POLITICAL EDUCATION IN A DEMOCRACY
One of the results of the war has been to raise in the minds of all
peoples, to an extraordinary degree, the most earnest questions about
the nature and validity of government. The political sense of all
peoples has been stimulated. We see on every hand new conceptions of
government and demands for more and better government, but also the
most radical criticism and the denial of all government. The
determination in very fundamental ways of what government is, and must
be, what ideas must prevail, what must be suppressed, what an ideal
government is, if such an ideal can be formed, the question of evils
inherent in the idea of government itself (if such evils there be),
the laws of development of government in all their practical
aspects--all these questions now come up for examination, and will not
be repressed. If we do not take them at one level we must upon
another. Naively or scientifically, philosophically or radically, the
nature of government must be dealt with.
Government is now being examined, we all see, from points of view not
hitherto taken. The conscientious objector raises the question of the
ultimate basis of the right of the many to control the lives of
individuals, and he asks especially whether there is any ground for
the assumption that in this sphere, more than in any other, might
makes right. Conscription, in fact, has driven us to consider the
meaning of liberty and the foundations upon which the right to it
rests. This stern fact of conscription, the realization that in a
moment the most democratic governments in the world are capable of
bringing to bear, quite constitutionally, absolute control over the
most basic possessions of the individual, has led many to ask
seriously whether government is after all a good in itself, or is
merely a necessity having many attendant evils. They wish to know
whether there is in the principle of government something that takes
precedence over all the assumed rights of the individual. Does
government, they inquire, have a _right_ to the individual; or is it
only in _serving_ the individual that it is entitled to exercise
authority that limits the individual?
These are questions, manifestly, that involve the whole foundation of
sociology, but we need not be unduly dismayed at that. This is a time
when naïve thinking and exact science must make compromises with one
another. For better or for worse we must find some working hypothesis
upon which a fair adjustment may be made in the practical life of the
present moment. This _working hypothesis_ must also serve--and perhaps
that is after all its main function--as something to guide us,
something having solidity upon which we can stand, in performing our
work as educators.
What we need, what we believe all feel now the need of, is a
conception of government satisfying to the multitude of common people.
We wish to know whether we live for the state, we say, or whether the
state lives for us. We wish to understand what the basic rights and
duties of the individual are. As average individuals, willing to give
service in any cause that seems good, we do not ask so much to have
determined for us precisely what type of government best satisfies the
requirements of science or philosophy, but what the best working basis
for harmonious adjustment in the social life of the future is to be.
These enquiring moods on the part of the people are a part of the
temperament that has issued from the war. We shall make a mistake if
we regard it as a mere passing effect, however; _it means a deep
stirring of the political consciousness of people throughout the
world_.
Significant differences may be observed in the general attitude toward
government among the people in the great nations of the world. Each
nation appears to have its own political temperament, and this quite
apart from the views represented especially by political parties and
the like, and quite independently of the scientific and philosophical
conceptions of government and its functions of which there are a great
number, and among them certainly no agreement upon the main issues and
values.
Taking public opinion as a whole, Germany, England, France and America
seem to represent distinctly different attitudes toward government. The
State in the German philosophy of life, as every one is now aware, is
all; the individual derives his reality and his value, so to speak,
from the idea of the supreme state. Individuality and freedom in this
philosophy of life do not refer to _political_ individuality and
freedom at all. In England, and perhaps to some extent in all
democratic countries, the prevailing thought seems to be that the
government that governs the least is, on the whole, the best
government. The English government is supposed to be the servant of the
people, and the individual has been in the habit of looking to the
government for many services. The individual, free and self-determined,
is the unit of value and of society, and the regulation of his conduct
by government is at best a necessary evil. It came as a surprise to the
Englishman when he realized that the state could command the most
personal service and the most complete surrender of the property rights
of the individual.
Le Bon says that the Frenchman, too, thinks of the state as something
to be kept at a minimum and to a certain extent to be opposed.
Opposition to the government is a part of the Frenchman's plan of
life. Boutroux says the same--that in France the habit of thinking of
the government and of society as two rivals has not been overcome.
Our own idea of government is certainly somewhat different from these.
We are watchful of individual right, but we do not tend to think of
government either as opponent or as servant. We do not ask the
government to take care of us as individuals, and we do not feel in
the public attitude the resistance to government that the French
writers observe in France. The American expects on the whole to look
out for his own interests and he has never felt the pressure and
over-powering force of government--until perhaps now. Mabie says that
the American has conceived of his government as existing to keep the
house in order while the family lived its life freely, every
individual following the bent of his own genius.
These temperamental attitudes toward government, we said, seem quite
apart from scientific and philosophic conceptions of state. We see,
however, something of the temperament reflected in the philosophies.
