OPPORTUNITY
THE ADAPTATION OF PERSONS ORGANIZES SOCIETY—PERSONAL COMPETITION
INEVITABLE—NEED OF INTELLIGENT ADAPTATION—OPPORTUNITY; WHAT IS
IT?—EFFECT OF MODERN TENDENCIES UPON OPPORTUNITY—THE PROLONGATION
OF IMMATURITY—OPPORTUNITY THROUGH EDUCATION—THE HUMAN
BASIS—VOCATIONAL SELECTION—OTHER ADAPTIVE AGENCIES
The most evident differentiation in the process of human life is that
into persons, each of whom strives forward in a direction related to but
never quite parallel with that of his neighbor. And this onward
striving, when we regard it largely, is seen to be an experimental and
selective process which is maintaining and developing the social
organization. Its general direction is continuous with the past, our
will to live and to express ourselves being moulded from infancy by the
system which is the outcome of ages of development. We feel our way into
this system, and in so doing become candidates for some one of the
functions of society. There are generally other candidates, and we have
to struggle, to adapt ourselves, to renounce and compromise, until we
reach some kind of a working adjustment with our fellows. The whole may
be regarded as a vast game, the aim of which is to arouse and direct
endeavor along lines of growth continuous with the past. The rules of
the game, its scale, and the spirit in which it is played, change from
year to year and from age to age; but its underlying function remains.
Society requires, in its very nature, a continuous reorganization of
persons: any statical condition, any fixed and lasting adjustment, is
out of the question. One reason for this is that with every period of
about fifty years there is a complete change in the active _personnel_
of the system; man by man one crew withdraws and a new one has to be
chosen and fitted to take its place. When we reflect upon the number of
social functions, the special training required for each, and the need
that this training should be allied with natural aptitude, it is
apparent that the task is a vast one and the time short.
It is not merely the death of persons or the decay of their faculties
that calls for reorganization, but also the changes in the social system
itself, to which persons must adapt themselves—the new industrial
methods, the migrations, the transformation of ideas and practices in
every sphere of life. These do not conform to the decay of individuals
but often strike a man in the midst of his career, compelling him to
begin again and make a new place for himself in the game—if he can.
All this comparison and selection cannot be managed without a large
measure of competition, however it may be mitigated. It would seem that
there must always be an element of conflict in our relation with others,
as well as one of mutual aid; the whole plan of life calls for it; our
very physiognomy reflects it, and love and strife sit side by side upon
the brow of man. The forms of opposition change, but the amount of it,
if not constant, is at any rate subject to no general law of diminution.
If we are to make the process of life rational there is nothing which
more requires our attention than the adaptive organization of persons.
At present it is, for the most part, a matter of rather blind
experimentation, unequal, from the point of view of individuals, and
inefficient from that of society. The child does not know what his part
in life is, or how to find it out: he looks to us to show him. But
neither do we know: we say he must work it out for himself. Meanwhile
the problem is solved badly, in great part, and to the detriment of all
of us. Moreover, since it becomes daily more difficult with the growing
complexity and specialization of life, the unconscious methods upon
which we have hitherto relied are less and less adequate to meet it.
The method, however we may improve it, must remain experimental,
involving comparison and selection as well as co-operation. The only
possible alternative, and that only a partial one, would be a system of
caste under which the function of the son would be determined by that of
his father. If the social system were stationary, so that the functions
themselves did not change, this method would insure order without
conflict, after a fashion; but I need not say that it would be an
inefficient fashion and an order contrary to the spirit of modern life.
For us the way plainly lies through the acceptance of the selective
method, and its scientific study and reconstruction.
What the individual demands with reference to this reorganizing process
is opportunity; that is, such freedom of conditions that he may find his
natural place, that he may serve society in the way for which his native
capacity and inclination, properly trained and measured with those of
others in fair competition, will fit him. In so far as he can have this
he can realize himself best, and do most for the general good. It is the
desirable condition from both the personal and the public points of
view.
But if we ask just how this freedom is to be had, we find that there is
no simple answer. It differs for every person and for every phase of his
growth, and is always the outcome not of one or two circumstances, but
of the whole system in which he lives. We cannot fix upon any particular
point in a man’s history as the one at which he is, once for all, given
or denied opportunity. He needs it all his life, and we may well demand
that he have it during his prenatal development as well as after birth;
or, going back still further, we may try, by controlling propagation, to
see that he has a good hereditary capacity to start with.
Supposing that we begin at birth, we may regard newborn children as
undeveloped organisms, each of which has aptitudes more or less
different from those of any other. These differences of aptitude are the
basis of the future social differentiation, but we have no means of
knowing what they are. Opportunity, if it is to be at all complete, must
begin right away; it should consist, apparently, in a continuous
process, lasting from birth to death, which shall awaken, encourage, and
nourish the individual in such a way as to enable his highest personal
and social development. The study of it means that our whole society
must be considered with a view to the manner in which it aids or hinders
this process.
