Modern Distributive Demands on Education

Abstract

IN an inconceivably short period of time the economic aspect of our civilization has been completely changed. Industry has developed rapidly from the home workshop period to the modern industrial factory. By the aid of ingenious machines thousands of articles are now produced where one was formerly. Whereas, under the old system, an artisan readily disposed of his wares to his neighbor, this new system finds it increasingly difficult to distribute its production. As a result of the perfected processes of production, distribution is coming to be a consequential factor in modern commercial life. While new inventions are constantly adding to the quantities of goods produced by factories, distribution is, in turn, forcing new methods of transportation and communication the better to disseminate quantity production of industry. Water and rail transportation has made London and San Francisco as accessible to New York and Philadelphia as New York and Washington once were to each other. The development of the motor is rapidly giving us control of our highways and the air, while the telegraph, telephone, and radio, which have almost annihilated time and distance, are doing their part in this ever-increasing complex task of distribution. The greatest element, however, in this forward march has been man himself; yet curiously, he has been permitted, until recently, to wander along almost aimlessly. There seems to have been little or no realization that the few individuals who were gifted in producing the changes that have taken place might produce a society in which the average or sub-normal man would find it difficult to exist. It has remained for those who come to work in the field of distribution to realizethat the human element is the greatest factor with which they would have to cope. They realize that it is through education, and education alone, that the tasks ahead of them can be accomplished and the neccessary distributive process for economic goods be scientifically organized. They realize that to keep pace with the past and present achievements of the world at large men will be forced to change their conceptions of education as it relates to the dawning distributive concepts of today. We are coming to see that education is a social process, and distribution is forcing us to recognize its content as having great value in this process.