EDUCATIONAL VOCATIONS, OR VOCATIONS CONNECTED WITH THE STATE
Every vocation on its ethical side is educational. The reason for
accentuating the educational aspect of the vocations connected with the
state is that this educational significance is generally overlooked.
The vocations referred to are those of the lawyer, the judge, the
statesman, the teacher in the narrower sense of the word (the teacher
in schools and universities).
_The Vocation of the Lawyer_
Vocation, as I use the term, invariably means related to the spiritual
end of life. A profession or occupation becomes a vocation when he
who follows it seeks to respond to the _call_ of the latent spiritual
possibilities in his fellowmen. If this be not the common definition
of calling or vocation, yet I think it will bear scrutiny. It is the
vocation of the lawyer to be the _teacher of justice_ to his clients,—I
mean of justice in so far as it is already embodied in law,—and at the
same time to promote a desire for and a preliminary understanding of
the justice which is not yet embodied in law.
The lawyer is commonly regarded as the learned _alter ego_ of his
client. The lawyer is the client as he would be if he were versed
in the law, and skilled to employ it in his interest. The client is
supposed to be an egotist, intent solely on securing his advantage
to the fullest extent possible under the existing system of social
regulations. The lawyer is his expert substitute. The judge appears on
the scene as the impartial representative of the law.
From the vocational point of view the lawyer is an assistant to the
judge, the agent not so much of his client as of justice. He is as much
interested in the just issue of the suit as is his legal opponent. His
educational function is to teach his client to take the same point
of view. Another point, no less important, is the following: Law is
a system of general rules, at best a rude social mechanics. And even
as such it is constantly deflected from its ostensible purpose by
selfishness and prejudice. The discriminations against women, the
conspiracy laws against combinations of laborers, the laws enacted in
the interests of landed aristocracies, are ample evidence in point.
In every country the law as it stands is still largely infected with
unfair discriminations, and it is the special duty of those who follow
the legal vocation to open the eyes of their clients and of the public
to these defects and to suggest remedies.
Every vocation has its special vice, that is, a kind of behavior
the very opposite of that prescribed by the particular ethical
function with which it is charged. The vice of the lawyer is
_blind_ conservatism (unless he is at the same time progressive and
conservative he fails to fulfil his ethical function).
The judge, too, is a teacher, especially in criminal cases. The
voice of the judge, when he pronounces sentence on a criminal, should
reverberate throughout the whole of society, awakening all men to the
fact that society as such shares the guilt.
_The Vocation of the Statesman_
What I have to say on this subject will find its proper setting in the
next chapter. In general, it is the vocation of the statesman to teach
the citizens a sublime conception of the state. He is neither to be the
obedient tool of the mass—the docile “public servant” in that sense—nor
yet to impose his arbitrary will upon the people, consulting only his
own genius. The one type is seen in the average American politician,
who is or affects to be a mere instrument executing the public will;
the other type is exemplified by the supermen statesmen of ancient and
modern times. The ethically-minded statesman is to evoke the spiritual
conception of the State in the minds of his constituents, and in the
process of doing so to become more essentially a citizen himself.
_The Vocation of the Educator_
It was unavoidable to discuss the vocations and their aims before
considering the school, college and university; for these institutions
are orientated towards the vocations, are preparatory to the latter,
and the true aim of school and university cannot possibly be defined
unless the vocational outlook be first distinctly spread before our
eyes.
In dealing with the vocation of the teacher, I shall necessarily be
led to define the purpose of the social institution in which he labors
and I shall for the sake of brevity use the word school to designate
the social organs of education, which cover the period of childhood,
adolescence and the beginning of manhood and womanhood.