Philosophers do not wholly detach themselves from the mores of their
race. The monarchy of Germany, Munsterberg says, appeals to the _moral
personality and the æsthetic imagination_. Its main function, however,
is to safeguard the German people. Its faults are the faults of its
virtues. Other German writers praise the German government especially
for its efficiency, for its incomparable body of officials--indeed for
its very clock-work perfection that Bergson hates in Prussian life.
Lehmann goes so far as to say that the German state had reached the
_perfect balance_ between individualism and communism. These writers
see plenty of self-realization in German society, and quite enough of
participation, on the part of the individual, in the government.
Schmoller (51) denies that Germany ever lacked the spirit of free
institutions, and even compares Germany with ancient Attica, which he
thinks was great not because of the rule of the _demos_, but because
the people followed their aristocratic leaders. Troeltsch tries to
show that the German idea of freedom is different from, and indeed
superior to, that of all other peoples. The French, he says, rest
their idea of freedom upon the doctrine of the equality of all
citizens, but in reality lawyers and plutocrats prevail. The English
idea of freedom comes from Puritanic ideas; the individual's
independence of the state is based upon the idea of natural rights,
and upon the theory of the creation of the state by the individual.
But German freedom is something entirely different. Here freedom is in
education, and in the spiritual content of individuality. German
freedom is the freedom that comes from the spontaneous recognition of
rights and duties. Parliaments are good in their place, but after all
they are not the essence of freedom.
Totally different conceptions of state are easily found. Consider, for
example, the views of Russell. Through every page of his book there
shines the determined belief in the inalienable rights of the
individual. Self-expression of the individual through creative
activity is the basic value, or at least the fundamental means of
realizing values. Russell sees nothing sacred or final in any form of
existing government. He would like to see government expanded in some
directions and contracted in others, for the functions of government
cannot all be vested in one body or organization. For defense the
nation is _not large enough_. For all civic government the nation is
_too large_. In its internal control it treats the individual too
ruthlessly. Wasteful and in large part even unnecessary, it
antagonizes the free development of the individual. Government should
cease its oppression, it should no longer support unnatural property
rights, or interfere with the personal affairs of individuals. At the
present time, however, we should not expect a radical cure for all the
evils of government. If only we can find the right direction in which
to make advance, we should be satisfied with something less perfect
than an ideal.
The state in Russell's view, instead of being an ideal institution, is
even harmful in many ways and terribly destructive. It promotes war.
It makes the individual helpless, and crushes him with a sense of his
unimportance. It abets the injustice of capitalism. It excludes
citizens from any participation in foreign affairs. We must indeed not
let this incubus of state overwhelm us. We must keep it in its proper
place, even in performing its necessary functions, such as preserving
public health. It is better to take some risk, even in such matters,
than to override too much the individual's personal rights. All the
functions of the state must be made to center more about the welfare
of the individual, and in doing this the state must plainly regard as
fundamental the right of the individual to free growth and the
development of all his powers. We must learn to think more in terms of
individual welfare and less in terms of national pride.
In syndicalism in some form Russell sees the most promise for reform
of government. Some type of government at least which does not make
the geographical unit the basis of everything must be the government
of the future. This would lead in the end to a higher state than that
based primarily upon law, for it would be a government in which free
organization would be the first principle.
Plainly we are to-day in a time of flux in which ideas and
institutions are unsettled, and there is a great variety of political
theories of all kinds. We can hope to find no agreement among
theorists and certainly no common ground for the reconciliation of
conflicting parties. Still, even for the most practical daily life we
must find some guiding principles. We must look for some means of
bringing order out of the present diversity and conflict. Some
valuation of government, some idea of the ultimate purpose of
government ought to be agreed upon, if for no other reason that we may
have some principle which will give us continuity in our educational
work.
Consider the varieties of political creed now offered us, and there
can be little doubt both of the difficulty and the necessity of
finding guiding principles for the practical life and to preserve
sanity of mind. The monarchical idea still lingers; there is a variety
of conceptions of democracy, differing widely; there are
socialists--state socialists, Marxian socialists of the old line,
Bolshevists, regionalists, syndicalists, and others--and anarchists of
pure blood. Of internal and party differences, policies, and plans
there is no end. Through all these we have to thread our way, and
reach what conclusions we can.
No American can of course be expected to see the question of
government otherwise than through American eyes. He is to some extent
prejudiced and bound to the ideas of liberty, individualism, and
democracy, whatever his variety of party politics be. Democracy he may
regard as an assumption, but it will seem now even more than ever a
necessary assumption upon which to build a working conception of
government.
