The Psychology of Nations Part 16

Stated in the broadest possible way, the educational problem of our times seems plain. We must lay hold upon and set to work for a higher civilization the motives and purposes that in the past have worked obstructively, and now destructively. A great work of our day is to understand these motives and forces that were the main factors in the cause of the war, and make them count for progress. That they are powerful forces we can have no doubt. They are not for that reason hard to direct, at least not necessarily so. We see that, whether in war or in peace, we need greater power in the social life. Life must be made to satisfy the longing for intensity and abundance of experience. But this abundant life that we now seek cannot be something merely subjective and emotional. To see this is indeed the crucial test. This subjective life cannot remain an ideal in a world determined to become democratic, to make progress, to be a practical and well-coordinated world. Abundant life must now be sought in the performance of functions which express themselves in practical aims and consequences. The prevailing mood and form of this life may still be dramatic, and indeed it must be dramatic. The possession of this quality is the test of its power.

Such views, of course, imply that our practical educational problem is something very different from that of finding an _outlet for emotions_. For example, to search for a subst.i.tute for war now is a superficial way of looking at the problem of the control and education of the social consciousness. We think of the motives that have caused the war, according to these older views, as bad instincts or evil emotions, as we are usually asked to think of the motives behind intemperance, and the habits of gambling and the like. By some form of katharsis we hope to drain off these emotions (unless we undertake merely to suppress them). This we say is a narrow view of the problem, merely because the motives that underlie the conduct we deplore are not _bad instincts_, or indeed instincts as such at all, but rather feelings or moods which are variable in their expression, complex, and educable. They have no definite object of which they are in search, so that we may think the only way to thwart them is to find some object closely resembling theirs which may surrept.i.tiously be subst.i.tuted for them. These motives are indeed broad and general. We must do with them what education must do all along the line, find the fundamental desires they contain and utilize the energies expressed in these desires in the performance of functions--these functions being the purposes most fundamentally at work in the social life or representing our social ideals.

Such an ideal of education invites us to work beneath the political and all formal, inst.i.tutional and merely practical affairs and to lay our foundations in the depths of human nature. There we shall begin to establish or to lay hold upon continuity, and there bring together the fragments of purpose which we find in the life we seek to direct. This which one can so easily say in a sentence is, of course, the whole problem of education. These things are what we must work for in establis.h.i.+ng and sustaining our democracy, for we must, to this end, make forces work together, instead of separately and antagonistically as they themselves tend to do. It is the same problem, at heart, in the education of the individual--to harmonize desires, and to create a higher synthesis of energies than nature itself will yield. And in the new and wider field of international life that opens up before us, the problem is still educational. The educational forces of the world must begin now the gigantic task of national character building. The spirit of the nations, the divergent motives of power, of glory, of comfort and pleasure-seeking that are said to dominate nations, the justice, and loyalty, and steadfastness and truth which at least they put upon their banners and into their songs must be made to work together in a practical and progressive world, or to make such a world possible.

The Germans like to interpret the tricolor of their flag as signifying _Durch Nacht und Blut zur Licht_. But plainly the night and bloodshed do not always lead to light, and of themselves they cannot. Nor, must we think, need the world continue always to seek its way toward light only through the blackness and guilt of wars and revolutions. In some distant day, let us think, justice and morality will have been bred into all the social life, and life will be lived more in the spirit of art and religion. Then they will see that, under the influence of these forces we call now educational, an old order will have given way to a new by imperceptible degrees, and it will be no longer through darkness and bloodshed that the world must make its way to light, but need only go through light to greater light.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following list contains the t.i.tles of a few books and articles that have contributed data or suggestions to this study. It is neither complete nor systematic. Numbers in the text refer to this list.

1. A.W. Small, General Sociology.

2. C. Andler, Frightfulness in Theory and Practice.

3. W.E. Walling, The Sociologists and the War.

4. H. Hauser, Germany's Commercial Grip of the World.

5. J.F. O'Ryan and W.D.A. Anderson, The Modern Army in Action.

6. R. Dunn, Five Fronts.

7. Mrs. Henry Hobhouse, I Appeal Unto Caesar.

8. F.H. Giddings, The Western Hemisphere in the World of To-morrow.

9. O.H. Kahn, Prussianized Germany.

10. C. Mitch.e.l.l, Evolution, and the War.

11. A. Wehrmann, Deutsche Aufsaetze Ueber den Weltkrieg, etc.

12. J.P. Bang, Hurrah and Hallelujah.

13. E. Boutroux, Philosophy and the War.

14. M.A. Morrison, Sidelights on Germany.

15. R. Lehmann, Was Ist Deutsch? (In Vom kommenden Frieden.)

16. Durkheim, Germany Over All.

17. H. Bergson, The Meaning of the War.

18. J. Burnet, Higher Education and the War.

19. C.L. Drawbridge, The War and Religious Ideals.

20. M. Dide, Les Emotions et la Guerre.

21. D.G. Brinton, The Basis of Social Relations.

22. Ernesta R. Bullitt, An Uncensored Diary from the Central Empires.

23. Hundert Briefe Aus dem Felde.

24. Mrs. Denis O'Sullivan, Harry b.u.t.ters "An American Citizen."

25. W. Irwin, Men, Women and War.

26. G. Roethe, Von Deutscher Art and Kultur.

27. J.W. Gerard, My Four Years in Germany.

28. W.R. Roberts, Patriotic Poetry: Greek and English.

29. Schmitz, Das Wirkliche Deutschland.

30. Redier, Comrades in Courage.

31. Igglesden, Out There.

32. Madame Lucy Hoesch-Ernst, Patriotismus und Patriot.i.tis.

33. W.E. Ritter, War, Science and Civilization.

34. Hobhouse, The World in Conflict.

35. G.S. Fullerton, Germany of To-day.

36. A. Pinchot, War and the King Trust.

37. J.T. MacCurdy, The Psychology of War.

38. E.L. Fox, Behind the Scenes in Warring Germany.

39. J. Chapman, Deutschland Ueber Alles.

40. G. Blondel, Les Embarras de l'Allemagne.

41. P. Bigelow, The German Emperor and His Eastern Neighbors.

42. G. Le Bon, The Psychology of the Great War.