Environmental Policy and Education

Direction:

            A community or a social group sustains itself through
            continuous self-renewal, and this renewal takes place by
            means of the educational growth of the immature members
            of a group. By various agencies, unintentional and designed,
(5)        a society transforms uninitiated and seemingly alien beings
            into robust trustees of its own resources and ideals. 
            Education is thus a fostering, a nurturing, a cultivating and
            a process.  Etymologically, the word education means just
            a process of bringing up.  When we have the outcome of
(10)      the process in mind, we speak of education as shaping,
            forming, molding activity - that is, a shaping into the standard
            form of social activity. 
            Since what is required is a transformation of the quality of
            experience, till it partakes in the interests, purposes, and
(15)      ideas current in the social group, the problem is evidently
            not one of mere physical forming.  Things can be physically
            transported in space; they may be bodily conveyed. 
            Beliefs and aspirations cannot be physically extracted and
            inserted. How then are they communicated? Given the
(20)      impossibility of direct contagion or literal inculcation, our
            problem is to discover the method by which the young
            assimilate the point of view of the old, or the older bring
            the young into like-mindedness with themselves. The
            answer, in general formulation, is: by means of the action
(25)      of the environment in calling out certain responses.  The
            required beliefs cannot be hammered in; the needed
            attitudes cannot be plastered on.  But the particular
            medium in which an individual exists leads him to see and
            feel one thing rather than another; it leads him to have
(30)      certain plans in order that he may act successfully with
            others; it strengthens some beliefs and weakens others as
            a condition of winning the approval of others.  Thus it
            gradually produces in him a certain system of behavior, a
            certain disposition of action.  The word "environment"
(35)      denotes something more than surroundings that encompass
            an individual.
            They denote the specific continuity of the surroundings with
            his active tendencies. An inanimate being is, of course,
            continuous with its surroundings; but the environing
(40)      circumstances do not, save metaphorically, constitute an
            environment.  For, the inorganic being is not concerned
            with the influences that affect it.  On the other hand, some
            things that are remote in space and time from a living
            creature, especially a human creature, may form his
(45)      environment even more truly than some of the things close
            to him. The things with which a man varies are his genuine
            environment. Thus the activities of the astronomer vary with
            the stars. Of his immediate surroundings, his telescope is
            most intimately his environment. The environment of an
(50)      antiquarian, as an antiquarian, consists of the remote epoch
            of human life with which he is concerned with, and the relics,
            inscriptions, etc., by which he establishes connections with
            that period.
            In brief, the environment consists of those conditions that
(55)      promote or hinder, stimulate or inhibit the characteristic
            activities of a living being.  Water is the environment of a
            fish because it is necessary to the fish's activities - to its
            life.
            The North Pole is a significant element in the environment
(60)      of an arctic explorer, whether he succeeds in reaching it or
            not, because it defines his activities, makes them what
            they distinctively are.  Just because life signifies not bare
            passive existence, but a way of acting, environment or
            medium signifies what enters into this activity as a
(65)      sustaining or frustrating condition.