Explore "The Man-Made World" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The origin of education is maternal. The mother animal is seen to teach / her young what she knows of life, its gains and losses; and, whether / consciously done or not, this is education. In our human life, / education, even in its present state, is the most important process. / Without it we could not maintain ourselves, much less dominate and / improve conditions as we do; and when education is what it should be, / our power will increase far beyond present hopes.
In lower animals, speaking generally, the powers of the race must be / lodged in each individual. No gain of personal experience is of avail to / the others. No advantages remain, save those physically transmitted. The / narrow limits of personal gain and personal inheritance rigidly hem / in sub-human progress. With us, what one learns may be taught to the / others. Our life is social, collective. Our gain is for all, and profits / us in proportion as we extend it to all. As the human soul develops in / us, we become able to grasp more fully our common needs and advantages; / and with this growth has come the extension of education to the people / as a whole. Social functions are developed under natural laws, like / physical ones, and may be studied similarly.