94 THE SCHOOL 



ness the very different effects of the schools upon the numerically 

 larger aggregate of vigorous children and families. Hence it is 

 possible that some devoted and high-minded philanthropists might, 

 with the best intentions, favor a change in educational policy which 

 would be hurtful to the interests of the community as a whole, 

 though well calculated to supply a more formative discipline for 

 the physically and intellectually deteriorate. Is there not need for 

 the most careful discrimination between the educational needs of 

 different classes of the community, which are sometimes spoken of 

 too much in the lump? Equally careful should be the discrimina- 

 tion exercised in judging the different educational needs of members 

 of the same family. It is perilous to allow a great mass of deterior- 

 ates to form itself in our modern cities, but in the long run it would 

 be far more perilous to deprive the whole elementary-school system 

 of its strong individualizing power. Let us deal with the deterior- 

 ates as a problem which, though appalling in its magnitude, is never- 

 theless the problem of a minority. For the non-deteriorate that 

 system of public elementary education will, in the long run, continue 

 to produce the best results, which stimulates individuality and which, 

 while laying great stress upon the inculcation of social duty, relies 

 in the last resort upon the moral and intellectual vigor of the child 

 itself. The highest aim of a great system of popular education is not 

 to mold multitudes of men to one pattern. Its ideal is not blind 

 submission to rules imposed from without, but willing and intelligent 

 obedience to a noble and self-chosen way of human life. From this 

 point of view an ideal of educational uniformity, in any stratum 

 of national instruction, is (I would submit) a wrong ideal, whether it 

 be set up by an ecclesiastical organization or by the secular state. 

 Within the broad framework of allegiance to the state we need abun- 

 dant variety of educational tradition and experiment. The chief task 

 of the school is, surely, to bring about, through the quickening of 

 individual powers, a greater readiness to give each his best to the 

 common good, and yet so to shape for each the ideal of public welfare 

 as to enhance men's reverence for the rights of the individual con- 

 science and to give them a clearer understanding of the worth of 

 sturdy personal character, of stability of moral principle, and of brave 

 initiative. From this point of view the course of training which 

 popular education should endeavor to provide is one which would 

 jealously guard the exercise of the individual judgment without 

 which no real progress is permanently possible, while at the same time 

 insisting on due obedience to the teacher's authority and fostering 

 a desire to subordinate selfish aims to public interests and to corpor- 

 ate needs. All true education is thus a combination of opposites. It 

 seeks neither to absorb men's minds in mundane or material things, 

 nor yet to shut them out from bearing a vigorous part in the practical 



