It is highly important for the study of education that a consistent nomenclature be adopted and used, though for a variety of reasons this is a difficult task to accomplish. Bearing in mind this need, I have endeavored to mark off different types or grades of educational institutions from each other, and to give to each its appropriate name. Many American educational problems that appear very complex would become much simpler if the various institutions giving systematic instruction were always called each by its right name. and The serious student of education must, as Education has already been indicated, be a serious stu- philosophy dent of philosophy as well. In America, philosophy has been for some time past in a parlous state. A generation arose that knew not philosophy, but that was very desirous of continuing to use the name. In various forms and with varying degrees of vigor, philosophy has been repudiated in quasi-philosophical language. The intellectual sincerity of the expounders of what is called Pragmatism has diverted attention from the fact that Pragmatism is not a philosophy at all, but rather a denial that philosophy can exist. With the title of the New Realism, a group of younger writers and teachers has thought it worth while to repeat Human personality and educational theory with no little ingenuity, and to endeavor to perpetuate, some of the oldest and most thoroughly exposed of philosophical errors. Both these movements are revivals of that dogmatism in philosophy which it was hoped had been put to rest forever by the criticism of Kant. Whenever a philosophical writer or teacher attempts to build up a system of philosophy without a foundation which rests upon a critical analysis of the process of knowingwhat the Germans call Erkenntnisstheorie—it may be assumed at once that he is not contributing to philosophy, but rather attacking it with the weapons of dogmatism. Similarly, all undertakings that have for their purpose the application of scientific method to philosophy are themselves proof that the gulf which separates science and philosophy is neither under⚫ stood nor measured. To speak of extending scientific method to philosophy is just as little intelligible as it would be to speak of extending the metric system to political theory. The dignity and worth of human personality lie at the basis of all constructive theories of education, as they lie at the basis of all constructive theories of social and political organi 1 See Butler, Philosophy (Columbia University Press, 1911), PP. 12-24. zation and action. The development, the protection, and the enrichment of human personalities are alike the purpose of education and of those larger relationships and interdependences which constitute the state. In a very real sense, formal education may be described as the process by which the present uses the lessons and the experience of the past to aid in meeting the needs and solving the problems of the immediate future. Education is by its very nature forward-facing. It aims to prepare human beings for life. The measure of its success will always be the understanding which it has of the terms, human being and life. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW York, November 25, 1915 |