The school is like the hundred-gated Thebes. It leads out into a
hundred vocational avenues. But note the following: its aim is far
greater than merely to prepare the student for that future vocation to
which he is best suited. It should no less supply the incentive for
creating new vocations, and for changing what are at present still
occupations into vocations. The school searches out the individuality
of its pupils. It undertakes to differentiate and to personalize
individualities. But when it has done its part, it sends the pupils
into a world where little account is taken of the finer differences
of aptitude, where occupations predominate and vocations are few, and
where most things, ethically speaking, are still in the rough. The
school cannot indeed transform society by merely raising its indignant
voice and asking society to pay heed to the finer things which it has
fostered, and which often are subsequently crushed. But it can at least
contribute to the vocational evolution of society by reiterating its
unsatisfied demands.
Taking the three-fold reverence for my guide, I lay it down in the
first place that the school is an organ of tradition. True conservatism
has its place in the school. In it are preserved the knowledges
and the skills of the past. The heir of today comes to his own by
appropriating the products of past thinking and past labor, and the
school superintends the process of appropriation and assimilation. At
the same time it sifts in tradition what is clean from what is unclean,
what is true from what is false, what is usable from what is dead.
Reverence is shown in this very sifting process. To revere the past is
to make the past live again; but only what is vital can go on living.
The teaching should be reverential in spirit. The business spirit,
the drive towards mere efficiency, cannot in the long run satisfy.
Efficiency as commonly understood has in view the utilities of the
moment. It merely exploits the past for the sake of present interests,
and as a rule is unmindful of the future. Industrial efficiency,
in particular, reverses the right ethical relation between work
and personality; instead of work being so contrived as to liberate
personality, it is mechanized so as to sacrifice personality.
The teacher should be reverent towards the great masters of his own
craft, his own art. No one is reverenced by others who does not himself
habitually revere someone. The teachers should be acquainted at first
hand with the master educators, such as Plato, Comenius, Pestalozzi and
the others.
I pass on to speak of the second type of reverence. This involves
cordial reciprocally stimulating relations between the members of the
teaching staff. It is generally agreed that no other factor counts for
more in shaping the character of the young than personal influence. The
best personal influence, however, is not unilateral, like that which
radiates from a single teacher upon his class. The best is that which
proceeds from cross-relations between a number of teachers. Just as in
the home it is not the father singly, nor the mother singly, but the
reciprocal relations between the two that touch child life to finer
issues and create a spiritual atmosphere in the learner, so also in
the school the best spirit is created by the relations of reciprocal
furtherance between the teachers, each doing his work in such a way as
to make easier and more successful the work of his colleagues, with a
strong sense of partnership in the common work of man-building.
The teachers as an organized body should also relate themselves to an
organized body of parents. Home and school should not merely coöperate
but interpenetrate. The interests and efforts of both are centered on
the same young lives. The home is supremely concerned in what goes on
in the school, and the school in the kind of influence that prevails in
the home. An organized conference of parents is in a position to render
signal service to a school by appraising its ideals, by keeping tally
on the extent to which acknowledged standards are carried out, and by
joining in the unceasing endeavor to advance the standards. Schools
must be backed by the interest and appreciation of the community.
Parents whose children are pupils of a school are for that particular
school the best representatives of the community.
The school is to prepare its charges, not only for vocational life, but
for citizenship. Teachers must be good citizens. They cannot give what
they do not possess. They must keep in living contact with the civic
and social movements of the time.
The first and second types are instrumental to the third. Now here,
if anywhere, a new departure in educational philosophy is called
for. For when we discuss this third kind of reverence, the question
of all questions is raised: To what end do we educate? What is to be
the aim and outcome of all our effort? And our answer to this question
will depend on our philosophy, and if our philosophy is ethical our
answer must be distinctively ethical. Froebel was a pantheist, and his
pantheism colored his conception of the educational end. Pestalozzi was
an eighteenth century humanitarian. Many modern writers on education
are biological evolutionists. Others even expressly disclaim any
general outlook, and appear to be exclusively interested in perfecting
the technique of schoolmastering. Reverence of the third type is
reverence for the undeveloped human being,—for the new generation,
for our successors. What is it that we are to revere in a child? Its
spiritual possibilities, its latent personality. To bring to birth its
personality is the supreme educational end. We show our reverence for
the child in the effort to personalize it. Let us consider in brief
some of the practical consequences of this idea.
