Education for Individuals

...Furthermore, since democratic association is based on consent, it is clear that democratic doctrine draws its strength from the psychology of man...

...Ballou is entitled to a respectful hearing from those engaged in the continuing effort at self-civilization...

...The two major divisions of the book are entitled "The Bases of Enlightenment" and "Education and the Future of Democracy...

...It is interesting to compare this book with some of Emerson's writings, particularly the essay on Education...

...Accordingly, the moment an educational institution forgets to relate an individual's purposes to his search for knowledge, it has stultified the educational process...

...And comprehension of this basic principle may be equated with the kind of enlightenment which is essential to success in life...

...Reviewed by William 0. Penrose Dean, School of Education, University of Delaware IN The Individual and the State, Mr...

...The author makes this concept the groundwork of human personality, the basis of knowledge, and the foundation of enlightenment...

...In fact, the mental health or illness of a person may be seen as a function of the adequacy of the purposes he sets for himself...

...And he answers: Modern man first of all needs to balance centrifugal and centripetal forces, to combine diversity and community, to harmonize specialization and generalization, to blend progress and conservation...

...Ballou has managed to put a lot of wisdom into a well-organized and attractive package for the benefit of parents, teachers, students of education, and thoughtful lay citizens...

...in order to realize that potentiality...

...Unlike totalitarian regimes, democracy invites men to band together deliberately and voluntarily...

...And education can devote itself to mobilizing social resource...

...Since democracy gives people the opportunity to cooperate in self-development, it also gives them the chance to define for themselves the nature of the better life...

...As an example of how to utilize the dynamics of human purposing in achieving educational objectives, the author suggests that ideally schools might well permit each incoming generation of students to reconstitute the conditions under which they are to live and work...

...For education, of course, human purposes are primary, and the most important concern is how well an individual may succeed in developing an overall sense of purpose-the synthesis he makes of all his purposes-so that he may derive the ultimate satisfaction of seeing meaning in his own life...

...The background chapter, dealing with the development of American education during the first half of this century, is not only an answer to uninformed critics of the public schools but an assessment of the enormous resources contained in American educational institutions and traditions...

...They commit him to an investment of present energy in favor of future realization or reward, and thus provide dynamic energy in behavior...

...Ballou the educator asks himself: What can be done about this basic need by educational institutions...

...Analysis is the forte of contemporary culture, while synthesis is its necessitv...

...But, it seems to this reviewer, Ballou is willing to go further and face the challenge that Emerson refused...

...For a variety of reasons, says Mr...

...Ballou and Emerson show much agreement on the importance of human beings, on the uniqueness of human personality, on the significance of spontaneity, on the danger of institutionalism and uniformity...

...Accordingly, the goal of civilization is seen by the author as a condition in which more and more people are free to express their fundamental purposes, and, thus, in which humanity-seeking is the effective purpose of more and more people...

...for he realistically accepts the fact that much of our modern education is inevitably mass education, and addresses himself to the problem of how to educate individuals as individuals even when they run in herds...

...Individual freedom depends on general appreciation of the essential interdependence of all human beings...

...Individuality is a source of strength of men in the aggregate, but without the aggregate individuality has neither form nor function...

...Teaching method, too, is valid only with reference to individual purposes...

...First, he asks: What is the basic need of modern man...

...The chapter on critical perspectives furnishes a guide for democratic administration of schools and colleges...

...Second, Mr...

...The central educational issue, then, according to the author, is one of mass enlightenment versus mass exposure to the external forms of education, education for masses of individuals in contrast to instruction of individual...

...Human contacts may be dignified only through individual self-control, which is a reflection of respect for others as well as respect for self...

...These purposes are unique to the individual and they pervade his whole being...

...en masse...

...And he answers: Education can affirm its faith that potentially man is not only creatively individualistic but at the same time just, humane and amenable to the unifying forces of reason, tolerance and good will...

...Ballou has asked two important questions and given thoughtful answers...

...And the final chapter develops the thesis that teaching is an art, and that method is determined by a combination of goal, student, teacher, subject and situation...

...Both with respect to the questions he asks and the answers he proposes, Mr...

...The viewpoint which informs The Individual and the State is a concept of the nature and importance of human purpose...

...Part II is concerned with our educational institutions and teachers...

...Throughout Part I, the author agrees that enlightenment is based on knowledge, but adds that it is also a function of the purposes to which knowledge is put and that those purposes are a function of the whole personality structure...

...Indeed, knowledge itself arises only as the result of personal search...

...And to this issue he brings a psychological conception of knowledge and its relation to the human purposes it can express, together with an understanding of this conception's implications for the role of teachers and of schools...

...From it, too, he derives criteria for judging educational institutions and principles to guide effective teaching...

...Ballou, human beings appear to set goals for themselves, ends which they are impelled to reach, and thus there are generated what may be called human purposes...