2. The Present Situation. If the Aristotelian conception
represented just Aristotle's personal view, it would be a more or
less interesting historical curiosity. It could be dismissed as
an illustration of the lack of sympathy or the amount of academic
pedantry which may coexist with extraordinary intellectual gifts.
But Aristotle simply described without confusion and without that
insincerity always attendant upon mental confusion, the life that
was before him. That the actual social situation has greatly
changed since his day there is no need to say. But in spite of
these changes, in spite of the abolition of legal serfdom, and
the spread of democracy, with the extension of science and of
general education (in books, newspapers, travel, and general
intercourse as well as in schools), there remains enough of a
cleavage of society into a learned and an unlearned class, a
leisure and a laboring class, to make his point of view a most
enlightening one from which to criticize the separation between
culture and utility in present education. Behind the
intellectual and abstract distinction as it figures in
pedagogical discussion, there looms a social distinction between
those whose pursuits involve a minimum of self-directive thought
and aesthetic appreciation, and those who are concerned more
directly with things of the intelligence and with the control of
the activities of others.
Aristotle was certainly permanently right when he said that "any
occupation or art or study deserves to be called mechanical if it
renders the body or soul or intellect of free persons unfit for
the exercise and practice of excellence.
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