[Reprinted from School and Society, Vol. F, No. 129, Pages 691-696 , June 16, 1917] 
 
 EDUCATION FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 1 
 
 THE PSYCHIC BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 American democracy in points of magni- 
 tude, duration, economic progress, and 
 realization of individual liberty — far sur- 
 passes the restricted Athenian democracy, 
 is rivaled only by superb France, and may 
 be emulated by the giant-infant republic of 
 Russia. Not alone is it the wealth, poten- 
 tial and achieved, that drew here men of all 
 races. We whose fathers have dwelt in 
 America longest know that in our constitu- 
 tion and statutes, and habituated in our 
 every-day thinking, there are steadf ast prin- 
 ciples such as these : In the life of the indi- 
 vidual there will be liberty compatible with 
 the welfare of the majority of the inhabi- 
 tants; freedom of personal development 
 and expression will be maintained, but 
 standards of conduct will be established and 
 protected for the betterment of society. 
 The zealous protection of women and chil- 
 dren is seen in unremitting efforts toward 
 progressive legislation to meet changing so- 
 cial and economic conditions, and particu- 
 larly in the Southland is cherished a sur- 
 vival of the nobler sentiments of chivalry. 
 Equality of opportunity is a right and co- 
 operation of civic responsibility is a duty, 
 in American democracy. Life in its full- 
 ness, true liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness based on health, knowledge and 
 achievement, are as yet found nowhere on 
 this globe, but all these surely have been 
 nearest of realization in America, blessed of 
 all peoples of a world now temporarily re- 
 
 1 Presidential address at the banquet of the 
 Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, 
 Lynchburg, Va., April 12, 1917. 
 
 turned to fierce struggle for elemental 
 things. In the social consciousness of sea- 
 soned Americans we can also discern, aside 
 from mawkish sentimentality, a collective, 
 emotional reaction in which are mingled 
 sentiments of admiration for our soil, our 
 mountains, our lakes, our mines and for- 
 ests — for the very land itself and for the 
 pioneer-conquerors of it, along with convic- 
 tions held in common concerning the essen- 
 tials of government and of union, that 
 make for determined solidarity and broth- 
 erhood — a true patriotism for both peace 
 and war. 
 
 If the essence of democracy is that ha- 
 bitual sentiments and convictions of this 
 kind are nourished in common by the in- 
 creasing millions of our population, who 
 nevertheless are more and more remote in 
 time from the aggressive spirits who estab- 
 lished these principles in this land, then 
 measures can be undertaken by us who now 
 live, for the strengthening of such habits 
 of mind until they become increasingly per- 
 manent. The perpetuity of the elements of 
 our democracy will be uncertain, unless 
 there be effective preparation of this kind 
 to train each new generation, as well as all 
 newcomers, for social participation in the 
 manifold phases of modern life. The best 
 instrument for this undertaking is the pub- 
 lic educational system, from kindergarten 
 through university. 
 
 WHY WE SUPPORT EDUCATION 
 
 There are persons who are still lukewarm 
 or dubious about the mission or the efficacy 
 of the public school supported as a funda- 
 
2 
 
 SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 
 
 mental phase of democratic life. Echoes 
 ' survive of the ideas of Herbert Spencer op- 
 posing education of a man ’s children by the 
 government; and of J. S. Mill, that educa- 
 tion should be at the charge of the parent. 
 On the other hand, strong notes for sup- 
 port and for fearless readjustments of pub- 
 lic education are being sounded to-day by 
 Hall, Charles W. Eliot, Edward C. Elliott, 
 Cubberley, Snedden, Lange, Prosser, Clax- 
 ton, and by a host of trained schoolmen and 
 women of enlightened, democratic spirit. 
 We who are concerned in the promotion of 
 sound principles of thinking especially with 
 regard to pure philosophy, and psychology, 
 and experimental education, and who as 
 practical teachers must often consider the 
 application of principles of science and of 
 ethics to experiments and to hypotheses in 
 human education, a group sitting in an 
 hour of relaxation as citizens, in a momen- 
 tous year, may be permitted to point sig- 
 nificantly to the plain outlines of the com- 
 mon structure of a democratic government 
 and of a public educational system. One 
 could easily adduce expressions from pub- 
 licists and American statesmen firmly as- 
 serting the principle of the oneness of 
 democracy and education. For example, 
 “Educate and inform the whole mass of the 
 people,” said Thomas Jefferson, “no other 
 sure foundation can be devised for the 
 preservation of freedom and happiness.” 
 We prefer for our purpose to tabulate the 
 reasons why a government of true democ- 
 racy, whatever may be its various adminis- 
 trative subdivisions, supports public educa- 
 tion. Reasons why the incorporated peo- 
 ple should establish and maintain educa- 
 tion have been formulated repeatedly by 
 men of renown, from Plato to Woodrow 
 Wilson. A type of education is desirable 
 for civilization even in a monarchy, but 
 that universal education in a democracy is 
 imperative appears from this summary of 
 arguments, which deserve frequent repeti- 
 
