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.
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