For want of opportunity to put
individuality to some account we frequently fall back on waywardness
in an awkward and futile protest against domination.
While the German scheme of placing its workers is efficient in its own
way, so also is the training for each particular trade. A child is
trained first to be skillful and second, to quote Mr. Kerchensteiner,
"to be willing to carry out some function in the state ... so that
he may directly or indirectly further the aim of the state." "Having
accomplished this," he says "the next duty of the schools is to
accustom the individual to look at his vocation as a duty which he
must carry out not merely in the interest of his own material and
moral welfare but also in the interest of the state." From this, he
says, follows the next and "greatest educational duty of the public
school. The school must develop in its pupils the desire and strength
... through their vocation, to contribute their share so that the
development of the state to which they belong, may progress in the
direction of the ideal of the community."
His assumption in defining the "greatest duty" is that the members of
the state are free to evolve and will evolve a progressive ethical
community. But after a child has passed through the hands of a
competent teaching force which fits him successfully into a ready-made
place, after he has accepted this ready-made place on the authority
of modern technology and business, on the authority of the state
and religion, that the place given him is his to fill; to fill in
accordance with the standards determined by the schools and by
industry--after all this, it is difficult to imagine what else a child
could do but conform.
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