 tion before the youth of this country and 
 indeed before all peoples. 
 
 ( a ) Since each child born is a possible 
 factor either toward betterment or destruc- « 
 tion of the state, the state in self -protection 
 must be attentive to the conditions affect- 
 ing the maturing of the plastic generation. 
 The suffrage, the referendum, and the pre- 
 vention of crime and degeneracy, each 
 renders education a necessary measure for 
 social security upon the part of the state. 
 
 (b) The accumulation of knowledge and 
 skill has made man a master of fire and 
 electricity. Through knowledge he has dis- 
 pelled savage superstition, and conquered 
 many plagues, and filled hours of leisure 
 with music, art, and philosophy. Prosper- 
 ity, even sustenance, and adequate supply 
 of food, clothing, and shelter for our en- 
 larging population, measures of military 
 and naval defense, the fact of competition 
 in commerce and industry, the disappear- 
 ance of apprenticeship, the necessity of 
 transmission of culture, and morality, and 
 law to our successors — these vital condi- 
 tions render necessary the support of pub- 
 lic education by concerted action of the 
 people. 
 
 (c) It is a fact in common experience, 
 commemorated by poets more remote than 
 Lucretius, and attested by biology and psy- 
 chology, that peculiarly helpless is the hu- 
 man being in infancy, and a being imma- 
 ture, sensitively responsive to physical or 
 psychic stimuli which environ him at birth, 
 and during infancy, childhood and adoles- 
 cence. As the lungs have a right to air, 
 the stomach to food, eyes to sunlight — a 
 democratic view of life is that every child 
 has a birthright to that environment best 
 suited to his potentially useful capacities. 
 The state controls this general environment 
 into which the child is bom perforce, and 
 therefore the state must assure to every 
 child his share of a birthright, an environ- 
 
SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 
 
 3 
 
 ment indicated best, we believe, by the con- 
 cept ‘‘education.” 
 
 ( d ) The task of public education is so 
 • stupendous that only by the authority, 
 powers, and resources of government can it 
 be established and maintained. The lead- 
 ership and supreme authority in public 
 education upon the part of authorized or- 
 ganization of the whole people, are not in- 
 consistent with the operation of other use- 
 ful agencies in education, private or de- 
 nominational, conducted compatibly with 
 the sound principles of humanism, prin- 
 ciples which, we have faith to believe, are 
 at the basis of true Americanism. The 
 state has not only power and money to sup- 
 port education, but the state alone can en- 
 force universal standards regarding the 
 health, the intellectual, and the industrial 
 training, and ethical rules, which stand- 
 ards are both incentives and also safe- 
 guards in the development of all the 
 people. 
 
 (e) Public education in an enlarged and 
 enlightened sense is in fact an aspect of 
 democracy, one inevitable form of its ex- 
 pression. 
 
