The Unpopular Review Vol. I / January-June 1914

by Various

II

The natural and intended inference from what precedes is that we demand too much of the schools—more than any schools could possibly do and do well. The result is that they are often blamed unreasonably, and that reasonable criticism is apt to be resented as unjust. There is wide-spread complaint of shortcomings—some even speak of the "failure" of popular education,—but the teachers reply with perfect truth that they are doing the best they can. The truth is, however, that there is more or less floundering due to multiplicity of aims, dispersion of effort, and the lack of a simple dominating principle by which to gage the relative importance of things. It is time for educationists to take sober thought and decide, if they can, what is on the whole the most valuable among the possible results of good schooling. If we could somehow reach a working agreement on that point, the path of wisdom would be tolerably clear: we should require our schools to drive hard at the particular thing deemed most essential, no matter how many smatterings might have to be thrown overboard. It were better for the nation to lose somewhat of its sublime faith in schooling, if by expecting less it might get a surer and more valuable return on its enormous investment. The best of teachers, in kindergarten, high school or university, can never give the best that is in him unless he has a fairly definite idea of what it is all for. Only then can he see the main issue in its proper relation to the side-issues of his routine. Let us then attack this question with holy boldness—somewhat in the spirit of a prudent householder considering what one thing would be best worth saving if his house should take fire.

If we look for the fundamental charter of popular education in these United States we shall find it, if anywhere, in the famous Ordinance of 1787, one memorable passage of which runs thus: "Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." This formulation, which sees the purpose of education in the promotion of good government and the general happiness, may still be accepted. One might balk, perhaps, at the word "happiness," which to the modern mind is apt to connote a more or less passive contentment with one's lot. If the fathers ever thought that popular education was going to produce general contentment, they miscalculated. Its normal effect is the exact opposite. A wholesome discontent is the beginning of progress toward better things. It is vain to preach or teach contentment to the man who sees a chance to better his lot or who feels that he is being kept down by conditions that can in any wise be remedied. We have learned that class struggle of one kind or another is inherent in human society; and where there is class struggle there will be discontent. Today, then, one might prefer the word "welfare," which is not only compatible with discontent, but in great degree actually grows out of it.

The subject-matter of education was to be religion, morality and knowledge. Let us consider the impressive triad in the reverse order.

It is patent enough, and must have been patent to the fathers, that, so far as good government and the general welfare are concerned, there is no inherent virtue in mere knowledge. Knowledge got from books and teachers may be socially inert, or it may be positively harmful. Everything depends on the use to which it is put. It is true that, having regard to the long run, we may rest securely on the proposition that the more men know—really know in an accurate way—the better off they will be, and the more likely to secure good government. The advancement of science—taking the word in its very broadest sense—is certainly an ideal that deserves our warmest allegiance. It is thus vastly important in any system of education, to keep open to talent a career from the humblest hovel to the high places of distinction and service.

But there are not many—not one in ten thousand—to whom it is given to increase knowledge in a way to affect government and the general welfare, which must always be largely concerned with the short run and with the preservation of a stable order amid the conflicts of classes, opinions and interests. And in this domain, as was remarked above, there is no inherent virtue in knowledge. What is learned in school may be put to bad use and become a social curse. Some knowledge of chemistry figures in the mental outfit of every dynamiter and adulterator of foods. A knowledge of law or medicine may be used to defeat as well as to promote the ends of justice. Indeed, a large part of our worst trouble comes now from "educated" men and women who prostitute their knowledge to anti-social purposes.

And then there is another reason why the schools should not conceive it to be their highest mission to impart book-knowledge, or to train the mind, as the phrase runs. That reason is that they do not and can not really train the mind, when operating on a large number of pupils at the same time by the method of "recitation." What gets trained in that way is at best the memory; and when the pupil leaves school—at whatever stage of progress—he soon forgets what he has learned, unless he has constant occasion to use it. The result is that the most of the knowledge laboriously acquired in school and college soon becomes quite inert for the purposes of good government and the general welfare. Now it may be necessary, indeed it is necessary, in a progressive school system, to spend a good deal of time over knowledges that are destined soon to be forgotten. But that essential thing that we are searching for, that which the schools are to regard as the vitally important thing, must clearly be something that the pupil is going to need and to use all the time, no matter when his schooldays come to an end.

