EDUCATION: SERVANT OF THE COMMUNITY
Dewey, John
EDUCATION: Servant of the Community Part 1 By John Dewey John Dewey'i ideas were one* greeted with tkeptioiem. but during the peat ball century they hare steadily btfo gaining widespread...
...No ivory - tower academician...
...The country needed capital for its development of natural...
...Rugged individualism was not always a myth, nor were enterprise, initiative, sturdiness and personal thrift always such as to depress other members of the community...
...It furnished the common ideal and operated as the dominant motive...
...Our ancestors would have been possessed of uncanny insight if they had thought of the purpose of the common school in any other than the traditional terms...
...Counts has summarized the conditions that produced the distinctively American system of schools...
...i The common faith was the cult of individual success by means of individual effort...
...And there wepe' definite industrial and political causes for emphasis upon them in pioneer America...
...The school enabled the germs to flourish and to make the ideal conscious...
...The social situation produced by the developing process of industrialization was radically different from that of the saturated industrialization we now have...
...but during the peat ball century they hare steadily btfo gaining widespread acceptance...
...There were always new land awaiting the enterprising and mechanical invention was constantly opening new opportunities...
...The A'cic Leader takes great pleasure in publishing two articles by him which sum up his philosophy of education...
...Today, over a century after the beginnings of this movement, we find ourselves in a period of a new educational demand and unrest...
...In his The American Road to Culture, Dr...
...THE GREAT MOVEMENT for taxsupported public education had its strong impetus in the thirties of the nineteenth century, a time of general economic depression...
...Many industries were still domestic, and the village had its quota of small shops combining hand work with elementary machine processes...
...With a sparse population and seemingly unlimited natural resources, the appeal to personal ambition was almost boundless...
...Pioneer life outside the, school contained enough' stimulus to free movement and the personal initiative to confirm the traditional idea that youth was averse to learning . Thus habiits bred outside school created conditions inside' the school that made recourse to external imposition and enforced receptivity seem necessary...
...What is now called vocational education took care of iiself to a large extent by the force of conditions in the home, farm and shop...
...Industrialization was commencing, and the shopworker had a greater need for-letters than the agrarian peasant of the old world...
...the appeal to getting on in the world of material success...
...Thus...
...The little red school house of our ancestors was a struggle of wits and often of main strength between pupils and' teachers...
...Ambition that children should k*?e a better chance : than their Parents was almost universal," The,, ffljW^P-tff letters was the open sesame.' £ptfM?|ploneer communities had few cultural,facilities...
...Reading was scanty and yet was the only -means of access to the world's culture...
...They participated in what was going on practically, as well as by observation and in imagination...
...Moreover.unllke the modern big factory, the processes were open to view, as well as simple and readily understood...
...tThc positive achievements of this j^ovement have often been eulogized...
...Above all, the idea , of opportunity was in the social atmosphere...
...Individualistic energy rendered real service to the community and the contrast between the lazy and idle, the thrifty, and the ne'er-do-well, had a genuine moral significance...
...Part of the reason for this failure is found in the educational tradition itself...
...For life outside the school, at least until after the Civil War, provided abundant opportunity for "practical" education...
...It would be a great mistake to read baek the situation of the last generation or so, and suppose that this indoctrination was the deliberate act of a capitalist class bent on securing Its own supremacy...
...Pupils were already inoculated by the atmosphere they breathed...
...IX would be no exaggeration to aey that, today, the educational principles •he stands for are almost universally upheld in the United States...
...And, under the method of indoctrination which prevailed, it became the chief article in the moral and economic faith that was inculcated...
...The legend of Abraham Lincoln poring over his books by the light of the candle is an authentic symbol of the general reverence for letters...
...Elementary schooling was everywhere in the past devoted to the promotion of literacy...
...It was identified with acquiring skill in reading, writing and figuring...
...Higher education was almost equally controlled by concern for symbols, namely, advanced mathematics and - foreign .languages...
...this fact operated to reinforce the traditional devotion of the school to letters...
...The second of those, -which will appear next week, will contain a bibliography of the writings of the venerable educator...
...THE METHOD artd thCaim of education corresponded to the...
...Indoctrination is always most successful when it is both unconsciously given and unconsciously received.' When indoctrination was the prevailing method in all subjects, the only cause for surprise would be if it had not been resorted to in promoting the gospel of individual salvation, worldly as well as other-worldly...
...The young people as they grew up "learned by doing...
...And •in this moral field, it fell in line with the influences of everyday life outside the school, instead of going contrary to these influences, as it did in most other subjects...
...Dn the occasion of John Dewey's ninetieth birthday this year...
...Professor Dewey is also prominently known as an active fighter tor human freedom, and for the material welfare of mankind...
...Dogberry to the contrary notwithstanding, reading and writing do not come by nature...
...One chapter has the significant tylle: lndtvidual Success...
...resources...
...and that no other living American wields m greater influence upon the educational system of this country...
...Symbols are remote and alien, even when the materials they, convey are as familiar as "the cat on the mat.',' Imposition, accompanied by penalties for non-compliance and rewards for submission, was upon the whole the acknowledged method...
...It opens with these words "There is no principle that is more characteristic of the American theory .and mode of life and that has played a larger part in shaping the development of the American educational system than the principle of individual success...
...THE MOTIVATION, however, among the abler students was distinctly...
...Manhood suffrage Was becoming general...
...It is a time to take stock and to consider why and how the existing educational system has failed to meet the, needs of the present and the imminent future...
...v « * * MOREOVER, aside from the tradition of the schools, there were especial reajsons for the emphasis put upon elementary literacy in this country...
...In this respect, school conditions were In harmony with conditions out of school, however much they were unlike in other respects...
...Labor leaders were among the movement's "chief supporters...
...The.'lbjee Rs".are at all times the tools >for . introduction into higher stumesj/they have to be mastered if furtherlftltiation is to occur...
...The social and intellectual climate of those days inevitably strengthened the old type of school education...
...A mass of illiterate voters was a/i obvious menate...
...His leadership in the struggle to attain a better society serves as an inspiration for a multitude of disciples who belong to a generation younger than hit...
...Under the conditions just alluded to, while the possibility that any school boy might become President was actually appealed to, for the most part "success" was identified with economic advancement...
...But educationally the important point is that the spirit of getting ahead and the idea that personal advancement was «the best way to "serve the community" pervaded the school...
...Political ambition was satisfied for the most part through becoming the local party boss, or, more important, con • trolling by means of pecuniary power the party bousees...
...They are familiar to all of us, and I shall not attempt here to review them...
...conditions...
...The main material of study was foreign and in a sense artificial...
...Nor was the energy thus stimulated wholly selfish...
...John Dewey is as nearly perfect an example as we can possibly Jiave of the ancient -ideal of 'the "king-philosopher...
Vol. 32 • April 1949 • No. 16