 Better realization of the possibilities of 
 democracy in assuring life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness, and more money 
 for the school, might come from general de- 
 liberation upon these well-known reasons 
 for the support of education by every 
 phase of our organized people, be it fed- 
 eral, state, county, township, municipality, 
 or other contributory agencies. It is op- 
 portune in this connection also to bring in 
 rapid review before the people certain basal 
 facts about education, its instruments, the 
 difficulties, and the present status of this 
 our greatest American undertaking. The 
 broadening relations of education empha- 
 size the truth that many elements and 
 changes other than the teacher and the 
 school are operative in modifying the hu- 
 man organism. It is necessary only to 
 
 hint at the possible effects of climate, heat, 
 cold, moisture, dryness, proximity or re- 
 moteness from the sea, disease, occupation, 
 the family, the crowd, the church, the 
 press, the theater, peace, war, upon indi- 
 viduals, groups, or races. So impressive is 
 the magnitude of modern education ma- 
 chinery that the incessant operation of 
 these agencies in innumerable forms may 
 be forgotten if we neglect the fundamental 
 characteristics of formal education as an 
 undertaking to change, to develop or to 
 suppress, the original inheritances of man’s 
 nature. 
 
 EDUCATION IS CHANGE 
 
 We may not be able directly to cause or 
 to prevent desired changes in the young 
 generation dwelling daily for some years 
 within the schoolhouse. It is convenient, 
 when we define education as a formal proc- 
 ess, to say, according to Thorndike, that it 
 is an effort ‘ ‘ to cause or to prevent changes 
 in human beings” — and, we add regret- 
 fully, in actual practise, with or without a 
 definite aim or ideal upon the part of the 
 educator. At best, we can only manipulate 
 stimuli and environment in a manner con- 
 ducive to the desired changes in the hu- 
 man organism. Education is not properly 
 a daily task for a sleepy pedagogue, a 
 pedant, or a mere wage-earner. There are 
 profound problems in physics, chemistry, 
 zoology, physiology, psychology, as well as 
 in ethics, and economics, before the profes- 
 sional educator of to-morrow. Two sub- 
 jects at this point are suggested which con- 
 cern the more perfect realization of an edu- 
 cational system, considered as an integral 
 part of our developing structure of democ- 
 racy. These subjects are: The nature of 
 universal education, and the organization 
 and practical administration of universal 
 education. 
 
 Public education as a deliberate attempt 
 upon the part of the state to change and 
 
4 
 
 SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 
 
 mold human (beings can have no narrow 
 aim, restricted ideals, or he an exclusive 
 privilege of caste, of sect, of wealth, or of 
 poverty. The process touches all ages of 
 men, both sexes, all races, and is to be artic- 
 ulated with all useful occupations of agri- 
 culture, forestry, animal husbandry ; of the 
 extraction of minerals ; of the manufactur- 
 ing and mechanical industries of the fac- 
 tory, building or hand-trades ; of commerce ; 
 of public service; of professional service; 
 of domestic and personal activities ; or with 
 the merely clerical occupations. Universal 
 education includes in its scope appropri- 
 ate training in skill, or in knowledge, of 
 those human beings who exhibit extreme 
 individual variation from their kind, 
 whether the variation be destructive or ab- 
 normal, or of unusual mental capacity, the 
 supernormal, or of the defective — such as 
 the feeble-minded, the confirmed delin- 
 quent, and the blind, and the deaf, and the 
 crippled. There are kindergartens, pri- 
 mary grades, grammar grades, intermedi- 
 ate schools, junior high schools, classical 
 high schools, commercial high schools, tech- 
 nical high schools, industrial, trade, con- 
 tinuation, part-time and evening schools. 
 Scores of differentiations in school work 
 to adapt better the school to individual and 
 community need are familiar, e. g., open-air 
 classes, oral teaching of the deaf, classes for 
 epileptics, schools for the preventive mode 
 of attack upon vice and crime. And in 
 addition, utilized by a fractional percent- 
 age of our population, there are the col- 
 leges, the professional schools, and the uni- 
 versities. Whatever may be one’s verbal 
 definition of universal education, a glimpse 
 of this list of typical kinds of educational 
 machinery at work in our country reveals 
 the presence of multitudinous, formal in- 
 struments of education which, if they were 
 consciously coordinated for the higher pur- 
 poses of democracy conceived as organ- 
 ized humanism, would constitute a near- 
 
 realization of universal education in prac- 
 tise. 
 
