PROBLEMS IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY 73 



It is evident, however, that there can be no adequate solution of any 

 of these problems without adequate related knowledge of psycho- 

 logical fact and historical tendency; and the ultimate insight of 

 philosophy is equally indispensable, if interpretation is indeed to 

 interpret. 



III. The Second Group : Institutional Problems 



The problems which have been brought forward as constituting 

 a central group are clustered about thetideal of individual freedom 

 in education, the ideal of Lernfreiheit. But this Lernfreiheit is con- 

 ditioned by Lehrfreiheit. To understand the present significance of 

 such academic freedom, it is necessary to know somewhat intimately 

 the history of educational institutions, and particularly to know the 

 history of their relations with the other great institutions of human 

 society since the latter half of the eighteenth century, that is, since 

 the time of the American and French revolutions. 



Studies in this field should lead to an understanding of: 



(1) The institutional relations of the modern school; 



(2) The educational significance of modern democracy; and 



(3) The internal relations of modern educational systems, and 

 particularly the relation of institutions of higher education to insti- 

 tutions for the education of the people. 



These are very broad questions, but they are such as admit of 

 objective investigation. Such investigation should make clear the 

 meaning and tendency of that individualism which has so deeply 

 affected our modern schools by making clear the dominant ideals of 

 modern civilization and the related bearings of the modern con- 

 ception of academic freedom. 



It will be seen at once that these problems are interwoven with 

 one another as well as with those designated as the central problems 

 of this discussion. The great change through which the institutions 

 of education have passed in coming under the general control of the 

 civil power after long domination by the church has not been by 

 any means a simple process, which could be set forth in a formula. 

 It has been, instead, an extremely complicated movement, and one 

 well worthy of such painstaking historical inquiry as has been devoted 

 to other relations of church and state. Out of this shifting and 

 conflict has arisen a somewhat clearer consciousness of the functions of 

 the school. In changing from an organ primarily of ecclesiastical 

 propaganda to an organ of political propaganda, the school has tended 

 to throw relatively greater emphasis on those parts of instruction 

 which are not in the nature of propaganda at all - - those parts in 

 which it works directly for the betterment of human life instead of 

 working to that end mediately, through the 'inculcation of principles 



