However, in the 18th century the State approached the system of education with special maxims and from new viewpoints. The State recognized the need of popular education from the viewpoint of political economy; that is, it realized that education was necessary in order to make the citizenry more efficient and more productive.' But this narrow conception was later corrected by the substitution of broadly national motives." In this way was the foundation laid for the common school system, which, though modelled in its first stages after the parish school system, may nevertheless be called a new foundation, since it brought about the establishment of a uniform course of study and prepared the way for a new tendency in pedagogy. With the establishment of the common school system the State assumed the office of ministering to general interests; and in supplementing the educational activity of society it created institutions such as would have been impossible had special interests, particularly of the rural population, been allowed sole sway. The state governments followed a wise policy when they legislated, in the beginning of the 18th century, concerning the higher schools, for their prudent conservatism preserved the classical studies from the onslaughts of the then prevailing opposition against Greek and Latin. In thus preserving these educational treasures the State rendered even greater service than by its new foundations in the field of technical and industrial training." The various legal relations that arise in connection with the educative process call for state control. The various social factors co-operating in education will inevitably result in complications, and these must be regulated by law. Thus the supervision of schools, the paying of school taxes, the relations between public and private schools, etc., must be controlled by law. Other legal questions deal with the status of teachers: their training, examination, supervision, pensioning and all these matters are subject to state laws. A third field subject to state control is the question concerning the subject-matter of examinations and concerning the demands to be made on the graduates of various schools. If the educational system be purely social, the different professions 1 Vol. I, ch. XXVII, 4. will determine by their content the conditions on which a candidate is admitted to practice. But institutions for general culture would miss their chief function of raising the pupils to a certain level of mental ability, if they confined themselves to vocational training. Thus the vocational school and the school of general culture would seem to be opposed to each other, a fact that renders orientation in educational matters especially difficult. The State removes this difficulty by standardizing the different schools, i. e., their subject-matter of instruction and their examinations. This policy is strikingly effective, if, as is the case in Europe, special social privileges are enjoyed by those who pass the state examinations. In this way the schools conform to fixed standards and their graduates are assured of certain rewards; and these circumstances will assist the individual in choosing a calling and will assure the professions themselves of a homogeneous increase. Yet this arrangement is open to the danger of establishing purely external results as the standards for evaluating educational work, and thus the bread-and-butter value, which ought to be of secondary importance, is made of primary significance. The many services that the modern State renders to education should not warp our judgment so as to give the State more than its just due. The schools are not institutions of the State, and the State did not originate the educative process. It has only continued the work that the schools and other educational agencies had begun. The State is not the educator of the people, but the administrator of the educational capital that belongs to the people.' CHAPTER LXV. The Social Unions as Related to the Educative Process. 1. All social unions co-operate, as we showed in the preceding chapter, in creating the system of education, and hence the latter does not belong to any one of them exclusively. It is not subordinate, but rather co-ordinate with them. In its sphere of activity the system of education is as broad as the social unions. Moreover, by virtue of the variety and extent of its institutions, especially by virtue of the elasticity of informal education, the 1 Vol. I, ch. XXVIII, 3. system of education affects all social forces and unions and holds them permanently, at least to some degree, under its influence. This universal tendency establishes a closer relationship between the system of education and the Church and the State (which appeal to all and demand the service of the whole man) than connects the latter two with any social institution directed to some special end, as the judiciary, the army, etc. It is, therefore, not unusual to class together State, Church, and School. We have in mind the same classification whenever we speak of the Greeks as having been with the Romans and Israelites the teachers and spiritual fathers of modern civilized peoples.' It was a common saying in the Middle Ages that Italy had the chair of St. Peter; Germany, the throne of the Emperor; and France, the cathedra of learning (University of Paris). Philosophers, too, have grouped together State, Church, and Schools, understanding the last term as comprising all institutions and agencies serving in any intellectual capacity whatsoever. Thus Schleiermacher speaks of the school (here used in the narrow sense), the university, and the academy of sciences as constituting a third ethical organism beside the organisms of law and religion.2 The enemies of the Church use this grouping in their attacks on the Church when they tell us that the Church, the State, and the School are the three agencies whose function is the education of the race, and that education should consequently not be subject to the Church, and that the School should likewise be independent of her. It is easy to recognize the fallacy in this argument: it is founded on a quaternio terminorum, for the term education is used in two different meanings, first in the sense of moral improvement and secondly in the sense of training of the young. The former, i. e., moral improvement, is, no doubt, the mission of the Church; but just on this account must her voice be heard also when determining the training of the young. If you admit that the Church has the right and the duty to work for the moral improvement of men, you must allow her to assist also in training our young people. But Church, State, and School can not be classed together at all, if this grouping is to imply that the School is coextensive with the Church or the State. When saying that each of these three has a mission, we must bear in mind that the term mission. 