We have to look somewhere in actual life for the elements and
principles of government. Why should we not look for them in American
life, where government has grown up comparatively free from traditions
and prejudices and where it has been by all the ordinary tests
_successful_? There has been something both ideal and generic in
American life. Whatever personal equation may be involved in saying
this, the point of view has some objective justification. It is a
genetic method, at least. In early American life society was simple,
and life was earnest, and we see government and the individual in
their essential relations to one another.
In this primitive and yet modern society we see the individual as a
collection of functions, so to speak, existing in a group. The
individual also has various desires, which do not appear to be wholly
in agreement with his social functions. Some of these desires of
individuals are strongly antagonistic to society. In this society,
government is plainly the means of protecting the individual or the
group, by the suggestion or the exertion of lawful force, from the
threat of lawless force. Law is a means of enabling and also
compelling the individual _to perform the various functions which_
belong to him as an individual or as a member of the group. To some
extent the law also _aids_ the individual in performing his functions.
But this simple social order already shows certain basic disharmonies.
It is an experimental regulation of the individual. Every restriction
the individual helps to put upon other individuals by participating in
or acquiescing in the establishment of government and law reacts to
limit his own freedom, in ways which he cannot wholly predict. Freedom
of the individual, even in the simplest social order, becomes greatly
limited, if not necessarily, at least naturally--and indeed
necessarily, since the only choice appears to be between lawful and
lawless limitation of freedom. From the beginning, therefore, there
can be no perfect satisfaction of individual desires or of either
general or individual needs, in the ordered social life. Society as a
whole regulates the conduct of the individual both by aiding and by
inhibiting his activities, and must do so. In doing this, it is plain,
it promotes all or most of the functions of the individual. Ordered
society widens the total sphere of action of the individual. The
individual left to himself tends to become an end-in-himself. Law
makes him to a greater extent a means. In doing this it serves him and
it also uses him, and there can never be any guarantee, in any
individual case, of what the sum of these services and restraints
shall be. Society uses the individual in part, but not exclusively, in
his own service. The good and the evil, the necessity and the dilemma
of all government are outgrowths of this primitive service of the
social organization and this original disharmony among the wills of
individuals and the will of the group to serve the individual and also
at the same time certain general purposes which may not in any given
case coincide with either the desire or the need of the individual.
For this reason we conclude that there can be no _perfect_ government.
All government is experimental and exists by compromise.
What, then, in the most general way, can we say is the legitimate
function or purpose of government? Hocking says that government is the
means of assuring the individual that his achievements will be
permanent. To this end it puts order into the structure of society. In
our view something similar, but not identical with this, is true. We
can say that in its complex forms it is in principle only what we
found it to be in its primitive or simple forms. _Government is
ideally a means of aiding all the functions of every individual._
_Functions_, let us observe and not primarily desires are served.
These functions are such functions as the individual has as a member
of every group to which he naturally belongs. Government, then, so to
speak, has no standing of its own. Its proper function is to
facilitate all other functions. Neither individuals nor governments
have any rights as abstracted from the sum of functions which they
essentially are.
If this be true, we can certainly define no one best and eternal type
of government, any more than a fixed and perfect plan of life for an
individual can be defined. Government might be supposed properly to
change according to the functions which from time to time were most
important for the society in question. Social life, under government,
differs from a free and unorganized social life mainly in that a
certain _objectivity_ is acquired in regard to the functions of the
individual. The individual becomes a creature of functions rather than
of desires and needs. Common interests, or the interests of the group
are served, we say; in doing this the individual is made to serve his
own interests, perhaps, but the most outstanding fact is that in this
organized life the _immediate desires of the individual are likely to
be thwarted_. Regularity is put into conduct, and conduct is made to
serve multiple and distant ends. The functions of the individual, left
to the desire of the individual, will seldom be harmoniously
performed. They will lack precisely objective consideration. But in
the organized social life there will also be no perfect order and
harmony, no final balance of functions. Everything is still relative
and experimental. Government is a system in which any one individual
at any moment may gain or may lose. But _on the whole_, under the good
government, both more freedom for the individual and better conditions
and better life for the individual will presumably be obtained than in
any possible disordered or unorganized society. But government will
really add nothing that does not already belong to the functions that
naturally develop in any social group.
The actual functions of governments are, therefore, highly complex,
because it is in some way involved in all the functions of the
individuals themselves. Governments will be judged good or bad in two
particulars: according to the completeness with which they include all
the social functions, and as regards their efficiency in facilitating
these functions. We must not make the mistake of judging a government
merely by its form. Under the same constitution and holding the same
ideals, there is room for widely different forms of activity on the
part of the government, and great differences in efficiency and in the
functions performed. The same functions may be performed and the same
degree of efficiency reached apparently with different organizations.
Cleveland shows, for example, how our own government might become much
more efficient and make radical changes in the mechanism of the
legislative and executive functions without sacrificing any principle
we hold to, and perhaps without any change in our constitution.