 Both the common striving for universal 
 education and the vigorous expression of 
 individualism are witnessed in these mul- 
 titudinous forms of educational machinery. 
 The present status is not without danger, 
 lest conflict, waste and chaos result from 
 the failure to coordinate the whole school 
 machinery of the nation, through the 
 power of broadly democratic and pure 
 educational ideals, clarified and made con- 
 trolling in the thinking, customs, and laws 
 of our swelling population. The difficul- 
 ties of teachers in mental reconstruction, in 
 surrendering prejudices, or, at least, in 
 keeping in proper relation those educa- 
 tional aims or ends which are immediate or 
 proximate in nature, distinct from those 
 ends, aims and ideals which are consum- 
 mate or ultimate in nature, are a persist- 
 ent obstruction to better realization of uni- 
 versal education. The traditional notions of 
 formal and of mental discipline, culture, 
 development, utility, knowledge, as aims in 
 education doubtless will continue, but they 
 will be subordinated to the ultimate aim of 
 education for service, an education produc- 
 ing men and women who live in health, in 
 economic productivity, and in observance 
 of standards of conduct, and in the happi- 
 ness of brotherhood, whatever be the occu- 
 pation or status of the individual. 
 Neither crass materialism, on the one 
 hand, nor obsolete asceticism, on the other, 
 will suffice in place of this unifying con- 
 ception of the mission of public education. 
 
 UNDERSTANDING AND COOPERATION VS. FORCE 
 
 We hope that the coordination, organiza- 
 tion, and practical adminstration of all the 
 resources of investment, income, officials, 
 and teachers enlisted in public education, 
 may be accomplished through the spread 
 of such idealism, and of clear-cut compre- 
 hensions of educational science, rather than 
 
SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 
 
 5 
 
 by the sudden centralizing of political 
 power in education, or by undemocratic im- 
 position of force. Thus may we hope to 
 bring into more effective articulation not 
 only the diverse forms of education main- 
 tained by the state, but also to include in 
 this articulation more satisfactorily to all 
 concerned the educational instruments of 
 the church, and of endowed institutions. 
 The unsatisfactory organization of Ameri- 
 can education, of course, can be under- 
 stood only by reference to conditions of its 
 origin. Not referred to in the federal con- 
 stitution, public education was an interest 
 left to the states. The development of fed- 
 eral policies toward education has been 
 slow but positive, as evinced by land 
 grants, the establishment of the Bureau of 
 Education, the passage of the Morrill Act, 
 the Smith-Lever Act and the direct partici- 
 pation of governmental authorities in the 
 educational work of Hawaii, the Philip- 
 pines, Alaska, Porto Rico, and lastly, by 
 the enactment recently of the Smith- 
 Hughes Act. We interpret the federal pol- 
 icy as one of encouragement, enlightenment 
 and aid toward education. Direction 
 toward uniformity and minimal essentials, 
 where these are desirable, without cramp- 
 ing individual or local initiative, is an in- 
 creasing tendency discerned especially in 
 the splendid Smith-Hughes Act, the active 
 administration of which by the new federal 
 board will be observed keenly by practi- 
 tioners and idealists in education. 
 
 PROGRESS AGAINST OBSTACLES 
 
 Equally interesting are the present 
 status and the evolution of characteristic 
 state, county, township, town and munici- 
 pal organizations of education within our 
 forty-eight states. Public education has 
 developed in spite of early conditions 
 against education — the primitive condi- 
 tions of the wilderness, of poverty, per- 
 sistent ideas of caste, and amid the rapid 
 
