Civic education

“ With the extension of the suffrage to all classes of the population, poor as well as rich, laborer, as well as employer, there came to thinking men, often for the first time, a realization that general education had become a fundamental necessity for the State, and that the general education of all in the elements of knowledge and civic virtue must now assume that importance in the minds of the leaders of the State that the education of a few for the service of the Church and of the many for simple church membership had once held in the minds of ecclesiastics. ”

“ Personal return cannot be taken into the account; the good to be achieved is primarily a public good, in which the childless also share. And the problems of education are problems of public policy, involving the whole theory of the state, of government, of the social order, and of civic progress. ”

“ I have given proofs, as well as the best of you, of desiring liberty for our country, and I continue to desire it. But I place as a premise the education of the people, so that by means of instruction and work they may have a personality of their own and that they may make themselves worthy of that same liberty. In my writings I have recommended the study of the civic virtues, without which there can be no redemption. I have also written (and my words have been repeated) that [xlv] ”

“ The instruction of the people in every kind of knowledge that can be of use to them in the practice of their moral duties as men, citizens, and Christians, and of their political and civil duties as members of society and freemen, ought to be the care of the public, and of all who have any share in the conduct of its affairs, in a manner that never yet has been practiced in any age or nation. The education here intended is not merely that of the children of the rich and noble, but of every rank and class of people, down to the lowest and poorest. ”

“ XLVII. The best theory of civil society requires, that popular schools open to the children of all classes, and, generally, all public institutes intended for instruction in letters and philosophy, and for conducting the education of the young, should be freed from all ecclesiastical authority, government, and interference, and shonld be fully subjected to the civil and political power, in conformity with the will of rulers and the prevalent opinions of the age. ”

“ Will a democracy proclaiming equality of opportunity as its ideal require an education which unites from the beginning of the child's school life, and for all pupils of the school, learning and social application, ideas and practice, work and recognition of the meaning of what is done? ”

“ Norwick, 441 U.S. 68, 76-77, 99 S.Ct. 1589, 1594, 60 L.Ed.2d 49 (1979) , we echoed the essence of this statement of the objectives of public education as the “inculcat [ion of] fundamental values necessary to the maintenance of a democratic political system.” ”

“ This great project of national renewal depends upon true education—not merely training in particular skills, but the formation of citizens. To remain a free people, we must have the knowledge, strength, and virtue of a free people. From families and schools to popular culture and public policy, we must teach our founding principles and the character necessary to live out those principles. ”

“ Out of these great historic movements have come modern scholarship, the inestimable boon of religious liberty, the firm establishment of the idea of the reign of law in an orderly universe, the conception of government as in the interests of the governed, the substitution of democracy and political equality for the rule of a class or an autocratic power, and the assertion of the right to an education at public expense as a birthright of every child. ”

“ Our republic may justly be said to be founded on the intelligence and virtue of the people, and to maintain it, 'the whole force of education is required.' The establishment of common schools appears to be the best plan, that can be devised, to disseminate religion, morality and learning, throughout a whole country. ”

“ More than all else, and as the culmination of all else, we have demonstrated the practicability of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. All this has been made possible by and through a system of universal public education—a system which taxes the whole people, and educates the whole people in good learning, and in the cardinal virtues which adorn, dignify and elevate the individual man and furnish the only security for progressive, successful, illustrious national life. ”

“ In fact, the whole public educational system, if the ideals of humanity as expressed by the labor movement, are to receive adequate consideration in public education, will require reconstruction around the social studies. ”

“ To dream, therefore, in that time, of an educational system, state-administered, state-supported, compulsory, and hence democratic; a system serving the varying need of all individuals, yet aiming in the education of each at a socially valuable result ”

“ I question whether one-quarter of what we call the men educated by the colleges, and in active life—the better education of the two—would be able, arrogating to themselves as they do a far greater political and civil capacity, to state the grounds of civil rights and responsibilities, to mark out the limits, to vindicate the advantages, and to analyze the bases on which these rest, as we have just had it done. ”

“ Public education, therefore, under regulations prescribed by the government, and under magistrates established by the Sovereign, is one of the fundamental rules of popular or legitimate government. If children are brought up in common in the bosom of equality; if they are imbued with the laws of the State and the precepts of the general will; if they are taught to respect these above all things ”

“ To supply such alleviations—to afford to our citizens who are engaged in the employment of active life an opportunity of keeping up, or of renewing their acquaintance with those great branches of knowledge which form the staple of a liberal education—is the object which this Institution has especially at heart. Its aim is to lift you, at times, above the distractions of your worldly cares, and the pursuit of your professional interests, by spreading before you man's fairer heritage of wisdom and of truth ”

“ The common school, the education of all, equality of rights and opportunity, full and equal suffrage, the responsibility of all for the advancement of the common welfare, and liberty under law have been the natural consequences and the outcome of these great struggles to set free and quicken the human spirit. ”

“ And these two traits are precisely what characterize the democratically constituted society.
Upon the educational side, we note first that the realization of a form of social life in which interests are mutually interpenetrating, and where progress, or readjustment, is an important consideration, makes a democratic community more interested than other communities have cause to be in deliberate and systematic education. The devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact. ”

