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Folkways, by William Graham Sumner
A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages,
Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals
CHAPTER XIX
EDUCATION, HISTORY
The superstition of education. — The loss from education; "missionary-made men." — Schools make persons all on one pattern; orthodoxy. — Criticism. — Reactions of the mores and education on each other. — The limitations of the historian. — Overvaluation of history. — Success and the favor of God. — Philosophic faiths and the study of history. — Democracy and history. — The study of history and the study of the mores. — The most essential element of education. — The history of the mores is needed.
Introduction. The one thing which justifies popular education for all children is the immense value of men of genius to the society. We have no means of discerning and recognizing, in their early childhood, the ones who have genius. If we could do so it would be a good bargain to pay great sums for them, and to educate them at public expense. Our popular education may be justly regarded as a system of selecting them. The pupils retire from the schools when they think that "they do not want any more schooling." Of course thousands withdraw for one who keeps on. It is a very expensive system, and the expense all falls on the taxpayers. The beneficiaries are left entirely free to spend their lives wherever they please. If the system is sound and just it must be so by virtue of some common interest of all the people of the United States in the social services of men of talent and genius in any part of the United States.
699. The superstition of education. Popular education and certain faiths about popular education are in the mores of our time. We regard illiteracy as an abomination. We ascribe to elementary book learning power to form character, make good citizens, keep family mores pure, elevate morals, establish individual character, civilize barbarians, and cure social vice and disease. We apply schooling as a remedy for every social phenomenon which we do not like. The information given by 629schools and colleges, the attendant drill in manners, the ritual of the mores practiced in schools, and the mental dexterity produced by school exercises fit individuals to carry on the struggle for existence better. A literate man can produce wealth better than an illiterate man. Avenues are also opened by school work through which influences may be brought to bear on the reason and conscience which will mold character. Not even the increased production of wealth, much less the improvement of character, are assured results. Our faith in the power of book learning is excessive and unfounded. It is a superstition of the age. The education which forms character and produces faith in sound principles of life comes through personal influence and example. It is borne on the mores. It is taken in from the habits and atmosphere of a school, not from the school text-books. School work opens an opportunity that a thing may be, but the probability that it will be depends on the persons, and it may be nil or contrary to what is desired. High attainments in school enhance the power obtained, but the ethical value of it all depends on how it is used. These facts are often misused or exaggerated in modern educational controversies, but their reality cannot be denied. Book learning is addressed to the intellect, not to the feelings, but the feelings are the spring of action.
700. The loss from education. Missionary-made men. Education has always been recognized as a means of individual success and group strength. In barbarism the children are educated by their elders, especially the little boys by the big ones, but the whole mental outfit possessed by the group is transmitted to the children, and all the mores pass by this tradition. It is to be noticed, therefore, that in our modern education the sense of the term has been much narrowed, since we mean by it book learning or schooling. Teachers are not wanting who teach manners and mores out of zeal and ambition, and families and churches can be found which duly supplement the work of schools, but the institutions follow no set plan of coöperation, and one or another of them fails in its part. The modern superstition of education contains a great error. It is forgotten that there is always a loss 630and offset from education in its narrow sense. Petrie, speaking from observation and experience of Egyptian peasants, says: "The harm is that you manufacture idiots. Some of the peasantry are taught to read and write, and the result of this burden, which their fathers bore not, is that they become fools. I cannot say this too plainly: An Egyptian who has had reading and writing thrust on him is, in every case that I have met with, half-witted, silly, or incapable of taking care of himself. His intellect and his health have been undermined by the forcing of education."2210 Petrie's doctrine is that each generation of men of low civilization can be advanced beyond the preceding one only by a very small percentage. He does not lay stress on the stimulation of vanity and false pride. If he is right, his doctrine explains the complaints of "missionary-made men" which we hear from Miss Kingsley and others, and such social results as are described by Becke.2211 Amongst ourselves also the increase of insanity, nervous diseases, crime, and suicide must be ascribed in part to the constant and more intense brain strain, especially in youth. Women also, as they participate more in the competition of life, have to get more education, and they fall under the diseases also. The cases of child suicide are the most startling product of our ways of education. These personal and social diseases are a part of the price we pay for "higher civilization." They are an offset to education and they go with it. It would be great ignorance of the course of effort in societal matters not to know that such diseased reactions must always be expected.
