact that +people have been led to expect too much of the prevailing +education? Men for a time believe that education will disclose +some wonderful secret which is about to transform the +world, and when they find that the learned doctors do not +reveal the secret because they have none to reveal, and that +the world does not at once proceed to transform itself, they +turn from learning to religion where the secret is kept from +the wise and revealed unto babes. No one is more concerned +than I that the interest in education be as wide-spread +and as genuine as possible. But I would not force +its growth lest we get all foliage and no fruit. It is better +that in its due season the tree be known by the fruit it bears.</p> + +<p>Just as some believe that education is a sort of gospel, +there are others who contend that knowledge makes for +unhappiness. One evening at an informal dinner in New +York a small group of thoughtful people, all of middle age, +were discussing in a rather desultory manner the education +of the younger generation. Suddenly the conversation became +serious. One of the women said, “They are hard, +disillusioned young realists. What else could we expect? +It is the result of the education we are giving them. They +know too much.” She continued, “I wish, though I do not +see how it could have been done, that we could have retained +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span>the simple beliefs of our parents. It was very comforting +to believe those things. It seems to me that everything I +learn robs me of some consoling ideal and makes the world +appear cruel and terrible.”</p> + +<p>To the question, what shall we put in the place of the old +faiths which education leads us to doubt, there is perhaps +no other answer than that we shall <i>exchange an infantile +mentality for a mature one</i>. Most people will agree that it +is better to grow up, but as to whether we are happier +without our childish illusions, opinions differ.</p> + +<p>Much of the tenderness which people show for small +children is a mixture of pity and envy. The other day I +saw a business man about fifty years old gaze long and wistfully +at an infant playing with his toys. He said as he +turned away, “I wish I could remember what it feels like to +be his age. Can you imagine what this world must look +like to him?” There is my own small son who is now just +learning to stand on his feet and speak a word or two. +How trusting and sweet he is. He is not afraid of any +one or any thing. No one would of course wish him to live +always surrounded only by pretty pictures and parental +kindness. But it is easy to understand how one in moments +of weariness and doubt might envy him his brief day of +blessed ignorance. Think of it, he does not even know +that people have to work, and that it is the common lot +of mankind both to endure and inflict suffering. He does +not suspect the existence of such things as hospitals, slaughter +houses, war, slums, jails, policemen or Congress. He +does not know that he is not immortal, or that he must ever +part with those he loves. He must know these things since +they exist, and must learn about many other facts equally +hard to endure. And as he grows up I want him to learn +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span>to cut his way through the fictions with which men strive +to disguise the significance of many painful realities from +which there is no escape.</p> + +<p>Such is knowledge, and such is the price we pay for it. +One reason why mankind persistently resists the introduction +of knowledge is the disinclination to pay the price. It +is not altogether easy, as James said, to “stand this universe.” +The longing for the irresponsibility of childhood +is very common among mankind, and it gives rise to many +comforting fictions which yield reluctantly to knowledge of +fact. The general attitude toward wisdom has in it always +a touch of the dread of the unknown. There is a very old +legend that our first parents were expelled from paradise +after eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.</p> + +<p>Even our boasted practical knowledge of nature and of +mechanics can hardly be said to be an unmixed blessing. +We are not quite so utopian in our enthusiasm over applied +science as we were twenty years ago. I once burst into +eloquence with an entertaining peroration something like the +following: “Everywhere as science displaces the hallowed +survivals of primitive magic and superstition, man emerges +from darkness with dignity and freedom in his bearing and +titanic power in his hands. The great friend for whom +humanity has waited is the quiet man in the laboratory +amongst his test tubes and apparatus. What kings could +not command, nor priests call down from an unanswering +heaven, he can command and bring into being to enrich the +heritage of happiness for all. The earth blossoms for +science. Where the medicine man in the desert once vainly +prayed for rain, science digs an irrigation ditch and waste +lands turn into fields of grain. Since the beginning of time +men have cringed in the shadow of death as the specter of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span>plague walked in their midst heedless of the prayers of faith. +Science offers no sacrifice to propitiate revengeful gods: it +drains the swamps: it resorts to such mundane devices as +screens, vaccine and the quarantine, and for the first time +in all history the human race is freed of its most terrifying +scourge. Science has drawn the nations together as its lines +of mechanical communication have annihilated the spacial +distances which have hitherto isolated man from man. It +has lightened the burden of toil and has multiplied the productive +force of labor a hundredfold. It has lengthened +the span of the average human life by nearly a decade.</p> + +<p>“And with what a wealth of unforeseen goods it has +supplied us, motor cars, and aëroplanes, and talking +machines, and a countless variety of new chemical products. +What indeed can we not achieve with its aid; we can send +our messages around the world, dig the Panama Canal, +throw a dam across the Mississippi and turn the wheels and +light the homes of distant cities. We can make the lightning +our household servant, we can fly through the clouds, +we can weigh distant suns, and by throwing their light waves +through a spectroscope, analyze them chemically and tell +whether they are composed of gas or solid matter and +whether they are moving towards us or receding. As +science is giving us mastery over nature, why should it not +likewise give man control over his own nature? The existence +in a scientific age of poverty and crime and injustice +and corruption is an anachronism. Human reason has at +last decided to make itself at home and put the house of life +in order, and all nature smilingly welcomes it. It is flushed +with success and well it may be, for in it is the promise of the +final triumph of man on the earth.”</p> + +<p>We are not so sanguine now. We have seen the destructive +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span>uses to which scientific knowledge may be put in +warfare. We are not so hopeful about the easy control of +human nature by means of it. It cannot be said that there +has been a general gain in intelligence, corresponding to the +increase of specialized scientific knowledge. The disturbing +thought has been expressed that the tremendous power of +the engines created by applied science for our generation is +something like dangerous explosives in the hands of young +children. We are like passengers on a steamship speeding +through fog with an empty pilot house.