3. Some Social Aspects of the Question. While the theoretical errors of which we have been speaking have their expressions in the conduct of schools, they are themselves the outcome of conditions of social life. A change confined to the theoretical conviction of educators will not remove the difficulties, though it should render more effective…[Read more]

2. The Importance of the Idea of Interest in Education. Interest represents the moving force of objects—whether perceived or presented in imagination—in any experience having a purpose. In the concrete, the value of recognizing the dynamic place of interest in educative development is that it leads to considering individual children in their spe…[Read more]

Clearly, there are two factors in the will. One has to do with the foresight of results, the other with the depth of hold the foreseen outcome has upon the person.

(I) Obstinacy is persistence but it is not the strength of volition. Obstinacy may be mere animal inertia and insensitiveness. A man keeps on doing a thing just because he has got…[Read more]

General or comprehensive aims are points of view for surveying the specific problems of education. Consequently, it is a test of the value of the manner in which any large end is stated to see if it will translate readily and consistently into the procedures which are suggested by another. We have applied this test to three general aims:…[Read more]

Culture as Aim. Whether or not social efficiency is an aim which is consistent with culture turns upon these considerations. Culture means at least something cultivated, something ripened; it is opposed to the raw and crude. When the “natural” is identified with this rawness, culture is opposed to what is called natural development. Culture is…[Read more]

Social Efficiency as Aim. A conception which made nature supply the end of a true education and society the end of an evil one could hardly fail to call out a protest. The opposing emphasis took the form of a doctrine that the business of education is to supply precisely what nature fails to secure; namely, the habituation of an individual to…[Read more]

The actual and implicit practice and the conscious or stated aim thus balance each other. At different times such aims as complete living, better methods of language study, the substitution of things for words, social efficiency, personal culture, social service, complete development of personality, encyclopedic knowledge, discipline, an esthetic…[Read more]

An aim denotes the result of any natural process brought to consciousness and made a factor in determining present observation and choice of ways of acting. It signifies that an activity has become intelligent. Specifically, it means foresight of the alternative consequences attendant upon acting in a given situation in different ways, and the use…[Read more]

Applications in Education. There is nothing peculiar about educational aims. They are just like aims in any directed occupation. The educator, like the farmer, has certain things to do, certain resources with which to do, and certain obstacles with which to contend. The conditions with which the farmer deals, whether as obstacles or resources,…[Read more]

The Criteria of Good Aims. We may apply the results of our discussion to a consideration of the criteria involved in the correct establishing of aims. (1) The aim set up must be an outgrowth of existing conditions. It must be based upon a consideration of what is already going on; upon the resources and difficulties of the situation. Theories…[Read more]

Our first question is to define the nature of an aim so far as it falls within an activity, instead of being furnished from without. We approach the definition by the contrast of mere results with ends. Any exhibition of energy has results. The wind blows about the sands of the desert; the position of the grains is changed. Here is a result, an…[Read more]

Since education is a social process, and there are many kinds of societies, a criterion for educational criticism and construction implies a particular social ideal. The two points selected that are used to measure the worth of a form of social life are the extent in which the interests of a group are shared by all its members and the fullness and…[Read more]

5. Education as National and as Social. As soon as the first enthusiasm for freedom waned, the weakness of the theory on the constructive side became obvious. Merely to leave everything to nature was, after all, but to negate the very idea of education; it was to trust to the accidents of circumstance. Not only was some method required but also…[Read more]