It is this idea of the proper functions of government and the relative
adequacy of existing governments to perform them that seems to be
deeply questioned. Life has suddenly grown more complex. The
individual is brought face to face with new demands upon him. He
becomes, it may be, a member of new groups, having new functions.
Government also, and correspondingly, expands. The question is not now
of the efficiency of government in doing what it has hitherto
undertaken; we wish to feel sure that government is adequate to meet
the requirements of a rapidly changing social order. That just now is
indeed a very vital question. Governments, we say, may be obliged to
adapt themselves to entirely new tasks. Society assumes new external
relations, and therefore we should expect that new organs would be
needed for performing these new functions.
In all this we have been making _objective_ valuations of government.
An ideal or a definition of government in terms of its functions and
the degree of efficiency in the performance of them might still, we
ought to observe, leave a wide scope for preference in regard to
forms, and other subjective valuations. Even between aristocratic and
democratic forms, there may be still room for valid appreciations on
æsthetic or moral grounds. Our objective valuations of government must
in fact in various ways impinge upon fundamental questions in which no
purely scientific considerations will be wholly decisive.
We can certainly find no precise way of valuing in detail or in their
totality existing or proposed forms of government. Our most valid
method, however, appears to be to refer at every step the functions of
government back to the functions of the individuals who make up
society. Every phase of legitimate government must thus go back to the
individual, and his desires and functions. If we do this we shall see
again why in national life we have the same kind of experimental
problem that we have in the life of the individual. There can be no
perfect adjustment among the acts of an individual, and no final
valuation of them. There is no perfect balance between present use and
future good, between individual and social values, between desires or
needs and functions. The reason for this, we say, is that life is so
complicated and made up of so many functions and of so many
conflicting desires that it cannot be conducted according to any
single principle or combination of principles. If we think of
government as only a phase of the widest social living, and so as
being through and through of the nature of the life of the individual,
we ought to have the right point of view for all practical
consideration of it. We must not expect consistency or perfection in
government, and we can have no hope of passing absolute and final
judgments upon it. Radical politics, in our present situation, must be
regarded as one of our greatest dangers.
Democracy has become the "great idea of the age." It is our own
fundamental principle, so we of all people ought to be able to
understand and to defend it--and to _define it_. Yet many writers
complain and more imply that the idea of democracy has never been very
clear, and perhaps not even very sincere. Sumner says that democracy
is one of the many words of ambiguous meaning that have played such a
large part in politics. Democracy, he says, is not used as a parallel
word to aristocracy, theocracy, autocracy, and the like, but is
invoked as a power from some outside origin which brings into human
affairs a peculiar inspiration and an energy of its own.
Democracy has apparently meant quite different things to different
people. To some it is essentially a form of government in which
control is represented as in the hands of the majority of the people.
Some seem to have no further interest in democracy, if only they see
that the democratic form in government is preserved and jealously
guarded and the majority by its ballot rules. To some it is the aspect
of democracy as individualism that has appealed most--freedom of the
individual even from the restraint of law and custom--or again
equality of opportunity. These perhaps think of freedom as a supreme
value in itself. Some think of democracy more in terms of its internal
conditions or its results. They think of freedom as a means of
_accomplishing_ good, not as merely _being_ a good. They believe that
the good of the individual is not necessarily represented by the
satisfaction of his desires, and so perhaps think of the law and order
of the democratic community, the control and regulation of the
individual in his daily life by the will of all, as the essential
feature of a democracy.
Here in America, taking our history and our life as a whole, it seems
certain that the dominating mood has been the love of _individual
freedom_. Our democracy is founded upon the idea of the _rights of the
man_. But these rights and privileges of the man can be secured only
by social organization that immediately takes away some of them. So
our national life, just because of the strong individualism with which
it began, also began with a firm principle of law and order modifying
the idea of freedom. Some would say it began thus in a paradox or a
delusion. Even to be morally free was not allowed. The group, in the
Puritan society at least, exercised strict supervision over the moral
life of the individual. Giddings says, in fact, that this experiment
in moral control on the part of the people over all individuals is one
of the chief characteristics of American life.
_Our history is the story of an experiment in freedom_, in which
according to some we have more and more suppressed the individual.
Grabo says that the history of democracy here is the story of a dream
rather than an accomplishment. Such views, however, do not appear to
be true representations of the case. They assume that the independence
of the individual is more real or more realizable than it can be in
any society. Is it not rather true that _our apparent relinquishment
of the idea of freedom is the reverse side, so to speak, of the
persistence throughout our history of an impossible ideal of
independence of the individual_? It is individualism, rather than
control, that has increased. The original freedom was a freedom such
as comes from the willing participation of the individual in an order
in which the control was immediate and vested in the whole. Control
has become more definite and precise as the individual has become
further removed from the direct influence of the social environment.
