II

The natural and intended inference from what precedes is that we

demand too much of the schools--more than any schools could possibly

do and do well. The result is that they are often blamed unreasonably,

and that reasonable criticism is apt to be resented as unjust. There

is wide-spread complaint of shortcomings--some even speak of the

"failure" of popular education,--but the teachers reply with perfect

truth that they are doing the best they can. The truth is, however,

that there is more or less floundering due to multiplicity of aims,

dispersion of effort, and the lack of a simple dominating principle by

which to gage the relative importance of things. It is time for

educationists to take sober thought and decide, if they can, what is

on the whole the most valuable among the possible results of good

schooling. If we could somehow reach a working agreement on that

point, the path of wisdom would be tolerably clear: we should require

our schools to drive hard at the particular thing deemed most

essential, no matter how many smatterings might have to be thrown

overboard. It were better for the nation to lose somewhat of its

sublime faith in schooling, if by expecting less it might get a surer

and more valuable return on its enormous investment. The best of

teachers, in kindergarten, high school or university, can never give

the best that is in him unless he has a fairly definite idea of what

it is all for. Only then can he see the main issue in its proper

relation to the side-issues of his routine. Let us then attack this

question with holy boldness--somewhat in the spirit of a prudent

householder considering what one thing would be best worth saving if

his house should take fire.

If we look for the fundamental charter of popular education in these

United States we shall find it, if anywhere, in the famous Ordinance

of 1787, one memorable passage of which runs thus: "Religion, morality

and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of

mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be

encouraged." This formulation, which sees the purpose of education in

the promotion of good government and the general happiness, may still

be accepted. One might balk, perhaps, at the word "happiness," which

to the modern mind is apt to connote a more or less passive

contentment with one's lot. If the fathers ever thought that popular

education was going to produce general contentment, they

miscalculated. Its normal effect is the exact opposite. A wholesome

discontent is the beginning of progress toward better things. It is

vain to preach or teach contentment to the man who sees a chance to

better his lot or who feels that he is being kept down by conditions

that can in any wise be remedied. We have learned that class struggle

of one kind or another is inherent in human society; and where there

is class struggle there will be discontent. Today, then, one might

prefer the word "welfare," which is not only compatible with

discontent, but in great degree actually grows out of it.

The subject-matter of education was to be religion, morality and

knowledge. Let us consider the impressive triad in the reverse order.

It is patent enough, and must have been patent to the fathers, that,

so far as good government and the general welfare are concerned, there

is no inherent virtue in mere knowledge. Knowledge got from books and

teachers may be socially inert, or it may be positively harmful.

Everything depends on the use to which it is put. It is true that,

having regard to the long run, we may rest securely on the proposition

that the more men know--really _know_ in an accurate way--the better

off they will be, and the more likely to secure good government. The

advancement of science--taking the word in its very broadest sense--is

certainly an ideal that deserves our warmest allegiance. It is thus

vastly important in any system of education, to keep open to talent a

career from the humblest hovel to the high places of distinction and

service.

But there are not many--not one in ten thousand--to whom it is given

to increase knowledge in a way to affect government and the general

welfare, which must always be largely concerned with the short run and

with the preservation of a stable order amid the conflicts of classes,

opinions and interests. And in this domain, as was remarked above,

there is no inherent virtue in knowledge. What is learned in school

may be put to bad use and become a social curse. Some knowledge of

chemistry figures in the mental outfit of every dynamiter and

adulterator of foods. A knowledge of law or medicine may be used to

defeat as well as to promote the ends of justice. Indeed, a large part

of our worst trouble comes now from "educated" men and women who

prostitute their knowledge to anti-social purposes.

And then there is another reason why the schools should not conceive

it to be their highest mission to impart book-knowledge, or to train

the mind, as the phrase runs. That reason is that they do not and can

not really train the mind, when operating on a large number of pupils

at the same time by the method of "recitation." What gets trained in

that way is at best the memory; and when the pupil leaves school--at

whatever stage of progress--he soon forgets what he has learned,

unless he has constant occasion to use it. The result is that the most

of the knowledge laboriously acquired in school and college soon

becomes quite inert for the purposes of good government and the

general welfare. Now it may be necessary, indeed it is necessary, in a

progressive school system, to spend a good deal of time over

knowledges that are destined soon to be forgotten. But that essential

thing that we are searching for, that which the schools are to regard

as the vitally important thing, must clearly be something that the

pupil is going to need and to use all the time, no matter when his

schooldays come to an end.

