History of Human Society Part 37

1. In what ways has science contributed to the growth of democracy?

2. How has the study of science changed the att.i.tude of the mind toward life?

3. How is every-day life of the ordinary man affected by science?

4. Is science antagonistic to true Christianity?

5. What is the good influence of science on religious belief and practice?

6. What are the great discoveries of the last twenty-five years in Astronomy? Chemistry? Physics? Biology? Medicine? Electricity?

7. What recent inventions are dependent upon science?

8. Relation between investigation in the laboratory and the modern automobile.

9. How does scientific knowledge tend to banish fear?

10. Give a brief history of the development of the automobile. The flying-machine.

11. Would a law forbidding the teaching of science in schools advance the cause of Christianity?

[1] Taylor, _The Mediaeval Mind_, vol. II, p. 508.

[2] Libby, _History of Science_, p. 63.

[3] Copernicus's view was not published until thirty-six years after its discovery. A copy of his book was brought to him at his death-bed, but he refused to look at it.

[4] Libby, p. 91.

[5] Libby, _History of Science_, p. 280.

[6] Libby, _Introduction to the History of Science_.

[7] The newly created department at Johns Hopkins University for the study of international relations may a.s.sist in the abolition of war.

{475}

CHAPTER x.x.x

UNIVERSAL EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY

_Universal Public Education Is a Modern Inst.i.tution_.--The Greeks valued education and encouraged it, but only those could avail themselves of its privileges who were able to pay for it. The training by the mother in the home was followed by a private tutor. This system conformed to the idea of leadership and was valuable in the establishment of an educated cla.s.s. However, at the festivals and the theatres there were opportunities for the ma.s.ses to learn much of oratory, music, and civic virtues. The education of Athens conformed to the cla.s.s basis of society. Sparta as an exception trained all citizens for the service of state, making them subordinate to its welfare. The state took charge of children at the age of seven, put them in barracks, and subjected them to the most severe discipline.

But there was no free education, no free development of the ordinary mind. It was in the nature of civic slavery for the preservation of the state in conflict with other states.

During the Middle Ages Charlemagne established the only public schools for civic training, the first being established at Paris, although he planned to extend them throughout the empire. The collapse of his great empire made the schools merely a tradition. But they were a faint sign of the needs of a strong empire and an enlightened community. The educational inst.i.tutions of the Middle Ages were monasteries, and cathedral schools for the purpose of training men for the service of the church and for the propagating of religious doctrine. They were all inst.i.tutional in nature and far from the idea of public instruction for the enlightenment of the people.

_The Mediaeval University Permitted Some Freedom of Choice_.--There was exhibited in some of them especially a desire to discover the truth through traditional knowledge. They were {476} composed of groups of students and masters who met for free discussion, which led to the verification of established traditions. But this was a step forward, and scholars arose who departed from dogma into new fields of learning.

While the universities of the Middle Ages were a step in advance, full freedom of the mind had not yet manifested itself, nor had the idea of universal education appeared. Opportunity came to a comparatively small number; moreover, nearly all scientific and educational improvement came from impulses outside of the centres of tradition.

_The English and German Universities_.--The English universities, particularly Oxford and Cambridge, gave a broader culture in mathematics, philosophy, and literature, which was conducive to liberality in thought, but even they represented the education of a selected cla.s.s. The German universities, especially in the nineteenth century, emphasized the practical or applied side of education. By establishing laboratories, they were prepared to apply all truths discovered, and by experimentation carry forward learning, especially in the chemical and other physical sciences. The spirit of research was strongly invoked for new scientific discoveries. While England was developing a few noted secondary schools, like Harrow and Eton, Germany was providing universal real _schule_, and _gymnasia_, as preparatory for university study and for the general education of the ma.s.ses. As a final outcome the Prussian system was developed, which had great influence on education in the United States in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

_Early Education in the United States_.--The first colleges and universities in the United States were patterned after the English universities and the academies and high schools of England. These schools were of a selected cla.s.s to prepare for the ministry, law, statesmanship, and letters. The growth of the American university was rapid, because it continually broadened its curriculum. From the study of philosophy, cla.s.sical languages, mathematics, literature, it successively {477} embraced modern languages, physical sciences, natural science, history, and economics, psychology, law, medicine, engineering, and commerce.

In the present-day universities there is a wide differentiation of subjects. The subjects have been multiplied to meet the demand of scientific development and also to fit students for the ever-increasing number of occupations which the modern complex society demands. The result of all this expansion is democratic. The college cla.s.s is no longer an exclusive selection. The plane of educational selection continually lowers until the college draws its students from all cla.s.ses and prepares them for all occupations. In the traditional college certain cla.s.ses were selected to prepare for positions of learning. There was developed a small educated cla.s.s. In the modern way there is no distinctive educated cla.s.s. University education has become democratic.

