The Teachers Guide

Education is a group enterprise. We establish schools in which we seek to develop whatever capacities or abilities the individual may possess in order that he may become intelligently active for the common good. Schools do not exist primarily for the individual, but, rather, for the group of which he is a member. Individual growth and development are significant in terms of their meaning for the welfare of the whole group. We believe that the greatest opportunity for the individual, as well as his greatest satisfaction, are secured only when he works with others for the common welfare. In the discussions which follow we are concerned not simply with the individual's development, but also with the necessity for inhibitions. There are traits or activities which develop normally, but which are from the social point of view undesirable. It is quite as much the work of the teacher to know how to provide for the inhibition of the type of activity which is socially undesirable, or how to substitute for such reactions other forms of expression which are worthy, as it is to stimulate those types of activity which promise a contribution to the common good. It is assumed that the aim of education can be expressed most satisfactorily in terms of social efficiency.