and religious training, character was acquired at the expense of mental
flexibility--the Puritan method; our problem today, which the new system
undertakes, is to produce character with open-mindedness--the kind of
character possessed by many great scientists. Absorption in an
appropriate task creates a moral will, while science, knowledge, informs
the mind why a thing is "bad" or "good," disintegrating or upbuilding.
Moreover, these children are trained for democratic government by the
granting of autonomy. They have their own elected officials, their own
courts; their decisions are, of course, subject to reversal by the
principal, but in practice this seldom occurs.

The Gary Schools and many of the new schools are public schools. And the
principle of the new education that the state is primarily responsible
for the health of pupils--because an unsound body is apt to make an
unsound citizen of backward intelligence--is now being generally adopted
by public schools all over the country. This idea is essentially an
element of the democratic contention that all citizens must be given
an equality of opportunity--though all may not be created equal--now
becoming a positive rather than a negative right, guaranteed by the state
itself. An earnest attempt is thus made by the state to give every
citizen a fair start that in later years he may have no ground for
discontent or complaint. He stands on his own feet, he rises in
proportion to his ability and industry. Hence the program of the British
Labour Party rightly lays stress on education, on "freedom of mental
opportunity." The vast sums it proposes to spend for this purpose are
justified.

If such a system of education as that briefly outlined above is carefully
and impartially considered, the objection that democratic government
founded on modern social science is coercive must disappear. So far as