</p> + +<p>We move swiftly from one place to another, but it is +doubtful if we find more happiness or good when we reach +our destination, or if we behave more wisely than do men +who know nothing of the fruits of science. Those who are +acquainted with China, a country in which a vast population +has maintained the oldest civilization extant without any +science at all, say that the cultural level of that nation has +not been raised by the occasional importation of western +methods of sanitation, military science, electric lights and +chewing gum.</p> + +<p>Medical research has saved the lives of countless numbers +of children, so that infant mortality is negligible now +as compared with that of the ages that had no science. I +am sure no one would wish to give up such a splendid application +of modern knowledge to human welfare. Yet +even this has its price. There are biologists who doubt if +the amount of human suffering has been so greatly reduced +as we at first supposed. They say that many physically +unfit persons are thus preserved, only to suffer in later life, +and that the survival to maturity, of such poorly equipped +organisms and their reproduction lowers the quality of the +racial stock of the nation. This is an extreme position and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span>is perhaps a premature conclusion, but it illustrates my point +that at best our modern knowledge may not be had without +paying some price for it.</p> + +<p>Theoretical knowledge of nature may be said to be no less +costly than applied science. In the sixteenth century man +could without fear of contradiction proclaim the earth to be +the center of the Universe and his own welfare and salvation +the purpose of creation. Every step in the progress of +science from Newton to Einstein has tended to rebuke the +egotism of man—unless perchance he could find compensation +in the fact that he is a creature who has the intellectual +courage to saw off the bough of sustaining belief that he is +sitting on. Early astronomy revealed to man that his +earth, far from being “the Center” was but a perishable +and relatively very small kind of moon whirling about a +slowing cooling sun, by no means the best of a galaxy of +bigger and brighter suns all moving by necessity through +freezing space in utter indifference to the inhabitants of this +little planet. Chemistry showed man that his glowing life +was a molecular process. Physics taught him that all +change and movement were but the redistribution of a meaningless +and purposeless energy the quantity of which remained +forever constant. Geology reminded him that he +was but a newcomer among the forms of life which had +lived and left their remains in the crust of the earth. +Biology revealed to him his kinship with other animals and +his lowly origin. Psychology sought to find his soul, and +gave up the search, finding it easier to account for his behavior +in terms of animal impulse and reflex action. +Anthropology discovered for him the origin of his cherished +beliefs in the customs of primitive man. Sociology reduced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span>his individual existence to that of a statistical unit in the +mass.</p> + +<p>It now appears probable that science may abandon in +time its traditional mechanistic conceptions of the cosmos +and of life, but there is little likelihood that such a change +of outlook will restore man to the place in nature which he +once thought he occupied. Nor may we expect it to envisage +for him a world more conducive to his wishes than +that pictured by the science of the nineteenth century. Indeed, +it is possible that he may have to learn to live without +even those fictions of security which were features of the +older rationalism of science.</p> + +<p>Now I have tried to state the situation in its bold harshness, +for the educated mind today must know all this and +must wrestle with it. The knowledge cannot of itself lead +to happiness, nor do I think that it necessarily leads to unhappiness. +All depends upon what we are able to make of +our existence in such a world. Although we possess different +and more precise instruments of knowledge, I do not +think this is the first time that thoughtful minds have seen +through popular fancy and the shows of things. I believe +wise men of all times have suspected that existence is different +from what people naïvely imagine it to be. And it +is precisely because they wrestled with such suspicions, +asked, “what then?”, and have sought to give their existence +some meaning and worth, that their words are precious. +Now that education is general, and vast numbers seek it, +it is well to remind ourselves that no one of us can really +find wisdom until he has alone struggled for value with +destiny and naked fact.</p> + +<p>The fear that most men cannot do this, and that they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span>will turn aside with some substitute for knowledge or with +that “little learning which is a dangerous thing” has led +some writers, wrongly I think, to question that any good +may come of universal education. This esoteric point of +view is dramatically stated by Dostoevsky in “The Brothers +Karamazov,” in the person of the Grand Inquisitor who +rebukes the Christ on the occasion of his return to Seville +to comfort the victims of the Inquisition. The Inquisitor +tells the Christ that he has demanded too much of mankind. +What the masses need is not freedom of the spirit, but mystery, +miracle, and authority; someone to take their bread +from their hands, bless it and give it back to them; someone +who will permit them to sin, and take the responsibility on +his own soul, someone who will <i>guard the secret</i> and deceive +mankind every step of the way as he leads it down to death. +The old Inquisitor says to the Christ, “If at the last day +you condemn me, I will defy you to your face, for I too have +eaten bitter roots in the wilderness.”</p> + +<p>Nietzsche in his lectures on “The Future of our Educational +Institutions” at Bâle, takes a similar position. +Nietzsche believed that to the degree that education is +extended it is weakened and minimized. The masses think +they can reach at a single bound what the wise man has had +to win for himself only after long and determined struggles +to live like a philosopher.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“And do you not fear that solitude will wreak its vengeance upon +you? Just try living the life of a hermit of culture. One must +be blessed with overflowing wealth in order to live for the good of +all on one’s own resources! Extraordinary youngsters! They felt +it incumbent upon them to imitate what is precisely most difficult +and most high,—what is possible only to the master, when they, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span>above all, should know how difficult and dangerous this is, and how +many excellent gifts may be ruined by attempting it!... No one +would strive to attain to culture if he knew how incredibly small the +number of really cultured people actually is, and can ever be.”