In many lines of private business and, I believe, in all government positions, a high school diploma is now essential. It has thus come to have an economic value, which has operated on education in two ways. It sends an enormous number of educationally unfit through the mill, not because they want an education but because they want the certificate[Pg 165] that admits them to a job. If they could buy one for ten dollars they would much prefer to do so. This degrades the ideal of education in the minds of pupils and teachers alike, by making it serve primarily an economic and not a humane end; and it hampers the education of the intelligent pupil by dragging him down to the level of the vastly more numerous unintelligent. Democracy considers it undemocratic to spend public money on the few. It must be spent on the many, but the many are not the equals of the few, and there is no escaping the conclusion that our public educational system as we have it now, throughout every grade, must sacrifice the intelligent, fit few to the supposed advantage of the heavy-minded, unfit many. I do not speak of the few and the many in any snobbish sense. It is reasonable to admit that a child brought up in a stimulating home environment, with all the advantages that a background of culture and experience in its parents, and perhaps grandparents, implies, meeting interesting people, hearing interesting things discussed, and with other “privileges,” is more apt to be fit than one brought up in a dull, commonplace home with none of these advantages. It is also reasonable to admit that the number of homes of the first type are few and of the latter, many. It is in that sense that I use the words few and many. Our great democracy claims to base its future upon education. On that, its spokesmen tell us, it must stand or fall; but, we ask, what sort of education? Is it to be one aimed chiefly at getting ahead in the world, at getting a white-collar job instead of a manual one, an executive instead of a clerical one, and so on? Or is it to be an education that shall teach us, whatever our economic rank and position,[Pg 166] to get the best out of life, to live fully and joyfully, to think sanely, to act wisely? In a recent article, the President of Yale asks educators: “Is your philosophy of higher education aristocratic, or is it democratic? Do you conceive the colleges as properly the homes of the children of the upper classes (whatever that may mean in America) where an agreeable social experience may be indulged in for four years, or do you regard them as centers of a robust intellectual life to be enjoyed by all who possess the qualifications of mind and character enabling them to profit by the opportunities offered? Are you uncompromisingly committed to a stereotyped conception of ‘liberal’ education, or do you recognize the unquestioned dynamic of vocational and professional interests?”