ABSTRACT

In modern societies which lack agreement on morals and manners schools are often the only places where children from different social, religious and cultural backgrounds are able to experience what it is like to live harmoniously in community. By 1950 Eliot had come to terms with democracy, even going so far in the Chicago lectures as to assert that 'We all agree on the affirmation that a democracy is the best possible aim for society'. He also accepted the idea that an aim of education should be to enable children in due course to take up their roles as citizens in a democracy. Eliot was arguing that being educated above the level of those whose social habits and tastes one has inherited may create internal conflicts which interfere with one's happiness. The idea that the disinterested cultivation of one's mind was the summum bonum has had a long history and a major influence on the education of elites throughout history.