701. Schools make persons all on one pattern. Orthodoxy. School education, unless it is regulated by the best knowledge and good sense, will produce men and women who are all of one pattern, as if turned in a lathe. When priests managed schools it was their intention to reach just this result. They carried in their heads ideals of the Christian man and woman, and they wanted to educate all to this model. Public schools in a democracy may work in the same way. Any institution which runs for years in the same hands will produce a type. The examination 631papers show the pet ideas of the examiners. It must not be forgotten that the scholars set about the making of folkways for themselves, just as members of a grown society do. In time they adopt codes, standards, preferred types, and fashions. They select their own leaders, whom they follow with enthusiasm. They have their pet heroes and fashion themselves upon the same. Their traditions become stereotyped and authoritative. The type of product becomes fixed. It makes some kind of compromise with the set purposes of the teachers and administrators, and the persons who issue from the schools become recognizable by the characteristics of the type. It is said that the graduates of Jesuit colleges on the continent of Europe are thus recognizable. In England the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge are easily to be distinguished from other Englishmen. In the continental schools and barracks, in newspapers, books, etc., what is developed by education is dynastic sentiment, national sentiment, soldierly sentiment; still again, under the same and other opportunities, religious and ecclesiastical sentiments, and by other influences, also class and rank sentiments.2212 In a democracy there is always a tendency towards big results on a pattern. An orthodoxy is produced in regard to all the great doctrines of life. It consists of the most worn and commonplace opinions which are current in the masses. It may be found in newspapers and popular literature. It is intensely provincial and philistine. It does not extend to those things on which the masses have not pronounced, and by its freedom and elasticity in regard to these it often produces erroneous judgments as to its general character. The popular opinions always contain broad fallacies, half-truths, and glib generalizations of fifty years before. If a teacher is to be displaced by a board of trustees because he is a free-trader, or a gold man, or a silver man, or disapproves of a war in which the ruling clique has involved the country, or because he thinks that Hamilton was a great statesman and Jefferson an insignificant one, or because he says that he has found some proof that alcohol is not always bad for the system, we might as well go back to the dominion in education of the 632theologians. They were strenuous about theology, but they let other things alone. The boards of trustees are almost always made up of "practical men," and if their faiths, ideas, and prejudices are to make the norm of education, the schools will turn out boys and girls compressed to that pattern. There is no wickedness in any disinterested and sincere opinion. That is what we all pretend to admit, but there are very few of us who really act by it. We seem likely to have orthodox history (especially of our own country), political science, political economy, and sociology before long.2213 It will be defined by school boards who are party politicians. As fast as physics, chemistry, geology, biology, bookkeeping, and the rest come into conflict with interests, and put forth results which have a pecuniary effect (which is sure to happen in the not remote future), then the popular orthodoxy will be extended to them, and it will be enforced as "democratic." The reason is because there will be a desire that children shall be taught just that one thing which is "right" in the view and interest of those in control, and nothing else. That is exactly the view which the ecclesiastics formerly took when they had control. Mathematics is the only discipline which could be taught under that rule. As to other subjects we do not know the "right answers," speaking universally and for all time. We only know how things look now on our best study, and that is all we can teach. In fact, this is the reason why the orthodox answers of the school boards and trustees are mischievous. They teach that there are absolute and universal facts of knowledge, whereas we ought to teach that all our knowledge is subject to unlimited verification and revision. The men turned out under the former system, and the latter, will be very different agents in the face of all questions of philosophy, citizenship, finance, and industry.
702. Criticism. Criticism is the examination and test of propositions of any kind which are offered for acceptance, in order to find out whether they correspond to reality or not. The 633critical faculty is a product of education and training. It is a mental habit and power. It is a prime condition of human welfare that men and women should be trained in it. It is our only guarantee against delusion, deception, superstition, and misapprehension of ourselves and our earthly circumstances. It is a faculty which will protect us against all harmful suggestion. "We are all critical against the results reached by others and uncritical against our own results."2214 To act by suggestion or autosuggestion is to act by impulse. Education teaches us to act by judgment. Our education is good just so far as it produces well-developed critical faculty. The thirteenth century had no critical faculty. It wandered in the dark, multiplying errors, and starting movements which produced loss and misery for centuries, because it dealt with fantasies, and did not know the truth about men or their position in the world. The nineteenth century was characterized by the acquisition and use of the critical faculty. A religious catechism never can train children to criticism. "Patriotic" history and dithyrambic literature never can do it. A teacher of any subject who insists on accuracy and a rational control of all processes and methods, and who holds everything open to unlimited verification and revision is cultivating that method as a habit in the pupils. In current language this method is called "science," or "scientific." The critical habit of thought, if usual in a society, will pervade all its mores, because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators and are never deceived by dithyrambic oratory. They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis or confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the other. They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and all kinds of cajolery. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens. The operation of the governmental system and existing laws is always "educating" the citizens, and very often it is 634making bad ones. The existing system may teach the citizens to war with the government, or to use it in order to get advantages over each other. The laws may organize a big "steal" of the few from the many, and they may educate the people to believe that the way to get rich is to "get into the steal." "Graft" is a reaction of the mores on the burdens and opportunities offered by the laws, and graft is a great education. It educates faster and deeper than all the schools. The people who believe that there is a big steal, and that they must either get into it or be plundered by it, have nothing to learn from political economy or political science.
