Adult education in a democracy

Educators have almost arrived at the goal of making the United States literate. Nevertheless, democracy still faces dangers. The simple hope of the nineteenth century that all perils would be removed from the young republic through the diffusion of knowledge frequently is challenged. Educators of the twentieth century recognize that democracy is threatened, not by illiteracy, but by disuse of the free mind, and by the unwillingness of citizens to accept the serious responsibility of making decisions for themselves. They have enlarged the program of education in the formal period of training far beyond the historic three R's. The least part now of adult education work is its moonlight schools for illiterates; its task is to get literates to use their literacy. Herbert Spencer defined education in such fashion when he said it is not knowledge, but action. President Hibben of Princeton, in a milder tone, said that education is the ability to meet life's situations

Action (physics · Democracy · Functional illiteracy · Literacy · Literacy Education · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sociology of Education · Adult and Continuing Education Topics · Critical and Liberation Pedagogy · Law · University Challenges and Reforms