The Pursuit of Knowledge

The process of education covers a large part of the activity of
mankind. It includes as its major elements the acquisition of
knowledge and the development of capacity. It carries with it, as
at least a by-product, the formation of moral character, once its
principal aim. It includes to an increasing extent the care of
physical health and the training of the body. The social momentum,
supplied by the institutions created for its use, carries forward
into the search for new knowledge, which thus becomes, as it were,
a part of education itself.

Hence, in one form or another, the process of education fills a
considerable part of the life of every individual. For at least ten
years it is the chief activity of all of us; for twenty years in the
case of many of us; and for some it represents the work and the
meaning of a lifetime. It follows that anything in the way of an
analysis of educational method and machinery, is of the highest
social import.

Now, there may be observed as running all through the processes of
education two rival principles, in a sense conflicting and yet
complementary to one another. One of these is the principle of
compulsion, of having to do what we do not want to for the sake
of some external or ultimate end. The other is the principle of
spontaneity, of doing what we want to do because we want to do it.
Such a principle is easily embodied in the familiar notions of "art
for art's sake," of "knowledge as its own reward", and similar
concepts. In the present discussion, I propose to consider the
relative values of these two principles, and the way in which either
of them may be carried beyond its proper use.