The Psychology of Nations / A Contribution to the Philosophy of History

by G. E. Partridge

All those disharmonies in our industrial countries such as the prevalent discord between working and capitalistic classes seem, we have said, to be social rather than economic in nature. Social education, then, is the main cure for them, if we wish to attack them at their root. The motives of pride and the sense of inferiority have to be dealt with in a practical manner. We sometimes quite overlook the importance of habitual moods or states of feeling in society and in the school. These moods are powers which motivate conduct. Any form of education in which the poorer and less favored are given an opportunity to acquire the experiences, and through these the moods, that especially distinguish the more favored class, strikes at the general disparity in society which takes form in such antagonisms as that between capital and labor. It is not difference in degree but difference in kind of experience that appears to separate the classes from one another. The difference seems to lie in those parts of life which are sometimes believed to be the unessentials and which indeed our whole educational policy assumes apparently to be trivial. The fundamental differences between the poor and the rich, the favored and the common people, is in the sphere of the æsthetic. Distinction of manner and an environment rich in æsthetic qualities are the main advantages of the few, as compared with the many. Social experience is what is most needed by the many, but of course this experience can never be gained by making the educational institutions merely democratic, and especially social experience cannot be gained in a school in which all situations are studiously avoided in which really significant social relations are likely to be experienced. We gain no social experience in the naïve and the highly special activities of the school which for the most part is arranged in such a way as to exclude organized social relations. This is a process in which such leveling as there is tends to be downward, whereas what we need is for all the truly aristocratic elements in our national life to have an opportunity to propagate themselves and to extend to the many. Leaving aside the need of a differently organized social life in the school, we might say that there is hardly a greater need in democratic countries now than that of recruiting the rank and file of teachers from a socially superior class. These socially favored individuals have given themselves loyally to the service of country in a time of war, for two if no more of their deepest motives have been appealed to—the dramatic interest and the spirit of noblesse oblige. There are duties in times of peace which are quite as important, but which as yet appeal to no strong motive, and have not even been presented in the form of obligation. Once these common tasks were made to appear a part of the fulfillment of duty to country, the way to finding deep satisfaction in them might be opened. Social and dramatic elements would be introduced as a matter of course.

Another need throughout our whole effort to educate all in and for a life of work, one which has appealed to many writers in recent years, is the need of making all the experience of work more creative or more free and animated or joyous in mood. This means, again, that in all industrial education the mood must be social and the form æsthetic or dramatic. Social values must be felt through social activity, and the sense of worth in labor and of value of the product which is felt in the social mood must be enhanced by the dramatic form of the activity and the artistic quality of the product. This is also the condition for creative activity. Some writers apparently now see in this need of making the activity of all those who work more creative, more free and more joyous the crucial problem of education and of social adjustment. This is Russell's constant theme. Helen Marot in "Creative Industry" says that our problem is to develop an industrial system that shall stimulate and satisfy the native impulse for creative production. It is difficult to see how, by any other educational process than one which is essentially æsthetic and social, we can make much headway toward changing the conception of work from the now prevalent one of a means of making a living, more or less under compulsion, to that of a voluntary social act done both for its utility from the standpoint of the individual and also because of its social value, and performed to some extent, however humble the work, in the spirit of the creative artist.

For the adult generation that now works (and for how many generations to come we do not know), we cannot hope to make ideal conditions. Work will still be work, with its evil implications, as toil without complete inner satisfaction, and without sufficiently free motives. But the direction in which practical changes should be made seems clear. There must still be a lessening of the hours of routine labor, until there are perhaps no longer more than six or five devoted to vocation. The remainder of life is not for idleness but must be in part productive or the lessened hours of routine will not be possible. There must be possibility of both practical and recreational activities outside the regular day's work, as well as for educational work, all of these in part at least publicly provided for. This activity may serve many purposes and accomplish a variety of results. As educational it ought to open up new opportunities; it must fulfill the desire for creative activity; it must be a socializing power; it must lead to an appreciation of the nature and value of skill and efficiency; it must introduce all to the higher world of art and the intellectual life. Above all it must impress deeply the truth that growth in the normal life is never ended.

