[329.] Specific forms of a pupil’s attitude toward society, especially the relative prominence in his mind of state or family relations, will have to receive due consideration in marshalling motives to counteract particular faults. Indeed, the same is true of the appeal to those motives through which it is sought to establish a preponderance of worthier endeavor over moral imperfection in general.
[ SECTION III
REMARKS ON THE ORGANIZATION OF EDUCATION]
CHAPTER I
Home Education
[330.] On discovering that his own efforts encounter impediments, the individual teacher might easily come to think that society could do everything, if it only would, and if it possessed the necessary insight. Further reflection, however, reveals the existence of difficulties peculiar both to state and family.
[331.] The state needs soldiers, farmers, mechanics, officials, etc., and is concerned with their efficiency. Its attitude toward a large number of persons, whose existence as individuals has significance only in a narrow sphere, is, in general, far more that of supervision designed to prevent the harm they might do, than one of direct helpfulness. He who is able to render competent service receives preferment; the weaker has to give way to the stronger; the shortcomings of one are made good by another.
[332.] The state applies its tests to what can be tested, to the outward side of conduct and of knowledge. It does not penetrate to the inner life. Teachers in public schools cannot penetrate much farther; they, too, are more concerned with the sum total of knowledge imparted by them, than with the individual and the way in which he relates his knowledge to himself.
[333.] To the family, however, no stranger can make up for what one of its members lacks; to the family the inner condition becomes so manifest, and is often felt so keenly, that the merely external does not satisfy. It is obvious, therefore, that moral education will always remain essentially a home task, and that the institutions of the state are to be resorted to for educative purposes only with a view to supplementing the home.
But on closer inspection it is found that family life is very often too busy, too full of care, or too noisy, for that rigor which is undeniably required both for instruction and for morality. Luxury and want alike harbor dangers for youth. Consequently families lean on the state for support more than they ought.