To personalize the individual the first step is to discover the
empirical substratum in his nature. There is ever an empirical
substratum subject to ethical transformations. The empirical substratum
of personality is individuality! Individuality manifests itself in a
leading interest of some kind, a predominant bias which indicates the
thing which the individual is fit to be and do. To discover the bent or
bias is the first step, and the difficulties in the way of taking even
this first step are admittedly great. Children and even adolescents
often show no marked intellectual preferences whatever. Many adults
too appear to be neutral so far as their mental life is concerned.
Circumstances ran them perhaps into a certain mould—they might have
been run into some other just as well. It is the task of the educator
to discover the predominant interest where it exists, and to try to
produce such an interest where it does not. What nature has not done in
such cases art must attempt.
When the leading interest is found it should next be made the means
of creating interest in subjects to which the pupil is naturally
indifferent or even averse. I have illustrated the process here implied
in a paper on the prevocational art school which is connected with
the Ethical Culture School. Young persons devoted to art are often
unwilling to take up subjects which seem to them unrelated to what
they really care for, like science and history. They are obsessed by a
single passionate ambition. They are all eagerness to become artists—to
draw, paint, model, etc. Time spent on any other subject seems to them
misspent. If indulged in this one-sided activity, the chances are
that they will not even become competent artists. In any case they
will lack breadth and vision. They will lack a cultural background.
They will be inferior as human beings. They will not be personalized.
For personality, on its mental as well as on its social side, depends
on relatedness,—depends not so much on what one does, as on the
interrelation between what one does and what other people do.
In order to expand the interest of the young art student, the method
employed in the school just mentioned is to present those subjects
which appear to be alien in such a way as to bring out the art aspects
of them, the contact points between them and art. Thus in history
special prominence is given to the age of Pericles, the age of
Rembrandt. In science special attention is paid to the theory of color,
the chemistry of etching. And all other branches of knowledge are
treated similarly. The aim is not indeed to exploit the other subjects
in the interest of art, but so to utilize the artistic interest as to
lead the mind out to a larger comprehensive interest in other related
branches on their own account. Or rather, to put my thought precisely,
and thus to connect it with the underlying ethical theory, the aim is
to prepare the future artist for the give and take relation between his
own pursuit and the activities of men in other vocations. He should be
helped to enrich his own life as an artist by drawing upon all that the
sciences and the humanities can give him, with a view to eventually
returning with interest the profit he has derived. What the artist can
do for the scientist, the religious teacher, etc., I have indicated in
the previous chapter.
Precisely the same cultural idea should be worked out in prevocational
schools of commerce, of technology, of science, etc. In each case the
paramount interest should be the starting-point, the center from which
lines of interest are to be made to radiate out into the correlated
branches.
If this ethical idea is carried out the whole educational system
will be remodeled. The cæsura in education will then fall about the
sixteenth year. Before that the task will be to lay the general
foundations and to reconnoiter the individuality of the pupil. After
that there will be a system of _prevocational schools_. The college, a
legacy which has come to us from a type of society unlike our own, will
disappear, and the university will become an organism of vocational
schools succeeding the prevocational.[83]
I mentioned at the end of Book I the problem of specialization, the
increased necessity of restricting oneself to a limited field in
order to achieve anything like the consciousness of mastery, and the
inevitable fractionalizing of men which is the consequence of this very
tendency toward specialization. In the idea of outreaching radiations
of interest and of the give and take relation there is the promise of
liberation from the narrowness of specialism without the calamity of
dilettantism. That this idea cannot be fully realized, that no one
can actually extend his web of interest so far, that his reactions
at best will be feeble, is perhaps a palmary instance of that law of
frustration which fatally besets all human effort. But the effort will
be in the right direction, and the effort counts.
_The University_
In sketching the ethical or spiritual side of the University, initial
stress is to be laid on the meaning of the word _universitas_. The term
as at present used hardly suggests more than all-inclusiveness. A
modern university is an institution in which all the different schools,
the school of engineering, the school of science, the school of
philosophy, etc., _exist side by side_, under a single governing body,
and in which the various branches of knowledge are pursued without any
visible systematic connection between them! The spiritual ideal of a
university is that of system, of organic connection, for this is what
spiritual means.