</p> + +<p>“... those blatant heralds of educational needs, when examined at +close quarters, are suddenly seen to be transformed into zealous, +yea, fanatical opponents of true culture, i. e., all those who hold fast +to the aristocratic nature of the mind; for, at bottom, they regard as +their goal the emancipation of the masses from the mastery of the +great few; they seek to overthrow the most sacred hierarchy in the +kingdom of the intellect—the servitude of the masses, their submissive +obedience, their instinct of loyalty to the rule of genius.... +The education of the masses cannot, therefore, be our aim; but rather +the education of a few picked men for great and lasting works. We +well know that a just posterity judges the collective intellectual state +of a time only by those few great and lonely figures of the period.... +What is called the ‘education of the masses’ cannot be +accomplished except with difficulty; and even if a system of universal +compulsory education be applied, they can only be reached outwardly....</p> + +<p>“We know, however, what the aspiration is of those who would +disturb the healthy slumber of the people, and continually call out to +them: ‘Keep your eyes open! Be sensible! Be wise!’ we know +the aim of those who profess to satisfy excessive educational requirements +by means of an extraordinary increase in the number of educational +institutions and the conceited tribe of teachers originated +thereby. These very people, using these very means, are fighting +against the natural hierarchy in the realm of the intellect, and destroying +the roots of all those noble and sublime plastic forces which +have their material origin in the unconsciousness of the people.”</p> + +<p>“This eternal hierarchy, towards which all things naturally tend, +is always threatened by that pseudo-culture which now sits on the +throne of the present. It endeavors either to bring the leaders down +to the level of its own servitude or else to cast them out altogether.”</p> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span></p> +<p>Whether Nietzsche’s theories of education were derived +from his political philosophy, or the reverse, I do not know. +We are not, however, interested in discussing political and +sociological theories. The point is that Nietzsche held that +education is difficult and dangerous, and that only the rare, +strong, courageous spirits may attain it. The many really +do not want education at all, he thinks, but only that cheaper +knowledge which will give them success and enable them to +take their places in the rank and file; seeking such education +the herd tramples culture under foot, like cattle in growing +corn when the fences are down. Difficult and dangerous +as knowledge is, it is to Nietzsche the most precious possession +of man. All his writing on this subject is a warning cry +that the cultural values of civilization are in danger of being +lost in an education for democracy. I think he had a real +issue, although I wish he had possessed more self-control +in arguing his case; he had always something of the intemperance +and over-excited gestures of a religious evangelist +or soap-box orator.</p> + +<p>A much more sane statement of the true aims of education +in conflict with Philistinism is that of Matthew Arnold. +I hesitate to mention Arnold because those who are still +guilty of the errors he exposed will say he was a Victorian, +and how could his ideas of education have any value for a +progressive twentieth century population? I doubt if many +men of today, advocates of advanced theories of education +included, are as far removed from the vulgarities and +pseudo-culture of the Victorian age as Arnold was. Like +Nietzsche, he holds that the multitude gives evidence that +it does not really want education. Unlike Nietzsche, he +does not think that knowledge is some grim secret which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span>only a few heroic supermen may attain. The fruits of +knowledge are not merely ideas about life and reality which +men may or may not believe in, but are to be known in the +quality of life and thought which characterize the educated +mind.</p> + +<p>Arnold’s phrase “sweetness and light” is a little suggestive +of a Unitarian sermon, or of some cult of the +“higher life.” It is obvious that if a man deliberately set +out to drill his soul in the ways of sweetness and light he +might become a very lady-like individual; he would not +necessarily become an educated person. All such deliberate +efforts at self-improvement, if they are not characterized by +a sentimental insincerity which is content with imitation and +appearance, are at least a little like the effort of Benjamin +Franklin to school himself in the moral virtues, who, finding +the task too great, decided that he could best gain +proficiency by practicing his desired virtues one at a time.</p> + +<p>You may rest assured that Arnold had nothing of this sort +in mind, much as he seems at one time to have admired the +wisdom of Franklin. He meant that certain mental traits +are sufficiently characteristic of educated minds generally to +be the distinguishing marks which differentiate them from +the uneducated. To be sure, it is a thankless task to call +attention to such traits, and no one who does it may expect +to be very popular, but sometimes, when the culture of a +nation is in danger, it has to be done. Arnold has in mind +characters like Socrates, Erasmus, Montaigne—no muddle-headed, +opinionated or narrow-minded men, but men who +had attained clarity of thought and the insight which pierces +the glamour of things and the follies of men, and yet could +speak and write without bitterness or rancor or malice.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span></p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Here culture goes beyond religion, as religion is generally conceived +by us.</p> + +<p>“If culture, then, is a study of perfection, and of harmonious perfection, +general perfection, and perfection which consists in becoming +something rather than in having something, in an inward condition +of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of circumstances,—it +is clear that culture, instead of being the frivolous and useless thing +which Mr. Bright, and Mr. Frederic Harrison, and many other +Liberals are apt to call it, has a very important function to fulfill +for mankind. And this function is particularly important in our +modern world, of which the whole civilisation is, to a much greater +degree than the civilisation of Greece and Rome, mechanical and +external, and tends constantly to become more so. But above all +in our own country has culture a weighty part to perform, because +here that mechanical character, which civilization tends to take everywhere, +is shown in the most eminent degree. Indeed nearly all the +characters of perfection, as culture teaches us to fix them, meet in +this country with some powerful tendency which thwarts them and +sets them at defiance.... So culture has a rough task to achieve +in this country. Its preachers have, and are likely to long have, a +hard time of it, and they will much oftener be regarded, for a great +while to come, as elegant or spurious Jeremiahs than as friends and +benefactors....