itutions and principles. Such teaching should have
the effect of bringing to light the causes of the disharmonies of
society, and it should also be a means of conveying the feelings and
moods as well as the ideas that govern the conduct of all groups that
make up our national life. We must teach _sympathetically_ what the
desires and intentions of all are, on the assumption that behind all
conduct there are natural causes and essentially sound instincts. By
showing the desires of groups in their relation to one another, their
disharmony and their possible harmony, we indicate what society as a
functioning whole may be, and we may say that it is the chief end to
be gained by the intellectual treatment of the social life to make
clear what the ideal of social unity for practical life is, and what
the main obstacles are that now stand in the way of it. By this social
history we do not mean, moreover, something abstruse and academic
suited for the college alone. Wherever the social antagonism is
experienced, at whatever age, there is the opportunity to begin to set
the mind at work about it, and to prevent the formation of prejudice
and resentment. These states of mind begin very early indeed, and they
are hard to eradicate.

A very large part in the work of social education is played by methods
of education that we may call aesthetic. This must mean not only the
inclusion of the methods of art in presenting facts, but we must bring
to bear all kinds of aesthetic influences upon the social life. Social
life in which there is introduced the dramatic moment is one of the
main objectives of all education. It is in the recreational life that
some of the best conditions for the realization of social moods in
dramatic or aesthetic form are obtained. In the recreational experience
the social states must be made productive of social harmony, as they
themselves tend to be. In these experiences the conflicting motives of
the individual and society, and of individual with individual, and the
opposing desires of the individual are harmonized by means of ideal
experiences in which the desires are exploited. Since we here touch
upon the whole theory of the aesthetic in its practical application, we
cannot be very explicit and clear, but the main service of the
aesthetic social life experienced typically in the form of recreational
activities, ought to be plain. Recreation is a means of giving the
common experience so much needed in democ