of the individual". That is, the educational aim is interpreted in terms of the social aim.

The sweeping identification of the educational with the social aim is open to criticisms. It assumes that education must be subordinated to the demands of the social process. The social aim is made to include the educational aim since the part is contained in the whole and finds its meaning in terms of the whole. This amounts to depriving the educator of all real initiative and powers of leadership. It places him at the mercy of the social process. He becomes merely the purveyor to society's needs and as society interprets those needs. He cannot place himself outside the social process and as critic advise and lead.

Furthermore, we miss in much of the educational literature of the day any clear statement as to the relation of the social and the educational to the ethical. On the whole, it seems to be tacitly assumed that the ethical aim is either identical with or subordinate to the social aim. Now it is evident that socialization or social efficiency is far from being identical with moral excellence. For character will vary with the type of socialization demanded. Socialization during the middle ages, in Calvinistic Geneva, in militaristic Germany, or in democratic America means very different things. The socialization sought by the college and grammar school of colonial days has little in common with that demanded by modern intensive democracy. Socialization is a relative term. If mere social efficiency is the test, Germany has probably produced the best type of education and hence the most morally valuable that the world has ever seen. If we reject the type of social efficiency sought in German education it is upon some other basis than that of mere social efficiency or socialization of the individual. That ultimate measure of values is evidently ethical rather than either social or educational.

The prevailing enthusiasm for "social efficiency " in education is the result of a revolt against older educational ideals that were personal and subjective. This emphasis of the social, the factual, and the utilitarian, while indicating a healthful re

action, has reduced the ethical element in many cases to a negligible quantity. "Social efficiency" in many books on education is equivalent to ethical relativism or even ethical indifference. The older educators with their emphasis upon formal ethics and discipline made the moral life unreal, aristocratic, and impractical. Our modern educator often flattens out all ethical distinctions, takes the edge off the moral ought with such attractive and yet unpardonably vague generalizations as "social aim ", " social efficiency," or "socialization". He often gives us the impression that ethics is but a phase of biology.

Viewing the educational problem from the broad moral point of view it must include at least three elements, first the Greek idea of insight, which means all that history, science, literature, and philosophy can contribute in the way of moral enlightenment, secondly, goodness of disposition which will incline to the pursuit of the true and the good without external coercion, and thirdly, habituation of the will through which the performance of socially valuable acts is assured in the most economical and expeditious fashion. To be truly moral, in other words, the educational process must acquaint with those great human values, a knowledge of which is indispensable to the solution of present-day problems. These values must not merely be assimilated intellectually; they must have a sure place in the affections of the masses of men so that they are loved for their own sakes. Finally men must be provided with habits and means of expression through which devotion to the best things may make itself effective in the practical affairs of life. It will be seen that the educator has not accomplished his purpose until the ideals for which he strives have become part and parcel of the social conscience of the community.

§ 6. THE SCHOOL AND THE NORMS OF THE

SOCIAL CONSCIENCE

What are the great ethical norms that the school should keep in mind in its effort to shape the social conscience? For

the oldest and still the most important duty of the school is the assurance of the continuity of the social heritage through the interpretation and transmission of moral traditions. The traditional democratic norms are freedom, equality, and fraternity. Two criticisms may be offered of the idea of freedom common to educational literature of the day. It draws its inspiration too much from the philosophy of Rousseau and his followers, and it fails to appreciate the ethical significance of work. We are fast coming to see the limitations of the doctrine of laissez faire in politics and economics. It is time that we recognize the limits of Rousseau's doctrine of spontaneous self-assertion and the training of the child through the results of its acts. Rousseauism fails to recognize the institutional and social phase of freedom. For freedom is not merely a matter of the assertion of native impulses. The Emersonian dictum, " Follow your whim," contains its own moral refutation. Freedom never becomes moral until there is an intelligent appreciation of the limits of one's acts. The morally free act is one that finds point and direction through social institutions, that draws its sanctions from the community. Law, authority, and the institutional life are not a hindrance to freedom; they make it possible, nay, more, are its indispensable prerequisites.