Next in our triad comes morality. If any one chooses to insist at this point that there can be no morality without religion, let him wait a moment or go off and debate the subject with a metaphysician. In the common use of words morality may be and is independent of religion, and our question here is whether the inculcation of it can possibly be the thing we are looking for, namely the chief end of schooling. Hardly, the wise will say, if the word is to be taken in its usual sense. For it is distinctly a low-caste word. People commonly speak of "mere morality" as if the thing by itself did not amount to much. One recalls the remark of Emerson to the effect that this is very much as if one should say, "Poor God with nobody to help him." Still, the fact remains that the word connotes something rather ordinary. This is why Lord Haldane in a recent address preferred to avoid it and to commend the German Sittlichkeit, as a more soulful term. One notices, too, that thoughtful teachers who feel the weakness of a schooling that lays all the stress on memory-work such as can be tested by examination, are apt, when they wish to suggest something higher and larger, to use some such phrase as "character-building" rather than "moral training."

In short, the connotations of the word "morality" are such as to put it out of the running as a name for a high educational ideal; and a high ideal we must of course have. It suggests hardly more than what Mr. Roosevelt is wont to call "decent living;" and decent living is not a matter that can very well be progressively unfolded, idealized and realized. For a pupil coming from a family where decent living is the rule, and associating with mates of whom the same is true, it is not much to live decently. There is almost nothing for him to learn. This is no doubt why it is generally assumed, and in the main quite correctly, that in a normally wholesome environment morality will take care of itself or come as a by-product of school experience, the teacher having nothing in particular to do except to look after the occasional transgressor.

But now suppose we put in place of mere morality, the perfection of the social mind. Suppose we say that the central purpose of popular education ought to be the development of a sensitive social conscience enlightened to the limits of opportunity. To put it a little differently: suppose we could agree that the best possible result of education is a mind trained and habituated to think in terms of social obligation, and to act accordingly. We should then have, at any rate, something that is high enough and big enough for anybody; something that is capable of progressive realization from the kindergarten to the university and thereafter; something, in fine, that would reach out from the humblest ego to the utmost periphery of human existence.

Thirdly, religion. Let it be granted at the outset that for an immense number of the noblest souls that have ever lived "Thou God seest me" has been the highest, most inclusive, most compelling incentive to right social conduct, that we know anything about. In practise, however, a great deal depends on the nature of the God that is feared, and still more, perhaps, on whether that God is really and truly feared or only spoken of with conventional respect in token of some ecclesiastical loyalty. Can religion be "taught" in school—any kind of school? Can it be taught, I mean, not as a matter of formal observance and glib recitation, but in its vital essence as a quickening spirit destined to stick fast in the character and be a permanent incentive to right living? It is only in this sense that the "teaching" of religion has any bearing on good government and the general welfare.

The difficulty of teaching religion in this socially effective way is not confined to the secular public schools. It does not grow entirely out of the neutrality of the state, the jealousy of sects and the impossibility of finding a common basis free from any sectarian tinge. It goes deeper than that, and affects also church schools that fly the banner of religion and are conducted for the express purpose of giving prominence to the beliefs and usages of some particular denomination. What can be done to teach religion? Of course the pupil can be exposed to what are called religious influences, and made to breathe what is called a religious atmosphere. He can be required to attend chapel exercises, and to go to church on Sunday; to read the Bible or hear it read; to memorize texts, creeds, hymns and commandments. He can learn church history, and familiarize himself with the arguments and tenets of "our people." But when, as is usually the case, all this precedes any vital personal experience of religion, it is apt presently to float away, along with the Latin and algebra, into the limbo of things once known but no longer usable. The teaching of religion so that it will stick fast, not merely as an ecclesiastical loyalty, but as a socially regenerative force, is a very difficult matter. Multitudes of parents who are profoundly anxious about the matter, fail in the home, clergymen fail rather notoriously with their own sons and daughters. Can the school be expected to succeed where they are baffled?

But suppose it were understood that the supreme purpose of all education, no matter what banner the schoolhouse or college might fly, is the development of character trained and habituated to think in terms of social obligation, and to act accordingly: should we not then have a formula on which all who really mean well by their fellowmen could unite? For surely the perfection of the social mind—that and nothing else—is the finest flower of the religious spirit.