Social process

by Charles Horton Cooley

Indeed, nothing is more surely culture than any work in the spirit of art. Since one is doing it for self-expression he puts himself into it; he must also undergo discipline in the mastery of technic, and he has the social zest of imparting joy to others and being appreciated by them. It is real and vital as mere learning under instruction rarely is. And one who has practised an art, though with small success, will have a sense of what art is that the mere looker-on can never have.

It is quite true, in my opinion, that household training could be given to girls in such a way that they would get more culture out of it than nine-tenths of them now do from the perfunctory study of history, languages, and music. It would only require teachers who could impart a spirit of craftsmanship and a sense of human significance. An almost universal trouble with both boys and girls in the present state of society is that they are not given, in connection with their work, enough of the general plan and movement of life to get interested in that and in their part in it. The general movement is too much for them; they do not see any plan in it, and merely catch on to it where they can, work with it when they have to, and put their real interest into crude amusement. We do not make it natural for the individual to identify himself and his task with the whole. To do that would be culture.

Possibly the view that culture is not opposed to technical studies may, under the present ascendancy of the latter, tend practically to confirm the subordination of culture; but I aim to state underlying principles, and it seems to me that the right relation between the two is not much forwarded by partisanship for either, but rather by showing that they are complementary and suggesting a line of co-operation. The actual hostility of technical and professional schools to culture arises from their usually exacting and narrow character, which crowds everything liberal out.

I may add in this connection that it is a great part of culture to learn how to do something well, no matter what it is, to have the discipline and insight that we get by persistent endeavor, undergoing alternate success and failure, observing how, with time, the unconscious processes come to our aid, and so gaining at last some degree of mastery; in short, by experiencing how things are really done. Unfortunately many students slip through a supposed liberal education without getting this experience; and no wonder the colleges are discredited by their subsequent performance. In these times when home life has widely ceased to afford practical discipline it is peculiarly important that schools should do so.

But the enlargement of the spirit, which is culture, calls for something more than studies, of any kind. It needs also a hearty participation in some sort of a common life. The merging of himself in the willing service of a greater whole raises man to the higher function of human nature.

We need to aim at this in all phases of our life, but nowhere is it easier to attain or more fruitful of results than in connection with the schools. Since the school environment is comparatively easy to control, here is the place to create an ideal formative group, or system of groups, which shall envelop the individual and mould his growth, a model society by assimilation to which he may become fit to leaven the rest of life. Here if anywhere we can insure his learning loyalty, discipline, service, personal address, and democratic co-operation, all by willing practice in the fellowship of his contemporaries. As a good family is an ideal world in miniature, in respect of love and brotherhood, so the school and playground should supply such a world in respect of self-discipline and social organization. There is nothing now taking place, it would seem, more promising of great results than the development of groups which appeal to the young on the social and active side of their natures and evoke a community spirit. They take eagerly to such groups, under sympathetic leadership, finding self-expression in them, and there seems to be no great obstacle to their becoming universal and embracing all the youth of the land in a wholesome esprit de corps which would be a hundred times more real and potent with them than any kind of moral instruction. The motive force is already there, in the natural idealism of boyhood and adolescence; all we need to do, apparently, is to provide the right channels for it. This is a field where the harvest is plenteous, and which the laborers are only beginning to discover.

All of us who have been at college know something of the spiritual value of an alma mater, of memories, associations, and symbols to which we can recur for the revival of fellowship and the ideals of youth. If we ever have noble ideals it is when we are young, and if we keep them it is apt to be by continuing early influences.

It seems, then, that every one ought to have an alma mater, that whatever kind of school one leaves to enter the confusion and conflict of the world, it should be enshrined within him by friendship, beauty, ceremony, and high aims, and that these should be renewed by revisiting the academic scene at occasional festivals. Our common schools, in town and country, might thus play the part in the life of the mass of the people that colleges do in that of a privileged class, providing continuous groups charged with a high social spirit, and capable of extending this spirit indefinitely. There is nothing we need more than continuity and organization of higher influence, and hardly any way of achieving this so practicable as through the schools.

Each community should have a centre of social culture connected with the public schools, and the character of this would vary with that of the community. There is especial need for building up in the country a type of culture which is distinctively rural in character, and yet not inferior to urban culture in its power to enlarge life. Country life attracts the imagination by its comparative repose, by the stability and dignity that one associates with living on the land, and by its wholesome familiarity with plant and animal life. But these attractions are offset at present by social and spiritual limitations which lead most of those who have a choice to prefer the towns. If each district had a culture centre where the finer needs of life might be gratified in as great a measure as anywhere, and yet with a rural flavor and individuality, the country would be more a place to live in and less one to flee from as soon as you can afford to do so. These centres, we may hope, will grow up about the centralized and enlarged schools that are now beginning to replace the scattered one-room buildings, bringing better and more various instruction, including studies especially appropriate to rural life. Around the school might be grouped the rural church; also consolidated, socialized, and made a real centre of fellowship and co-operation; the public library, art gallery, and hall for political and social gatherings. In a community enjoying such institutions, with a spirit and traditions of its own, life ought to be at least as livable as in town.

It will turn out, I believe, that the higher social culture is of a kindred spirit with religion. The essence of religion, I suppose, is the expansion of the soul into the sense of a Greater Life; and the way to this is through that social expansion which, however less in extent, is of the same nature. One who has developed a spirit of loyalty, service, and sacrifice toward a social group, has only to transform this to a larger conception in order to have a religious spirit. Indeed it is clear that the more ardent kind of social devotion, like that of the patriot for his country in extreme times, is hardly distinguishable from devotion to God. His country, for the time being, is the incarnation of God, and in some measure this is true of any group which embodies his actual sense of a greater life than that of his own more confined spirit. I think, then, that social culture through devotion to the service and ideals of an inspiring group is in the direction of religious culture, and probably, for most minds, the natural and healthy road to the latter. I do not mean to suggest that school and community groups should supplant the churches; but it seems to me that they may supply a broad foundation upon which churches and other organizations may set their more special structures.