In this, as in all other phases of education now, we must consider how the great energies hidden in the æsthetic experiences can be put to use. The æsthetic, especially in its dramatic form, is a power to be reckoned with. Interest, organization, moral obligation do not control or release all the energies contained in the social life. We need the high moods of dramatic situations to reach the most fundamental motives. The teacher must not only present ideas; he must generate power. And this is true of all efforts to employ for any end the interests of the people, old or young. The social life, if it is to be effective, must constantly be brought under the influence of dramatic stimuli. Dillon, a political writer, earnestly pleads for an extension and deepening of the sympathies of children, and says that patriotic sentiment must be engrafted upon the sensitive soul of the child. No one could refuse to admit this. The question, however, is of ways and means. In our view it is mainly through play, or better, art, that the soul of the child is thus made sensitive. A dramatic social life must be the main condition upon which we depend for thus extending and deepening the sympathies of the child.
Among these dramatic social effects we seek, the use of national holidays, all methods of symbolizing events, causes, or functions which are nationally significant are of course not to be ignored, but after all it is through practical activity made social and raised to dramatic expression or feeling, either by its own inherent idea and suggestive power, or by the addition of æsthetic elements, that loyalty to the greater group and its functions will best be educated. It is precisely the lack of these dramatic elements and these mass effects in the social life that now leaves the social sense in its national aspects weak, and allows the various dividing lines throughout society to make even the most necessary activities to a greater or less degree ineffectual.
The educational problem itself is plain. Unity of public interests, which can apparently now be obtained only under threat to national existence, must be maintained, not artificially, but voluntarily. We want the morale of war and the social solidarity of war in the times and activities of peace--in those activities that represent service to country and also those which consist of the service _of_ country in the performance of its broader functions as a member of a family or society of nations.