This is the crux of all
effort towards citizenship through education. In the long run there
can be no full citizenship unless there is fulness of intention to
discover capacity and to develop it not for the individual but for the
common good. This is primarily the task of an educational system. If a
man is set to work for which he is not fitted, whether it be the work
of a student or a miner, he is thwarted in his innate desire to attain
to the full expression of his being in and through association with
his fellow-men, whereas, when a man is doing the right work, that for
which he has capacity, he rejoices in his labour and strives
continually to perfect it by development of all his powers. The
exercise of good citizenship follows naturally as the inevitable
result of a rightly developed life. It may not be the citizenship
which is exercised by taking active and direct part in methods of
government. The son of Sirach, meditating on the place of the
craftsman, said:
All these trust to their hands: and every one is wise in his work.
Without these cannot a city be inhabited ... they will maintain the
state of the world, and all their desire is in the work of their
craft[4].
The times are different and the needs of people have changed, but the
true test of a citizen may be more in the healthiness of dominating
purpose than in the possession and satisfaction of a variety of
desires.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127