This social phase of freedom needs to be stressed in both school and society. We have insisted in kindergarten, high school, college, business, and politics, upon the necessity of free, untrammelled individual initiative. But we have neglected or stressed lightly the relation of this individual assertion to law and order. The secret of a mature, self-poised national character is found in the proper balance between these two phases. It is the basic problem of civilization just as it is the basic problem of democracy. The task of the school is to bring the prospective citizen to realize that in a democracy the individual himself must to a large extent achieve his freedom by recognizing its necessary limitations. Through the socializing influences of the school, such as student self-government, there is opportunity for teaching the individual that freedom

and authority are not in eternal opposition but are parts of one indissoluble moral and human whole.

Closely associated with the idea of freedom is the question of the ethical value of work. Many educators have gone to the extreme in their revolt against the Puritan doctrine of the disciplinary value of work reflected in John Locke's famous Thoughts on Education. Rousseau's sentimental glorification of the native impulses is more agreeable and more modern. Discipline in the sense of drudgery or toil is not only irksome but non-essential in character building, even downright immoral. We sometimes get the impression from recent educational literature that the study of the ancient languages and mathematics is pedagogically wicked. Is it true that, as we go from the level of play and free spontaneous self-assertion to that of toil and drudgery, we pass from the realm of the moral to that of the immoral? The question is well worth asking in view of the general movement to eliminate from the school all studies that do not call out the spontaneous and pleasurable exercise of power or else lead directly to practical and utilitarian ends.

If it be true, as the prevailing educational philosophy insists, that the school does not merely prepare for life but is life itself, then we may safely assert that any school from which drudgery has been banished is not life and does not prepare for life. For drudgery in the sense of being morally obligated to perform tasks that are unattractive and do not possess for us any inherent interest is an inescapable fact of life. It meets us at every level from that of the mill-hand to that of the great scientific investigator. It is by no means unknown in the experience of the artist. To be sure there is little moral value in forcing one's self to the performance of a thing simply because it is drudgery. One can appreciate the point of view of the railroad president who expressed a preference for men who had been forced to master one difficult and distasteful thing even though it be a Latin dictionary, without necessarily endorsing his pedagogy. Drudgery is only moral of course in so far as it is rational or looks to some valuable end, though

that end may be remote and often unappreciated at the time. In the midst of the prevailing enthusiasm for the agreeable and the spontaneous it is well to remember that if the school is to be true to life it must turn out men and women tenacious of purpose and not lacking in toughness of moral fiber, an end never to be gained by following the primrose path of Rousseauism.

Most comprehensive of all the ethical norms and hence the most difficult to grasp in all its bearings is that of justice. In the life of the child and the adolescent the notion of justice takes on for the most part the form of fair-play. The concrete instances in which justice in the form of fair-play is constantly occurring in the family, the gang, or the school group are easily grasped. The basis is laid here for loyalty to the principle of fairness that will be enriched and enlarged through business, social or political relations. Not, however, until the principle underlying all these concrete instances has been grasped and has become an integral part of disposition so that it is loved and sought for its own sake has the norm of justice become socially valuable in the largest sense.

As the school becomes more efficient and expresses in conscious fashion the enlightened moral sentiment of the community it will become the concrete embodiment of the principle of social justice. For the school not only subjects the social heritage to a critical examination before it hands it on to the next generation; it is coming to select and test the human material. This means that the school is becoming society's chosen instrument for the distribution of individuals and classes. It seeks to prevent social adjustments from being made in arbitrary, accidental, and wasteful fashion. The "mute inglorious Miltons" with their eloquent protests against the vast stupidities of society will be less frequent in proportion as individual talent and ability are made determining factors in social adjustment. The school thus comes to embody in a measure the very spirit of social justice itself. It educates through the concrete contributions it makes to the solution of the social problem. We are discovering