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
First of all it seems certain that no political arrangement, and no
change taking place entirely within the industrial system itself, and
no simple and direct educational procedure will give us control over
the forces of industrialism. It is mainly by preventing the city
spirit or mood from developing too fast and thus engulfing the
children of the nation that we can introduce a conscious factor strong
enough to hold industrial development within bounds. This means, we
must earnestly demand, turning back the flow of life from country to
city by educating all children in the environment of the country. This
would have a double effect upon the industrialism of the day. _It
would break up the present inevitable inheritance by the city child of
all the ideals and moods of the city, and it would give opportunity
for training in the activities that are basic to all industry, which
alone, in our view, can give to industry a solid and normal
foundation._ By such effects, in such a general way, upon the children
of an industrial nation, we might reasonably hope to prevent the evil
effects upon our national life from the fatigue, the routine, and the
deadening of the spirit which even under improved conditions cannot be
overcome in an industrial life that is left to its monotonous grind
and its morbid excitements and exaggerations.
Another work that education must in the end do for the industrial life
is to infuse into it an ideal and a purpose. Industry is too
individualistic, we say. It works for a living, for power, from
necessity. It lacks through and through as yet the spirit of free and
intelligent cooeperation for common and remote ends. Cooeperation in the
industrial world, we have seen reason to believe, is likely to be the
great word of the future. It is precisely the work of education to
make the future of industry an expression of free activity, to make it
democratic, and to such an extent, we might hope, that socialism,
whether as a governmental interference or as a class system, would not
be necessary--or possible. In trying to give industrialism an ideal,
we must presumably go back to elemental mental processes. We must, in
the beginning, present the world's work dramatically to the child. We
must give work interest, and it is certainly one of the chief purposes
of that nondescript subject we call geography thus to give the child a
deep appreciation of the world as a world of men and women engaged in
work. We must show industry as a world-wide purpose, not as something
essentially individual and competitive. We must show it as an
adventure on the part of man in which he goes forth to seek conquest
over the physical world; we must think of it as a means to an end, of
fulfilling purposes not all of which perhaps can as yet be foreseen,
but which certainly can be no mere satisfaction of the individual's
desires of the day. This is what we mean by putting a soul into
industry. Soul means purpose--purpose which includes more than the
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