All this implies that the older idea that education can be given regardless of content is, from the social point of view, a great mistake. Social knowledge is necessary, as we have just said, for efficient social service, and a socialized education can have no other end than social service. Therefore, sociological knowledge in the broadest sense should be required in the education of every citizen, and particularly those who are to become social leaders. Professor Ward has ably argued that if sufficient information of the facts, conditions, and laws of human society could be given to all, that alone would bring about in the highest degree social progress. Whether we agree or not that the mere giving of information will of itself lead to progressive or dynamic action in society, it must be admitted that right social information is indispensable for right social action. As Professor Cooley has said, "We live in a system, and to achieve right ends, or any rational ends whatever, we must learn to understand that system." Hence, the commanding place which sociology and the social sciences should occupy in the education of all classes, and especially in the training of the teacher himself.
It is not unreasonable to believe that the development of the social sciences will show us the way to remove many, if not all, social evils; and it is also not unreasonable to believe that the knowledge which these sciences will furnish will stimulate in the vast mass of individuals an impetus to remove these evils. Moreover, training in the social sciences will check many of the most menacing tendencies of our present civilization. For one thing, training in the social sciences will lessen the practical materialism of modern civilization, for it will throw the emphasis on the relations of men to one another rather than on the relations of man to nature. The social sciences, aiming at the control of the social conditions and of social progress, necessarily emphasize the higher life of man, and they therefore set before the student as the goal, not material achievement or individual success, but the service of man. Again, training in the social sciences will check the exaggerated individualism, which, as we have already seen, is one of the most menacing tendencies of our time; for the social sciences show the solidarity of the society and the interdependence of its parts. They show that no individual lives to himself, and that his acts evidently affect the whole of society. Finally, training in the social sciences will insure the development of true moral freedom in our social life, for these sciences involve a searching but impersonal criticism of social institutions and public policies. Now the very breath of life of a free society is intelligent public criticism of its institutions and policies. Without this, there can be no change, no progress. But intelligent criticism implies scientific criticism, that is, criticism based upon adequate scientific knowledge and without personal bias. This means the scientific study of institutions and social organization. If the American people are to perfect their institutions, they must maintain and develop their moral freedom; and to maintain true moral freedom, they must encourage the scientific study of social conditions and institutions. To secure an unbiased attitude toward social and political problems, to train every citizen for social service, to reconstruct social organization along scientific lines, it is necessary, therefore, to give the social sciences an honored place in the education of all classes and professions.
SELECT REFERENCES
For brief reading:
WARD, Applied Sociology, Chaps. VIII-XII.
WARD, Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II, Chap. XIV.
HORNE, The Philosophy of Education, Chaps. IV and V.
DEWEY, The School and Society.
For more extended reading:
DAVIDSON, History of Education.
GRAVES, History of Education.
MONROE, History of Education.