Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of EducationDewey, John
Philosophy
Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
Dewey, John
Education -- Philosophy; Education -- Social aspects
Here again we have to be on guard against understanding the aim too
narrowly. An over-definite interpretation would at certain periods have
excluded scientific discoveries, in spite of the fact that in the last
analysis security of social progress depends upon them. For scientific
men would have been thought to be mere theoretical dreamers, totally
lacking in social efficiency. It must be borne in mind that ultimately
social efficiency means neither more nor less than capacity to share
in a give and take of experience. It covers all that makes one's own
experience more worth while to others, and all that enables one to
participate more richly in the worthwhile experiences of others. Ability
to produce and to enjoy art, capacity for recreation, the significant
utilization of leisure, are more important elements in it than elements
conventionally associated oftentimes with citizenship. In the broadest
sense, social efficiency is nothing less than that socialization of mind
which is actively concerned in making experiences more communicable;
in breaking down the barriers of social stratification which make
individuals impervious to the interests of others. When social
efficiency is confined to the service rendered by overt acts, its
chief constituent (because its only guarantee) is omitted,--intelligent
sympathy or good will. For sympathy as a desirable quality is something
more than mere feeling; it is a cultivated imagination for what men have
in common and a rebellion at whatever unnecessarily divides them.
What is sometimes called a benevolent interest in others may be but an
unwitting mask for an attempt to dictate to them what their good shall
be, instead of an endeavor to free them so that they may seek and find
the good of their own choice. Social efficiency, even social service,
are hard and metallic things when severed from an active acknowledgment
of the diversity of goods which life may afford to different persons,
and from faith in the social utility of encouraging every individual to
make his own choice intelligent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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