 changes due to exploration, increasing 
 population, and the production and ex- 
 penditure of amazing wealth. Students of 
 educational organization, to-day surveying 
 the failures and successes in our administra- 
 tion of education, are able with some certi- 
 tude to draw the outlines of better, if not 
 ideal, organization of the forces of state, 
 county, and municipality. The important 
 distinctions between the lay function of 
 educational control — that of legislation, 
 consideration of policies, finance, and the 
 employment of experts, and the profes- 
 sional function, whether of the expert exec- 
 utive, the director of departments, super- 
 visors, principals or teachers, are distinc- 
 tions being better recognized. Boards and 
 superintendents and teachers are improv- 
 ing. Nevertheless, the reign of the district 
 trustee is not ended. To the number of 
 thirty thousand or more in some states he 
 combines in his zealous holding to an ex- 
 ploded notion of democracy, a varied and 
 paralyzing, educational control of the 
 schools. Rural education suffers from the 
 delay in sensible county reorganization. 
 Municipalities are showing encouraging 
 tendencies toward the small school board 
 appointive, or elective at large, with the 
 services of a trained and professional su- 
 perintendent, but there are cities whose 
 schools still remain under the domination 
 of political rings, and there are, alas, a few 
 superintendents in name who are mere 
 tools of cliques, excrescences upon both edu- 
 cation and American democracy. Statistics 
 show that the leadership in great things has 
 been held by men and women trained in our 
 higher institutions of learning. This is a 
 tribute to the efficiency of the hundreds of 
 noble men and women who have given their 
 lives to labors of instruction and research 
 within our higher institutions. Their pro- 
 duction of leadership does not seem to di- 
 minish. However, our universities — state, 
 endowed, and denominational, and our col- 
 
6 
 
 SCHOOL AND SOCIETY 
 
 leges, and normal schools, are undergoing 
 scrutiny, questioning, and wholesome trans- 
 formation. In the process of self-examina- 
 tion some strange products of the system of 
 selection of men by mere criteria of de- 
 grees and publications, or worse — by sole 
 criteria of social or political influence, are 
 occasionally uncovered. Here and there 
 men are found in normal schools, colleges 
 and universities, posing as peculiarly fit 
 teachers of chosen youths of this democratic 
 nation, men who might be employed better 
 at manual labor, or in a clerkship. Ego- 
 tism and oracularism parading in the name 
 of science, complacency in the guise of the 
 professional philosopher, ignorance, and bad 
 manners in the guise of a type of culture, 
 anti-American and anti-social notions 
 flaunted in the name of progressivism, 
 small souls striving for livelihood, con- 
 spicuity, or leadership — such as these are 
 aliens in the sphere of education for democ- 
 racy. 
 
 We need clearer conceptions of the sig- 
 nificance and necessity of universal educa- 
 tion, abandonment by educators and by 
 , business men, of narrow, selfish or per- 
 verted aims or propaganda. We need selec- 
 tion and reward of teachers, renewed co- 
 operation by all agencies in education in 
 order to conduct an education suited for 
 life in our American democracy, which to- 
 day presents the greatest opportunity of 
 the world ’s history wherein to work out the 
 ideals of human brotherhood. By a turn- 
 ing to practical idealism by our people, we 
 
 could work profitably for democracy. If 
 philosophers and psychologists and teach- 
 ers could help to disseminate to the people 
 clearer conceptions, expressed in simple 
 terms although based on research, about the 
 nature of education, and its inevitable rela- 
 tions to the fundamentals of democracy, 
 they would render a patriotic service the 
 results of which should be enduring. 
 
 To-day a student from afar observing for 
 the first time the educational systems 
 within all of the United States, from Pacific 
 to Atlantic, might be impressed by three 
 vivid characteristics of our American Edu- 
 cation. First, by the magnitude of present 
 educational efforts, whether estimated by 
 the twenty millions of young lives enrolled, 
 or according to the eight hundred millions 
 of dollars expended yearly for education; 
 secondly, by the variability in educational 
 organizations, administration, methods, and 
 expense ; and thirdly, by the persistence of 
 certain fundamental convictions, aspira- 
 tions, and of faith toward education, in the 
 minds of our one hundred millions of peo- 
 ple. Now that the pillars of civilization 
 tremble, well may we pause to scrutinize 
 our educational system as it affects democ- 
 racy, to examine present democracy as af- 
 fecting education, and to consider both edu- 
 cation and democracy in the light of 
 human experience, in order that we may 
 renew our zeal for our country and our be- 
 lief in humanity. 
 
 David Spence Hill 
 The University of Wisconsin