The trend of social development is such as to make opportunity more and
more a matter of intelligent provision, less and less one which can take
care of itself. Recent history presents the growth of a complex,
specialized system, offering, as time goes on, more functions and
requiring more selection and preparation to perform them rightly. I say
“rightly” because many of them may be and are performed, after a
fashion, with very little selection or preparation; but the full human
and social function of the individual normally requires a personal
development proportionate to the development of the whole.
Formerly a boy growing up on a farm, let us say, had his social
possibilities in plain sight: he could either continue on the farm or
apprentice himself to one of several trades and professions in the
neighboring town. Nowadays a thousand careers are theoretically open to
him, but these are mostly out of sight, and there is no easy way of
finding out just what they are, whether they are suitable to him, or how
he may hope to attain them. The whole situation calls for a knowledge
and preparation far beyond what can be expected of unaided intelligence.
If we are really to have opportunity we must evidently make a science of
it, and apply this science to the actual interworking of the individual
with the social whole.
It is a well-known principle of evolution that the higher the animal in
the scale of life the longer must be the period of infancy. That is, the
higher the mental and social organism the longer it takes for the new
individual to grow to full membership in it. The human infant has the
longest period of helplessness because he has most to learn.
Following out this principle, the higher our form of society becomes the
more intelligence and responsibility it requires of its members, and
hence the longer must be the formative period during which they are
getting ready to meet these requirements. A civil engineer, for example,
must master a far greater body of knowledge now than fifty years ago. It
is true that specialized industry offers many occupations which, though
they contribute to a complex whole, are in themselves very simple, such
as tending the automatic machinery by which screws are made. But it
cannot be regarded as a permanent condition that intelligent labor
should be employed at work of this kind. Intelligence is greatly needed;
there is never enough of it; and to leave it unused is bad management.
“A man is worth most in the highest position he can fill.” Mechanical
work should be done by machines, and will be so done more and more as
men are trained for something higher. The lack of such training I take
to be one of the main reasons why men are kept at tasks which do not use
their intelligence. And even at such tasks they are rarely efficient
unless they understand the meaning of what they are doing, so that they
can fit it into the process as a whole. The man who lacks comprehension
and adaptability is of little use; and it is precisely to gain these
that preparation is required.
Moreover, beyond the technical requirements, we have the need that a man
should be prepared for social function of a larger sort, to make his way
in the vast and open field of modern life, to find his job, to care for
his family, to perform his duties as a citizen. That many are plunged
into the stress and confusion of life without such a preparation is an
evil of the same nature as when recruits are sent into battle without
previous instruction and discipline. The process of learning in action
will be destructive.
In early childhood, opportunity means all kinds of healthy
growth—physical, mental, moral, social. This, no doubt, is best secured
through a good family. But we cannot have good families without a good
community, and so it calls for general measures to create and maintain
standards of life. It seems a simple truth, but is one which we
disregard in practice, that “equality of opportunity” cannot exist, or
begin to exist, except as it extends to little children, and that it
cannot extend to them except through a somewhat paternal, or maternal,
vigilance on the part of society.
Our principal institution having opportunity for its object is
education, and accordingly this has an increasing function arising from
the increasing requirements that life makes upon it. Where it does not
perform this function adequately we see the result in social failure and
degeneration—armies of stunted children, privilege thriving upon the
lack of freedom, the poor tending to become a misery caste, the
prevalence of apathy and inefficiency.
Since opportunity is a different thing for every individual, and
requires that each have the right development _for him_, it is clear
that education should aim at a study and unfolding of individuality, and
that, in so far as we have uniform and wholesale methods, not dealing
understandingly with the individual as such, we are going wrong.
I recall that an able woman who had been a teacher in a state
institution for delinquent girls said to me that every such girl had a
desire, perhaps latent, to _be_ something, to express an individuality,
and that the recognition of this was the basis of a better system of
dealing with them. This is only human nature, and one way of stating
nearly all our social troubles is to say that individuality has not been
properly understood and evoked, has not had the right sort of
opportunity. To find a response in life, to discover that what is most
inwardly _you_, is wanted also in the world without, that you can serve
others in realizing yourself; this is what makes resolute and
self-respecting men and women of us, and what the school ought
unfailingly to afford. The people who drift and sag are those who have
never “found themselves.”
