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
5. Education as National and as Social. As soon as the first enthusiasm
for freedom waned, the weakness of the theory upon the constructive side
became obvious. Merely to leave everything to nature was, after all, but
to negate the very idea of education; it was to trust to the accidents
of circumstance. Not only was some method required but also some
positive organ, some administrative agency for carrying on the process
of instruction. The "complete and harmonious development of all
powers," having as its social counterpart an enlightened and progressive
humanity, required definite organization for its realization. Private
individuals here and there could proclaim the gospel; they could
not execute the work. A Pestalozzi could try experiments and exhort
philanthropically inclined persons having wealth and power to follow his
example. But even Pestalozzi saw that any effective pursuit of the new
educational ideal required the support of the state. The realization
of the new education destined to produce a new society was, after all,
dependent upon the activities of existing states. The movement for the
democratic idea inevitably became a movement for publicly conducted and
administered schools.
So far as Europe was concerned, the historic situation identified the
movement for a state-supported education with the nationalistic movement
in political life--a fact of incalculable significance for subsequent
movements. Under the influence of German thought in particular,
education became a civic function and the civic function was identified
with the realization of the ideal of the national state. The "state" was
substituted for humanity; cosmopolitanism gave way to nationalism. To
form the citizen, not the "man," became the aim of education. 1 The
historic situation to which reference is made is the after-effects of
the Napoleonic conquests, especially in Germany. The German states felt
(and subsequent events demonstrate the correctness of the belief) that
systematic attention to education was the best means of recovering and
maintaining their political integrity and power. Externally they were
weak and divided. Under the leadership of Prussian statesmen they
made this condition a stimulus to the development of an extensive and
thoroughly grounded system of public education.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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