1. The Environment as Directive.
—We now pass to one of the special forms which the general
function of education assumes: namely, that of direction, control, or
guidance. Of these three words, direction, control, and guidance, the
last best conveys the idea of assisting through coöperation the natural
capacities of the individuals guided; control conveys rather the notion
of an energy brought to bear from without and meeting some resistance
from the one controlled; direction is a more neutral term and suggests
the fact that the active tendencies of those directed are led in a
certain continuous course, instead of dispersing aimlessly. Direction
expresses the basic function, which tends at one extreme to become a
guiding assistance and at another, a regulation or ruling. But in any
case, we must carefully avoid a meaning sometimes read into the term
"control." It is sometimes assumed, explicitly or unconsciously, that
an individual's tendencies are naturally purely individualistic or
egoistic, and thus antisocial. Control then denotes the process by
which he is brought to subordinate his natural impulses to public or
common ends. Since, by conception, his own nature is quite alien to
this process and opposes it rather than helps it, control has in this
view a flavor of coercion or compulsion about it. Systems of government
and theories of the state have been built upon this notion, and it has
seriously affected educational ideas and practices. But there is no
ground for any such view. Individuals are certainly interested, at
times, in having their own way, and their own way may go contrary to the
ways of others. But they are also interested, and chiefly interested
upon the whole, in entering into the activities of others and taking
part in conjoint and coöperative doings. Otherwise, no such thing
as a community would be possible. And there would not even be any one
interested in furnishing the policeman to keep a semblance of harmony
unless he thought that thereby he could gain some personal advantage.
Control, in truth, means only an emphatic form of direction of powers,
and covers the regulation gained by an individual through his own
efforts quite as much as that brought about when others take the lead.
In general, every stimulus directs activity. It does not simply excite
it or stir it up, but directs it toward an object. Put the other way
around, a response is not just a re-action, a protest, as it were,
against being disturbed; it is, as the word indicates, an answer. It
meets the stimulus, and corresponds with it. There is an adaptation of
the stimulus and response to each other. A light is the stimulus to the
eye to see something, and the business of the eye is to see. If the
eyes are open and there is light, seeing occurs; the stimulus is but a
condition of the fulfillment of the proper function of the organ, not an
outside interruption. To some extent, then, all direction or control is
a guiding of activity to its own end; it is an assistance in doing fully
what some organ is already tending to do.
This general statement needs, however, to be qualified in two respects.
In the first place, except in the case of a small number of instincts,
the stimuli to which an immature human being is subject are not
sufficiently definite to call out, in the beginning, specific responses.
There is always a great deal of superfluous energy aroused. This energy
may be wasted, going aside from the point; it may also go against the
successful performance of an act. It does harm by getting in the way.
Compare the behavior of a beginner in riding a bicycle with that of the
expert. There is little axis of direction in the energies put forth;
they are largely dispersive and centrifugal. Direction involves a
focusing and fixating of action in order that it may be truly a
response, and this requires an elimination of unnecessary and confusing
movements. In the second place, although no activity can be produced in
which the person does not cooperate to some extent, yet a response may
be of a kind which does not fit into the sequence and continuity of
action. A person boxing may dodge a particular blow successfully, but
in such a way as to expose himself the next instant to a still harder
blow. Adequate control means that the successive acts are brought into
a continuous order; each act not only meets its immediate stimulus but
helps the acts which follow.
In short, direction is both simultaneous and successive. At a given
time, it requires that, from all the tendencies that are partially
called out, those be selected which center energy upon the point of
need. Successively, it requires that each act be balanced with those
which precede and come after, so that order of activity is achieved.
Focusing and ordering are thus the two aspects of direction, one
spatial, the other temporal. The first insures hitting the mark; the
second keeps the balance required for further action. Obviously, it is
not possible to separate them in practice as we have distinguished them
in idea. Activity must be centered at a given time in such a way
as to prepare for what comes next. The problem of the immediate response
is complicated by one's having to be on the lookout for future occurrences.
Two conclusions emerge from these general statements.
On the one hand, purely external direction is impossible. The
environment can at most only supply stimuli to call out responses.
These responses proceed from tendencies already possessed by the
individual. Even when a person is frightened by threats into doing
something, the threats work only because the person has an instinct of
fear. If he has not, or if, though having it, it is under his own
control, the threat has no more influence upon him than light has in
causing a person to see who has no eyes. While the customs and rules of
adults furnish stimuli which direct as well as evoke the activities of
the young, the young, after all, participate in the direction which
their actions finally take. In the strict sense, nothing can be forced
upon them or into them. To overlook this fact means to distort and
pervert human nature. To take into account the contribution made by the
existing instincts and habits of those directed is to direct them
economically and wisely. Speaking accurately, all direction is but
re-direction; it shifts the activities already going on into another
channel. Unless one is cognizant of the energies which are already in
operation, one's attempts at direction will almost surely go amiss.
On the other hand, the control afforded by the customs and regulations
of others may be short-sighted. It may accomplish its immediate effect,
but at the expense of throwing the subsequent action of the person out
of balance. A threat may, for example, prevent a person from doing
something to which he is naturally inclined by arousing fear of
disagreeable consequences if he persists. But he may be left in the
position which exposes him later on to influences which will lead him to
do even worse things. His instincts of cunning and slyness may be
aroused, so that things henceforth appeal to him on the side of evasion
and trickery more than would otherwise have been the case. Those
engaged in directing the actions of others are always in danger of
overlooking the importance of the sequential development of those they
direct.