1 Cf. J. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent, London, 1909, p. 433. 2 Vol. I, Introduction, IV, 3. has in each case a different significance. The State has a mission, indeed, but only in the sense of "potestas," viz., its legitimate authority. But the Church has a mission in the true and original meaning of the term: she has a κλñσɩs, a vocatio; she has been sent by God to carry out His work among men; she has a divine mission. However, both the State and the Church are by virtue of their mission the representatives of authority. But the School has nothing analogous to this. Its mission is to transmit the intellectual treasures of the race, and thereby to assist in the intellectual reconstruction of the social body. But neither the production nor the administration of the intellectual treasures is the function of the School. Its authority is confined to its own organs and to the pupils committed to its care, and its authority is derived from the God-given authority of the Church and the State. In this respect the School is, notwithstanding its universal extent, on the same level with the following series of other organs of the social body: the organ which produces the material goods, i. e., the trades and industries: the organ which controls the interchange of material goods, i. e., finance and traffic; the organ of the common will of the State, i. e., the administration of the State; the organ which protects persons and things, i. e., the judiciary; and, lastly, the organ which protects the social body from external and internal dangers, i. e., the military. 2. We have proved, in ch. LXII., that the system of education must transmit knowledge and skill. But we shall now take up a up a subject that has hitherto been but touched upon: how education assists in the reconstructive process of the social body. This process is founded on the fact, common to the social as well as the animal organism, that there is a continuous discharge and reception of the constituent elements. Births and deaths represent this process in the social body. There is, first of all, a physical reconstruction, to which the intellectual reconstruction is added later. The process of engendering gives life to the children who are to reconstruct society by taking the place of those who die and pass from the scene. The process of rearing preserves their lives, and education performs the work of their moral assimilation. The processes of generation, rearing, and education belong to the family, which also begins the intellectual assimilation to be continued later by the school.' At first the 1 Vol. I, Introduction, I, 3 ff. school assimilates the child with the common life as such, without preparing him for any special calling. From the school the pupil passes either directly to his life work, where the practical training takes the place of study, or he goes to vocational schools to prepare for a particular line of work. The reconstruction of the social body is not the same in all departments of society, as the preparation for the various trades and professions does not require the same amount of regular study and practice. For training young farmers it is sufficient to let them work on a farm with an experienced farmer. Regular shop training is required for learning a trade, but this training presupposes the general education imparted in the elementary school. Training in an industrial or technological school is required for the mechanical professions. In preparing for the military or the commercial profession the vocational practice should likewise be preceded by vocational studies, and the latter must again be based on a general education. In preparing for the teaching profession or civil service the elements of science should be first taken up, then the study of pure and applied science, and only after this should the candidates be admitted to practice. The education imparted by the university, the home of the pure as well as the applied sciences, is superior to all technical training, because it substitutes the direct interests of study for the indirect, even if only for a time. The university teaches the student to acquire knowledge for its own sake, and it is only from this point of view that true mental work can be enjoyed. It is interesting to trace with the aid of statistics the process of the reconstruction of the social body. The material, however, is unfortunately inadequate to obtain a full view of the subject, as statisticians have as yet given little attention to this phase of their science.' Still we have statistical data enough to indicate approximately for the successive years the numerical status of the persons born in the same year. One-fourth die during their first year, and only one half of the boys are still living after about 14 years, while of the girls one half are dead after about 20 years. After 60 years only one-fourth are still among the living, and after 90 years only about one two-hundredth. This relation can be visualized by making a drawing either to resemble the trunk of a tree without the branches, which tapers from a broad base to a fine point, or to resemble a bell with a 1 Ibid., II, 8. |