The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of HistoryPartridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Philosophy
The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of History
Partridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Education; History -- Philosophy; War
Presentation of facts is surely a necessary part of all education, for
it is an indispensable means of giving the content of experience upon
which wisdom as a selective appreciation of experience is based. But
erudition is only a part of education. We must hold firmly now to the
principle which is indeed an aspect of the democratic ideal itself,
that participation is also a necessary part of education.
Institutions become real to the child through the child's association
with them in some active way. We shall probably see the idea of free
organization carried far, and in every organization and every
institution, private and public, there must, we believe, be some place
for the services and the interest of all. Let us take the position
that there is nothing in government, in any of its branches, that is
outside the sphere of the practical life of the individual and we
shall have the right point of view even for the work of the school
room. Government, in a word, is not a specialization of function in
which the few are involved, but it is a generic function, the means,
we assert, of carrying to completion all the projects of individuals
in all their social relations. Therefore all, not merely those who
just now are included among voters, but all women and children, must
have a part in the general education for democracy and also have a
part in some way in the institutions of government. From first to last
government must be thought of and understood in terms of what it does,
as a phase of the total social life of the nation, not as something
outside the social order. Government is a collective activity. It is
as an aspect of the day's work of the nation, that government must be
impressed upon all--both legal citizens and citizens in the making.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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