When, after hearing and reading many discussions about the conduct of
schools, I ask myself what I should feel was really essential if I were
intrusting a child of my own to a school, it seems to me that there are
two indispensable things: first, an intimate relation with a teacher who
can arouse and guide the child’s mental life, and, second, a good group
spirit among the children themselves, in which he may share. The first
meets the need we all have in our formative years for a friend and
confidant in whom we also feel wisdom and authority; and I assume that
we are not to rely upon the child’s finding such at home. The second,
equal membership in a group of our fellows, develops the democratic
spirit of loyalty, service, emulation, and discussion. These are the
primary conditions which the child as a human being requires for the
growth of his human nature; and if I could be sure of them I should not
be exacting about the curriculum, conceiving the harm done by mistakes
in this to be small compared with that resulting from defect in the
social basis of the child’s life. And it is the latter, it seems to me,
which, because of its inward and spiritual character, not to be
ascertained or tested in any definite way, we are most likely to
overlook.
It is apparent that our present methods are far too uniform and
impersonal, that we too commonly press the child into a mould and know
little about him except how nearly he conforms to it. And no doubt a
tendency to this will always exist, because it can be avoided only by a
liberal expenditure of attention, sympathy, and other costly resources,
to save which there is always a pressure to fall back upon the mould.
Opportunity cannot be realized without the ungrudging expenditure of
money and spirit in the shape of devoted and well-equipped teachers,
working without strain.
The study and evolution of the individual should be both sympathetic and
systematic. There is a movement, which seems to be in the right
direction, not only to have more and better teachers, but to continue
longer the relation between the teacher and the particular child, so
that it may have a chance to ripen into friendship, instead of being
merely perfunctory. And, on the side of system, a continuous record
should be kept which should accompany the child through the schools,
preserving not only marks but judgments of his character and ability,
and so helping both others and himself to understand him; for I see no
reason why the subject of such documents should not have access to them.
At present the school does not commonly act upon the child as a whole
dealing with a whole, but makes a series of somewhat disconnected
attempts upon those phases of him which come into contact with the
curriculum, the latter, rather than the individual, being the heart of
the organization. In this respect education is hardly so advanced as the
best practice in charity, which keeps a sympathetic history of each
person, and of his family and surroundings, making this the base of all
efforts to help him.
One who gives some study to current theories and practice in education
might well conclude that we were in a state of confusion, with little
prospect of the emergence of order. He may discover, however, one thread
which all good teachers are trying to keep hold of, namely, that of
adapting the school more understandingly to the mind and heart of the
child. Indeed our way of escape from the distraction of counsels
probably lies in focussing more sympathy and common sense upon the
individual boy or girl. This calls for more good teachers and more
confidence in them as against mechanism of any sort.
The later years of school life need a gradual preparation for definite
social function, the aim being to discover what line of service is most
probably suited to one’s capacities and inclinations, and to train him
for it. This preparation is itself a social process, and one into which
we cannot put too much intelligence, sympathy, and patience. Parents and
teachers can aid in it by interesting the child in the choice of a
career, offering suggestions and helping him to learn about his own
abilities and the opportunities open to them. He must feel that the
problem is his and that no one else can work it out for him.
Psychological tests should be of considerable help, and will no doubt
become more and more penetrating and reliable. I think, however, that
methods of this sort can never be more than ancillary to the process of
“trying out,” of gradual, progressive experimentation as to what one can
actually do. We must still feel our way into life, but by doing this
largely before we leave school, and in a more intelligent way, we can
prevent the rift between the school and the world from being the
alarming and often fatal chasm it now is.
Unless we can have real opportunity in the schools—through study of the
individual, training, culture, and vocational guidance, we cannot well
have it anywhere else. That is, if education does not solve at least
half the problem of selective adaptation there is little hope of rightly
solving the other half in later years. The absence of suitable
preparation makes competition unfair and disorderly. A boy leaving
school at sixteen, without having learned his own capacities or received
the training they require, is in no case to compete intelligently. It is
a rare chance if he finds his right place in the immense and complex
system. For the most part he takes up whatever work offers itself, too
commonly a blind-alley occupation which leads nowhere.
It is even worse with girls, who, regarding their work as temporary,
commonly take little interest in it. Anna Garlin Spencer, in her Woman’s
Share in Social Culture, describes the usual state of the working girl
as untrained, unambitious, shirking, and careless, and speaks of “the
positive injury to the work sense, the demoralization of the faculty of
true service, that her shallow and transitory connection with outside
trade occupation so often gives.”[11]
Competition means freedom and opportunity only on condition that the
individual is rightly prepared to compete. Otherwise it may mean waste,
exploitation and degeneracy, and this is what it does mean to a large
part of young men, and a larger part of girls and women.
Rational adaptation should be in operation everywhere, and not merely in
the schools. Employment bureaus, public and private, should afford
trained and sympathetic study of individuals and an honest effort to
place them where they belong. Vocational guidance bureaus will without
doubt be greatly extended in scope and efficiency, and private
industries will give more attention not only to the expert choice,
placing, and promotion of their employees, but also to affording them
recreation, technical instruction, and culture. As we come to see better
what opportunity means, public opinion and private conscience will
demand it in many forms now unthought of.