162 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 501. 



Parallel with this extension of personal 

 privilege, there has been a growth in the 

 breadth of the educational conception. The 

 elevation of the aggregate intellectuality of 

 the people has begun to succeed the nar- 

 rower idea of the education of the indi- 

 vidual simply. To paraphrase the immor- 

 tal apothegm of Lincoln, primitive educa- 

 tion was of the individual, by the indi- 

 vidual, and for the individual. The state's 

 ideal effort is the education of the common- 

 wealth, by the commonwealth and for the 

 commonwealth. 



Lest this shall seem mere borrowed rhet- 

 oric, let us examine the fundamental source 

 of education in the ulterior sense, as dis- 

 tinguished from the technical and narrow 

 sense. It need not be affirmed that educa- 

 tion is broader than 'schooling.' The de- 

 velopment of mind and character begins 

 before the school is entered, and continues 

 long after the halls of learning ai'e aban- 

 doned. Education is begun when thought, 

 feeling and activity begin, and ceases only 

 when thought, feeling and activity cease to 

 be susceptible of modification. At all 

 times, a large part of the educational in- 

 fluences lie outside the schools. Educa- 

 tion is derived from every mental contact; 

 it is absorbed from the whole intellectual 

 environment; it is inspired by infinite 

 sources of stimulus. The course in the 

 schools are merely a limited selection from 

 possible means, chosen for supposed effect- 

 iveness during the receptive and formative 

 stages. 



The fundamental and ulterior sources of 

 education do not lie in the conventional 

 schools, but back of them. These sources 

 can not here be defined at length, but in a 

 - simple phrase, they may be said to lie in 

 the great stock of ideas possessed iy man- 

 kind. This phrase inadequately embraces 

 the whole, but let us agree that it may 

 stand for the whole. In so far as the stock 

 of ideas of a people is narrow, defective 



and erroneous, on the one hand, or broad, 

 demonstrative and exact, on the other, in so 

 far the fundamental subject-material of 

 education partakes of these qualities. In 

 so far as the sentiments, beliefs, attitudes 

 and activities of a people are narrow, loose 

 and perverted, on the one hand, or free, 

 generous and ethical, on the other, in so far 

 education inevitably shares in these quali- 

 ties. For these are the fundamental 

 sources of education. The basal problem 

 of education is, therefore, concerned with 

 the entire compass of the intellectual pos- 

 sessions of a people, and, in a measure, of 

 all mankind. The special selections propa- 

 gated in the schools are but a miniature 

 reflection of the total possession, and this 

 selection is usually noble or mean, as the 

 whole is noble or mean. 



If these considerations are true, the fun- 

 damental promotion of education lies in an 

 increase of the intellectual possessions of a 

 people, and in the mental activities and 

 attitudes that grow out of the getting, the 

 testing and the using of these possessions. 



In the education of the individual, the 

 personality of the instructor counts for 

 much. In the education of a people, the 

 personality of a teacher is fused with the 

 multitude of other, and often conflicting, 

 personal influences, and, unless it be phe- 

 nomenal, it is submerged. But determi- 

 nate truths work together for permanent 

 results. These results often lie athwart the 

 trend of personal inculcations. True ideas 

 work incessantly and unswervingly toward 

 a destined end, while the thousand little 

 waves of merely personal influence cross 

 one another's paths and work one another's 

 destruction. Determinate truth is radio- 

 active, and sends forth a constant stream 

 of penetrating, illuminating emanations, to 

 which only the most leaden intellect is 

 opaque. The discoverers of great truths 

 and the authors of great ideas are the great 

 educators. 



