A history of social thought

by Emory S. Bogardus

In recent decades educational leaders have been thinking in sociological terms. In its experimental phases educational sociology constitutes a phase of applied sociology. The principles of modern educational sociology have a thousand sources.

Pestalozzi (1746–1827) may be considered a forerunner of current social theories of education. He was interested in humanity for humanity’s sake. Like St. Francis of Assisi, he lived with the poor in order that he might teach them to be thrifty and worthy citizens. In his Leonard and Gertrude, he described the life of the poor, and formulated an educational procedure for educating the poor. He was a lover of little children, of poor people, of anyone in trouble, of all humanity. He spoke in dignified terms of the function of a good woman, no matter how humble her station in life. Her first duty is to educate her children and to meet the needs of her family. She has, also, obligations to her neighbors and community. Others, seeing her constructive work, will be inspired and motivated to do likewise.

In opening an industrial school for the poor, Pestalozzi recognized that the poor have the least opportunities for development and the largest numbers of problems to solve,—therefore they are in the greatest need of educational advantages. He held that all the phases of human personality should be trained, and that there should be “a harmonious development of all human powers.” Hence, education is the greatest gift that anyone, rich or poor, can receive. In urging that the child should be educated in company with other children, that is, in groups, he took an attitude superior to that of Rousseau, but presaging that of Froebel.

Froebel (1782–1852), the founder of the kindergarten, considered little children “as plants in a garden.” He recognized the educative importance of the early years of life. He perceived the possibilities of teaching through the use of plays and games. He understood the “interests” of little children. His most important conception, perhaps, was his recognition of the gregarious impulses as an effective setting for the educative processes. While neo-Froebelians have sometimes turned all work into play and have neglected to train the child in doing some things in which he is not interested at the particular time, the utilization of the gregarious and play impulses as vital backgrounds for education is not unworthy. The evils in this connection are no greater than when the Montessori method is followed, with its emphasis upon a maximum of individual choice.

In Horace Mann (1796–1859), American education found a new social emphasis. Education in a democracy, according to Mann, should be public and open equally to all classes of people. Moreover, in a democracy, education is not a mere acquisition of knowledge; it is not concealed in college degrees as such; it is not aristocratic. It was Mann’s contention that education should be an actual training for rearing worthy families, for living an unselfish social life, for being a public spirited citizen in one’s daily activities.

Mann asserted that the common school is the bulwark of the nation. He believed that education should encourage true religion. He inaugurated the normal training school,—in support of his theory of specially trained teachers. His social philosophy is contained in a statement from his last public address: “Be ashamed to die until you have won a victory for humanity.”

During the intervening decades since the days of Horace Mann, the social conception of education has been assuming new practical phases. Professor John Dewey has pointed out that all communication is education; that the terms, common, community, and communication, possess more than a verbal relationship.[XXV-1] Anything is educative which produces similar emotional and intellectual dispositions, that is, like ways of responding to stimuli. Societal life, hence, is unusually educative. Education consists of processes of self-development, of self-continuation, of social continuation. These processes are possible only on bases of common means of communication. It is these means, as Professor C. H. Cooley has indicated, which make even the powerful factors of suggestion and imitation so universal.

It is not the environment which directly implants certain desires in individuals.[XXV-2] The environment sets up conditions which stimulate certain ways of acting. The child gets a real idea of a hat, not by seeing a hat, or by being told of its uses, but by actually using a hat. The social environment, in other words, forms “the mental and emotional disposition of behavior in individuals by engaging them in activities” that arouse various impulses, purposes, and produces certain consequences.[XXV-3]

As society becomes exceedingly complex, it is essential that society provide a simplified social environment through which the child may pass, in order that he may adjust himself the more quickly and easily to the complex societal environment. To this end the school serves a valuable purpose. However, in order to function best, the school must be a replica in as many ways as possible of real society.[XXV-4]

The special social environment, namely, the school, must simplify and arrange in an orderly way the dispositional factors it wishes to develop in children. It must present the existing social customs in purified and idealized forms. It must create a wider and better balanced environment for the young than they would have if they were not in school.