Best Encyclopedia of Education

Articles to appear in an early issue include

Humanizing education, by J. C. METCALF, of the University of Virginia.

Vital study of literature, by MARGARET SHERWOOD, Wellesley College.

France as well as French, by FRANK R. ARNOLD, State Agricultural College, Logan, Utah.

A High school course in sociology, by H. H. MOORE, Washington,

D. C.

The teaching of politics, by J. MADISON GATHANY, Providence, R. I. German influences in the schools of Ohio, by CHARLES H. JUDD, University of Chicago.

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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF EDUCATION UPON A SOCIAL BASIS

The end of the war may see only the beginning rather than the end of the troubles of our civilization. The most difficult adjustments remain to be made readjustments in every department of social life, political, economic, moral, and educational. Social reconstruction is not the idle wish of a few visionaries. It is an imperative need forced upon us, both by the relative failure of our civilization, and by the destructive power of the war itself. We have not merely to rid ourselves of certain ways of thinking and living which have brought disaster upon us, but we have burdens put upon us by the calamity of the war, which will require our whole strength to carry.

In the material life alone these burdens are staggering. The war debts of the belligerent nations at the end of the fourth year of the war aggregated the enormous sum of $129,000,000,000, an amount six times greater than the total public debt of the civilized world prior to the war and equal to one-fourth of the combined wealth of the belligerent nations. Even with the war now ended, it is estimated that the annual interest charges on war debts of the world will amount to $10,000,000,000-a sum considerably larger than was spent yearly prior to the war by all the belligerent nations combined for public purposes. If we add to this the loss of life and the destruction of property occasioned by the war, we will perhaps get some

idea of the burdens in the material realm alone which must be assumed by us who live after and by our children and our children's children.

It has been well said that we can carry this burden and the other social burdens which necessarily go with it, only on one condition; and that is, that we all stand together, shoulder to shoulder; that we are united and not divided; that we think alike and work together harmoniously at the essential tasks of life. The problems of social, national and human unity have accordingly suddenly assumed new importance. We see that we must achieve national unity and some degree of international unity if we are to carry our burden successfully. Political, industrial, and social solidarity must replace the régime of individualism and class war. But these can not be achieved without social education; for, in a broad sense, education is the only means by which we can control the formation of habit and character in the individual, and so give him those social attitudes which will favor the development of social and national unity. For science substantially agrees with a recent popular writer' when he declares, "The development of education and the development of human societies are one and the same thing. Education makes the social man." The reconstruction of our educational system is, accordingly, fundamental in the reconstruction of our civilization. We must have a more socialized education. By that I mean for the present, negatively, one which will produce not the slacker, the profiteer, the exploiter, whether in war or in peace, but the citizen, who habitually identifies his welfare with that of the community and the nation, in whom the sense of the value of social and national unity dominates purely individualistic and class motives.

But social unity, tho it be the unity of the nation or even of humanity at large, is not enough to define the aim of socialized education. Beyond the achievement of social unity lies the task of developing our civilization so as to produce a better world. Beyond the problem of unity is

1 H. G. Wells in Joan and Peter.

the problem of progress, and this looms as the larger problem in any view which takes in the future. Progress, to be sure, can not be achieved without unity, and all true social progress must ultimately result in more harmonious human relations, and so in a larger measure social unity, if it is not to negative itself. Nevertheless, social progress implies something more than social unity. It implies completer mastery over all the conditions of human living, both internal and external, and so the realization of higher social values. A truly socialized education will accordingly adapt the individual not merely to the social present, but even more to the social future. It will develop in him the imagination and the sense of social values which are necessary to construct a better social world. It will recruit him for that army of social advance which must undertake to achieve those victories and conquests of peace, far greater than those of war, which must be made if our civilization is to stand in the final judgment of history; but it will do so, not so much upon the basis of humanitarian enthusiasm, as upon the basis of a clear understanding of the facts and forces which have been shown thru scientific research to enter into the making or the marring of human life.

But for us in America even preparation to carry on the great work of civilization to higher levels of social achievement is not sufficient to define socialized education. For upon us has devolved the heavy duty of social leadership for all the nations. A far-thinking English friend of mine remarked to me in 1914, at the outbreak of the Great War, "America will now have to take the lead in civilization for the next five hundred years." Whether this will prove true or not, it is true that the opportunity of leadership is presented to us. Not only is the world looking to us politically for leadership in international affairs, but it looks also to us for the demonstration of those moral and social ideals which will make possible the realization of liberty, justice and fraternity in all the nations of the earth. We must beware, however, not to follow Germany in its mistake of trying to lead the world thru the acquisition of

political and industrial dominion. Rather ours is the higher task of leading in civilization by demonstrating to the world the possibility of a social life characterized by increasing liberty, justice, and fraternity and by increasing production of those goods and values which satisfy the higher demands of the human soul. We should hasten accordingly to get rid of that curious combination of love of power, of love of success at any price, of love of ease and of pleasure, which so dominated American character in the last third of a century that even a friendly European critic could say that he feared that the Americanization of the world might mean "the swan-song of civilization." The Americanization of the world should mean the making of the world safe, not only for democracy, but for higher humanitarian civilization. If we are to assume the heavy responsibilities of social leadership for a world, it is evident that our system and ideal of education must be radically reconstructed. We must have a socialized education in a deeper sense than the one which those who use the term commonly mean. Our education must function with reference to "the great society" of humanity as well as with reference to national unity and progress. Our problem then becomes the education (or shall I say the reeducation?) of a world. For the way we lead, the world will probably follow; and the way we train our leaders, so shall we lead.

To come at once to the heart of our problem, without stopping for any formal definition of socialized education: Our school system is central in our education, and our colleges and universities, producing as they do our educational leaders, are central and dominating in our educational system. Now the vital thing in our educational system, from elementary school to university, is the curriculum; and the consideration of what sort of curriculum is demanded by our social situation will serve better to define the socialized education which we should aim to realize in the reconstruction of our education than a formal definition. Of course, within the limits of a paper such as this,