In looking back on the history of the higher institutions of learning
one cannot but be struck by the close correspondence of those
institutions to the general ideals of life of the people among whom
they flourished. I call to mind the Hindu education with its Brahmanic
background; the Mandarin education, with Confucianism as its inspiring
principle; the musical education of the Greeks; the theological
education of Jews and Mohammedans; then among the Western nations, the
English university a seminary for training rulers of the Empire; the
German university, a training institution for the higher bureaucracy;
the French university, visibly reflecting the logical tendency of the
French mind.
We in America, instructed by the survey of the past, are bound to face
the question: In what way shall the American university differ from
universities elsewhere? What characteristic shape shall the American
university take on? _How can the American university correspond to
the American ideal of life?_ At present our notions in this respect
are in a formative, not to say in a chaotic, condition. The college
still survives—an institution designed for the education of gentlemen.
Practical tendencies, looking toward materialistic success, prevail
in many of our Western universities. The German research idea has come
in as a third factor, penetrating deeply in some of our institutions,
less deeply in others, but inharmonious everywhere with the rival
conceptions that still persist.
The principal circumstance that retards our university development
doubtless is that the ideal of American life itself, which the
university is to express and to promote, is as yet undefined in the
minds of the American people. But without presuming to anticipate what
must be the outcome of gradual and prolonged growth, it may still be
serviceable to clear our minds as to the goal towards which we desire
that the development shall tend. The fundamental ideal of the American
people is that of freedom! The notion of freedom is crude as yet, but
is capable of being ennobled and refined. To be free is to express
power. To be free in the highest sense is to express the highest kind
of power. The highest kind is that which is exercised in such wise as
to elicit unlike yet cognate power in others. A people is to be called
free when all the different social or vocational groups of which it is
the integrated whole spontaneously react upon one another, and when in
each group each member of it realizes some mental gift of his own. A
free people is not one which is merely released from the authority of
autocrats. That is only a condition of freedom, not freedom itself. A
free people is not one in which strong individuals are permitted to
thrive parasitically at the expense of the weak. Nor yet one in which
merely equal opportunity is afforded to all in the race for material
well-being. A free people is one in which the essential energies of
all effectuate themselves unhindered, the life of each swelling the
surrounding tide of life, and being enriched in turn by the returning
tide. This to my mind is liberty,—the liberation of what is best in
each. This is freedom,—the free flow of life into life. The ideal
American University is one which expresses and promotes this ideal of
freedom.
A university is a group of vocational schools. A truly democratic
university is an organic system of vocational schools, one which in
the relations that subsist between its schools affords a shining,
stimulating example of the kind of relations that ought to subsist
between the vocational groups in the state.
The aim of an American university should be to furnish leaders for
all the various groups who will undertake the great business of truly
organizing democracy.
_Education for Adults_
Education should be continuous through life. The University Extension
movement is endeavoring to meet this demand. It has already to its
credit a considerable extension of knowledge, as well as the stirring
up of interest in things of the mind among those whom it reaches. But
far greater tasks than it has yet attacked remain. The academic method
is not suited to the instruction of adults. A method will have to be
worked out for teaching a subject to mature minds different from that
which is appropriate in introducing the subject to the relatively
immature minds of students. The student who has not yet entered
vocational life needs to be put in possession of the principles by
which he can lay hold of life. A mature person who is deficient in
theoretical education needs to be helped to interpret his vocational
experience in such a manner as to find his way back to the principles.
In the one case there is the outlook and the emptiness; in the other
case the fullness of content without the comprehensive outlook.
Secondly, the stages of vocational development through which the
worker has already passed in his vocation are to be borne in mind, and
the teaching adapted to the different stages. I have suggested four
divisions: that of apprenticeship, that of initial mastery, that of
more complete mastery, and the emeritus stage.[84]
Thirdly, it is getting to be increasingly difficult for a specialist in
any one branch to keep abreast of the progress made in other branches.
