The school system resembles, from the social point of view, a system of interchange of intellectual treasures, which, with its lines ramifying over the length and breadth of a wide domain, controls the educative process and distributes its products in all directions.

2. But from the viewpoint of society, it is improper to designate the subject-matter of teaching as the sum-total of educational contents or of educational values; for from this standpoint the subject-matter of teaching appears as a whole of intellectual treasures.

Every treasure is made such by a conscious act of the appetitive faculty of the soul. This holds for material as well as for intellectual treasures. In the case of material treasures. the object of the conscious act is a sensuous thing, but in the case of intellectual treasures the co-operation of the consciousness goes beyond the objects of the senses. A sensuous object may prove an intellectual treasure, but it must first be realized as a vehicle of something intellectual, before it can be considered an element of intellectual goodness. A book, a work of art, an instrument, a sacred shrine are intellectual treasures only after the consciousness has connected them with certain corresponding activities. All sensuous things are, in this respect, but signs, symbols, and reproduction helps. We can think of intellectual treasures only as connected with the activity of intellectual beings, who interact upon one another and place their impress upon the sensuous and thus give it an intellectual value. The achievements of science are void of life if there be no savants to interpret them to eager pupils. The works of art are a "caput mortuum" if there be none to enjoy them; and the sanctuary is consecrated only by the breath of the Spirit.' As long as we bear in mind the aforementioned difference between material and intellectual treasures, we can not but profit by the points in which they agree, without falling into the error of falsely treating the intellectual as a substance. This mistake would be no less serious than the other (to which the modern view inclines) of regarding the intellectual merely as a state of consciousness. The latter opinion is connected with the teachings of the Nominalists, who regard as intellectual only what the mind has made, but denied the intellectuality of what the mind, being naturally directed to it, has to receive only into consciousness.2

1 I. Cor., 3, II.

2

Supra, ch. X, 1 and 2; on Nominalism see supra, p. 194 and pp. 47 f.

3. The intellectual treasures may, in contradistinction to the material, be termed immaterial. But only a part of the immaterial treasures are, like the material goods, the products of time and natural forces. The intellectual treasures of language, literature, science, art, and industry are products of time and nature; but the spiritual treasures represented by religion are born of eternal and supernatural powers.

All intellectual treasures can be converted into educational values, but this is not essential to them, for originally they seem to oppose rather than to favor the educative process. Language, for example, the most elementary of the intellectual treasures, is created by the need of self-expression, and its use is as varied as human activity itself,' so that its service to education appears only as one of many services. The first products of the art of language co-operate with the beginnings of culture and civilization. They prepare the way for literature, which is one of the vital elements of every nation, and, connected with other national elements, it constitutes the national treasure of a nation, which treasure is much broader in scope than the educative process.

Religion, on the other hand, represents the supernatural element among the immaterial treasures of the race. The primary function of religion is to foster public worship. Before religion begins to organize an educational content, it builds churches, develops the forms and rites of public worship, and regulates life by precept and commandment; and some imperfect religions never get beyond these first stages. The primary motive in art is the desire for self-expression. Though the works of art must be understood to be enjoyed, yet of themselves they do not convey their deeper meaning. Buildings, monuments, museums, and art galleries are originally not intended for pedagogical purposes. The industrial and technical arts subject the forces of nature to the use and service of man. To accomplish this is their first, purpose, and not how one individual can instruct another in subjugating nature. Even science, created by man's longing for truth, considers the discovery of truth to be its prime function. It creates institutions whose sole purpose is the search after truth, viz., learned societies, academies of sciences, libraries, etc. The circles and associations which science establishes among its adherents, the largest of which is the republic of letters, foster learning, but do not apply or transmit it.

1 Supra, ch. XLIII, 2; cf. Vol. I, Introduction, I, 6.

4. While the intellectual treasures thus have originally no didactic tendency, they occasion, however, from the very beginning, much varied learning, and in this way they are converted into educational values and form the object, first, of informal education. The works of the poets are the source of education long before they are recognized in the schools as the standard texts. Poets and writers in general may be called the first producers in education, a term which has been applied wrongly to the elementary school teachers, as these are rather the retailers of educational values. The works of art likewise emit a continuous stream of influences upon all receptive souls that enter into their magic circle, and so the artist becomes unwittingly a teacher. Churches and religious objects exert a kindred influence: the mute glory of the cathedral has at times proved more eloquent than the preacher in the pulpit, and the metaltongued bells carry upon the wings of the air a message that is universal in its appeal and intelligible to all. In fact, each and every object that is the product of mental activity becomes a vehicle for this very activity, for it represents and, as it were, binds thoughts and purposes that are again set free by being received into the intelligence of another person. The primary function of science, is, indeed, not to teach, yet to communicate its results. It must, though born in the solitude of the mind, be verified by other minds, and it flows in a continuous stream, like the water gushing forth from the fountain, and, like the fire once kindled, so it supplies light and heat.'

