" All this
reinforces the statement which opens this chapter: The conception
of education as a social process and function has no definite
meaning until we define the kind of society we have in mind.
These considerations pave the way for our second conclusion. One
of the fundamental problems of education in and for a democratic
society is set by the conflict of a nationalistic and a wider
social aim. The earlier cosmopolitan and "humanitarian"
conception suffered both from vagueness and from lack of definite
organs of execution and agencies of administration. In Europe,
in the Continental states particularly, the new idea of the
importance of education for human welfare and progress was
captured by national interests and harnessed to do a work whose
social aim was definitely narrow and exclusive. The social aim
of education and its national aim were identified, and the result
was a marked obscuring of the meaning of a social aim.
This confusion corresponds to the existing situation of human
intercourse. On the one hand, science, commerce, and art
transcend national boundaries. They are largely international in
quality and method. They involve interdependencies and
cooperation among the peoples inhabiting different countries. At
the same time, the idea of national sovereignty has never been as
accentuated in politics as it is at the present time. Each
nation lives in a state of suppressed hostility and incipient war
with its neighbors.
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