Education and the Bauhaus (1938)

Abstract

A human being is developed only by the crystallization of the sum total of his experiences. Our present system of education contradicts this axiom by stressing preponderantly a single field of application. Instead of extending our milieu, as the primitive man was forced to do, combining as he did in one person hunter, craftsman, builder, physician, etc., we concern ourselves only with one definite occupation—leaving unused other faculties. Tradition and the voice of authority intimidate man today. He no longer dares to venture into certain fields of experience. He becomes a man of one calling; he no longer has first-hand experience elsewhere. In constant struggle with his instincts, he is overpowered by outside knowledge. His self-assurance is lost. He no longer dares to be his own physician, not even his own eye. The specialists—like members of a powerful secret society—obscure the road to all-sided individual experiences, the possibility for which exists in his normal functions, and the need for which arises from the center of his being. Today, the accent lies on the sharpest possible definition of the single vocation, on the building up of specialized faculties; the “market demand” is the guide. Thus aman becomes a locksmith or a lawyer or an architect or the like (working inside a closed sector of his faculties) and is at best a happy exception if, after he has finished his studies, he strives to widen the field of his calling, if he aspires to expand his special sector. At this point our whole system of education has hitherto been found wanting—notwithstanding all our vocational guidance, psychological testing, measurement of intelligence. Everything functions—and functions