We have developed relatively too much our original idea of
independence, and from time to time elements have been added to our
national life that represent an ideal of radical individualism, as for
example Jacksonian democracy. Willingness to participate freely in the
functions of society, and desire on the part of the individual to
perform all his functions, have been relatively too slight. Even in
politics it is not so much by the desire to participate in government
that we have shown our democratic spirit as by the desire not to be
individually governed. The old colonial spirit of coöperation and
neighborliness with which we started has been (speaking relatively
again) neglected. We have developed toward individualism and control
rather than toward free association under leadership. We have lacked
ability as individuals to see ourselves from the standpoint of the
whole of society. Now, therefore, we are faced by the apparent still
further decline of our principle of freedom, because we see that we
may have _efficiency_ only by increasing _authority_.
The question may fairly be asked whether we are not at a parting of
the ways, when our democratic idea must be more clearly defined, and
we must decide whether we shall change toward autocracy; or now, at
the end of our stage of primitive democracy, enter upon a plane of
higher democracy. Sumner says that always in a democracy it is a
question what class shall rule, that the control in a democracy always
tends to remain either in the hands of the upper class or the lower
class, and that the great middle class, the seat of vast powers, is
never organized to rule. Such conditions show, again, the effects of
the individualism that prevails--national unity and the capacity for
free organization without individual or special motives are wanting.
Cramb has stated a fundamental truth, from our point of view, in
saying that hitherto _democracy has been more interested in its rights
than in its duties_. It is very true that the _subjective state of
freedom_ has been the real attraction and appeal in our social life.
It has brought to our shores vast numbers of people who would
otherwise never have crossed the seas. Perhaps it has brought us too
many, and those with too keen a love of freedom. At any rate, the
question is now whether as a people we shall be able to take a more
advanced view of the individual, a more functional view, so to speak,
a new and enlarged conception of the meaning and place of the
individual man in society. Democracy, in a word, must henceforth,
certainly if it is to be a world state or order and not a condition of
world-wide anarchy, go beyond the negative idea of _freedom, justice
and equality_, to a more positive idea of service, in which we think
of individuals as having more complex, more free and more internal
relations among themselves.
In this idea of democracy, freedom is seen to mean first of all
freedom to perform all the functions which belong to an individual as
a part of a highly organized society. It does not include, however,
freedom not to perform these functions. It is freedom to lead a normal
life, in a word, not freedom to lead an abnormal life. Whether, in
this democracy, the performance of these functions will be more or
less under compulsion, whether the individual will voluntarily
surrender certain _rights_ assumed to be inherent in the principle of
_freedom_, or whether these rights will be taken away by the show of
force on the part of authority, seems to depend now mainly upon two
things: whether in this society superior leadership will have an
opportunity and be strong enough to exert deep influence upon the
people; and whether, in general, such an educational program can be
carried on as will make men susceptible to such leadership, capable of
judging its values and able also to organize freely for the
accomplishment of the purpose and functions of the social life. In
such a democratic society as this, it is plain, the evils of
individualism and also the evils of control will _tend_ to disappear.
Perfect identity of individual and social will we should not expect to
be attained anywhere.
The evils of our present democratic society--the individualism, party
politics and class rule--appear in sharp relief when we compare
existing institutions and the present spirit with what is required in
a true democracy. The old idea that the will of the majority must
prevail is seen to be inadequate, if we mean by will of the majority
the average or the sum of the desires and opinions of the majority.
These do not necessarily represent the good, and indeed under existing
conditions, they cannot. We want the will of the superior man to
prevail, but to prevail not by force, but by the power of influence.
The politicians talk about the soundness of the instincts of the
people Something more than instinct is wanted in a democracy.
Instincts are not progressive. Individualism, the pleasure of the
moment, and mediocrity are represented too much by instincts and in
every expression of the mere will of the majority. People in the mass
are governed too much by impulse. Conduct and purpose are too
discontinuous and fragmentary; or perhaps we had better say that the
stimuli of the moment are too likely to control conduct. Whereas
social life under the influence of the highest type of leadership is
governed by more complex states of consciousness, by moods, which are
more original and creative, and in which desires and impulses are no
longer the controlling factors in conduct.
This view of democracy shows that democracy is something still to
come. It is not an achieved social order or a well-founded doctrine
that must merely be exploited and spread abroad over the world.
Democracy is experimental civilization. We do not know whether it
represents the ultimate good in government and society or not, and
whether it is destined to continue and to prevail. That will depend,
we suppose, upon what we make it. We have our evidences of history,
but after all democracy is still based upon assumptions. It is an
experimental order, we say, in which we try to realize many desires
and to harmonize many functions. The final justification of democracy
must be in the far future. It must be judged then by its fruits,
rather than by rationally testing the validity of its principle. Thus
far it is a working hypothesis.
