PROBLEMS IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY 79 



the fact that every man becomes what he is in great measure through 

 his social relations. In unexpected and immensely significant ways 

 psychology is illustrating and amplifying the saying of Aristotle 

 that man is a political animal. The meaning of the individual in 

 his relation to institutions receives accordingly a psychological in- 

 terpretation. We may not say simply that the history of the in- 

 dividual is a history of progress from status to contract. We see it 

 as a history of individuals who constantly realize their individuality 

 in institutions, but with this progressive change greatly accented 

 in our day, that institutions are becoming much more plastic and in- 

 dividuals more conscious of a power and right and duty to react upon 

 their institutional environment. Modern institutions are safe from 

 violent and revolutionary change not through their rigidity, but 

 through a certain fluidity of their constitution - - through capacity 

 for continuous change and betterment under the varied influence of 

 many individuals who live their lives and make their characters in 

 new and more vital relations with society. These things must be 

 taken into the account when we frame our educational doctrine with 

 reference to individual aspects of instruction. 



V. The Central Group of Problems : Further Consideration 



It has been the business of this paper to formulate some of the 

 more urgent present problems in the empirical theory of education. 

 The topic assigned to me seems to call for the statement rather than 

 the solution of such problems. Moreover, the solutions are not ready 

 and could not be given even if they were called for. Yet it may not 

 be amiss to indicate the general character of the solutions to which 

 the methods we have discussed seem likely to lead us. 



Summarily stated, they seem to lead to a demand for the further 

 extension downward of the elective system, of vocational pursuits, 

 and of the methods of spontaneous self-education, together with 

 an extension upward of organizing prescription in some of its forms. 

 This statement is not simply paradox. It presupposes an organic 

 view of educational institutions, which in their ideal connection one 

 with another serve cooperatively the aims of modern education. At 

 every stage, and in every one of its members, this great educational 

 system is seeking to prepare its pupils for real participation in the 

 civilized life of their time. Every one is to participate in that 

 life as giver and recipient, as learner and maker; and his learning 

 and his making should be all of one piece. He is to participate 

 as under forms and laws and authorities, yet as contributing in 

 a larger or less measure to the shaping of laws and forms and as 

 exercising some share of social authority. So in all parts of educa- 

 tion, though in widely varied proportions, the coordinate elements 



