The
good average American usually wishes to accomplish exclusively by
individual education a result which must be partly accomplished by
national education. The nation, like the individual, must go to school;
and the national school is not a lecture hall or a library. Its
schooling consists chiefly in experimental collective action aimed at
the realization of the collective purpose. If the action is not aimed at
the collective purpose, a nation will learn little even from its
successes. If its action is aimed at the collective purpose, it may
learn much even from its mistakes. No process of merely individual
education can accomplish the work of collective education, because the
nation is so much more than a group of individuals. Individuals can be
"uplifted" without "uplifting" the nation, because the nation has an
individuality of its own, which cannot be increased without the
consciousness of collective responsibilities and the collective official
attempt to redeem them. The processes of national and individual
education should, of course, parallel and supplement each other.
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