In this spontaneous movement the intellectual treasures resemble current coins, which are continually changing hands and pass through all the lines and avenues, intricate and interwoven, of the country's trade. But if this circulation were the whole of the process, the intellectual treasures would lose their impress even sooner than our small coins; their results would become commonplace, and this would react harmfully upon their production. Whatever value the currency has must correspond to the reserve funds of the country, and the reserve funds of the intellectual treasures of the race are embodied in the faith, knowledge, and skill that are secured and fixed by tradition and teaching. The desire to transmit the greatest possible amount of property to one's children is the strongest motive for economical management, and something similar is true of the intellectual treasures. We give the treasures

1 Supra, ch. I, 3 and Vol. I, ch. II, 2.

of civilization a fixed form so as to insure their transmission to succeeding generations. From the mass of the national literature the classics are selected and made the educational content of the language instruction. From the large field of the sciences. the course of study is evolved, and the latter represents what is best and essential in the sciences, and these elements are transmitted to the young. The traditions of instruction are developed in the schools and react upon the educational content.

5. The production of the intellectual treasures and their transmission are now combined. The schools of art and of higher learning serve both the production and the transmission. An internal relationship is developed especially between research and teaching. The teaching assists the work of research. To express the results of research in a way that will appeal to students is somewhat of a test of the results themselves. To express publicly what we have discovered in the privacy of our study involves an objectivation of our ideas and will reveal new relations between them and thus make them an object of deeper study. Teaching is a process of giving and receiving. Mind meets mind, and mind reacts upon mind. The process stimulates, refreshes, and vitalizes the faculties; and a class of students stimulated to mental activity affords the teacher no less profit in mental growth than the class receives from him. Though the old saying Docendo discimus applied originally to the young teacher only, it holds no less for the veteran in the profession. And its converse is equally true: Discendo docemus, for the teacher must, to teach properly, be himself a student; he must be intent on learning new truths, on acquiring new skill, and on making general progress. The teacher must use science and learning, not as cold, lifeless objects, but as living, growing, selfrenewing elements.

The transmission of the intellectual treasures to posterity, the assimilation of the young generation with the old, and the resultant reconstruction of the social body assure fixed forms to the educative process and a broad channel for the interchange and transmission of intellectual values. In contrast to this fixity and stability, the transmission of intellectual treasures by means other than teaching appears uncertain and irregular. These two methods of transmitting the intellectual treasures we shall for brevity's sake, designate as spontaneous and descendent respectively. But beside these methods there is a third which we shall call, in contrast to the descendent one, the collateral, because it addresses itself, not to the young, but to the mature

generation, to whom it imparts intentionally and more or less systematically much knowledge and skill. We have such a collateral transmission of intellectual treasures when the preacher addresses himself, not to young people, but, as in the beginning, to the "multitude which had come together." Analogous to this transmission of knowledge is the popular treatment of scientific subjects that elicits the interest of the common people, and which, while deep and thorough, is live enough in tone to be stimulating. The arts may likewise be treated so as to appeal to broadly human tastes and interests. The propaganda made for certain tendencies in religion, art, or literature, and most of the activity of summer schools, correspondence courses, and university extension lectures belong to the collateral transmission of intellectual treasures.

In all these cases the transmission is confined to one larger social unit, but the transmission may also go beyond the one unit and affect another social body, and this constitutes the fourth and last kind of transmission of intellectual values. An instance of this would be the conversion of a whole nation to Christianity, or the grafting of a national civilization, or phases of it, on another nation. The relationship between teacher and taught, though on a large scale, still obtains here, and history is the guiding power.

6. The treasures which are transmitted by the educational system, are either such as must be conserved to the race because of a social duty, or such as are an ornament, or finally such as are prized for their usefulness. This division throws new light on the different kinds of education as well as on the educational contents. In chapter LX., we classified the varieties of education according to the combinations of educational aims, but we could also classify them according to the different combinations of intellectual treasures: unite the treasures whose conservation is a social duty with those that are ornamental, and you will have a liberal education; but unite the former with those treasures that are preeminently practical and useful, and you will have an illiberal education.

From the viewpoint of the transmission of the intellectual. treasures, the educational content in general is articulated as follows. It is a social duty to conserve all those treasures which either must be made accessible to every member of the social body, or which must be represented in the function of the social

1 Acts, II, 5-6.