Democracy and Education | Page 9

is no great difficulty in seeing
how it shapes the external habits of action. Even dogs and horses have
their actions modified by association with human beings; they form
different habits because human beings are concerned with what they do.
Human beings control animals by controlling the natural stimuli which
influence them; by creating a certain environment in other words. Food,
bits and bridles, noises, vehicles, are used to direct the ways in which
the natural or instinctive responses of horses occur. By operating
steadily to call out certain acts, habits are formed which function with
the same uniformity as the original stimuli. If a rat is put in a maze and
finds food only by making a given number of turns in a given sequence,
his activity is gradually modified till he habitually takes that course
rather than another when he is hungry.
Human actions are modified in a like fashion. A burnt child dreads the
fire; if a parent arranged conditions so that every time a child touched a
certain toy he got burned, the child would learn to avoid that toy as
automatically as he avoids touching fire. So far, however, we are
dealing with what may be called training in distinction from educative
teaching. The changes considered are in outer action rather than in
mental and emotional dispositions of behavior. The distinction is not,
however, a sharp one. The child might conceivably generate in time a
violent antipathy, not only to that particular toy, but to the class of toys
resembling it. The aversion might even persist after he had forgotten
about the original burns; later on he might even invent some reason to
account for his seemingly irrational antipathy. In some cases, altering
the external habit of action by changing the environment to affect the
stimuli to action will also alter the mental disposition concerned in the
action. Yet this does not always happen; a person trained to dodge a
threatening blow, dodges automatically with no corresponding thought
or emotion. We have to find, then, some differentia of training from

education.
A clew may be found in the fact that the horse does not really share in
the social use to which his action is put. Some one else uses the horse
to secure a result which is advantageous by making it advantageous to
the horse to perform the act -- he gets food, etc. But the horse,
presumably, does not get any new interest. He remains interested in
food, not in the service he is rendering. He is not a partner in a shared
activity. Were he to become a copartner, he would, in engaging in the
conjoint activity, have the same interest in its accomplishment which
others have. He would share their ideas and emotions.
Now in many cases -- too many cases -- the activity of the immature
human being is simply played upon to secure habits which are useful.
He is trained like an animal rather than educated like a human being.
His instincts remain attached to their original objects of pain or
pleasure. But to get happiness or to avoid the pain of failure he has to
act in a way agreeable to others. In other cases, he really shares or
participates in the common activity. In this case, his original impulse is
modified. He not merely acts in a way agreeing with the actions of
others, but, in so acting, the same ideas and emotions are aroused in
him that animate the others. A tribe, let us say, is warlike. The
successes for which it strives, the achievements upon which it sets store,
are connected with fighting and victory. The presence of this medium
incites bellicose exhibitions in a boy, first in games, then in fact when
he is strong enough. As he fights he wins approval and advancement;
as he refrains, he is disliked, ridiculed, shut out from favorable
recognition. It is not surprising that his original belligerent tendencies
and emotions are strengthened at the expense of others, and that his
ideas turn to things connected with war. Only in this way can he
become fully a recognized member of his group. Thus his mental
habitudes are gradually assimilated to those of his group.
If we formulate the principle involved in this illustration, we shall
perceive that the social medium neither implants certain desires and
ideas directly, nor yet merely establishes certain purely muscular habits
of action, like "instinctively" winking or dodging a blow. Setting up
conditions which stimulate certain visible and tangible ways of acting
is the first step. Making the individual a sharer or partner in the
associated activity so that he feels its success as his success, its failure

as his failure, is the completing step. As soon as he is possessed by the
emotional attitude of