·. CRISIS
IN EDUCATION
507
Nonnally the child is first introduced to the world in school.
Now school is by no means the world and must not pretend to be;
it is rather the institution that we interpose between the private do–
main of home and the world in order to make the transition from
the family to the world possible at all. Attendance there is required
not by the family but by the state, that is by the public world, and
so in relation to the child school in a sense represents the world, al–
though it is not yet actually the world. At this stage of education
adults, to be sure, once more assume a responsibility for the child,
but by now it is not so much responsibility for the vital welfare of
a growing thing as for what we generally call the free development
of characteristic qualities and talents. 'Illis, from the general and es–
sential point of view, is the uniqueness that distinguishes every human
being from every other, the quality by virtue of which he is not only
a stranger in the world but something that has never been here before.
Insofar as the child is not yet acquainted with the world he
must be gradually introduced to it; insofar as he is new, care must
be taken that this new thing comes to fruition in relation to the
world as it is. In any case, however, the educators here stand in re–
lation to the young as representatives of a world for which they must
assume responsibility although they themselves did not make it, and
even though they may, secretly or openly, wish it were other than
it is. This responsibility is not arbitrarily imposed upon educators;
it is implicit in the fact that the young are introduced by adults
into a continuously changing world. Anyone who refuses to assume
. joint responsibility for the world should not have children and must
not be allowed to take part in educating them.
In education this responsibility for the world takes the fonn of
authority. The authority of the educator and the qualifications of the
teacher are not the same thing. Although a measure of qualification
is indispensable for authority, the highest possible qualification can
never by itself beget authority. The teacher's qualification consists
in knowing the world and being able to instruct others about it, but
his authority rests on his assumption of responsibility for that world.
Vis-a-vis the child it is as though he were a representative of the
parents, pointing out the details and saying to the child: This is our
world.
Now we all know how things stand today in respect to authority.
Whatever one's attitude toward this problem may be, it is obvious
