they gather an edifying understanding of men
and things just in so far as they patiently and resolutely stick to the
performance of some special and (for the most part) congenial task.
Their education in life must be grounded in the persistent attempt to
realize in action some kind of a purpose--a purpose usually connected
with the occupation whereby they live. In the pursuit of that purpose
they will be continually making experiments--opening up new lines of
work, establishing new relations with other men, and taking more or less
serious risks. Each of these experiments offers them an opportunity both
for personal discipline and for increasing personal insight. If a man is
capable of becoming wise, he will gradually be able to infer from this
increasing mass of personal experience, the extent to which or the
conditions under which he is capable of realizing his purpose; and his
insight into the particular realities of his own life will bring with
it some kind of a general philosophy--some sort of a disposition and
method of appraisal of men, their actions, and their surroundings.
Wherever a man reaches such a level of intelligence, he will be an
educated man, even though his particular job has been that of a
mechanic. On the other hand, a man who fails to make his particular task
in life the substantial support of a genuine experience remains
essentially an unenlightened man.

National education in its deeper aspect does not differ from individual
education. Its efficiency ultimately depends upon the ability of the
national consciousness to draw illuminating inferences from the course
of the national experience; and its power to draw such inferences must
depend upon the persistent and disinterested sincerity with which the
attempt is made to realize the national purpose--the democratic ideal of
individual and social improvement. So far as Americans are true to that
purpose, all the different aspects of their national experience will
assume meaning and momentum; while in so far as they are false thereto,
no amount of "education" will ever be really edifying. The fundamental
process of American education consists and must continue to consist
precisely in the risks and experiments which the American nation will
make in the service of its national ideal. If the American people balk
at the sacrifices demanded by their experiments, or if they attach
finality to any particular experiment in the distribution of political,
econ