In education for democracy the form of
government is an after-consideration; that will come as a natural
sequence. The chief thing is to inoculate the spirits of people with a
feeling for democracy. This germ will grow out into a form of government
because of the unity of feeling and consequent thinking. When this
spiritual attitude is generated, not only does the form of government
follow, but people meet upon the plane of a common purpose and give
expression to their inner selves in like movements. They come to realize
that, in a large way, each one is his brother's keeper. They are drawn
together in closer sympathy and good-will; artificial barriers disappear;
and they all become interested in the common good. Their interests,
purposes, and activities become unified, and life becomes better and
richer. Actuated by a common impulse, they exemplify what Kipling says in
his _Sons of Martha_:
Lift ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat,
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that,
Not as a ladder from Earth to Heaven, not as an altar to any creed,
But simple Service, simply given, to their own kind, in their common need.
As Dr. Henry van Dyke well says, "It is the silent ideal in the hearts of
the people which molds character and guides action."
It will be admitted without qualification that the school, when well
administered, constitutes a force that a altogether favorable to the
development of the spirit of democracy, and no one will deny that
democracy is a worthy goal toward which the activities of the school
should be directed.
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