2. The Democratic Ideal.
—The two elements in our criterion both point to democracy. The
first signifies not only more numerous and more varied points of shared
common interest, but greater reliance upon the recognition of mutual
interests as a factor in social control. The second means not only
freer interaction between social groups ( once isolated so far as
intention could keep up a separation ) but change in social
habit—its continuous readjustment through meeting the new
situations produced by varied intercourse. And these two traits are
precisely what characterize the democratically constituted society.
Upon the educational side, we note first that the realization of a form
of social life in which interests are mutually interpenetrating, and
where progress, or readjustment, is an important consideration, makes a
democratic community more interested than other communities have cause
to be in deliberate and systematic education. The devotion of democracy
to education is a familiar fact. The superficial explanation is that a
government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless
those who elect and who obey their governors are educated. Since a
democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority, it
must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest; these can
be created only by education. But there is a deeper explanation. A
democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of
associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. The extension
in space of the number of individuals who participate in an interest so
that each has to refer his own action to that of others, and to consider
the action of others to give point and direction to his own, is
equivalent to the breaking down of those barriers of class, race, and
national territory which kept men from perceiving the full import of
their activity. These more numerous and more varied points of contact
denote a greater diversity of stimuli to which an individual has to
respond; they consequently put a premium on variation in his action.
They secure a liberation of powers which remain suppressed as long as
the incitations to action are partial, as they must be in a group which
in its exclusiveness shuts out many interests.
The widening of the area of shared concerns, and the liberation of a
greater diversity of personal capacities which characterize a democracy,
are not of course the product of deliberation and conscious effort. On
the contrary, they were caused by the development of modes of
manufacture and commerce, travel, migration, and intercommunication
which flowed from the command of science over natural energy. But after
greater individualization on one hand, and a broader community of
interest on the other have come into existence, it is a matter of
deliberate effort to sustain and extend them. Obviously a society to
which stratification into separate classes would be fatal, must see to
it that intellectual opportunities are accessible to all on equable and
easy terms. A society marked off into classes need he specially
attentive only to the education of its ruling elements. A society which
is mobile, which is full of channels for the distribution of a change
occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated to
personal initiative and adaptability. Otherwise, they will be
overwhelmed by the changes in which they are caught and whose
significance or connections they do not perceive. The result will be a
confusion in which a few will appropriate to themselves the results of
the blind and externally directed activities of others.
