| The primary ineluctable facts of the birth and death of | | | | standards, opinions, from those members of society |
| each one of the constituent members in a social group | | | | who are passing out of the group life to those who |
| determine the necessity of education. On one hand, | | | | are coming into it, social life could not survive. If the |
| there is the contrast between the immaturity of the | | | | members who compose a society lived on |
| new-born members of the group—its future sole | | | | continuously, they might educate the new-born |
| representatives—and the maturity of the adult | | | | members, but it would be a task directed by personal |
| members who possess the knowledge and customs | | | | interest rather than social need. Now it is a work of |
| of the group. On the other hand, there is the necessity | | | | necessity. |
| that these immature members be not merely physically | | | | The Place of Formal Education cannot be |
| preserved in adequate numbers, but that they be | | | | overemphasized. There is, accordingly, a marked |
| initiated into the interests, purposes, information, skill, and | | | | difference between the education which every one |
| practices of the mature members: otherwise the group | | | | gets from living with others, as long as he really lives |
| will cease its characteristic life. Even in a savage tribe, | | | | instead of just continuing to subsist, and the deliberate |
| the achievements of adults are far beyond what the | | | | educating of the young. In the former case the |
| immature members would be capable of if left to | | | | education is incidental; it is natural and important, but it is |
| themselves. With the growth of civilization, the gap | | | | not the express reason of the association. While it |
| between the original capacities of the immature and | | | | may be said, without exaggeration, that the measure |
| the standards and customs of the elders increases. | | | | of the worth of any social institution, economic, |
| Mere physical growing up, mere mastery of the bare | | | | domestic, political, legal, religious, is its effect in enlarging |
| necessities of subsistence will not suffice to reproduce | | | | and improving experience; yet this effect is not a part |
| the life of the group. Deliberate effort and the taking of | | | | of its original motive, which is limited and more |
| thoughtful pains are required. Beings who are born not | | | | immediately practical. Religious associations began, for |
| only unaware of, but quite indifferent to, the aims and | | | | example, in the desire to secure the favor of overruling |
| habits of the social group have to be rendered | | | | powers and to ward off evil influences; family life in the |
| cognizant of them and actively interested. Education, | | | | desire to gratify appetites and secure family perpetuity; |
| and education alone, spans the gap. | | | | systematic labor, for the most part, because of |
| Society exists through a process of transmission quite | | | | enslavement to others, etc. Only gradually was the |
| as much as biological life. This transmission occurs by | | | | by-product of the institution, its effect upon the quality |
| means of communication of habits of doing, thinking, | | | | and extent of conscious life, noted, and only more |
| and feeling from the older to the younger. Without this | | | | gradually still was this effect considered as a directive |
| communication of ideals, hopes, expectations, | | | | factor in the conduct of the institution. |