"[A]
[Footnote A: John Dewey--Democracy and Education, p. 52.]
This provincial desire of individuals to stand apart and prove to
themselves and to others that they are exceptional people is a
primitive ambition in conflict with the actual facts of a present day
society where interdependence is a law of living. This conflict is
kept alive by the industrial motive of exploitation of people and of
wealth. Exploitation precludes sympathy as it precludes growth. "For
sympathy--as a desirable quality is something more than mere feeling;
it is cultivated imagination for what men have in common and rebellion
at whatever unnecessarily divides them." And further, Professor Dewey
remarks: "It must be borne in mind that ultimately social efficiency
means neither more nor less than capacity to share in a give-and-take
experience. It covers all that makes one's own experience more worth
while to others and all that makes one participate more richly in the
worth while experiences of others."[A]
[Footnote A: John Dewey--Democracy and Education, p. 141.]
What Professor Dewey says in reference to the growth of children and
adults is as abundantly significant in its application to society.
"Normal child and normal adult alike ... are engaged in growing. The
difference between them is not the difference between growth and no
growth, but between the modes of growth appropriate to different
conditions. With respect to the development of powers devoted to
coping with specific scientific and economic problems we may say
the child should be growing in manhood.
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