MASS EDUCATION VERSE INDIVIDUAL EDUCATION
Under the present system of mass education by classes, too much stress is laid on teaching and too little on learning. Vocational learning is sidelined. The child is not encouraged to discover things on his own account. He learns to rely on outside help not on his own powers, thus losing intellectual independence and the capacity to judge for him. The over-taught child is the father of the newspaper reading, advertisement –believing, propaganda-swallowing, demagogue-led man who makes modern democracy the farce as it is. Moreover, lessons in class leave him mainly unoccupied, and therefore bored. He as to be coerced into learning what does not interest him, and the information acquired mechanically and reluctantly, by dint of brute repetition is rapidly forgotten. Quite naturally, the child, being bored and unoccupied becomes mischievous. A strict external discipline becomes necessary; otherwise there is chaos and pandemonium. The child learns to obey, not to control himself. He loses moral as well as intellectual independence.
Such are the main defects in the current system o f mass education. Many others could be mentioned; but they are defects in detail and can be classified under one or other of the three main categories of defects- sacrifices of the individual to the system psychologically unsound methods of teaching and irrational methods of imposing discipline. We need a new system of universal education of the same kind as that which has proved itself so successful in the training of defectives and infants, but modified so as to be suitable for older boys and girls. We need a system of individual education.