but primarily as a member of society, that is, either of society as it actually exists, or of society as it may be expected to become in a few years time. As an illustration of this standpoint I will quote some statements of Professor Dewey. "We must take the child," he says, "as a member of society in the broadest sense, and demand whatever is necessary to enable the child to recognise all his social relations, and to carry them out."[1] He then specifies the relations of voter, subject of law, member of a family, worker, member of some neighbourhood and community.
From this point of view the school's aim is described as follows: "The moral responsibility of the school, and of those who conduct it, is to society. The school is fundamentally an institution erected by society to do a certain specific work—to exercise a certain specific function in maintaining the life and advancing the welfare of society."[2] And that this society is not an ideal society, but society as it actually exists, appears clear from Dewey's argument. The school is to reproduce in typical form "the processes by which society keeps itself going." The life of the school is to reproduce on a smaller scale the life of the world around it. "The child," he tells us, "ought to have exactly the same motives for right-doing, and be judged by exactly the same standard in the school, as the adult in the wider social life to which he belongs."[3] And it is important