Popularization of the ordinary kind does not satisfy. It means, as a
rule, diluting the subject-matter, not truly simplifying it. Provision
should be made, in any large and generous scheme of public education,
for enabling ripe minds to assimilate the ripest fruits produced by
contemporary thinkers and writers who work in other fields.
NOTE
A few outstanding points in regard to what is called Moral Education
may be added to this chapter.
There should be ethical teaching in the universities. The kinds of
ethics taught should be adapted to the university period of life,
emphasis being put on the experiences of the student at that time of
life,—on friendship, the sex relation, the vocational outlook, etc. be
included in the programme for the education of adults.
Systematic moral education in schools and high schools is advisable.
It is frequently criticised on the ground that it is apt to be
schematic and unreal. Moral counsels given as the occasion arises
are believed to be more effective. They hit the nail on the head and
drive it home. The reply to this is that incidental moral advice
and exhortation is not excluded, but that it by no means adequately
answers the purpose. The occasions for giving the necessary guidance
simply do not arise. This kind of moral teaching is apt to be patchy.
In the next place, ethical instruction, when rightly planned, has
two objects: the one to bring into clear relief the life axioms that
underlie the entire home and school experience of the pupil, and
secondly, to give to the pupil a provisional chart and compass or
ethical outlook upon his future life. Ethical teaching conceived of
and conducted in this manner is neither schematic nor artificial. It
does not drive home a nail here and there, it constructs a mental
house in which the mind of the pupil can be at home,—with windows in
it, looking out upon a large landscape outside.
The capital significance of right relations, ethical relations,
between the members of the teaching staff has been noted in the text.
In every school clubs should be formed consisting of pupils specially
interested in any one subject and of the special teachers of that
subject:—or if not formal clubs, then at least more intimate personal
relations should exist between the special teacher and those selected
pupils, the object being through personal intercourse to introduce
the young aspirant to a knowledge of the problems on which the older
person is intent. There is nothing nearly so educative for the young
as to be taken into the counsels of their elders.
The more gifted pupils of the school should be invited to take a
personal interest in helping the more backward students. In every
school, high school and university there are social misfits,—shy,
sensitive, solitary youths who fail to come into easy touch with their
fellows, and suffer acutely. They are objects of the most delicate,
deferential charity, and the task of bringing them into fellowship
offers one of the finest opportunities for ethical education.
A vital system of self-government is to be used as a means of
placing real responsibility upon the students under due advice. To
exercise responsibility is to acquire character. Self-government is
particularly important so far as it relates to the administration of
justice in a school. Cases of discipline should be used as means to
create the right conception of punishment, the right attitude towards
those who have erred.
The relation between the adolescent boy and girl and the parents is
of prime significance as illustrating in a way that young persons
can understand the general conception of the ethical relation as
_reciprocal_. The youth should be shown that he can be not only the
recipient but a giver of benefits, that he can be a real help to his
parents, chiefly by sympathetically entering into the problems and
difficulties with which they have to contend. The parents, instead
of being regarded by the young as an earthly providence, existing
only for the purpose of bestowing benefits, should be seen in their
true light as struggling, and often heavily burdened human beings.
At the same time the young son or daughter will in this way gain an
invaluable preparation for comprehending the difficulties under which
the effort to live must be carried on.
In regard to patriotism, it is important that the errors and mistakes
committed by one’s nation in the past should not be overlooked or
minimized.
The school should furnish to the students various outlets for social
service such as they in their period of life are capable of rendering.
FOOTNOTES:
[83] Compare with the spiritual conception of culture here outlined
Matthew Arnold’s “knowing the best which has been thought and said”;
and a recent definition of culture by an eminent American as “the
knowing one thing well and a little of everything else,” without
correlation of the little one knows of everything else with the one
thing one is supposed to know extremely well.
[84] See the chapter on “Ethical Development Extending Through Life” in
_The World Crisis_.