PART II
THE EDUCATIONAL FACTOR IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONS
CHAPTER I[ToC]
EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS OF THE DAY
Education, like all other institutions, has been charged, we know, with having contributed its share to the causes of the war. The Prussian school system, we have been told, was mainly a school of war; all the emotions and ideas necessary to produce morbid nationalism, distorted views of history, and a belief in and a love of war were there fostered and deliberately cultivated. There is, of course, some truth in this; it is a truth that is deceiving, however, if we regard it as at all indicating the true relation between education and practical affairs. If the school was a factor in the late war, such a creative effect of education appears to be rare in history. In general it is the negative effect of the school that is most conspicuous. It is what the school has not done to prevent war, what it has failed to do in not bringing nations out of their perverted nationalism into a life of more practical relationship with one another that really best characterizes the school.
It is difficult or impossible for us now, of course, to perceive what the war has done—in what way, all in all, the future will be different from the past. It is very easy and natural to look at everything dramatically now, see revolution everywhere and believe that all institutions are now to be radically changed. Or, going to the other extreme, we may become cynical, and say that, human nature being unchangeable, we shall soon settle down into the old routine and we shall see presently that nothing revolutionizing has transpired. Some will say, and indeed are saying that education must now be entirely remodeled; some will think that education had best go on as before—that nothing has happened certainly to require any new philosophy of the school, or any profound change in its form. We see these two tendencies in many phases of our present situation: in politics, in education, and in the business world.
It is impossible, we may repeat, to make wholly safe judgments now about the future, but still something must in the meantime be done. We must either stand still or go forward—or backward; we must act either with a theory or without one. The school is involved in this necessity. There is a new content of history that we cannot ignore, but must in some way teach. We must say something about the war; current events can hardly be kept out of the school, and to understand current events there must be a wider content of history than we have had in the past. There are new, or at least disturbed, conditions in the industrial and in all the social life, and these conditions cannot fail to have some effect upon the school. The school must adjust itself to them, and it must surely take into account new needs that have arisen. Patriotism may need to be taught now, or taught in a different manner. There is a problem of war and peace, the question of what ideals of national life we are to convey. Internationalism demands some recognition on the part of the school. It seems probable, therefore, and even necessary that a new interest in the function of education will be felt and must be aroused. Must we not indeed now examine once more all the foundations upon which our ideas about education rest? Certainly there will never be a more favorable time, or more reasons for such a task.