</p> + +<p>“Faith in machinery is, I said, our besetting danger; often in +machinery most absurdly disproportioned to the end which this +machinery, if it is to do any good at all, is to serve; but always +in machinery, as if it had a value in and for itself. What is freedom +but machinery? what is population but machinery? what is coal +but machinery? what are railroads but machinery? what is wealth +but machinery? what are, even, religious organisations but machinery? +Now almost every voice in England is accustomed to speak +of these things as if they were precious ends in themselves, and therefore +had some of the characters of perfection indisputably joined to +them.... But culture indefatigably tries, not to make what each +raw person may like the rule by which he fashions himself; but to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span>draw ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, graceful, and +becoming, and to get the raw person to like that....</p> + +<p>“The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are +proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and +thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call +Philistines. Culture says, ‘Consider these people, then, their way of +life, their habits, their manners, the very tones of their voices; look +at them attentively; observe the literature they read, the things which +give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, +the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any +amount of wealth be worth having with the condition that one was +to become just like these people by having it?’”</p> +</div> + +<p>As Nietzsche sees that education must struggle for its +values if it is to survive in a democracy, Arnold is equally +aware of its conflict with middle-class English Puritanism. +He will give the Puritan credit for his moral earnestness, +but—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“the Puritan’s ideal of perfection remains narrow and inadequate, +although for what he did well he has been richly rewarded. Notwithstanding +the mighty results of the Pilgrim Fathers’ voyage, +they and their standard of perfection are rightly judged when we +figure to ourselves Shakespeare or Virgil,—souls in whom sweetness +and light, and all that in human nature is most humane, were +eminent,—accompanying them on their voyage, and think what intolerable +company Shakespeare and Virgil would have found them! +In the same way let us judge the religious organizations which we see +all around us. Do not let us deny the good and the happiness which +they have accomplished; but do not let us fail to see clearly that +their idea of human perfection is narrow and inadequate, and that +the Dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant +religion will never bring humanity to its true goal.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Of the relation of education to the growing power of +nineteenth century democracy, Arnold says,</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span></p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Other well-meaning friends of this new power are for leading it, +not in the old ruts of middle-class Philistinism, but in ways which +are naturally alluring to the feet of democracy, though in this country +they are novel and untried ways. I may call them the ways of +Jacobinism. Violent indignation with the past, abstract systems of +renovation applied wholesale, a new doctrine drawn up in black and +white for elaborating down to the very smallest details a rational +society for the future.... Culture is the eternal opponent of the +two things which are the signal marks of Jacobinism,—its fierceness, +and its addiction to an abstract system. Culture is always assigning +to system-makers and systems a smaller share in the bent of human +destiny than their friends like.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The following is as truly the problem of education today +as it was on the day it was written, and the answer that our +generation gives to the problem will determine the whole +quality of the fruit of knowledge for our lives.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“... Plenty of people will try to give the masses, as they call +them, an intellectual food prepared and adapted in the way they +think proper for the actual condition of the masses. The ordinary +popular literature is an example of this way of working on the +masses. Plenty of people will try to indoctrinate the masses with the +set of ideas and judgments constituting the creed of their own profession +or party. Our religious and political organisations give an +example of this way of working on the masses. I condemn neither +way; but culture works differently. It does not try to teach down +to the level of inferior classes; it does not try to win them for this or +that sect of its own, with ready-made judgments and watchwords. +It seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been +thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all +men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they may +use ideas, as it uses them itself, freely,—nourished, and not bound +by them.</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span></p> +<p>“The great men of culture are those who have had a passion for +diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society +to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time; who +have laboured to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, uncouth, +difficult, abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanise it, to make it +efficient outside the clique of the cultivated and learned, yet still +remaining the <i>best</i> knowledge and thought of the time, and a true +source, therefore, of sweetness and light. Such a man was Abelard +in the Middle Ages, in spite of all his imperfections; and thence the +boundless emotion and enthusiasm which Abelard excited. Such +were Lessing and Herder in Germany, at the end of the last century; +and their services to Germany were in this way inestimably precious.... +And why? Because they <i>humanized</i> knowledge; because they +broadened the basis of life and intelligence.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The human race has demonstrated how it can get along +without knowledge; it has not on any general scale demonstrated +how it can get along with knowledge. Ignorance +and vulgarity have amazing survival value in human society. +Knowledge has its dangers. One may lose one’s faith in +the pursuit of it or expend much effort, and never attain it; +and, what is worse, never know that one has not attained +it. Or having gained some bit of knowledge, one may not +store it up as final truth and abide with it, but having seen +must pass on to other knowledge. The pursuit of knowledge +is an open road.</p> + +<p>All, or nearly all, who have pursued knowledge will say +that such a pursuit is a great adventure. It is an adventure +which never goes stale, nor loses its lure, nor grows old, and +there are indirect results of such an adventure which cannot +be measured. Just as he who has traveled in many +lands returns and views his home with new eyes never really +having seen it before, so he who follows knowledge in time +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span>sees the things about him in new light. They have a richer +meaning and better perspective for they have a wider +reference.