W HEN we talk about education today, we speak of grand contributions from philosophy; the discipline of exact, systematic thinking, the interpretation of the meaning of life, the unification of knowledge, integration, synthesis. This is work to do so much more gratifying than the unconstructive cultivation of mere criticalmindedness that we are bounding with enthusiasm at our bright prospect. It has also caught the fancy of the educated world. The call is for the philosophical organization of knowledge. Eager to serve, and pleased with our new and significant role, philosophers are preparing to be the organizers of the thought of our time. If this could happen, it would be the knell of both philosophy and education. When philosophers think seriously about education, and less about their own academic importance, they will not forget the insights of Plato or Locke or Dewey. For, like virtue, knowledge is something every man must actually achieve for himself. Knowledge simply cannot be handed to one person by another but must be won through an inner learning by the mind of each man. Locke's very broadside against supposedly innate principles was directed against an authoritative view of them which estopped men from looking for their own truth and making their own free decisions. In our time Dewey has reaffirmed this conception of individual responsibility in thinking. No one can assume this for anybody else. But nowadays, with all this talk about philosophy as providing integration, we are liable to this fundamental fallacy. It is one thing to plan an organization of studies as a curriculum and quite a different thing to make a real contribution to the development of a free, self-respecting mind. When philosophers act their true part, they do as Socrates did. Allow that Plato's portraiture is idealized, still it is the true picture of a teacher. He is one who engages others in an examination of most important questions about human existence in such a manner that they all learn together what straight thinking is, while finding what the right decisions are. They thus learn both self-knowledge and a knowledge of something of universal value. This sort of learning is one of the best things of life. This is great enough claim, and a sobering one. The philosopher as a teacher must live somewhat paradoxically. He has to do his work with the highest of aims for his philosophic