Next in our triad comes morality. If any one chooses to insist at this

point that there can be no morality without religion, let him wait a

moment or go off and debate the subject with a metaphysician. In the

common use of words morality may be and is independent of religion,

and our question here is whether the inculcation of it can possibly be

the thing we are looking for, namely the chief end of schooling.

Hardly, the wise will say, if the word is to be taken in its usual

sense. For it is distinctly a low-caste word. People commonly speak of

"mere morality" as if the thing by itself did not amount to much. One

recalls the remark of Emerson to the effect that this is very much as

if one should say, "Poor God with nobody to help him." Still, the fact

remains that the word connotes something rather ordinary. This is why

Lord Haldane in a recent address preferred to avoid it and to commend

the German _Sittlichkeit_, as a more soulful term. One notices, too,

that thoughtful teachers who feel the weakness of a schooling that

lays all the stress on memory-work such as can be tested by

examination, are apt, when they wish to suggest something higher and

larger, to use some such phrase as "character-building" rather than

"moral training."

In short, the connotations of the word "morality" are such as to put

it out of the running as a name for a high educational ideal; and a

high ideal we must of course have. It suggests hardly more than what

Mr. Roosevelt is wont to call "decent living;" and decent living is

not a matter that can very well be progressively unfolded, idealized

and realized. For a pupil coming from a family where decent living is

the rule, and associating with mates of whom the same is true, it is

not much to live decently. There is almost nothing for him to learn.

This is no doubt why it is generally assumed, and in the main quite

correctly, that in a normally wholesome environment morality will take

care of itself or come as a by-product of school experience, the

teacher having nothing in particular to do except to look after the

occasional transgressor.

But now suppose we put in place of mere morality, the perfection of

the social mind. Suppose we say that the central purpose of popular

education ought to be the _development of a sensitive social

conscience enlightened to the limits of opportunity_. To put it a

little differently: suppose we could agree that the best possible

result of education is a mind trained and habituated to think in terms

of social obligation, and to act accordingly. We should then have, at

any rate, something that is high enough and big enough for anybody;

something that is capable of progressive realization from the

kindergarten to the university and thereafter; something, in fine,

that would reach out from the humblest ego to the utmost periphery of

human existence.

Thirdly, religion. Let it be granted at the outset that for an immense

number of the noblest souls that have ever lived "Thou God seest me"

has been the highest, most inclusive, most compelling incentive to

right social conduct, that we know anything about. In practise,

however, a great deal depends on the nature of the God that is feared,

and still more, perhaps, on whether that God is really and truly

feared or only spoken of with conventional respect in token of some

ecclesiastical loyalty. Can religion be "taught" in school--any kind

of school? Can it be taught, I mean, not as a matter of formal

observance and glib recitation, but in its vital essence as a

quickening spirit destined to stick fast in the character and be a

permanent incentive to right living? It is only in this sense that the

"teaching" of religion has any bearing on good government and the

general welfare.

The difficulty of teaching religion in this socially effective way is

not confined to the secular public schools. It does not grow entirely

out of the neutrality of the state, the jealousy of sects and the

impossibility of finding a common basis free from any sectarian tinge.

It goes deeper than that, and affects also church schools that fly the

banner of religion and are conducted for the express purpose of giving

prominence to the beliefs and usages of some particular denomination.

What can be done to teach religion? Of course the pupil can be exposed

to what are called religious influences, and made to breathe what is

called a religious atmosphere. He can be required to attend chapel

exercises, and to go to church on Sunday; to read the Bible or hear it

read; to memorize texts, creeds, hymns and commandments. He can learn

church history, and familiarize himself with the arguments and tenets

of "our people." But when, as is usually the case, all this precedes

any vital personal experience of religion, it is apt presently to

float away, along with the Latin and algebra, into the limbo of things

once known but no longer usable. The teaching of religion so that it

will stick fast, not merely as an ecclesiastical loyalty, but as a

socially regenerative force, is a very difficult matter. Multitudes of

parents who are profoundly anxious about the matter, fail in the home,

clergymen fail rather notoriously with their own sons and daughters.

Can the school be expected to succeed where they are baffled?

But suppose it were understood that the supreme purpose of all

education, no matter what banner the schoolhouse or college might fly,

is the development of character trained and habituated to think in

terms of social obligation, and to act accordingly: should we not then

have a formula on which all who really mean well by their fellowmen

could unite? For surely the perfection of the social mind--that and

nothing else--is the finest flower of the religious spirit.