</p> + +<p>What might happen if a considerable portion of the population +should, or could, become devoted to education in the +way that men have engaged themselves in religion, war, and +commerce, we perhaps can never know. Men have been +converted to religion and have “back-slid” or have outgrown +their faith. Men have gaily marched off to war and +before the conflict ended have grown sick of it. Men have +given up commerce, finding that it does not satisfy some +deep longing in their natures. Most of those who begin +their education leave off before they learn what it is about. +But the few who have remained to taste the fruit of knowledge +as a rule become addicted to it, and never leave off, +being never satisfied with what they have yet attained. If +for eating this fruit they find themselves outside the paradise +of childish innocence and popular belief, they do by their +bearing give us the impression that the experience is worth +its cost. It is only the half-educated, those who would follow +wisdom and at the same time look back over their +shoulders casting longing glances at comforting ignorance, +unable to say farewell, who dwell upon the painfulness of +knowledge. I have the suspicion that those who wear a +long face as if they knew some dreadful secret that would +break the heart of the world if the rest of mankind knew it, +are men who find in the Byronic attitude a convenient way +of convincing themselves that they are intellectual heroes. +Or they are romanticists who enjoy the sorrows of Werther.</p> + +<p>For the encouragement of those who might wish to continue +their education or assist in the education of another, I +have tried to present certain historical examples of men who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span>have attained wisdom. They are brave men and true; they +do not make us ashamed of our race. It is a pleasure to +try to understand such minds, and I trust that in these times +when every fence is down and there are in the field of education +many strange animals and much shouting and confusion, +we may have been able to gain something, from turning +our attention to Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and +Erasmus and Montaigne and Huxley and Nietzsche and +Arnold, that will help us to see the meaning of education. +But we can never be sure whether we like its fruits until we +taste them.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV-POSTSCRIPT">CHAPTER XV—POSTSCRIPT +<br> +ADULT EDUCATION IN AMERICA</h2></div> + + +<p>When the European universities were established in the +late Middle Ages, they were not, like our modern American +colleges, super-high-schools. It was not their primary purpose +to give to undergraduates and aspiring professional +students a maximum fund of information during a brief +period of residence. There were many thousands of such +students, but the college or university was in a real sense an +institution for adult education. It was a place of residence +for mature scholars, a center where such men could pursue +their studies and live the life of education, just as in the +monasteries men could live the “religious” life. The teaching +which went on in these universities was in a sense a +secondary activity.</p> + +<p>Among the many changes which have occurred in life and +education since the thirteenth century, that represented by +Goethe’s “Faust” has special interest for us. The modern +man attempts to live the life of the spirit outside the +cloister. In this respect we are, as I have said, more like +the ancient Athenians who formed themselves into little +groups and attached themselves as disciples to their teacher +for an indefinite period of time. We may easily imagine +the students and friends of Socrates continuing with him for +years their philosophical inquiries, while at the same time +engaged in the conduct of their duties as citizens and householders. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span>Both Plato and Aristotle, as we have seen, +thought of education in this way. It was an interest which +as a matter of course extended into adult life. This continued +emphasis upon the education of the mature mind is +important, for it is in contrast with much modern thought +on the subject. Modern educators are chiefly interested in +the problems of teaching children.</p> + +<p>But there is a still more significant fact about such adult +education as we may have today which necessarily differentiates +it from both the thirteenth century and the ancients. +The average mature individual, is not like the ancient +Greek student, a member of the leisure class, nor may +he like the mediæval scholar retreat to a cloister. He +must earn his living and seek education during his leisure +time. To be sure, the formal and professional +education of our time has still the advantages of a +certain privilege and seclusion. Adult education must necessarily +proceed without these valuable aids to learning. +In earlier ages it was generally believed that education could +not be achieved without these advantages. Modern men +insist that the spiritual values of life be realized not in contemplative +aloofness but in the life of activity. They also +demand a satisfactory existence for as many people as possible; +hence all are to have opportunity to share in the cultural +goods of civilization. Education is made universal +and, below a certain age, compulsory. But it is obvious that +unless education is to remain the privilege of a few professionally +trained scholars, large numbers of people must be +given the facilities for continued study after school or college +days are passed.</p> + +<p>In other words, the aim of adult education is the cultivated +amateur. I have tried to show that this is precisely +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span>the aim of all liberal education. Learning which is discontinued +when one leaves school has been for the most part +wasted effort. Education is not culture unless outside college +halls it is a permanent and wide-spread interest which +makes a difference in the tastes and habits of thought of the +community. We have seen that Huxley deplored the fact +that much of the intellectual leadership of Victorian England +was found outside the university faculties. While this +may have been a just criticism of the universities, it was a +sign of intellectual vigor in the nation. Education may be +said to be achieving its purposes in a nation to the extent +that quiet reflection supplants superficial cleverness, and +that minds with patience and grace and breadth of outlook, +with indifference to fads and catchwords and with respect +for excellence, supplant the “go-getter,” the “movie-fan,” +the worshipper of Mammon, the sensation monger and the +narrow sectarian.</p> + +<p>The extent to which our education is a reality in the life +of this Republic is almost daily brought to our attention. +A very small percentage of the population spends four years +at college, during which time most of it retains very much +the same general habit patterns and beliefs and outlook on +life that it had when it entered. After graduation, students +bring home little cultural interest or added civic virtue. +They for the most part vote the regular party ticket, support +a church in which they happen to have been brought up, +play golf, dance to jazz music, talk prohibition and drink +synthetic gin, repeat the shibboleths of the group in which +they grew to maturity, and make money.