The precise form which government in a democracy ought to take is,
from our present point of view, of secondary importance. Democracy is
a spirit, an idea, a social quality, first of all. A monarchial
government, though it might be otherwise out of date, might be
entirely democratic in spirit; and republics, we know, may be anything
but democratic. Where control is in the hands of the people and not of
a class, but of the people subject to the best leadership--a
leadership that is based upon influence rather than upon any excess of
authority or show of force, there is democracy, and of this, of
course, the ballot itself is by no means the only test. But where thus
far shall we find any democratic society that is so sound that it can
offer itself as a model to the rest of the world?
Most of the political questions of the day appear to be relative and
conditioned questions. The question of governmental control of
industry is an example. This seems to be a question of expediency, and
to be conditional upon local needs and the status of particular
governments. It is certainly no fundamental question of the social
order. Those who make socialism a supreme and universal principle also
appear to be too radical. Sellars says that socialism is a democratic
movement, the purpose of which is to secure an economic organization
of society that will give a maximum of justice, liberty and
efficiency. Drake, in "Democracy Made Safe," says that socialism
implies equality everywhere; more than that, it means social,
political, economic and legal equality throughout the earth. One
cannot but feel that these enthusiastic writers are making the mistake
of undertaking to do by political mutation, so to speak, that which
can be accomplished, we may suppose, only by a slow process of
experimentation in government, and the still slower but more certain
method of education, in which all people are trained in fundamental
social relations. Radical and venturesome change in so great and
complex an organism as a great nation is now dangerous, because only a
part of the conditions can be taken into account, and the result,
therefore, must be conjectural.
Radical socialism that threatens to throw political power into the
hands of a political class, or of any social or economic class,
bolshevism which Dillon (speaking of Russia especially) says is doomed
to failure because of its sheer economic impossibility, any plan which
tends to concentrate authority in any class is threatening to our
future. The democratic spirit must hold fast against the rising tide
from the lower classes, just as it has been obliged to contend against
autocracy. Democracy has on one side to assimilate aristocracy, and
not overturn it. So it resists the rise of the proletariat, not to
turn this force back, even if this were possible, but to control it.
It is precisely because of the deep movement of the people--the world
revelation and the world revolution, as Weyl calls it--that we must
make all political institutions flexible and adjustible, and also
throw into the balance all the powers of education and thus save
democracy from itself.
These dangers to democracy are not to be taken too lightly. Democracy
indeed faces two dangers. Hobson in "Democracy After the War" has
stated one of them. He says that the war will result in no easy
victory for democracy, for the system of caste and bureaucracy is very
likely to become fixed. Democracy therefore must be worked for, and to
that end there must be a union of all types of reformers. We must play
off the special interests against one another, says Hobson, work for
industrial democracy, educate the people. On the other hand there is
that danger from the rising of the masses which Weyl heralds. This war
underneath and after the war is as Weyl sees it, the war of the poor
and exploited against all the exploiters. These elements are at heart
antagonistic to government. Democracy, if all this be true, is neither
well defined as an idea nor well established in the world. An unjust
and privileged class above and an unwise and uneducated class beneath
threaten it. But the case seems by no means hopeless. Indeed the
remedies and the way of escape seem in a general way plain. Political
changes on one side and political education on the other must become,
we should suppose, the order of the day.
Of the actual political changes impending and those that ought to be
advocated this is not the place to speak, except to say that they must
by their nature be tentative and experimental. The radical mind is
to-day one of the most dangerous elements in society, just because all
the world over men are very ready to be influenced and are eager for
change and are uncritical. Cleveland in an essay entitled _Can
Democracy be Efficient?_ exhibits a type of thinking about political
questions that ought to appeal to all practical thinkers. It is his
method rather than, in this connection, his conclusions that one
should notice. Cleveland would study all countries with reference to
the efficiency of their governments in fulfilling what seem to him to
be the proper and essential functions of a government, working under
our present conditions. Germany, France, England and America, he
observes, have all adopted different ways of conducting the work of
government. These essentials of government he reduces to five: 1)
Strong executive leadership; 2) a well disciplined line organization;
3) a highly specialized staff organization; 4) adequate facilities for
inquiry, criticism, and publicity by a responsible personnel
independent of the executive; 5) means of effective control in the
hands of the people and their representatives. Of these principles,
Germany used only the first three, England left out the second and the
third, France used all (but was late in seeing the need), America has
left out all of them.
This is the type of thought, we suggest, that seems best adapted to
meet present requirements for a practical theory of government.
Analysis of the functions of government, critical examination of the
needs of the present time, and a plan of modifying what already
exists, rather than of making revolutionary changes, seem to be the
right direction of progress.
