Charles William Eliot and William Allan Neilson

“ THE CONFLICT OF MAN WITH NATURE
But whence arises that phase of the conflict with nature out of which grows the conflict between man and man? Is man in any way responsible for it, or is it due wholly to the harshness or the niggardliness of nature? The fruitfulness of nature varies, of course, in different environments. But in any environment there are two conditions, for both of which man is in a measure responsible, and either of which will result in economic scarcity. One is the indefinite expansion of human wants, and the other is the multiplication of numbers. ”

“ Any play is so planned that it can produce its exact effect only with its required scenery, lighting, and acting. And that acting means the gesture, movement, and voice of the actor. Above all, it means the voice, the instrument which conveys to the audience the exact shade of meaning of the author and, like music, opens up the emotions. Drama read to oneself is never drama at its best, and is not even drama as it should be. Usually, too, just because readers do not recognize the difference between drama and other forms of fiction, they lose the effects they might gain even in reading. ”

“ The spread of public schools is but the obvious outward sign of a growing conviction concerning all educational endeavor. That conviction was long ago proclaimed and has now become a guide to action—the conviction that the community has a vital stake in the education of every child. Education is a common concern not merely because there are many children to be educated, but because there can be no significant outcome in the education of any child which is not of importance, not to him only, but also to others, immediately to many, more remotely to all. ”

“ Then, reading sympathetically, thoughtfully, and slowly if need be, visualize the figures as they come and go. The lines of any good play mean more than appears at a hasty glance. They have been chosen not simply because they say what the character might have said, but because what is said will advance the plot, and, because better than some half dozen other phrases considered by the author, they will rouse the emotions of the audience. Keep the sympathetic, not the critical mood, to the fore. Reading to visualize, feel because you visualize, and feel as fully as you can. ”

“ The very fact of scarcity means necessarily that if one desire is satisfied it is at the expense of some other. What I spend for luxuries I cannot spend for necessaries; what I spend for clothing I cannot spend for food; and what I spend for one kind of food I cannot spend for some other kind. This is the situation which calls for economy, since to economize is merely to choose what desires shall be gratified, knowing that certain others must, on that account, remain ungratified. Economy always and everywhere means a three-fold conflict ”

“ They asked him: "Master, so many teachers come to us with their doctrines. Who of them is right and who is wrong?" "Not because it is tradition," he answers, "not because it has been handed down from one to another, not because ye think 'Our teacher is one to whom great deference is due,' should ye accept a doctrine. When, O Kālāmans, when ye of yourselves recognize that such and such things are bad and conduce to evil and sorrow, then do ye reject them." [9] And again, "When a man's conviction of a truth is dependent on no one but himself, this, O Kaccāna, is what constitutes Right Belief." ”

“ But the essential conditions of freedom cannot be established through education; only the love of it, the understanding of it, and the power and will to use it for service can be gained from the most liberalizing of curricula. The possibility and the extension of freedom are the work of direct social and political reform. It is futile, meanwhile, to insist that liberal studies shall be all that schools shall offer. It is simple error to insist that a traditional range of studies—the classics, science, mathematics, even history, or English—provide the only possible culture for freedom. ”

“ The things toward which we must practice economy come to be esteemed or evaluated in a very direct and practical sense which is not true of anything else. When we desire a thing and desire more than we have, we not only try to get more, either by purchase or by production, but the more intensely we desire more of it the more we will give in exchange for a given unit of it, or the harder we will try to produce more of it. This process of evaluation gives such a thing power in exchange in proportion to its scarcity, or rather in proportion to the intensity of our desire for more. ”

“ Let us imagine a limited number of individuals living in a very favorable environment, where all their wants could be freely and fully gratified, where there was no scarcity nor any need for economy. Under a harmony with nature so nearly perfect as this, there could arise none of those conflicts of interests within the individual, since the gratification of one desire would never be at the expense of some other; nor could there arise any conflict of interests among individuals, since the gratification of one individual's desire would never prevent the gratification of another's. ”