</p> + +<p>A small minority of students attend post-graduate schools, +become research scholars, and within the radius of their +special branch of study often reach high proficiency and unequalled +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span>scholarship. In the universities of New York +City are gathered many of the most eminent scholars in +America. But it must be said that very little educational +influence passes over the chasm which separates our professionalized +education from the man in the street. Today a +mob is moved to tears of a patriotic fervor and to murderous +indignation at the sight of a woman removing from the +front of her property some faded red, white and blue bunting +which had been hung up by a tenant for the occasion of +a street festival some days previous; tomorrow an empty-pated +multitude tries to break into an undertaker’s establishment +and tramples hysterical women under foot in the +effort to view the body of a deceased motion picture actor; +and anon half the city runs oggling and open-mouthed after +a young woman who can swim across the English Channel.</p> + +<p>Without background or tradition other than folkway and +a perishing ancient dogma, and with quantity production +methods devised to pamper to its fancy, this multitude tends +to cheapen the quality of everything it comes near, while it +parades its material prosperity before the world as evidence +of superior American virtue. Education has not yet taken +root in our soil. It is a potted plant, like those little evergreen +trees which may be seen growing in painted tubs on +the stoops of New York houses. Such ancestral systems +for valuing experience and controlling behavior as people +brought to this country were mostly cast aside in the process +of Americanization; the swift tempo of industrialism supplanted +the slow process of spiritual maturing, and a +newspaper-fashioned public opinion became the dominant +cultural force for the country at large.</p> + +<p>We do not know at present whether the alleged general +interest in adult education is evidence of a spontaneous and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span>growing desire for knowledge, or is something promoted, +worked up by interests which would “educate the masses” +in order to attain certain economic ends, individual or social. +Nearly three million persons are said to be annually enrolled +for various courses of study outside the resident +classes of established institutions of learning. Undoubtedly +a great variety of motives prompts these hundreds of thousands +of people to take up the task of study. But wide-spread +as this interest is, popularization of knowledge is +not the same as the humanization of knowledge. We have +seen how the values of religion may decline into empty caricatures +of the spiritual life amongst certain popular sects.</p> + +<p>Those engaged in the work of adult education, often fear +that the movement may become standardized after the +fashion of the public school system. Is it possible to keep +up the standards without resorting to the mechanical uniformity +we commonly call standardization? I think this +is possible only if we are guided by a philosophy of liberal +education. Lose sight of such a philosophy and adult education +becomes a confusion of tongues. In such confusion +there is of course freedom from uniformity, yet there may +be much standardization; each educational cult may easily +degenerate into a doctrinaire, misguided sect. If I am correct +in holding that the aim of liberal education is to produce +the cultivated amateur, who possesses in general the +mental traits which in the preceding chapters of this book +we have seen to characterize the liberally educated mind, +we have in the pursuit of such a goal the very thing that will +save adult education from degenerating, like Protestantism, +into a conflict of narrow orthodoxies. Without such a goal, +any passing fancy or popular prejudice, however ungrounded +in philosophy, may come to serve as a dominant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span>ideal of education. Adult education then becomes the +means to every sort of propaganda and personal ambition.</p> + +<p>One educator of adults conducts short-time “institutes” +for farmers in which during a period of two or three weeks +instruction is given in such subjects as the fertilization of the +soil, rotation of crops, marketing, and the elements of bookkeeping. +Others offer instruction to industrial workers +which will improve their efficiency and deepen their loyalty +to the company. Others teach various trades and professions. +Much of the Americanization propaganda which +gave employment to uplifters during the years following the +war is now called adult education. There is a group of very +serious idealists who believe that by means of adult education +they may initiate working people into the “proletarian +culture of the future,” and arm the working class with the +necessary weapons for a social revolution. Others would +conduct schools in which young people may be trained to become +professional labor leaders. To still others the task +of adult education is very clear and simple: it is nothing else +than the transformation of our entire civilization by the +method of leading people back to nature and enabling them +to express their emotions, to which end classes in appreciation +and self-expression are organized, and students are sent +out after two or three months of such training prepared to +teach the emotional awakening to others.</p> + +<p>Adult education thus becomes a matter of slogans. Each +educator is sure he has it and can give the formula. It is +that “every man be given opportunity to think for himself,” +or it is to give people “a new and modern world view,” or to +help people “get out of the ruts in which they find themselves,” +or to enable one to “evaluate his experience,” or it +is “an adventure in independence.”</p> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span></p> +<p>Many of these things may be very desirable, but are they +education? Taken together, they reveal something of the +confusion which always results when men try to find their +standards of value in the passing interests of the hour. +Adult education is a democratic movement and hence tends +to make the desires and ideals of the uneducated rather +than those of the educated its standards and aims. The +idea sometimes prevails in education, just as it has prevailed +in religion and in politics, that if only the masses may emancipate +themselves from the past and start all over again, +setting up their own values, there will necessarily be great +improvement. Hence Labor, for instance, is to have “its +own education,” whatever that is. To be sure, every person, +be he a laborer or anyone else, must in the end educate +himself, and perhaps the masses in insisting upon their own +values and ideals can make no worse business of their education +than when they are “given” the education which +someone equally uneducated and materialistic thinks is good +for them.</p> + +<p>It is obvious that the <i>methods</i> of adult education must be +different from those in common use in teaching children. +The instructor cannot compel attendance; he cannot require +submission to his authority; he must realize that he is among +people who, though they have not his special knowledge, +have yet each his own experience, and he must see the relations +of his knowledge to such experience; and in fact he +must make himself a student with the others. Now because +the methods differ from those of formal education, people +frequently infer that the <i>aim</i> also is different. There are +many things which would seem to lead to such an inference.