703. Reactions of the mores and education on each other. Every one admits that education properly means much more than schooling or book learning. It means a development and training of all useful powers which the pupil possesses, and repression of all bad prepossessions which he has inherited. The terms "useful" and "bad" in this proposition never can mean anything but the currently approved and disapproved traits and powers; that is, what is encouraged or discouraged by the mores. The good citizen, good husband and father, good business man, etc., are only types which are in fashion at the time. In New England they are not the same now as fifty years ago. The mores and the education react on each other. They are not as likely to settle into grooves in a new country as in old countries. In Spain and Portugal, and to a less extent in Italy and Russia, the mores have taken rigid form, and they control schools and universities so that the types of educated men vary little from generation to generation. When the schools are not too rigidly stereotyped they become seats of new thought, of criticism of what is traditional, and of new ideas which remold the mores. The young men are only too ready to find fault with what they find existing and traditional, and the students of all countries have been eager revolutionists. Of course they make mistakes and do harm, but the alternative is the reign of old abuse and consecrated error. The folkways need constant rejuvenation and refreshment if they are to be well fitted to present cases, and it is far better that they be 635revolutionized than that they be subjected to traditional changelessness. In the organization of modern society the schools are the institutional apparatus by which the inheritance of experience and knowledge, — the whole mental outfit of the race, — is transmitted to the young. Through these institutions, therefore, the mores and morality which men have accepted and approved are handed down. The transmission ought to be faithful, but not without criticism. The reaction of free judgment and taste will keep the mores fresh and active, and the schools are undoubtedly the place where they should be renewed through an intelligent study of their operation in the past.
704. The limitations on the historian. If the schools are to prosecute this study, history is the chief field for it. No historian ever gets out of the mores of his own society of origin. He may adopt a party in church, politics, or social philosophy. If he does, his standpoint will be set for him, and it is sure to be sectarian. Even if he rises above the limitations of party, he does not get outside of the patriotic and ethical horizon in which he has been educated, especially when he deals with the history of other countries and other times than his own. Each historian regards his own nation as the torchbearer of civilization; its mores give him his ethical standards by which he estimates whatever he learns of other peoples. All our histories of antiquity or the classical nations show that they are written by modern scholars. In modern Russian literature may be found passages about the "civilizing mission" of Russia which might be translated, mutatis mutandis, from passages in English, French, or German literature about the civilizing mission of England, France, or Germany. Probably the same is true of Turkish, Hindoo, or Chinese literature. The patriotism of the historian rules his judgment, especially as to excuses and apologies for things done in the past, and most of all as to the edifying omissions, — a very important part of the task of the historian. A modern Protestant and a Roman Catholic, or an American and a European, cannot reach the same view of the Middle Ages, no matter how unbiased and objective each may aim to be. There is a compulsion on the historian to act in this way, for if 636he wrote otherwise, his fellow-countrymen would ignore his work. It follows that a complete and unbiased history hardly exists. It may be a moral impossibility. Every student during his academic period ought to get up one bit of history thoroughly from the ultimate sources, in order to convince himself what history is not. Any one who ever lived through a crisis in the history of a university must have learned how impossible it is to establish in memory and record a correct literary narrative of what took place, the forces at work, the participation of individuals, etc. Monuments, festivals, mottoes, oratory, and poetry may enter largely into the mores. They never help history; they obscure it. They protect errors and sanctify prejudices. The same is true of literary commonplaces which gain currency. It is commonly believed in the United States that at some time in the past Russia showed sympathy and extended aid to the United States when sympathy and aid were sorely needed. This is entirely untrue. No specification of the time and circumstances can be made which will stand examination. Nevertheless the popular belief cannot be corrected.