_The Common, or Public, Schools_.--In the Colonial and early national period of the United States, education was given by a method of tutors, or by a select pay school taught by a regularly employed teacher under private contract. Finally the sympathy for those who were not able to pay caused the establishing of "common schools." This was the real beginning of universal education, for the practice expanded and the idea finally prevailed of providing schools by taxation "common" to all, and free to all who wish to attend. Later, for civic purposes, primary education has become compulsory in most states. Following the development of the primary grades, a complete system of secondary schools has been provided. Beyond these are the state schools of higher education, universities, agricultural and mechanical schools, normal schools and industrial schools, so that a highway of learning is provided for the child, leading from the kindergarten through successive stages to the university.

_Knowledge, Intelligence, and Training Necessary in a Democracy_.--Washington, after experimenting with the new nation for eight years, having had opportunity to observe the defects {478} and virtues of the republic, said in his Farewell Address: "Promote, then, as an object of primary importance inst.i.tutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened."[1] Again and again have the leaders of the nation who have had at heart the present welfare and future destiny of their country urged public education as a necessity.

And right well have the people responded to these sentiments. They have poured out their hard-earned money in taxation to provide adequate education for the youth of the land. James Bryce, after studying in detail American inst.i.tutions, declared that "the chief business of America is education." This observation was made nearly forty years ago. If it was true then, how much more evident is it now with wonderful advance of higher education in colleges and universities, and in the magnificent system of secondary education that has been built up in the interval. The swarming of students in high school and college is evidence that they appreciate the opportunities furnished by the millions of wealth, largely in the form of taxes, given for the support of schools.

_Education Has Been Universalized_.--Having made education universal, educators are devoting their energies to fit the education to the needs of the student and to a.s.sist the student in choosing the course of instruction which will best fit him for his chosen life-work. The victory has been won to give every boy and girl an educational chance.

To give him what he actually needs and see that he uses it for a definite purpose is the present problem of the educator. This means a careful inquiry into mental capacity and mental traits, into temperament, taste, ambition, and choice of vocation. It means further provision of the special education that will best prepare him for his chosen work, and, indeed, it means sympathetic co-operation of the teacher and student in determining the course to be pursued.

{479}

_Research an Educational Process_.--Increased knowledge comes from observation or systematic investigation in the laboratory. Every child has by nature the primary element of research, a curiosity to know things. Too often this is suppressed by conventional education instead of continued into systematic investigation. One of the great defects of the public school is the failure to keep alive, on the part of the student, the desire to know things. Undue emphasis on instruction, a mere imparting of knowledge, causes the student to shift the responsibility of his education upon the teacher, who, after all, can do no more than help the student to select the line of study, and direct him in methods of acquiring. Together teacher and student can select the trail, and the teacher, because he has been over it, can direct the student over its rough ways, saving him time and energy.

Perhaps the greatest weakness in popular government to-day is indifference of citizens to civic affairs. This leads to a shifting of responsibility of public affairs frequently to those least competent to conduct them. Perhaps a training in individual responsibility in the schools and more vital instruction in citizenship would prepare the coming generation to make democracy efficient and safe to the world.

The results of research are of great practical benefit to the so-called common man in the ordinary pursuits of life. The scientist in the laboratory, spending days and nights in research, finally discovers a new process which becomes a life-saver or a time-saver to general mankind. Yet the people usually accept this as a matter of fact as something that just happened. They forget the man in the laboratory and exploit the results of his labor for their own personal gain.

How often the human mind is in error, and un.o.bserving, not to see that the discovery of truth and its adaptation to ordinary life is one of the fundamental causes of the progress of the race. Man has advanced in proportion as he has become possessed of the secrets of nature and has adapted them to his service. The number of ways he touches nature and forces {480} her to yield her treasures, adapting them to his use, determines the possibility of progress.

The so-called "common man," the universal type of our democracy, is worthy of our admiration. He has his life of toil and his round of duties alternating with pleasure, bearing the burdens of life cheerfully, with human touch with his fellows; amid sorrow and joy, duty and pleasure, storm and sunshine, he lives a normal existence and pa.s.ses on the torch of life to others. But the man who shuts himself in his laboratory, lives like a monk, losing for a time the human touch, spends long days of toil and "nights devoid of ease" until he discovers a truth or makes an invention that makes millions glad, is ent.i.tled to our highest reverence. The ordinary man and the investigator are complementary factors of progress and both essential to democracy.

_The Diffusion of Knowledge Necessary to Democracy_.--Always in progress is a deflecting tendency, separating the educated cla.s.s from the uneducated. This is not on account of the aristocracy of learning, but because of group activity, the educated man following a pursuit different from the man of practical affairs. Hence the effort to broadcast knowledge through lectures, university extension, and the radio is essential to the progress of the whole community. One phase of enlightenment is much neglected, that of making clear that the object of the scholar and the object of the man of practical affairs should be the same--that of establishing higher ideals of life and providing means for approximating these ideals. It frequently occurs that the individual who has centred his life on the acc.u.mulation of wealth ignores the educator and has a contempt for the impractical scholar, as he terms him. Not infrequently state legislatures, when considering appropriations for education, have shown more interest in hogs and cattle than in the welfare of children.

