Thoughts on education and civics

What appears below may or may not be the beginning of a series of mini-essays ruminating on the nature of education - in theory, in practice, and in relation to the existence of a civilization. Make of it what you will.

It’s a truism, I think, to say that an individual’s education – his upbringing, background, the axioms of his fundamental beliefs, his knowledge of history (both the history of persons and events and the history of ideas), his awareness of the accidental facts of the world and culture he inhabits – inescapably influences, if not directs, the development of the sort of person he makes himself. A fortiori, education exercises the same degree of influence on the development of the sort of citizen an individual becomes. This very basic, yet fundamental, recognition of the relation between education and citizenship is among the central starting points of the political theory and thought behind the United States as an entity. One of the primary reasons providing public education has been seen historically as a quintessentially appropriate function of the American federal government is that, since the type of education one receives goes far to determine one’s capacity to shoulder one’s responsibilities of civic participation, and since a democracy requires its citizens to maintain such participation, it is not only in a democracy’s best interests to provide education to its citizens, but it is also an obligation.

Thus far, I’ve not stated anything at all new (although it is important that even the most evident truths be periodically revisited and restated in public dialogue, in order to prevent them from being lost by attrition over the generations). However, to say that government is obliged to provide education to its citizens is to make a claim so broad as to be useless. (Compare the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle reminds us that everyone agrees that happiness is the end of the good life – but it is precisely in determining what constitutes happiness where people diverge widely.) Similarly, we must first pose the question: What kind of education is the government obliged to provide? Not only must we pose this question, but we must answer it, and provide an answer which is directly applicable in policy and in practice.