On Education

I should like to begin with a statement I made before at a well known place in Cambridge, Mass.

To distribute material goods is to divide them. To distribute spiritual goods is to multiply them.

That is the statement, and I should like to raise the question, which of the two functions, namely to divide and to multiply, is the more profitable one?

The 19th century has tried to convince us that matter governs and conditions spirit, if there is any. And there are still agitators and promoters who want us to continue with this belief.

But our own century, with its leading tendencies (in philosophy, art and religion) and also with its latest and most frightening scientific achievement, is at least inviting us to consider again spirit, spirit above matter.

Life is growth and development, and development means change.

Our heritage of the 19th century namely to see only economic causes for changes in human society or history, is getting antiquated. It proves unsatisfactory if not boring.

We have discovered again that emotions, for instance, love and hate, are more decisive for human action than material gains and losses.

So we must face a change from a period of economic reasoning to a time of psychological reasoning.

And that certainly will have a bearing on education.

Now, after a second world war, we must hope for another change. A change from a belief in external power to a belief in inner strength, or from material power to spiritual strength. That means in practice that leading ourselves stands before and above leading others.

One common way to leadership, or the usual way of gaining influence is organization of others in a movement. But we are wondering now whether this is the best way.

Every movement calls for a counter movement. The result is group stands against group, mass against mass, more and more against more and more. A new imperialism against an old one. So we wonder how far we are from the next war, probably the last of all wars, ending with the final destruction of civilization and culture if not of the human race.

So after the liquidation of one kind of dictatorship let us watch out for another one. After the liquidation of one totalitarianism let us not fall for another one. And we won’t as long as we believe that the development of mankind depends on the development of the individual. (Here I am not speaking for individualization but individualism, which is personal freedom. And by freedom I mean not being free from something but for something).

Those who need an organization of followers for power’s sake are not leaders. Their influence runs as long only as their organization runs. But those who are able to lead themselves to the highest individual development, see the great teachers from Socrates to Einstein, they have lasting influence, independent of organization.

I think it was the Maya Indians who understood that he was the leader who did not want to lead. And I think it is Chinese as well as Plato’s philosophy to consider him the leader who has the highest culture.

If we realize further that external power, in a vicious circle, depends on and aims at possession (in the worst case possession of human beings). If we realize also that inner strength depends only on our own ability and aims at creation and production, then we will understand why the example given in important work is the strongest means of influence, and therefore of education; let us think again of Socrates and other great teachers. Then we will understand why the example, which is only indirect personal influence, is stronger and more lasting than both organization and command. And let us not forget the anonymous great—the good mother, the good craftsman.

If organized power is related to possessiveness, and personal strength demonstrated by creativeness, then it seems worthwhile to distinguish possessive teaching and learning from creative, productive education.

Possessive students I call those who are satisfied with filling the memory with information. The worse are those feeding their pride with grades. Whitehead says: "A merely well informed man is the most useless bore on God’s earth."

The possessive teacher considers his knowledge as his material. He is inclined to have his students study the same things and in the same way as he had to do when he was a student.

To creative, productive education, the individual is the educational material. Here the aim is alike for both student and teacher, namely to discover and to develop ability as well as to discover and develop human relationship.

To educate is to adjust the individual as a whole to community and society as a whole.

If this definition is comprehensive then sound education is neither measured nor accomplished by academic standards.

I do not expect, nor do I consider it necessary, that everybody agrees with my generalizations. I am aware that I haven’t said so far anything specific about our institution here.

As I believe that only continuous revision of our ideas will keep us alive, I have tried only to think over a few basic questions which I consider decisive for our task here.

If we can avoid confusion between means and ends then it doesn’t matter whether others consider us radical or modern or even reactionary. Then we can bear it that first our friends and now our enemies call us progressive. Nor is it of first importance how we ourselves call B M C, an educational community or a liberal arts college.

So I repeat the definition I gave before: to educate is to adjust the individual as a whole to community and society as a whole. And I believe this can be accepted by the radical as well as by the conservative.

If we can realize or embody such understanding of education then we may arrive at a democratic education where different opinions and different developments are accepted and expected.

Where common responsibility will result in productive living and working together; where everybody leads himself before he leads others; where we aim at behavior and culture as well as at knowledge.

Sam Brown, our latest graduate said once something like this: Not everybody is a genius. But at B M C everybody can be important. I should like to extend this remark as an invitation to everybody here. If everybody here does his best then we can expect that our whole College will be important.