If the source of power in the future is to be vested in the people,
the education of the people with reference to their function as rulers
will naturally be one of the most vital and permanent of the
requirements of the social life. Dickinson says that the time has gone
by for entrusting the destinies of nations to the wisdom of experts.
If this be true, and popular opinion is to supersede the wisdom of the
experts, if the people are really to have power, and be competent
critics of good government, or merely to become good material in the
hands of constructive statesmanship, education must include or be
essentially _political education_. The people must be educated _for_
democracy, but also made competent to _create_ democracy.
Of course everything we do in the school, the intention of the school
to represent what is best in civilization, and to be a center in which
creative forces come together has some reference to education for the
democratic life, but there are also more definite and more
specifically political things to be taught. And yet, if what we have
said before has any truth in it, it seems certain that no educational
policy at the present time can include the teaching of specific
political _doctrines_, or try to prejudice the minds of children or
the people to any political creed. We are in a position in regard to
political teaching very similar to that in which we stand about
religion: we must not teach creed, but we may and must teach natural
religion. We cannot teach politics as such, but we must teach natural
democracy, or at least the fundamental social habits and functions.
There are two essential educational problems of democracy that have
especial reference to the political aspects of it. The first is to
teach universally in as practical a manner as possible the materials
out of which political wisdom may be derived. We maintain that the
lack of political education and experience is one of the most serious
defects of the German people. These people are at first submissive to
an extraordinary degree and then they become dangerously
revolutionary. The lack of political competence is shown in both
cases. We wish, of course, neither of these excesses in our own
country. And yet we do have to cope at the present time with both a
tendency to fanaticism, radicalism and intense partisanship, and with
indifference and ignorance of the nature and purpose of our
institutions and government. Both the indifference and the
partisanship play into the hands of party politics, and no advantages
gained by the balance of parties in opposition to one another can
compensate for the loss of energy and the encouragement of inefficient
service the system fosters.
To help offset these tendencies it must be possible to give to all
youths, and of course we mean both sexes, through our educational
system and otherwise an education in politics, and besides this some
practical experience in public service in institutions and in
organizations. This is a vital spot in education in a democracy; we
have tried too much to reform or make progress in government from
within the political system itself, and too little by going back to
the ultimate sources of social life and educating the people as a
whole with reference to playing their part in political life.
The work of education in the field of politics is not merely to give
information, but to establish what we may best call _morale_. We need
an attitude and spirit throughout the public life of the nation in
which there shall be constantly displayed the same qualities which we
see so quickly coming to light in time of war. Enthusiasm, seriousness
of purpose, devotion of the individual to common purpose are the
essential elements of this war spirit. To produce and sustain this in
the activities of peace is an _educational_ problem. The first task is
presumably to establish the causes and the organizations through which
they may be served, but _political education itself consists largely
in the production of public spirit_. The correction of evils in the
political system is of course but a small part of the work of
political reform. Dowd says that it is the low personal idealism of
mankind that creates our multitudinous social problems and strews the
path of history with wreck and ruin. That is of course true. Raising
the quality of the personal idealism of the people is the real work of
political education. Political thought which is most concerned as it
is now with securing advantage for party, class and individual must be
superseded by a wider interest in government as a means of aiding the
performance of the functions of the individual and the group. It is
the purpose to be accomplished by government, not its form, and
certainly not the interest of the few or of any class that must be
emphasized, until partisan politics no longer dominates our political
life. To accomplish this change means, we say, raising the quality of
the personal idealism of the people. This may seem an ideal and
impossible task, but we have some of our experiences of the war at
least to give us encouragement.
If we wish to consider details, we may notice that in an educational
process having such ends as we have suggested, the teaching of civics,
for example, becomes more functional, the teaching of what an
individual in a community and what all governments do, rather than
analyzing the structure of government. Such civics teaches the meaning
of individuals as having functions which are represented and fulfilled
in the institutions and organizations of society, including every
department of government. It is not the intention to enter here into
the special problems in regard to the content and method of teaching
civics in the schools, although it is evident that this subject must
have an increased place in the future. We already see advances both in
the purpose and the plan of civics teaching and in the literature
prepared for the schools. Dunn, for example, makes fundamental in all
the teaching of civics the question, What are the common interests
which people in communities are seeking? Tufts also tries to deal with
the fundamental ideas upon which government is based.
Presentation of facts is surely a necessary part of all education, for
it is an indispensable means of giving the content of experience upon
which wisdom as a selective appreciation of experience is based. But
erudition is only a part of education. We must hold firmly now to the
principle which is indeed an aspect of the democratic ideal itself,
that participation is also a necessary part of education.
