Arnold Tompkins

“ However much the realist may insist on keeping the feet on the firm earth of facts, he betrays a consciousness of a deeper truth, namely, some ideal condition of things to be reached by his insistence; and however much the idealist may be inspired by bright visions of a better world, he must yet keep his standing ground in the present, real world. Neither the realist nor the idealist can think and plan and purpose except by the reaction of the ideal upon the real. Unattainable ideals may be the discouragement of life, yet none can live and act except under the law which they impose. ”

“ The ultimate social standard is found in the individual; social organization must always be considered as a means of self-realization. Sociology thus furnishes a means which pedagogy must recognize, while pedagogy furnishes to sociology the laws of individual development by which sociology must regulate itself. It thus appears that pedagogy has the broader field, in that it considers man in relation to his whole environment, but on the other hand it must be observed that sociology takes into account all instrumentalities of education as a part and function of the social structure. ”

“ In man the infinite striving becomes a conscious process. He recognizes the duality in his nature, and projects his ideal, potential self as the guide, motive and law of life. With the immature there may be only a vague longing "for a good comprehended not," but man, as a rational being, may lay hold upon the other self, and further its interests by his own plan and purpose.
In its broadest aspect the tension between the ideal and the real is the fundamental fact of all subjects of study, especially those dealing with mind and life. ”

“ There is no thought and life except in and through the tension between the ideal and the real. Sociology and pedagogy exhibit man in conscious tension with himself,—in conscious effort for self-realization. Self-realization, and not self-preservation, is the highest law of life; and sociology and pedagogy are both specific manifestations of that law. These two subjects, taken in their fullest sense, constitute the theory and art of self-control to the end of a more perfect life in the individual. ”

“ Pedagogy considers how man is developed through his total environment of man and nature, while sociology considers only the relation of the individual to his social environment. While pedagogy is based on the relation of the individual to his objective and universal self, sociology is based on the relation of the individual to the institutions of society as the projected realization of the self. Sociology has to consider the adjustment of the tension between man's social environment and his individual welfare. ”

“ In all cases the fundamental law requires that the pupil see the institution as his own true nature objectified—as himself externalized, and render obedience to it as to his own true self. Such is the ethics which all institutional life enforces. Without institutional life there would be little or no leverage for ethical training. Sociology must expound, and pedagogy must recognize, institutional life as requiring the highest exercise of the ethical faculty of the individual. School management must recognize that the school virtues are exactly the social virtues. ”

“ As a pedagogical discipline, apart from any direct connection, the study of sociology is of the greatest value. In grasping the marvelously complex whole of society into organic unity one has training in a most valuable pedagogical conception, namely, that the world which forms the individual's environment, while infinitely varied, is a closely integrated unity. ”

“ Thus all institutions are but the externalized self of the individual,—his psychology made manifest and tangible. Through institutional life the individual can transmute his own specialized form of activity into the most skillful physician, lawyer, pilot, merchant, minister, etc. ”

“ All other subjects show man in action under this law of self-realization through self-activity, but these two subjects are based on a direct consciousness of the law, and are phases of man's direct and conscious effort to a higher life. ”