</p> + +<p>In the first place, in all education, attention is focused +almost exclusively upon methods of teaching rather than +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span>upon the question, “what is an educated person?” Again +many of those who are interested in adult education both +as instructors or as students have grown up in an environment +of traditional education, they have seen the futility and +meaninglessness of much that passes for education in the +schools and colleges, and are often moved to protest against +the system and all its works. I have tried to show that the +failure of formal education is the result of the fact that +educators frequently do not know what liberal education is. +But many people who are irritated with the school system +seem never to have raised the question whether what is +taught in school is liberal education. They assume that it +is what it appears to be, and hence, instead of seeking the +meaning of liberal education, they turn away and strive to +set up a hastily considered educational aim of their own.</p> + +<p>Finally, adult students are sometimes very opinionated—especially +when they first come to class. Often they have +violent prejudices and are extremely “advanced.” Such +minds are very much creatures of the popular movement of +the hour. The educator, if he is to keep his hold upon these +persons, must gain their favor and sustain their interest. +The easiest way to gain and keep a following is to make concession +to popular prejudice. Classes in adult education, +like the reading public, wish to be told what they would like +to regard as true. One of the great “truths” for which +they often seek support is the belief that the increasing or +anticipated supremacy of the mass is “progress.” Men wish +adult education to be modern, to reflect current thought and +present-day tendencies. In an earlier chapter I tried to +show how much of the popular thought that men believe +very advanced is really unrecognized Rousseauism. Often +the idea of a new start in education is only a survival of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span>Rousseau’s revolt against civilization. Since the influence +of Rousseau serves always to rationalize any plebeian wish-fancy +whatsoever, it is not surprising that it should sometimes +appear to set the goal of adult education. To the +degree that the desire for education is genuine and spontaneous, +the demand will naturally be for what people think, +is education.</p> + +<p>But in spite of all the chaos and confusion as to aims, +adult education, when the initiative comes from people who +are hungry for knowledge, even though they do not know +what education is, shows more promise than when the initiative +comes from the professional school teacher. In the +former case, there is some likelihood that someone will +stumble upon the meaning of a liberal education. As a +form of protest against the established educational system, +I think adult education is a wholesome movement. The +school authorities frequently show an interest in this new +thirst for knowledge which is met with suspicion. I do not +wonder. They have not shown themselves so uniformly +successful in the training of youth that they are justified in +seeking to extend their machinery over adult efforts for +knowledge. Much that school superintendents regard as +adult education is really only elementary education, primary +instruction offered to adults. <i>The surest way to defeat +learning is to place it in charge of those whose own +education has stopped.</i> Their influence is everywhere to +divert this mature interest in learning to the only ends such +professional educators know; service to the state, conformity +and routine, material advancement and industrial efficiency, +the uplift of the masses.</p> + +<p>In the words of a great educator of the nineteenth century, +we should “inquire whether it is the masses alone who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span>need a reformed and improved education.” Adult education +is not something to be “given” to the masses, while college +education may be kept for the sons of privilege. +There is no such thing as “mass education.” Throughout +the mass of mankind, college graduates included, there are +scattered here and there persons who can learn something +and have the desire to continue learning. It is as important +for us to consider for whom adult educational opportunities +should exist as it is to consider what education is. Such opportunities +are for people who are worth educating.</p> + +<p>Adult education is selective. Its aim is not to provide a +slight increase of information and a few noble sentiments +for the rank and file, but to select out of the undifferentiated +mass those who are naturally capable of becoming something +more than automatons. These need no credits or examinations +or promise of diplomas to spur them to intellectual +effort. They would gain wisdom if there were no +educational institutions, or classes, or lectures. But they +need advice and the fellowship of other studious minds, +for they are often lonely. Very few even professional students +can easily carry on their studies when isolated from +their kind. Hence the existence of universities. The rush +and racket of our industrial civilization are so great that +there is need to establish for those whose minds can rise +above it, an environment where thought is leisurely and +where people may be found who have had learning long +enough to be at home with it. The isolated student, like +the person learning to swim, makes much needless effort. +He tries to stuff his head with learning. He needs time to +meditate upon what he learns, talk about it, assimilate it, +see its relations to his knowledge and experience as a whole. +I believe this to be the value of group discussion, where there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span>is a real meeting of minds. I do not, however, as some +seem to do, believe that a company of uninformed people +talking nonsense are necessarily engaged in a work of mutual +education. It is not as groups that men may attain wisdom. +With all the aid possible from others, education is necessarily +an individual achievement.</p> + +<p>We need adult education not because it is a path to some +Utopia, or imaginary triumph of the masses, or because it +will add to the contentment of the poor, or improve their +morals and their industrial efficiency, or raise the tone of +politics. We need adult education for the same reason that +we need any education at all. From the beginning of time +men of a certain type have sought such knowledge of the +riddle of existence as would make some measure of excellence +possible to man. The result of all their striving is a +vast body of knowledge which is the heritage of the men and +women of our time. To share in the possession of this +knowledge and to work for its improvement and increase is +to men and women of a certain type simply to attain to their +true human estate. They desire education because that is +the kind of animal they happen to be. Such persons are +different from the common lot. It is not that they may possess +some secret information which the others may not +have. They have a different <i>goal</i>.