“But is there nothing in the world of any importance except machinery?”
Thank you for reminding me! We are all inclined to be too much
preoccupied with the importance of machinery. I confess that I have
been so ever since, as a child, I took my father’s watch apart and
found myself unable to cope with the problem of putting it back
together again. But note for a moment the pragmatic significance of
such an infantile predicament. Of what use would it have been for
some infinitely wise person to say to me: “Child, do not attach so
much importance to those wheels and springs! They are interesting, in
a way; but how much less interesting than the birds, the flowers and
the stars!”--what good, I ask you, would such counsel have been to me
at that moment? I wanted to get that watch put back together before
something terrible happened to me. And mankind as a whole seems to me
to be in much the same situation. For the best of reasons, it _has_ to
master the problem presented by a machine civilization--lest something
terrible happen. Its preoccupation is born of fear. The flowers and
stars (it thinks) can wait: they are not so dangerous.
And yet the infinitely wise person would have been right. Machinery
must be ranked among (so to speak) the minor poetry of the universe.
The astronomic epic, the botanical lyric, the biological drama, are,
from any point of view not prejudiced by our fears, more important.
It is only because we are so acutely conscious, all of us, of the
failure of our educational system in the matter of preparing us to
exist unbewilderedly in the midst of a machine civilization, that I
have put such emphasis on the adequacy of the new education in dealing
with that problem. It is of importance only as food is important to a
starving man--merely so. And if you have heard enough about the place
of machinery in education--
I see that you have. Very well, then we will go on to the matters of
real importance.
What are they?
(My rhetorical questions, it seems, are always being taken literally!
I was about to tell you myself, but I suppose we shall have to listen
to that elderly gentleman over there, who evidently has the answer
ready.) Very well, sir. What _are_ they?
“I am glad to hear that you have disposed at last of the crassly
materialistic aspect of your theme, and are about to deal with its
spiritual aspects. For these are naturally its more important aspects.
And if you ask me to specify more particularly what these are, I can
only reply in old-fashioned language, and say that the important things
in life, and hence in education, are Beauty, Truth and Goodness. I
trust that you agree with me?”
Certainly, sir. Beauty and Truth and Goodness--or, if you will permit
me to translate these eighteenth century abstractions into our
contemporary terminology--the cultivation of the creative faculties,
of disinterested curiosity, and of personal relationships, undoubtedly
constitute the chief ends of democratic cultural endeavor. These,
indeed, together with what you would call Usefulness and what we
would call technical efficiency, comprise pretty much of the whole of
existence. Not all of it--but quite enough to take as the subject of
our new inquiry.
How can education encourage and develop, not in a few individuals,
but in the masses of the people, the creative faculties which are the
source of beauty?--for it must conceive its task in these broad terms
if it is to be a democratic education. How can it foster in these
same masses that rare growth, disinterested curiosity, from which
come the fruits of philosophy and science? And how can education deal
effectively with the dangerous emotions of personal relationship?
The task seems at first glance so difficult that it will be well for us
to ask at the outset whether it can be accomplished at all!