The Aim and End of EducationBy Lola Ridge(Former organiser of the Modern School in New York. In “Everyman.”)
By Lola Ridge
(Former organiser of the Modern School in New York. In “Everyman.”)
What do we imagine to be the end and aim of education? Most people will say, the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge of what? Of oneself, of humanity, of life? If this was the ideal, as conceived by the builders of the present system, it has not been attained; or perhaps the system, like a Frankenstein creation, has grown beyond all intent of its sponsors, exhibiting a diabolic and independent will....
Let us examine the effect of public school education upon the psychology of the child; then we shall see if we are “wasting our energies.”
In the first place, no gardener would think ofgiving each plant the same amount of air and sun, and the same quality of soil. Yet this is exactly what you are doing to your children, and there are as many different kinds of children as there are different kinds of flowers. Why pay more attention to the cultivation of a vegetable than to the development of a human being? Each child requires individual attention, individual understanding, and individual mental food.