CHAPTER XIII
CONCLUSIONS--THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE NATIONAL PURPOSES
I
INDIVIDUAL VS. COLLECTIVE EDUCATION
Hitherto we have been discussing the ways in which existing American
economic and political methods and institutions should be modified in
order to make towards the realization of the national democratic ideal.
In course of this discussion, it has been taken for granted that the
American people under competent and responsible leadership could
deliberately plan a policy of individual and social improvement, and
that with the means at their collective disposal they could make headway
towards its realization. These means consisted, of course, precisely in
their whole outfit of political, economic, and social institutions; and
the implication has been, consequently, that human nature can be raised
to a higher level by an improvement in institutions and laws. The
majority of my readers will probably have thought many times that such
an assumption, whatever its truth, has been overworked.
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