Third part

Savage groups mostly rely for instilling needed nature into the young upon the same sort of association which keeps adults loyal to their group. They have no special devices, material, or institutions for teaching save in connection with initiation service by which the youth are inducted into full social association. For the most part, they depend upon children learning the customs of the adults, acquiring their moving set and stock of ideas, by sharing in what the elders are doing. In part, this sharing is direct, taking part in the occupations of adults and thus serving an apprenticeship; in part, it is indirect, through the theatrical plays in which children reproduce the actions of grown-ups and thus learn to know what they are like. To savages it would seem preposterous to seek out a place where nothing but learning was going on in order that one might learn. But as people advances, the gap between the capacities of the young and the concerns of adults widens. Learning by direct sharing in the pursuits of grown-ups becomes increasingly hard except in the case of the less advanced occupations. Much of what adults do is so remote in space and in meaning that playful simulation is less and less adequate to reproduce its spirit. Ability to share effectively in adult activities thus depends upon a prior preparation given with this end in view. Intentional agencies -- schools--and explicit material  studies  are devised. The task of teaching certain things is delegated to a special group of persons. Without such formal education, it is not possible to transmit all the resources and achievements of a complex society. It also opens a way to a kind of experience which would not be accessible to the young, if they were left to pick up their training in informal association with others, since books and the symbols of knowledge are mastered. But there are conspicuous dangers attendant upon the transition from indirect to formal education. Sharing in actual pursuit, whether directly or vicariously in play, is at least personal and vital.