DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21993, 18 January 1937, Page 13

DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION

STUDENTS AND “SOCIAL

REALITIES”

FAMOUS PHILOSOPHER’S WARNING

Democracy, to continue in America, would require a tremendous reorganisation of materials, instruction, and administration in the schools, Dr. John Dewey, noted philosopher and educationist, told a conference of educationists in New York recently. Following the theme of the conference, “Democracy and - Education,” Dr. Dewey asserted that democracy “cannot go forward unless the intelligence of the mass of the people is educated to understand the social realities of their own time and the readjustments that have to be made in society to keep democracy moving forward.” “In spite of the changes in the schools that have occurred in the last 40 years,” he said, “the subject matter taught is still so isolated from the outside world in which students are to live that it does not give them the graps of social conditions and social needs that will create genuinely democratic intelligence and power of action. “We cannot teach democracy as if it were a separate subject. We cannot teach it except in terms of all the forces, political, economic, and cultural, that affect every movement in every detail of social life—which is a life of activities whether for good or for evil consequences. There is no use in obscuring and soft-pedaling the tremendous job of educational reorganfikation that has to be done if the schools to meet the T challenge of democracy.” ' ~V -' \ , Sherwood Eddy, author, w»ite .admitting “tremendous achievements in Germany under Hitler, condemned Nazism for its “false racialism,, bigotry, dangerous militarism, imperialism, and false paganism.” He saw “slow, steady progress” in Russia in industry and agriculture, but denounced Soviet “denial, of civil and political liberty, violence of a continual revolution, and dogmatic atheism.” He said he would choose neither fascism nor communism, but “if forced” to choose would accept the latter. Max Lerner, an editor of the “Nation,” said the choice in America was not between fascism and communism but rather between fascism and democracy. He asserted, however, that democracy in the United States was “political democracy and not economic democracy,” and advocated a more socialised system.