705. Overvaluation of history. Never was history studied as it is now. Amongst scholars there is a disposition to overvalue it, and to develop out of it something which must be called "historyism." Jurisprudence has passed through the dominion of this tendency. Political economy is now lost in it. When has anybody ever been governed by "the teachings of history" when he was philosophizing or legislating? The teachings of history can always be set aside, if they are a hindrance, by alleging that the times have changed and that new conditions exist. This allegation may be true, and the possibility that it is true must always be taken into account. No two cases in history ever are alike.
706. Success and the favor of God. Sects and parties have claimed God's favor and power. They have boldly declared that they would accept success or failure as proof of his approval on their doctrines and programme. No one of them ever stood by the test. There were some in the crusades who argued that the Moslems must be right on account of their successes. The 637Templars were charged with making this deduction when grounds for burning them were sought. It was a heresy. If the Christians had any success, the deduction might be made against the Moslems, but not contrariwise. All nations have treated in this way the deductions about the approval of the superior powers. If there are any superior powers which meddle with history, it is certain that men have never yet found out how their ways and human ways react on each other, nor any means of interpreting their ways.
707. Philosophic faiths and the study of history. In a similar manner other philosophic faiths interfere with the study of history. The mores impose the faiths on the historian, and the faiths spoil his work. "It is not difficult to understand how a people imbued with the idea that the world is an illusion should have neglected all historical investigations. No such thing as genuine history or biography exists in Sanskrit literature. Historical researches are, to a Hindoo, simple foolishness."2215
708. Democracy and history. Democracy is almost equally indifferent to history, and the dogmas of democracy make history unimportant. If "the people" always know what is right and wise, then we have the supreme oracle always with us and always up to date. In the report of a civil-service examination which got into the newspapers, it was said that one candidate for a position on the police answered the question, Who was Abraham Lincoln? by saying that he was a distinguished general on the Southern side in the Civil War. Nevertheless, if appointed, he might have made an excellent policeman. His ludicrous ignorance of American biography proved nothing to the contrary. The question brought into doubt the intelligence of the examiners. If all policemen were examined on American history, it is fair to believe that incredible ignorance and errors would be displayed. No amount of study of American history would make them better policemen. The same may be said of the masses as a whole. A knowledge of history is a fine accomplishment, but ignorance of it does not hinder the success of men in their own lines of industry. They do not, therefore, care about 638history or appreciate it. Its rank in school studies is an inheritance of European tradition. Popular opinion does not recognize its position as fit and just. Its effect on the minds and mores of the pupils is almost nil, unless the history deals directly with the mores.
709. The study of history and the study of the mores. There is, therefore, great need for a clearer understanding of the relation between the study of history and the study of the mores. Abraham Lincoln's career illustrated in many ways the mores of his time, and the knowledge of some of the facts about the mores would have been by no means idle or irrelevant for a policeman. In like manner it may well be that other branches of study pursued in our schools contain valuable instruction or discipline, but it does not lie on the surface, and it is an art to get it out and bring it to the attention of the scholar.
710. The most essential element in education. A man's education never stops as long as he lives. All the experience of life is educating him. In school days he is undergoing education by the contact of life, and by what he does or suffers. This education is transferring to him the mores. He learns what conduct is approved or disapproved; what kind of man is admired most; how he ought to behave in all kinds of cases; and what he ought to believe or reject. This education goes on by minute steps, often repeated. The influences make the man. All this constitutes evidently the most essential and important education. If we understand what the mores are, and that the contact with one's fellows is all the time transmitting them, we can better understand, and perhaps regulate to some extent, this education.
711. The history of the mores is needed. The modern historians turn with some disdain away from the wars, intrigues, and royal marriages which the old-fashioned historians considered their chief interest, and many of them have undertaken to write the history of the "people." Evidently they have perceived that what is wanted is a history of the mores. If they can get that they can extract from the history what is most universal and permanent in its interest.
2210 Smithson. Rep., 1895, 596.
2211 Pacific Tales.
2212 Schallmeyer, Vererbung und Auslese, 265.
2213 According to a German newspaper the parliament of Bavaria, in 1897, expressed a wish that the government of that state would not appoint any more Darwinians to chairs in the universities of the kingdom.
2214 Friedmann, Wahnideen im Völkerleben, 219.
2215 Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism, 39.
