No one questions its desirability, but it is not all-sufficient. It is impossible for society to break with its past. It is the product of all which has gone before. We could not cut ourselves off from all influences which existed prior to the Declaration of Independence and expect any success by undertaking to ignore all that happened before that date. The development of society is a gradual accomplishment.
Culture is the product of a continuing effort.
The education of the race is never accomplished. It must be gone over with each individual and it must continue from the beginning to the ending of life. Society cannot say it has attained culture and can therefore rest from its labors. All that it can say is that it has learned the method and process by which culture is secured and go on applying such method and process. All theories of education teach us that the mind develops in the same way, rising through the various stages that have marked the ascent of mankind from the lowest savagry to the highest civilization.