“Learning which is combined with action provides a peculiar and solid enrichment. If, for example, you are interested in art, you will gain much more if you paint as well as look at pictures and read about the history of art. If you happen to be interested in politics, don't be satisfied with being a spectator: participate in political action. If you enjoy nature, refuse to be content with the vicarious experiences of naturalists; become a naturalist yourself. In all of these ways learning becomes an integral part of living until finally the old distinction between life and education disappears. In short, life itself becomes a perpetual experience of learning.”

Eduard C. Lindeman (1885-1953), The Democratic Man. Selected writings of Eduard C. Lindeman (1956)

Eduard Christian Lindeman was born in Michigan, USA, and was himself an adult who returned to education at the age of 22, after working as a stable cleaner, a grave-digger, and in shipyards and factories. A progressive social thinker, he firmly believed in the value of adult education in facing the challenges brought about by the mass industrialisation and urbanisation of America in the early 20th century.

Lindeman wrote his classic work, The Meaning of Adult Education, in just six weeks in 1926. He understood learning to be a fundamental condition of human life; “The whole of life is learning, therefore education can have no endings.” However, adult education meant more than just learning how to fulfil the role of a vocation, it also helps give meaning to life in general. Rather than learning from abstract syllabuses as is largely the case with formal education; adult education is user-centred, people choose what to learn to meet a specific need - be it work, recreation, family, or community-related - in their life.

Adult education, according to Lindeman, is also much more of a democratic process, less rigidly formulaic, than formal education.
“Small groups of aspiring adults who desire to keep their minds fresh and vigorous; who begin to learn by confronting pertinent situations; who dig down into the reservoirs of their experience before resorting to texts and secondary facts; who are led in the discussion by the teachers who are also searchers after wisdom and not oracles: this constitutes the setting for adult education, the modern quest for life’s meaning.”

These “small groups” learn voluntarily, and because the subject-matter is fluid and less formulaic than traditional education, they can use education to understand the world they live in; breaking society down into “understandable parts”. They become empowered agents of social action and change. People can change their society if they have a solid and rational understanding of the community and world around them. In short, adult education is essential for a healthy and participative democracy.

Evaluation
Writers such as Lindeman were ahead of their time; Lifelong Learning is now the central tenet of the modern European educational system. The Irish government now recognises that the economy cannot afford to let its workforce stop learning and gaining new skills and experience. The global economy is simply too competitive to afford this luxury.
Lindeman of course, believed there is more to adult education than learning how to solve problems at work. For him, it should be of benefit to every strand of society, from the familial to the communal. Apparently the people of Ireland agree, as thousands are currently enrolled in a course with no relation to their career progression, but simply to benefit their minds and bodies.

It is possible, looking through the slightly cynical lens of modern Ireland, to find Lindeman’s writings slightly over-idealistic with regard to adult education encouraging social change and participation. But there can be no doubt that the education of the body and mind, can only help the development of a person’s critical faculties and spirit of inquiry.

REF: Smith, M. K. (1997, 2004) 'Eduard Lindeman and the Meaning of Adult Education', the encyclopaedia of informal education, http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-lind.htm