Now it is clear that the gift of Nature is not in our own power, but is bestowed through some divine power upon those who are truly fortunate. It is probably true also that reason and teaching are not universally efficacious; the soul of the pupil must first have been cultivated by habit to a right spirit of pleasure and aversion, like the earth that is to nourish the seed.[1]
[Footnote 1: Aristotle: Ethics, book X, chap. X, p. 344 (Weldon translation).
It is only when people find pleasure in the right actions, that they can be depended upon to perform them. And it is by their early and habitual performance that they will become pleasant. In the formation of such socially and individually useful habits, education is the incomparable instrument. The conduct of individuals is, as we have repeatedly seen, largely fixed by the customary recognition of certain acts as approved, and others as disapproved. These approvals and disapprovals are transmitted through education. Education is used here to refer not simply to the formal institutions of teaching, but to the complete social environment, the approvals and disapprovals with which an individual comes in contact. Formal education is, however, the chief means by which society inculcates into younger members those values, traditions, and customs which its controlling elements regard as of the most pivotal importance.
Social customs which are transmitted in education, become fixed in law. So that, as Aristotle points out in this same connection, laws are symptomatic of the moral values which the group regards as of the highest importance. Laws are customs given all the sanction, support, and significance that the group can put into them. Education transmits the values, ideals, and traditions cherished by the group, but the laws and customs already current largely control the scope and methods of education. "Education proceeds ultimately from the patterns furnished by institutions, customs, and laws. Only in a just state will these be such as to give the right education."[1]
[Footnote 1: Dewey: Democracy and Education, p. 103.]
The state of law and education which is exhibited by a society, thus accurately mirrors the degree of moral progress of the group. And what is, perhaps, more significant, the kind of law and education current determines the moral ideals and conditions the moral achievements of the maturing generation. Education, more especially, is the instrument through which the young can be educated not only to ideals and customs already current, but to their reflective modification in the light of our ever-growing knowledge of the conditions of human welfare.
INDEX
Ability, education and native, [210].
Absolutism in morality, [441-43].
Acquisitive instinct, [140-42].