Institutions become real to the child through the child's association
with them in some active way. We shall probably see the idea of free
organization carried far, and in every organization and every
institution, private and public, there must, we believe, be some place
for the services and the interest of all. Let us take the position
that there is nothing in government, in any of its branches, that is
outside the sphere of the practical life of the individual and we
shall have the right point of view even for the work of the school
room. Government, in a word, is not a specialization of function in
which the few are involved, but it is a generic function, the means,
we assert, of carrying to completion all the projects of individuals
in all their social relations. Therefore all, not merely those who
just now are included among voters, but all women and children, must
have a part in the general education for democracy and also have a
part in some way in the institutions of government. From first to last
government must be thought of and understood in terms of what it does,
as a phase of the total social life of the nation, not as something
outside the social order. Government is a collective activity. It is
as an aspect of the day's work of the nation, that government must be
impressed upon all--both legal citizens and citizens in the making.
The second phase of the educational problem in regard to government is
perhaps after all only the first in another form. If we hope to have a
democratic civilization in any real sense anywhere, we must secure
efficiency and superiority both in individual and in social conduct,
not mainly by the exertion of authority (except as a temporary
make-shift) but by making all the people of a nation susceptible to
the influences of the best life and thought the nation contains. This
means the voluntary and intentional development of leadership. This we
have spoken of as a general need; it is also a phase of political
education. The genius, the leader, must of course himself be produced
in part by education. We must have such conditions as shall allow
natural leadership to come to the surface, and every spark of genius
must be carefully nourished. But there must be also opportunity for
what the genius produces to work its effect upon all, as a stimulating
and directing force, in turn arousing the creative activities of the
people. Democracy seems to be wholly dependent upon what seems now the
accident of genius for raising it above the mediocrity of the average,
or even preventing a decline in its civilization. It is this idea of
the relation of the best to the average that James evidently thought
to be the fundamental point in education. Education consists in his
view in the development of ability to recognize the good in every
department of life, the ability to recognize all sham and inferiority
and the habit of responding to and choosing the best. Applied to the
problems of government, this means such a method of educating the
young as will make all susceptible to and appreciative of the superior
qualities of mind and character that may be exhibited in public life.
Such responsiveness being itself creative and a powerful factor in
producing and bringing to the front the superior man, it must be
regarded as one of the most necessary and fundamental qualities of a
democracy.
We might single out the teaching of history and biography as the best
means of educating the appreciative powers in regard to values in
human life, and the best means of facilitating the emergence of the
best individuals and the best principles, and of making their
influence powerful, but after all it is something more than any or all
teaching that is required. Most fundamentally, no one can refuse to
admit it is such an organization of the whole educational situation as
will allow, or rather cause and encourage, precisely the total of the
good and progressive life of the world to play upon the mood and the
spirit of the school. Assuredly the school is not to-day so
fortunately situated. It is too much removed from some influences and
far too closely joined to others. Much of the good of society is
walled out from the school by barriers that arise in politics, City
ways, all the bad life of the streets, the trivial interests of the
day, affect the school too much. We are greatly at fault in all this,
because we do not take education as yet seriously enough. There must
be now a decision. Either the school must be content to remain what it
is now, a local institution performing a very limited service, or it
must arise to quite new heights, and mean far more as a civilizing and
creative force than it has thus far. The school must occupy more hours
of the day and more days in the year. It must claim the child more
completely. It must extend its influences further, and draw its life
from a deeper soil. We certainly shall never allow the school to
become a great evil in society, but it is almost as bad morally to
leave it but a feeble good. Let no one speak any longer of good
schools. Our schools were good for yesterday, perhaps. But of
to-morrow's needs they are not yet even fully aware. The school has
yet to learn with certainty to lay hold upon the fundamental things in
the nature of the child, and to appreciate the child's real and
greatest needs. Continuity and creativeness are still for the most
part beyond the powers of the school.
But perhaps after all we are asking the impossible. Perhaps the forces
needed cannot be brought to bear upon the child. Perhaps conditions
are too unfavorable, and an educational situation cannot be devised
that will be greatly superior to what we have already. Perhaps the
time is too short. Perhaps worst of all the nature of the child
himself is too trivial and unpromising. But if we believe this, we
certainly at the same time conclude that democracy is a failure and is
not in any true sense possible at all. Democracy cannot be created by
forces from without, for this would be indeed a negation of its
nature. Democracy is self-creative. It grows from within. But how can
it grow from within unless the new life which enters into it be
creative; and how can this life be creative and progressive unless it
be so lived that it shall absorb all the good the old life has in it,
and also be inspired to go beyond it in every possible way? Unless
democracy is merely a product and natural direction of growth in
society, democracy and education are not unrelated to one another. If
democracy is a good that can be obtained only by conscious effort, we
may suppose that one of the greatest factors in producing it will be
education.