Democracy and Education · Chapter
Natural Development and Social Efficiency as Aims explained
This chapter examines two contrasting educational aims: natural development, as articulated by Rousseau, and social efficiency.
What happens
This chapter examines two contrasting educational aims: natural development, as articulated by Rousseau, and social efficiency. Dewey critiques Rousseau's notion of spontaneous natural development, arguing that native capacities provide the starting point but not the ends of education, which must be shaped by social use. He then reinterprets social efficiency not as subordination but as positive use of individual capacities for socially meaningful ends, including industrial competency and civic efficiency, warning against narrow vocational training that perpetuates class inequities.
Themes in this chapter
Natural Development
Dewey critiques Rousseau's view that native capacities have a spontaneous, independent development, arguing instead that they are starting points shaped by social use.
Social Efficiency
Redefined as positive use of native capacities in socially meaningful occupations, encompassing industrial competency and civic efficiency, while warning against narrow vocational training that perpetuates class inequities.
Critique of Traditional Curriculum
Dewey criticizes traditional education for neglecting industrial competency under the guise of higher spiritual ideals, and for subordinating individual capacities to class authority.
Characters to notice
- Rousseau
Dewey analyzes Rousseau's doctrine of natural development, praising its emphasis on native capacities but critiquing its assumption of spontaneous, independent growth apart from social use.
- Plato
Referenced in the context of industrial education, where Dewey warns of an unconscious revival of the defects of the Platonic scheme without its enlightened method of selection.
Key passages
“The point may be summarized by saying that Rousseau was right, introducing a much-needed reform into education, in holding that the structure and activities of the organs furnish the conditions of all teaching of the use of the organs; but profoundly wrong in intimating that they supply not only the conditions but also the ends of their development.”
Rousseau correctly recognized that innate physical structures are the foundation for learning, but he mistakenly believed these structures alone determine the goals of development, ignoring the role of social direction.
Dewey distinguishes between the conditions and the ends of education, emphasizing that native capacities are starting points, not final aims.
“The doctrine is rendered adequate when we recognize that social efficiency is attained not by negative constraint but by positive use of native individual capacities in occupations having a social meaning.”
True social efficiency comes from actively employing each person's natural abilities in socially valuable work, not from suppressing them through external control.
Dewey redefines social efficiency as empowerment through meaningful participation, not subordination.