And these habitudes which
lie below the level of reflection are just those which have been
formed in the constant give and take of relationship with others.
4. The School as a Special Environment. The chief importance of
this foregoing statement of the educative process which goes on
willy-nilly is to lead us to note that the only way in which
adults consciously control the kind of education which the
immature get is by controlling the environment in which they act,
and hence think and feel. We never educate directly, but
indirectly by means of the environment. Whether we permit chance
environments to do the work, or whether we design environments
for the purpose makes a great difference. And any environment is
a chance environment so far as its educative influence is
concerned unless it has been deliberately regulated with
reference to its educative effect. An intelligent home differs
from an unintelligent one chiefly in that the habits of life and
intercourse which prevail are chosen, or at least colored, by the
thought of their bearing upon the development of children. But
schools remain, of course, the typical instance of environments
framed with express reference to influencing the mental and moral
disposition of their members.
Roughly speaking, they come into existence when social traditions
are so complex that a considerable part of the social store is
committed to writing and transmitted through written symbols.
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