“ While our educational purpose must remain ideal, all education must be brought in closer touch with the work and the problems of to-day. For the safety of democracy and the welfare of society, the social aim in the preparation for citizenship must be given more prominence. ”

“ So the best system of education is that which draws its chief support from the voluntary effort of the community, from the individual effort of citizens, and from those burdens of taxation which they voluntarily impose upon themselves.... Government shall be only a help to them, rather than a commander, in the work of education. [Pg 429]
I would rather be beaten in Right than succeed in Wrong. ”

“ The State, as State, will desire the education of all its citizens. The State, as State, will recognize that the education which it desires means not only the acquisition of knowledge but also, and even more importantly, a real training of moral character. ”

“ We need an education which shall give its facts in the order of their importance; morals and manners based on these facts; and train our personal powers with careful selection, so that each may best serve the community. ”

“ On the theory upon which the state undertakes the education of its youth at all—the necessity of preparing them for intelligent citizenship—a community might better economize, if economize it must, anywhere else than on the beginning. ”

“ If the teaching had the smallest effect in promoting its object, it would compromise not only the utility and even existence of the government education, but perhaps the safety of the government itself. ”

“ Further, if education is to overcome the menaces and solve the dilemma of democracy, it must be carried beyond childhood and youth and outside the walls of academic institutions. The ever wider education of adult citizenship is indispensable to the progress and safety of democracy. ”

“ Instruction in civics should aim to train the mind, to develop political intelligence, to awaken civic consciousness, to interest the pupil in civic duty, and to prepare him, through instruction and practice, for its exercise. The scope of the subject should include actual government as found in the local unit, the State, and the nation, with so much of the history of government as is needed to explain present institutions and conditions. Enough of the theory of government should be given to establish an orderly arrangement of the subject matter in the pupil’s mind. ”

“ Now any well-intentioned and tolerably civilized government may think, without presumption, that it does or ought to possess a degree of cultivation above the average of the community which it rules, and that it should therefore be capable of offering better education and better instruction to the people, than the greater number of them would spontaneously demand. Education, therefore, is one of those things which it is admissible in principle that a government should provide for the people. ”

“ Now education for citizenship would seem to consist in gaining a knowledge of the actual workings of our social organization, with some illuminating notions of its origin, together with a full realization of its defects and their apparent sources. But here we encounter an obstacle that is unimportant in the older types of education, but which may prove altogether fatal to any good results in our efforts to make better citizens. ”

“ To this subject we shall need to turn in more detail presently; here all we need is to premise that the stimulation and mobilisation of common thought requires an education which shall equip the citizen with a system of knowledge and ideas which will enable him to respond to the challenge of the problems of common life and approach them with intelligence and sympathy. No one who is familiar with the proceedings of parliaments and congresses will require proof of the existence of this need. ”

“ To accomplish this work, the democratic education of the whole people, with the aim of making them men, we want public institutions founded by the people, paid for by the public money; institutions well endowed, well attended, watched over well, and proportionably honored; we want teachers, able men, well disciplined, well paid, and honored in proportion to their work. It is a good thing to educate the privileged classes, priests in a theocracy, and gentlemen in an aristocracy. ”

“ They should have, for their services as representatives of the people in the control of the state's highest institutions of learning, a broadly social conception of education, and an understanding of the power of truth, a real love of truth, and a belief in the growth of truth in the life of the individual and the state. ”

“ Whatever the subject-matter, its arrangement and presentation should be so ordered as to inspire and enable the child to make a willing and worthy contribution to the life of his community. But the social emphasis in education, if it is to be true to itself and indeed to the general history of mankind, must define society in wider terms than that of the immediate community. ”

“ The teaching of civics, as it is called, may be of some use in this direction, as showing a boy his points of contact with society. But no instruction in the constitution of society is profitable, unless somehow or other the dutiful motive is kindled, and the heroic virtue of service made beautiful. ”

“ These primitive schools made the children of every neighborhood familiar to each other, and encouraged a homogeneous feeling in the rising population of the State. This sameness of education and of sentiment created a public opinion more efficacious in directing and controlling public morals than any statutory law, or its most efficient administration. ”

“ This task it undertakes not only that it may live as a collective body but also that each citizen may in the best and fullest manner express his own individual life. In this two-fold view of the matter popular education, the putting of all the children of all the people into the best possible schools, under the best possible teachers, for the longest possible time, becomes the sacred and imperative duty of a democracy that cares for to-morrow as well as for to-day. ”

“ The principle that every man is to take a part in the affairs of the community or state to which he belongs seems to be the foundation of the doctrine that every man should be educated to think for himself. Free schools and general education are the natural results of the principles of human equality, which distinguish the people and political systems of America. ”

“ Education for life will necessarily take account of this circumstance—not only because it provides a means of personal satisfaction but also because it might, and properly developed would, become the chief and the most characteristic contribution of the individual to the life and growth of the community. ”