The third phase of industrial education which is to be emphasized now is the teaching of what we have called thrift. This idea of thrift, for pedagogical purposes, is equivalent to the broad principle that purposes in this world are achieved by the expenditure of force—by the control of energies which are not unlimited in amount as now controlled and which are subject to definite laws. Since objects which are to be secured by the expenditure of energy differ in value it is a part of this education in thrift, indeed an important and necessary part, to give to all such knowledge and powers of appreciation as will enable them to recognize that which is essential, and to give the essential and the unessential their proper places in the whole economy of life.

It will never be right of course to inspire a parsimonious spirit in regard either to goods or to energies. Life itself and all its energies must be given freely; material goods must not be evaluated too minutely. The miserly life is not what we wish to teach. Still there is a wise attitude toward all material things and toward all values which recognizes goods as means to ends, which places true values high and demands economy in the use of all things that must be conserved in order to attain them.

It must be a part of the work of physiology, which thus branches out into psychology, to teach to all the efficient use of human energies. These energies are the precious things in the world; they must be valued and respected as the source of all efficiency. The idea of economy of movement, from this standpoint, has an important place in all motor or industrial or manual training. Processes must be regarded as definite series of acts in which we may approach perfection. Technique in motor operations is not to be regarded lightly as a mere finish applied to useful acts. It is the expression of an ideal of efficiency and economy. Children recognize the value of technique in games; its wider and more practical application needs to be impressed.

In the same way knowledge of the precise values and uses of material things ought to be imparted. The war has had the effect of showing all of us the values of materials and the relations of materials to one another. It has given us a sense of the great powers of natural wealth, and also of its limitations and the weak points that exist now in our economy. The war has proved to us how closely related the things we use lavishly and wastefully may be to the most ideal possessions. It has shown that the production, the distribution and the use of wealth of all kinds are parts of the accomplishment of the main purposes of life and that all these things belong to the sphere of duty; and that no individual can escape obligations in regard to economy.

Education, therefore, must lay foundations both for an understanding of economy and for the practice of it. First of all, every individual, we may assume, ought to have some experience in the production of the elementary forms of material goods, and in the conversion of them into higher values and in their conservation. We looked carefully to some of these activities as a war measure. It is hardly less necessary in times of peace. We should teach these things, not simply because the practice of them is educational, but because the practice of them is useful, and is a necessary service, on the part of every individual, to the world. Adding to the world's store of goods and consciousness of the need of doing this directly or indirectly should be regarded as a fundamental duty and habit. To establish both the habit and the sense of duty, we may suppose, a stage is necessary in which the individual's contribution shall be direct and tangible. Hence the value of those educational activities that deal with foods and their conservation.

On a little higher plane, and in a little different way we can apply the same thoughts to the whole cycle of material things. The distribution of wealth is of course in part a technical and a theoretical problem. It is also a practical and a general one. All at least ought to be judges of the waste that now goes on in the industrial life because the "middleman" has occupied such a place of vantage in the economic order. In teaching occupation and in all preparation for vocation ought we not to take this into consideration? Occupations that are purely distributive and which involve a great waste of human energies and of materials have been unduly emphasized, at least by default of more positive preparation, by the school. Because they are easy and untechnical and have a little elegance about them, in some cases, they fit in very well with the generality and bookishness and detachment from real life that the school sometimes represents.

The occupations that are more creative, both in the field of material things and of ideas, have, relatively speaking, been neglected. Inventiveness especially seems to be a quality that we have supposed to be a gift of the gods, and we have given but little attention to producing it, or even giving it an opportunity to display itself. Have we not gained from the war new impressions both about the powers of the human mind in producing new thoughts and in controlling both material and psychic forces, and also about the necessity for developing originality and independence? Is it too much to expect now that greater ingenuity be displayed in education itself to the end of producing more originality? This is a hackneyed request to make of the school, but it seems certain that we do not succeed in obtaining through our educational processes the highest possible degree of productiveness of mind, as regards either quantity or quality. It is because indeed we seem to be very far from our limit in these respects, and because better results might perhaps so easily be gained that it seems necessary to make this plea so often. More activity, more art, greater enrichment of the mind, ought to have the desired result, especially if the environment of the school could be so changed that its moods would be more joyous and intense. These changes are at any rate demanded for so many other reasons that if they fail to make the intellect more productive, they will not be completely a failure.