Function of education.-Education is a process organized by society for the purpose of fitting every child and youth for efficient and useful membership in the social organism. In this, as in other great life-interests, humanity is largely dominated by impulse and instinct. In primitive society, at least, this purpose is as much instinctive as it is rational, being only halfillumined by deliberation and reflection. This fitting for useful membership in the social whole consists essentially in such preparation and training as will enable the individual to do what he can in the way of conserving and perpetuating the values of life according to the standard of values obtaining in the given society. Whatever a given race of people have thus far obtained in the way of knowledge or of skill in matters of industrial, military, artistic, or any other activity in their attempts to satisfy their wants, that they would pass 11 over to their children. Whatever a given generation derives most satisfaction from, that they wish the next generation to be able to enjoy. A training that really makes of the rising generation useful members of society will, however, fit them to do more than to safeguard the old values; it will actually prepare them to add to those values; in other words, to try to improve conditions for the social organism. The function of education, then, is the fitting of the immature members of society to preserve and improve the values of life. On last analysis, that is equivalent to saying that the final purpose, or end, of education is to secure the welfare of society. Society simply strives for the same thing that the normal human being strives for. Ask any unsophisticated man what he gives his children an education for, and he will probably tell you, after some quizzing on your part, that he does it in order that they may "get the most out of life." Most what? Most happiness. Plain common sense, here as elsewhere, is in perfect agreement with the wisdom of sages and philosophers. In the minds of our most eminent thinkers, from Aristotle to Spencer, the end of human effort and activity has been that selfsame happiness, that something so difficult of critical analysis, but with which we are yet so perfectly familiar. Even Kant, from whose rigoristic philosophy one would least expect such an admission, says: "To be happy is necessarily the desire of every rational, but finite being, and therefore an inevitable motive of his conation." This happiness, to the securing of which we are driven by our own nature, whether we are conscious of any specific effort in that direction or not, would seem to be conditioned on the gratification of the various inclinations and propensities of our nature; and that gratification in turn on the natural activity of our various functions, that is, an activity in harmony with the laws of our being. Such activity can be permanently secured only by living in harmony with the forces at work in this wonderfully intricate and complex whole in which we live. That implies the ability to adapt ourselves to our environment and, in part, to adapt certain factors of such environment to our needs. Happiness as the aim of education. The purpose of life, the true end, toward which we are impelled by our very nature, being happiness, it necessarily follows that the real end, or function, of education is to help bring about that self-same happiness. However, to say that happiness is the ultimate end of education is not equiv alent to saying that it can properly be taken as the aim of education. The objections that hold good against the seeking of happiness as a reliable and worthy basis for moral conduct, are equally cogent here. It is a philosophical commonplace that he that directly seeks after happiness is doomed to disappointment, while he who thinks of other things, and has his mind set on other objects, is more apt to be happy. Again, as is shown in later chapters, the seeking after happiness furnishes no sufficient guarantee of such conduct as the interests of society demand. Furthermore, the idea of happiness is so general, and so variable in content, due to the individual bias, preference, disposition of the person holding it, that it can not well be made the immediate object of educative effort, any more than it can well be taken as our aim in life. "It is a misfortune that the notion of happiness is so indefinite a notion that, although every human being is desirous of attaining happiness, yet he can never say precisely and entirely in agreement with himself, what he really wishes or wants. The cause thereof is this: that the elements that belong to the notion of happiness are, one and all, empirical, i. e., have to be derived from experience; that, nevertheless, there is necessary for the idea of happiness an absolute whole, a maximum of well-being in my present and every future condition. Now it is impossible for the most intelligent and at the same time most capable, but yet finite, being to form a definite notion of what he really wants in this matter. If he wants wealth, how much trouble, envy, and persecution might he not thereby bring down upon himself? If he wants a great deal of understanding and discernment, possibly that might furnish him with so much the keener an eye to show him those evils the more frightfully, which are, for the present, still concealed from him and which can yet not be avoided; or it might add additional wants to the burden of his desires, which already cause him enough trouble. If he wishes a long life, who will guarantee him that it will not be a long life of misery? If, at the least, he wants health, how often has bodily indisposition deterred from dissipation, into which boundless health would permit the individual to fall, etc. In short, it is not possible, according to any principle, to determine with absolute certainty, what would make him truly happy, because that would require omniscience."'2 Adjustment as the aim of education. For the same reason that educational effort can not profitably aim directly at the future happiness of the child, must we object to "adjustment to environment" as a statement of the aim of education. That phrase is too misleading, in that it is ordinarily apt to mean a mere adaptation to our immediate environment, a mere living in harmony with our immediate surroundings. True happiness is conditioned on our living in harmony with ultimate forces at work in this world of ours. In so far as that can be interpreted to be an adjustment to environment, it would be, by no means, merely a living in harmony with our immediate environment; in fact, it might mean the very opposite. To be truly adjusted to our total environment we must be in harmony with ultimate factors, in harmony with forces with which we do not ordinarily come in immediate contact, in harmony with what the philosopher calls the "moral world-order," the "Absolute," in theological language: with God. And that would frequently involve a falling out with our immediate environment. In fact, if |