</p> + +<p>Such decency and tolerance and good sense and genuine +idealism as exist in the midst of general human folly are +largely the indirect results of the efforts of these men and +women for knowledge and wisdom. Society as a whole is +the gainer for their education. To the end that such minds +may find themselves, together with the work and the adventure +which are their destiny, the widest possible efforts at +general education should be made. It is because of what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span>people are in themselves and may become, not because of +something they may get, that liberal education is the duty +of man. What Huxley said of England in 1868 is true for +America today:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“a few voices are lifted up in favour of the doctrine that the masses +should be educated because they are men and women with unlimited +capacities of being, doing, and suffering, and that it is as true now, +as it ever was, that the people perish for lack of knowledge.”</p> +</div> + + +<p class="center">THE END</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"><p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span></p> + + + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="Announcing"><i>Announcing</i> +<br> +THE NEW SCIENCE SERIES</h2></div> + + +<p>One of the most significant developments in our life today is that as +scientific knowledge almost daily advances, educated people are left +more and more in ignorance of its achievements. Scientists for the most part +write for each other and the general reader is forced to resort to popularizers +of science for his information. It is apparently forgotten that many of the +greatest scientists from Galileo and Copernicus to Darwin and Huxley wrote +largely for the public they wished to reach with their ideas.</p> + +<p>The publishers have this tradition in mind in offering <span class="smcap">The New Science +Series</span> which will present the latest scientific trends and discoveries from +all parts of the world in a series of books written by leading scientists or +those in close touch with their work. It is the aim of this series to help +modern men and women to know more about themselves and their world, +and to feel that they understand something of what it is all about.</p> + + +<p class="ph4"><span class="smcap">Edited by C. K. Ogden</span></p> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Vol.</span></td> +<td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tdl">MYTH IN PRIMITIVE PSYCHOLOGY</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td></td> +<td class="tdl"><p class="indent"><span class="smcap">Bronislaw Malinowski</span>, Ph.D., D.Sc.</p></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Vol.</span></td> +<td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tdl">SCIENCE AND POETRY</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td></td> +<td class="tdl"><p class="indent"><span class="smcap">I. A. Richards</span>, M.A.</p></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Vol.</span></td> +<td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tdl">FATALISM OR FREEDOM</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td></td> +<td></td> +<td class="tdl"><p class="indent"><span class="smcap">C. Judson Herrick</span>, Sc.D., Ph.D.</p></td> +</tr> +</table> + + + +<p class="ph4"><i>Other Volumes in Preparation</i></p> + +<p class="ph4"><span class="smcap">Each Volume $1.00</span></p> + + +<p class="ph4"> +<i>For descriptive catalogue, ask your bookseller or write</i></p> +<p class="ph2"><i>W · W · NORTON & COMPANY</i></p> +<p class="ph3">70 Fifth Avenue New York<br> +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"><h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_note">Transcriber’s note</h2> +<div class="tnote"> + + +<p>Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Spelling was standardized except for quotes. Hyphenation was standardized where +appropriate.</p> + +<p> +The following changes were made:</p> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_37">37</a>: “Pavlow. A hungry dog”</td> +<td class="tdl">“Pavlov. A hungry dog”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_54">54</a>: “information that anyone”</td> +<td class="tdl">“information than anyone”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_76">76</a>: “in the early nineteeth”</td> +<td class="tdl">“in the early nineteenth”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_88">88</a>: “Nietsche said that”</td> +<td class="tdl">“Nietzsche said that”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_123">123</a>: “it not the social problem”</td> +<td class="tdl">“is not the social problem”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_130">130</a>: “Max Sterner’s “Ego””</td> +<td class="tdl">“Max Stirner’s “Ego””</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_137">137</a>: “it hestitated to carry”</td> +<td class="tdl">“it hesitated to carry”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_141">141</a>: “organized soicalist locals”</td> +<td class="tdl">“organized socialist locals”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_142">142</a>: “sort of convenant among”</td> +<td class="tdl">“sort of covenant among”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_176">176</a>: “its value it not”</td> +<td class="tdl">“its value is not”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_176">176</a>: “a philosophy it true”</td> +<td class="tdl">“a philosophy is true”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_198">198</a>: “creation of Plato’s genuis”</td> +<td class="tdl">“creation of Plato’s genius”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_199">199</a>: “to aquiescence to authority”</td> +<td class="tdl">“to acquiescence to authority”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_224">224</a>: “Michaelangelo and Raphael”</td> +<td class="tdl">“Michelangelo and Raphael”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_224">224</a>: “Melanchthon and Œcolampadus”</td> +<td class="tdl">“Melanchthon and Œcolampadius”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_239">239</a>: “matched by his magnaminity”</td> +<td class="tdl">“matched by his magnanimity”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_253">253</a>: “fire of Promethus”</td> +<td class="tdl">“fire of Prometheus”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_256">256</a>: “believe there an be”</td> +<td class="tdl">“believe there can be”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_304">304</a>: “system-makers and sytems”</td> +<td class="tdl">“system-makers and systems”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_304">304</a>: “destiny then their friends”</td> +<td class="tdl">“destiny than their friends”</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl">Page <a href="#Page_306">306</a>: “a covenient way”</td> +<td class="tdl">“a convenient way”</td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75711 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75711-h/images/cover.jpg b/75711-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b50a53 --- /dev/null +++ b/75711-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/75711-h/images/title_decor.jpg b/75711-h/images/title_decor.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..519304a --- /dev/null +++ b/75711-h/images/title_decor.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5dba15 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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