If there was an error, it lay in
assuming the necessary separation of the two: in supposing that
there is a natural divorce between efficiency in producing
commodities and rendering service, and self-directive thought;
between significant knowledge and practical achievement. We
hardly better matters if we just correct his theoretical
misapprehension, and tolerate the social state of affairs which
generated and sanctioned his conception. We lose rather than
gain in change from serfdom to free citizenship if the most
prized result of the change is simply an increase in the
mechanical efficiency of the human tools of production. So we
lose rather than gain in coming to think of intelligence as an
organ of control of nature through action, if we are content that
an unintelligent, unfree state persists in those who engage
directly in turning nature to use, and leave the intelligence
which controls to be the exclusive possession of remote
scientists and captains of industry. We are in a position
honestly to criticize the division of life into separate
functions and of society into separate classes only so far as we
are free from responsibility for perpetuating the educational
practices which train the many for pursuits involving mere skill
in production, and the few for a knowledge that is an ornament
and a cultural embellishment. In short, ability to transcend the
Greek philosophy of life and education is not secured by a mere
shifting about of the theoretical symbols meaning free, rational,
and worthy.
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