In other respects, it is largely, especially in the most advanced
work, training for the calling of teaching and special research
In other respects, it is largely, especially in the most advanced
work, training for the calling of teaching and special research.
By a peculiar superstition, education which has to do chiefly
with preparation for the pursuit of conspicuous idleness, for
teaching, and for literary callings, and for leadership, has been
regarded as non-vocational and even as peculiarly cultural. The
literary training which indirectly fits for authorship, whether
of books, newspaper editorials, or magazine articles, is
especially subject to this superstition: many a teacher and
author writes and argues in behalf of a cultural and humane
education against the encroachments of a specialized practical
education, without recognizing that his own education, which he
calls liberal, has been mainly training for his own particular
calling. He has simply got into the habit of regarding his own
business as essentially cultural and of overlooking the cultural
possibilities of other employments. At the bottom of these
distinctions is undoubtedly the tradition which recognizes as
employment only those pursuits where one is responsible for his
work to a specific employer, rather than to the ultimate
employer, the community.