the
manipulation of other men for ends that are non-human in so far as they
are exclusive.

This state of affairs explains many things in our historic educational
traditions. It throws light upon the clash of aims manifested in
different portions of the school system; the narrowly utilitarian
character of most elementary education, and the narrowly disciplinary
or cultural character of most higher education. It accounts for the
tendency to isolate intellectual matters till knowledge is scholastic,
academic, and professionally technical, and for the widespread
conviction that liberal education is opposed to the requirements of an
education which shall count in the vocations of life. But it also helps
define the peculiar problem of present education. The school cannot
immediately escape from the ideals set by prior social conditions. But
it should contribute through the type of intellectual and emotional
disposition which it forms to the improvement of those conditions. And
just here the true conceptions of interest and discipline are full
of significance. Persons whose interests have been enlarged and
intelligence trained by dealing with things and facts in active
occupations having a purpose (whether in play or work) will be those
most likely to escape the alternatives of an academic and aloof
knowledge and a hard, narrow, and merely "practical" practice. To
organize education so that natural active tendencies shall be fully
enlisted in doing something, while seeing to it that the doing
requires observation, the acquisition of information, and the use of
a constructive imagination, is what most needs to be done to improve
social conditions. To oscillate between drill exercises that strive to
attain efficiency in outward doing without the use of intelligence, and
an accumulation of knowledge that is supposed to be an ultimate end in
itself, means that education accepts the present social conditions as
final, and thereby takes upon itself the responsibility for perpetuating
them. A reorganization of education so that learning takes place
in connection with the intelligent carrying forward of purposeful
activities is a slow work. It can only be accomplished piecemeal, a
step at a time. But this is not a reason for nominally accepting one
educational philosophy and accommodating ourselves in practice to
another. It is a challenge to undertake the task of reorganization
courageously and to keep at it persistently.

Summar