=The Culture Aim.=--According to the practice of many educators,
education is justified on the ground that it furnishes the individual a
degree of personal culture. According to this view, the worth of
education is found in the fact that it puts the learner in possession of
a certain amount of conventional knowledge which is held to give a
polish to the individual; this polish providing a distinguishing mark by
which the learned class is separated from the ignorant. It is
undoubtedly true that the so-called culture of the educated man should
add to the grace and refinement of social life. In this sense, culture
is not foreign to the conception of individual and social efficiency. A
narrow cultural view, however, overlooks the fact that man's experience
is significant only when it enables him to meet the needs and problems
of the present, and that, as a member of a social community, he must
apply himself to the actual problems to be met within his environment.
To acquire knowledge, therefore, either as a mere possession or as a
mark of personal superiority, is to give to experience an unnatural
value.

=The Utilitarian Aim.=--Others express quite an opposite view to the
above, declaring that the aim of education is to enable the individual
to get on in the world. By this is meant that education should enable us
to be more successful in our business, and thus live more comfortable
lives. Now, so far as this practical success of the individual can be
achieved in harmony with the interests of society as a whole, we may
grant that education should make for individual betterment. Indeed it
may justly be claimed that an advancement in the comfort of the
individual under such conditions really implies an increase in the
comfort of society as a whole; for the man who is not able to provide
for his own welfare must prove, if not a menace, at least a burden to
society. If, however, it is implied that the educated man is to be