The
individual can do much to aid national education by the single-minded
and intelligent realization of his own specific purposes; but all
individual successes will have little more than an individual interest
unless they frequently contribute to the work of national construction.
The nation can do much to aid individual education; but the best aid
within its power is to offer to the individual a really formative and
inspiring opportunity for public service. The whole round of superficial
educational machinery--books, subsidies, resolutions, lectures,
congresses--may be of the highest value, provided they are used to
digest and popularize the results of a genuine individual and national
educational experience, but when they are used, as so often at present,
merely as a substitute for well-purposed individual and national action,
they are precisely equivalent to an attempt to fly in a vacuum.
That the direct practical value of a reform movement may be equaled or
surpassed by its indirect educational value is a sufficiently familiar
idea--an idea admirably expressed ten years ago by Mr.
Pages:
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862