“ No one can think with penetration upon the results of education who does not come at last to a fuller vision of the interdependence of men. That men shall live less and less each for himself, more and more each for the common good, is not merely a consequence of increasing numbers on the earth, but an essential condition of human progress, in the individual as well as in society. ”

“ If we assume that nature is beneficent and man at fault, the conclusion follows as a matter of course that desires must be curbed and brought into harmony with nature, which is closely akin to Stoicism, if it be not its very essence. But if, on the contrary, we assume that human nature is sound, then the only practical conclusion is that external nature must be coerced into harmony with man's desires and made to yield more and more for their satisfaction. This is the theory of the modern industrial spirit in its wild pursuit of wealth and luxury. ”

“ The first task of any teacher is to teach his subject well, but he cannot leave the social interpretation and application of education wholly to principals, parents, school pamphlets, and chance. If the public is to value the teacher's work more highly, he must make it more valuable.
To become more valuable, teaching must develop both a science and a philosophy of its own, teachers must study their problems as physicians study theirs and as statesmen theirs. For the problems of teaching are at once problems of efficiency and problems of destiny. ”

“ ASTRONOMY was destined to liberate the modern intellect from the bondage of the Middle Ages, and by teaching man that the earth is not the fixed center of the universe, but a satellite of one among many stars, to shake the confidence with which he had long regarded the universe as made for him, the earth for his abode, the heavens for his enjoyment. ”

“ It cannot be said, of course, that schools should be established to train men for every calling in which they may earn a good living. A school may be established as much to teach men the value of training for knowledge and power in a special form of service as to prepare individuals to profit by rendering that service; for it is only in the end that economic demand justly reflects true social need. Accordingly, the public interest calls upon the educator to define social need and correct social demand, no less than to meet it. ”

“ After adolescence many pupils lack incentive for an education that has no direct reference to a career. But the demand for vocational training is so overlaid and entangled with economic pressure that selection of candidates for vocational schooling on the ground of individual aptitude and free choice is visionary. While our social system permits comparative poverty to constrain the vast majority of young men and women to go to work at the earliest possible age, we must face the necessity of early specialization in training, whatever their capacity or need for further general culture. ”

“ If one were to make much of this qualification, he would probably choose to divorce the word wealth from well-being, and define it as scarce means of satisfying desires.
Any of these definitions will be found to harmonize perfectly with another that has had some currency, namely, that wealth is the collective name for all goods which have value or power in exchange; for only those things which are desirable and scarce will have power in exchange, or value. In fact they are evaluated, bought and sold, solely because they are scarce and some one wants more than he has. ”

“ There may be innumerable cases where all human interests harmonize, but these give rise to no problem and therefore we do not need to concern ourselves with them. As already pointed out, there are many cases where man and nature are in complete harmony. There are things, for example, which nature furnishes in sufficient abundance to satisfy all our wants, but these also give rise to no problem. Toward these non-economic goods our habitual attitude is one of indifference or unconcern. Where the relations between man and nature are perfect, why should we concern ourselves about them? ”

“ To provide, for every normal individual, whatever his endowment, nurture, or experience, an opportunity to prepare himself for a part in the legitimate work of the world, a share in its proper pleasures, and an understanding of the meaning and value of the life he leads—this is the problem to be solved. What are the things men do in which the public interest calls for intelligence and efficiency such as may be got in schools? ”

“ A social conception of the ends of education finds reason for folk-dancing and pageants in the public schools, but none for the exploitation of children through premature industrial training. The common good demands education for play no less than education for work, education for the larger efficiency of insight, breadth of view, and reflective intelligence no less than education for the narrower efficiency of habit. Democracy cannot perpetuate slavery through schools. ”

“ The idea of scarcity as an essential to the concept of wealth suggests, next, the meaning of economy, which is another fundamental concept of the science of economics. Economy suggests the adjusting of means to ends, making a little go a long way, or, in the last analysis, choosing among one's desires and sacrificing the less important in order that the more important may be satisfied. This choice is forced upon us by the fact of scarcity, without which such choosing would be unnecessary, since we could, if everything were sufficiently abundant, satisfy all our desires without sacrificing any. ”