o doubt that this philosophy was
a powerful influence in rescuing philosophy in the beginning of the
nineteenth century from the isolated individualism into which it had
fallen in France and England. It served also to make the organization of
the state more constructively interested in matters of public concern.
It left less to chance, less to mere individual logical conviction, less
to the workings of private self-interest. It brought intelligence to
bear upon the conduct of affairs; it accentuated the need of nationally
organized education in the interests of the corporate state. It
sanctioned and promoted freedom of inquiry in all technical details of
natural and historical phenomena. But in all ultimate moral matters, it
tended to reinstate the principle of authority. It made for efficiency
of organization more than did any of the types of philosophy previously
mentioned, but it made no provision for free experimental modification
of this organization. Political democracy, with its belief in the right
of individual desire and purpose to take part in readapting even the
fundamental constitution of society, was foreign to it.

3. Educational Equivalents. It is not necessary to consider in detail
the educational counterparts of the various defects found in these
various types of philosophy. It suffices to say that in general the
school has been the institution which exhibited with greatest clearness
the assumed antithesis between purely individualistic methods of
learning and social action, and between freedom and social control. The
antithesis is reflected in the absence of a social atmosphere and motive
for learning, and the consequent separation, in the conduct of the
school, between method of instruction and methods of government; and in
the slight opportunity afforded individual variations. When learning
is a phase of active undertakings which involve mutual exchange, social
control enters into the very process of learning. When the social factor
is absent, learning becomes a carrying over of some presented material
into a purely individual consciousness, and there is no inherent reason
why it should give a more socialized direction to mental and emotional
disposition. There is tendency on the part of both the upholders and
the opponents of freedom in school to identify it with absence of social
direction, or, sometimes, with merely physical unconstraint of movement.
But the essence of the demand for freedom is the