ABSTRACT
This is only another way of saying that while psycho-analysis is entitled to take over the term 'education' it is bound to attach a deeper significance to it. This deepening process is amply illustrated throughout the history of psycho-analytic terminology. Education being obviously environmental, they are disinclined to think that it can be anything else. Yet even if it were purely environmental it could still be manipulated (exploited) by unconscious mechanisms. Education from without can act as a displacement or projection of unconscious self-education and ends by becoming a screen for it. The distrust of conscious self-education exhibited by the educator is a measure of this screening function. The view that education is an unconscious mental mechanism brings with it certain responsibilities. Education is easy game for the critic. It is the habit for each generation to pillory its inadequacies, and critics are rarely mollified by the moral and biological rationalizations of the pedagogue.