It would be well if the psychology of the common mind would change so as to grasp the importance of education and scientific investigation to every-day life. Does it occur to the {481} man who seats himself in his car to whisk away across the country in the pursuit of ordinary business, to pause to inquire who discovered gasoline or who invented the gasoline-engine? Does he realize that some patient investigator in the laboratory has made it possible for even a child to thus utilize the forces of nature and thus shorten time and ignore s.p.a.ce? Whence comes the improvement of live-stock in this country? Compare the cattle of early New England with those on modern farms. Was the little scrubby stock of our forefathers replaced by large, sleek, well-bred cattle through accident? No, it was by the discovery of investigators and its practical adaptation by breeders. Compare the vineyards and the orchards of the early history of the nation, the grains and the gra.s.ses, or the fruits and the flowers with those of present cultivation. What else but investigation, discovery, and adaptation wrought the change?

My common neighbor, when your child's poor body is racked with pain and likely to die, and the skilled surgeon places the child on the operating-table, administers the anaesthetic to make him insensible to pain, and with knowledge gained by investigation operates with such skill as to save the child's life and restore him to health, are you not ready to say that scientific investigation is a blessing to all mankind? Whence comes this power to restore health? Is it a dispensation from heaven? Yes, a dispensation brought about through the patient toil and sacrifice of those zealous for the discovery of truth. What of the knowledge that leads to the mastery of the yellow-fever bacillus, of the typhoid germ, to the fight against tuberculosis and other enemies of mankind? Again, it is the man in the laboratory who is the first great cause that makes it possible for humanity to protect itself from disease.

Could our methods of transportation by steamship, railroad, or air, our great manufacturing processes, our vast machinery, or our scientific agriculture exist without scientific research? Nothing touches ordinary life with such potent force as the results of the investigation in the laboratory. Clearly it is {482} understood by the thoughtful that education in all of its phases is a democratic process, and a democratic need, for its results are for everybody. Knowledge is thus humanized, and the educated and the non-educated must co-operate to keep the human touch.

Educational Progress.--One of the landmarks of the present century of progress will be the perfecting of educational systems. Education is no longer for the exclusive few, developing an aristocracy of learning for the elevation of a single cla.s.s; it has become universal. The large number of universities throughout the world, well endowed and well equipped, the mult.i.tudes of secondary schools, and the universality of the primary schools, now render it possible for every individual to become intelligent and enlightened.

But these conditions are comparatively recent, so that millions of individuals to-day, even in the midst of great educational systems, remain entirely unlettered. Nevertheless, the persistent effort on the part of people everywhere to have good schools, with the best methods of instruction, certainly must have its effect in bringing the ma.s.ses of unlearned into the realm of letters. The practical tendency of modern education, by which discipline and culture may be given while at the same time preparing the student for the active duties of life, makes education more necessary for all persons and cla.s.ses. The great changes that have taken place in methods of instruction and in the materials of scientific investigation, and the tendency to develop the man as well as to furnish him with information, evince the masterly progress of educational systems, and demonstrate their great worth.

_The Importance of State Education_.--So necessary has education become to the perpetuation of free government that the states of the world have deemed it advisable to provide on their own account a sufficient means of education. Perpetuation of liberty can be secured only on the basis of intellectual progress. From the time of the foundation of the universities of Europe, kings and princes and state authorities have {483} encouraged and developed education, but it remained for America to begin a complete and universal free-school system. In the United States educators persistently urge upon the people the necessity of popular education and intelligence as the only means of securing to the people the benefits of a free government, and other statesmen from time to time have insisted upon the same principle. The private inst.i.tutions of America did a vast work for the education of the youth, but proved entirely inadequate to meet the immediate demands of universal education, and the public-school system sprang up as a necessary means of preparation for citizenship. It found its earliest, largest, and best scope in the North and West, and has more recently been established in the South, and now is universal.

The grant by the United States government at the time of the formation of the Ohio territory of lands for the support of universities led to the provision in the act of formation of each state and territory in the Union for the establishment of a university. Each state, since the admission of Ohio, has provided for a state university, and the Act of 1862, which granted lands to each state in the Union for the establishment of agricultural and mechanical colleges, has also given a great impulse to state education. In the organizing acts of some of the newer states these two grants have been joined in one for the upbuilding of a university combining the ideas of the two kinds of schools. The support insured to these state inst.i.tutions promises their perpetuity. The amount of work which they have done for the education of the ma.s.ses in higher learning has been prodigious, and they stand to-day as the greatest and most perfect monument of the culture and learning of the Western states.

The tremendous growth of state education has increased the burden of taxation to the extent that the question has arisen as to whether there is not a limit to the amount people are willing to pay for public education. If it can be shown that they receive a direct benefit in the education of their children there {484} will be no limit within their means to the support of both secondary schools and universities.

But there must be evidence that the expenditure is economically and wisely administered.