Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/663

 EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL EFFICIENCY 647

or marginally. So egoism and altruism are not two absolutely antagonistic attitudes ; an egoistic act must at the same time have altruistic reference in some way or other. Again, egoism, for the most part at any rate, can realize itself only through service. But an individual may strive for mean, unworthy, material ends, though he has an altruistic aim of some sort constantly in view in his striving, as when he takes advantage of a rival in business for the benefit of his wife or children. Or one may take hold on the highest things in life, as the respect and good-will of all men, in the attainment of which the really vital needs of the alter must be ministered to. The business of education must be, for one thing, to teach the child what the alter esteems as of supreme worth, and to impress upon him that in the long run the broadest kind of egoistic-altruistic action will bring the richest rewards for self.

The child's first actions, viewed from his own standpoint, cannot be said to be ethical or evil, social or anti-social. That is right which he instinctively wants to do; and there is no wrong in his conduct. In his activities at the outset he takes no account of the desires or needs of the social environment ; but by the close of the first year he shows in his inhibitions, and to some extent in his positive actions, a slight regard at least for the feelings and wishes of the alter. He begins now to appreciate that certain actions affecting persons bring him discomfort in one way or another, while others bring him pleasure; and his distinctions between right and wrong take their origin from this appreciation. That is right which father, mother, and others approve and encourage: that is wrong which they frown upon and attach penalties to. Gradually, as a result of instinct clashing with social demands, there is established a self, let us say, reflecting the requirements of the social environment, and this from its most primitive beginnings makes unceasing war upon the lower self, motived by original, narrowly egoistic impulses. With develop- ment this ideal or social self gains continually in breadth and strength, and it also becomes more and more generalized, until particular experiences, persons, rules, principles, are merged into tendencies to action in given directions; or perhaps one should